"Children cannot consent to puberty blockers" and being in the wrong body

[laughing dog]

Emily didn't tell anyone who they may or may not prefer; she criticized bilby for telling excreationist he couldn't prefer regular females.

Well, yes, but that criticism was of something I didn't actually say. I said:

You don't prefer "regular* females"; You prefer partners to whom you are attracted.

It would be strange indeed if you found every "regular female", regardless of attitude, age, behaviour, body shape, interests, facial features, religious position, and race, exactly equally attractive.

"Don't" <> "Can't" or "Couldn't".

Emily mis-represented what I said, and criticised me for what she claimed I had said (but didn't).

This place really needs an emoji of Spock doing the eyebrow thing...

You are correct that "don't" != "can't"; however, the circumstances under which you know "You don't" about someone else but you don't know "You can't" about him are a bit limited. So when you claim "You don't", what are we to make of your implied knowledge claim? How do you know he doesn't? Did excreationist PM you and tell you the hypothetical version of himself in his scenario actually doesn't? Do you have the lame doomed-to-be-a-sidekick superpower of extrasensory perception that gives you privileged insight into inner thoughts, but only of fictional characters? Do you have precognition? Did you foresee that excreationist would later admit his character might lie about his preferences, and are you now giving us your supernatural revelation that he is going to confirm that his theoretical self does in fact have a slight attraction to men or dead babies?

All the scenarios in which you know he doesn't but you don't know he can't are absurd. Therefore the only reasonable interpretation of 'You don't prefer "regular* females"' is 'You don't prefer "regular* females" and the way I know that is because you can't.'. That's why Emily evidently inferred you meant that, and then postulated a plausible reason you might believe he can't: the whole "sexual orientation is a figment of everyone's imagination" meme popular with a certain ideology.

So if you insist Emily was unreasonable and "Nothing in what I said could be interpreted to mean that", then by all means, please share with us how you know excreationist's theoretical self doesn't prefer regular females. Your listeners await your explanation with bated breath.

Wow, the defense of a straw man criticism by criticizing mind-reading by using mind-reading and ending with a straw man ( bilby did not insist anyone was unreasonable). Did you intend to model an absurd reply?

 

[TomC]

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

That would be me, sorta.
I definitely feel that males being entitled to barge into a woman's space, regardless of how the women feel about the invasion, is a threat.
Any given male woman might not be a threat, probably not. But the entitlement is a threat. If males feel entitled they'll use it. Preventing women from demanding a male free for personal business like excretion and hygiene is extremely misogynistic.
Tom

 

[Toni]

What if you were anally raped by your uncle? And in the prison they might not have access to objects to rape you with so they might have to just use their fingers... ?
BTW I also brought up the related topic of people with penises being allowed in women's showers, etc. I guess no one here has a problem with that either.

People have a problem with rape and other violence. They don't assume that every person with a penis is a rapist who wants to attack them.

Some people don't want to share space with others when they're undressed. Some people are okay with sharing if the others are members of their own sex. Some people don't care about their sex or gender, they only care about them being polite.

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

And note that just because some people want something doesn't mean the law should mandate it. Should the KKK be allowed to keep blacks out of positions of power?

There are very few women or girls who would not feel threatened or at least potentially threatened by the unexpected sight of an exposed penis in a private space. We’ve talked about this before.

Again, I would wager that a lot of men and boys would feel threatened by an unexpected exposed penis in a private space. For example, if you were to wake up at night and find an unexpected person in your bedroom you would most likely be alarmed. I’m guessing that the alarm would be even greater of the intruder had an exposed penis. I’m even guessing you would feel more threatened by an unexpected male vs unexpected female in the middle of the night, regardless of how they were dressed. Assuming no weapons, anyway. I’m guessing most of us would be most alarmed by an unexpected stranger with a weapon AND an exposed penis in the middle of the night in our bedroom.

I’m pretty certain all of us would feel alarmed at the very least if our dentists or doctors or therapists entered the room and exposed a penis, even more than if they exposed a breast.

While it is much less often discussed, men and boys can also be raped. I’m mentioning it here explicitly because the threat of rape, either explicit or implied is part of the day to day reality women must deal with for ourselves and our daughters but also for our sons. We are not conditioned to fear it as much for our adult make significant others. However, men are not conditioned to expect that particular threat as part of their day to day existence. They are conditioned to be shared and fearful of being raised as women are but more as a threat to their masculinity and strength. The shame and fear women face is actually as great and is amplified by the fact that they must contend with the possibility of pregnancy. In many cases men are conditioned to believe that a man being raised is worse for them than it is for a woman who is raped. This is both sexist and homophobic, not to mention entirely without any empathy but nonetheless it is true.

 

[Toni]

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

That would be me, sorta.
I definitely feel that males being entitled to barge into a woman's space, regardless of how the women feel about the invasion, is a threat.
Any given male woman might not be a threat, probably not. But the entitlement is a threat. If males feel entitled they'll use it. Preventing women from demanding a male free for personal business like excretion and hygiene is extremely misogynistic.
Tom

Yes, the entitlement is a threat because it exists without any empathy or or acknowledgement that it might cause distress to others.

I have no problem with mixed gender dressing rooms but I believe that ALL individuals have a right to expect privacy and are entitled to private spaces.

 

[Emily Lake]

What I do care about is policy. When how a person feels about themselves interferes with other people's ability to live their lives with reasonable safety, dignity, and liberty then I have a problem. When someone's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based belief about their inner mystical gender

Whereas people's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based beliefs about other people's sex should be worshipped and used as the justification for oppressive laws and the teaching of pseudoscience. Got it.

Yes, the subjective, unverifiable, faith-based process that has been repeatedly documented to be over 98% accurate. Cause you know, our ability to accurately categorize a horse as a horse, or the color red as the color red, or any other sort of sorting and clustering process we routinely use to navigate the world is totally just "faith".

 

[Emily Lake]

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

I don't actually give a fuck about harmful intent.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO 1) STRANGE MEN SEEING ME NUDE AND 2) BEING SHOWN NUDE MEN.

Why do you think that men should be given the right to show their dicks to unwilling women? Why do you think that men should be given the right to look at naked women who don't want them to look? Why are you advocating that men should have a legal fucking right to engage in surreptitious voyeurism and exhibitionism and women should just shut the fuck up about it and stop overreacting?

 

[Emily Lake]

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

That would be me, sorta.
I definitely feel that males being entitled to barge into a woman's space, regardless of how the women feel about the invasion, is a threat.
Any given male woman might not be a threat, probably not. But the entitlement is a threat. If males feel entitled they'll use it. Preventing women from demanding a male free for personal business like excretion and hygiene is extremely misogynistic.
Tom

Yes, the entitlement is a threat because it exists without any empathy or or acknowledgement that it might cause distress to others.

I have no problem with mixed gender dressing rooms but I believe that ALL individuals have a right to expect privacy and are entitled to private spaces.

I don't particularly like it, but I don't object to accurately labeled unisex dressing rooms. I do object to dressing rooms labeled as single-sex that allow exceptions on someone's say-so. It's false advertising.

Like, I don't have any problem with reese's peanut butter cups. But I do have a problem when I buy something labeled "peanut butter" that ends up having chocolate in it.

 

[Jarhyn]

There are a lot who seem to feel that any penis in a woman's space is a threat, without any indication of harmful intent.

That would be me, sorta.
I definitely feel that males being entitled to barge into a woman's space, regardless of how the women feel about the invasion, is a threat.
Any given male woman might not be a threat, probably not. But the entitlement is a threat. If males feel entitled they'll use it. Preventing women from demanding a male free for personal business like excretion and hygiene is extremely misogynistic.
Tom

Yes, the entitlement is a threat because it exists without any empathy or or acknowledgement that it might cause distress to others.

I have no problem with mixed gender dressing rooms but I believe that ALL individuals have a right to expect privacy and are entitled to private spaces.

Less "with entitlement and lacking empathy", more with "with the tragic resolve that empathy will never be extended in turn, seeing that supreme and utter entitlement over something meaningless and petty in the context."

Every step of the way the regime that causes these problems in the first place was questioned.

We noted the distress and studied the reality and posted the findings; we reasoned through the game theory behind the ridiculousness of using trans presentation to enter spaces, too.

The fact is, at this point we know that trans people aren't a threat, and for situations like prisons and such, we have beat that horse dead with the fact a "faker" isn't going to volunteer to their testicles removed.

All of this has been explored.

At this point, the empathy we have indicate that the feelings that remain are, frankly, purely emotional concerns.

We are currently in the midst of addressing the use of emotional arguments and supports of policy on the abortion thread, about emotional images that do not represent reality.

The fact is that it is exactly empathy which exposes these same feelings as emotional images that do not represent reality.

And it certainly has very little if anything to do with whether teens have a right to decide to forego their natal puberty for either a different puberty or no puberty.

I'm not sure it's doing any favors to women to "accept that they're just going to be emotional about it even when the emotions are shown to be largely specious". It sounds patronizing and infantilizing. Instead, I'm going to recognize the emotions, feel them, I understand them, empathize over them, test whether they are appropriate, and then set them aside because in this case, we know that they are not well founded fears.

 

[Politesse]

What I do care about is policy. When how a person feels about themselves interferes with other people's ability to live their lives with reasonable safety, dignity, and liberty then I have a problem. When someone's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based belief about their inner mystical gender

Whereas people's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based beliefs about other people's sex should be worshipped and used as the justification for oppressive laws and the teaching of pseudoscience. Got it.

Yes, the subjective, unverifiable, faith-based process that has been repeatedly documented to be over 98% accurate. Cause you know, our ability to accurately categorize a horse as a horse, or the color red as the color red, or any other sort of sorting and clustering process we routinely use to navigate the world is totally just "faith".

And the other 2%. The idea of dismissing a class of people or their rights, just because they are a numerical minority and can't prevent you from doing so, has never sat well with me, and Science has never told me I'm wrong about that.

Let alone to throw out data because it represents a small section of the whole. Despite your claim of fealty, in truth you and Science have never met.

You know, a lot of people can't distinguish red from green? About 3% of us. And you yourself feel more red with your skin than you can see with your eyes; "red" is a subject that you should absolutely not trust your gut or your senses on. The reasons for and implications of both these facts about red are actually pretty interesting, and wondering about them led to some fascinating science being done over the last 250 years. Real science, not your bullshit politics.

 

[Emily Lake]

What I do care about is policy. When how a person feels about themselves interferes with other people's ability to live their lives with reasonable safety, dignity, and liberty then I have a problem. When someone's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based belief about their inner mystical gender

Whereas people's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based beliefs about other people's sex should be worshipped and used as the justification for oppressive laws and the teaching of pseudoscience. Got it.

Yes, the subjective, unverifiable, faith-based process that has been repeatedly documented to be over 98% accurate. Cause you know, our ability to accurately categorize a horse as a horse, or the color red as the color red, or any other sort of sorting and clustering process we routinely use to navigate the world is totally just "faith".

And the other 2%. The idea of dismissing a class of people or their rights, just because they are a numerical minority and can't prevent you from doing so, has never sat well with me, and Science has never told me I'm wrong about that.

Let alone to throw out data because it represents a small section of the whole. Despite your claim of fealty, in truth you and Science have never met.

You know, a lot of people can't distinguish red from green? About 3% of us. And you yourself feel more red with your skin than you can see with your eyes; "red" is a subject that you should absolutely not trust your gut or your senses on. The reasons for and implications of both these facts about red are actually pretty interesting, and wondering about them led to some fascinating science being done over the last 250 years. Real science, not your bullshit politics.

Sure sure, sex is a complete mystery. It's so incredibly hard to tell. It's a sheer miracle that any babies ever manage to get made, seeing as nobody can tell which is the sex that has the eggs and which is the sex that has the sperm. All those ranchers and shepherds are totally just guessing when it comes to animal husbandry. Yep.

 

[Politesse]

What I do care about is policy. When how a person feels about themselves interferes with other people's ability to live their lives with reasonable safety, dignity, and liberty then I have a problem. When someone's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based belief about their inner mystical gender

Whereas people's subjective, unverifiable, and entirely faith-based beliefs about other people's sex should be worshipped and used as the justification for oppressive laws and the teaching of pseudoscience. Got it.

Yes, the subjective, unverifiable, faith-based process that has been repeatedly documented to be over 98% accurate. Cause you know, our ability to accurately categorize a horse as a horse, or the color red as the color red, or any other sort of sorting and clustering process we routinely use to navigate the world is totally just "faith".

And the other 2%. The idea of dismissing a class of people or their rights, just because they are a numerical minority and can't prevent you from doing so, has never sat well with me, and Science has never told me I'm wrong about that.

Let alone to throw out data because it represents a small section of the whole. Despite your claim of fealty, in truth you and Science have never met.

You know, a lot of people can't distinguish red from green? About 3% of us. And you yourself feel more red with your skin than you can see with your eyes; "red" is a subject that you should absolutely not trust your gut or your senses on. The reasons for and implications of both these facts about red are actually pretty interesting, and wondering about them led to some fascinating science being done over the last 250 years. Real science, not your bullshit politics.

Sure sure, sex is a complete mystery. It's so incredibly hard to tell. It's a sheer miracle that any babies ever manage to get made, seeing as nobody can tell which is the sex that has the eggs and which is the sex that has the sperm. All those ranchers and shepherds are totally just guessing when it comes to animal husbandry. Yep.

Suburban folksy wisdom is no substitute for either lived experience nor scientific study. I take it you don't actually know any ranchers? They would readily correct you on the supposed simplicity of animal husbandry, which is in fact a very complex industry and science.

 

[TomC]

Suburban folksy wisdom is no substitute for either lived experience nor scientific study. I take it you don't actually know any ranchers? They would readily correct you on the supposed simplicity of animal husbandry, which is in fact a very complex industry and science.

Nor is your ideological certainty a substitute for people's real lives and experience.
I know some people engaged in raising livestock. They don't have the tiniest problem distinguishing the sex of the animals.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Suburban folksy wisdom is no substitute for either lived experience nor scientific study. I take it you don't actually know any ranchers? They would readily correct you on the supposed simplicity of animal husbandry, which is in fact a very complex industry and science.

Nor is your ideological certainty a substitute for people's real lives and experience.
I know some people engaged in raising livestock. They don't have the tiniest problem distinguishing the sex of the animals.
Tom

But they also have maybe a 1 in 100 chance of encountering a bull with gender differences, and we can't exactly ask the cows whether they would rather have the testosterone of a bull, and they can't exactly tell us.

We have plenty of examples of people living their lives wearing livestock with children who vehemently know that their joy and passion is in theater, and some of them *really liked* the *lady* roles...

We have many records of lived experiences of people cutting their testicles off because they knew what they wanted and went all in on it to live as women, for the creatures capable of speech around them.

You equally disregard these facts and also the lived experiences of those exposed to the small fraction of species that speak to us and relate these experiences.

When you look at more than animals kept and perceived as industrial assets rather, you cannot allow to see the violation of the autonomy or interests of those animals, nor even attempt to communicate such ideas; the empathy to see that would preclude the desire to eat them or prepare them as food for others.

But for people not engaged in that, people who take the time to carefully look, even if that makes some painful realities apparent, is that gender and sex is complicated across the entirety of the animal kingdom.

The lived experiences of people ideologically bound to that, well, I'm sure some can be identified who do not want to be mothers like the others do, among their cattle, and bullshit which will not mate, and which must be artificially stimulated for collection.

Farmers just really don't care. They just slather a glove or a rod or a really long blunt syringe, for cows and horses, most times.

No matter what the cow or bull or steer wants, we make them as cow, bull, or steer. That's an enforced caste system.

How is observation of that, in service of an ideology that keeps it so, valid in the perception of sex and gender?

I'm sorry, but I just don't see how the bias inherent to that industry can possibly inform the reality of what animals, to include humans, experience.

This is exactly the population that tends to send their kids to camps to pray the gay away, and now with special interest on "trans" kids.

They are the ones who kick their kids out at 18, or even 16, when they say they like "Alex" or find out they want to be called "Alex", and marry their 14 year old children to older men who rape them rather than see them "rebel from God" like that in front of society.

Thr reality is that we don't need to force kids to experience puberty as or when we did. They can and should have the power to delay that.

Nothing you are saying or have said has invalidated that fact. It has broadly disregarded or dismissed it, but it remains a fact you might need to keep having put in your face: the fact that this is forcing people to do stuff, and to not have an option over what stuff they do, when there are multiple positive effects in society for allowing this, except for the very few who happen to be the most wealthy and powerful among us.

Now, I'm gonna keep eating meat. I really wish we could get away from doing that. I am on team artificial meat. I am willing to knowingly look at the livestock and say "I'm sorry but I can't care right now; it's on my list". But how many people really do interact with their animals that much?

The fact is that I am strikingly similar to my "uncle". Whatever happened to make them happened to make me, with respect to gender.

You're going to have a REALLY hard time convincing ME that YOU are not the one disregarding lived experiences all willy-nilly.

If you can convince me that the animal kingdom is devoid of experiences by which sex is more complicated, be my guest.

I guarantee you that farmers have encountered a "cow" or two that wouldn't get pregnant or a "bull" that couldn't get any cows pregnant, but that's just another bovine corpse for the chuck wagon, then, no different from any other "steer".

I wonder what the exact frequency is of "bulls" that didn't grow horns? Why would anyone care.

I have actual reasons for questioning the intuitions of those not doing careful study under bias.

What do you have to question the intuitions I have over gender from MY lived experience indicating that it's not so simple as you and they imagine?

Or the science? Sapolski's appearance on page 1?

 

[TomC]

What do you have to question the intuitions I have over gender from MY lived experience indicating that it's not so simple as you and they imagine?

Because they demonstrably contradict the reality of the overwhelming majority of people.
You are demonstrably unable to distinguish between sex and gender. Lots of you cis-phobic people do that. Then you demand special rights and entitlements for you and everyone else who adheres to your ideology.

Nope.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Because they demonstrably contradict the reality of the overwhelming majority of people.

And so you wish to, what, give credence to something you know is provably wrong, rather than say "that's wrong look at these wider observations"?

You are demonstrably unable to distinguish between sex and gender.

I'm demonstrably able to define sex, narrowly and specifically, to semantic completion, completely agnostic to gender.

It in fact speaks exactly to the observed reality of the farmer: the mechanical reality of causing some chemistry to happen and putting it in a place it keeps happening.

That has no bearing on individuals for which that process does not work, either for action or condition of birth.

You are the one who is confused here.

Then you demand special rights and entitlements for you and everyone else who adheres to your ideology

Wow, a gay doing a reprieve to the same tone sung against gay folks. "Seeking special rights". Oh the fucking irony.

The right to have you fuck off while people put what they want in their own bodies to have them affected as others they have seen from mere accident rather than action.

To run up the hill.

To run up the building.

"To make that deal with god".

As an aside, I fucking love that song

I reject the experience of those who refuse to experience empathy with us, to want to understand even if for them, they cannot entirely.

 

[Emily Lake]

Suburban folksy wisdom is no substitute for either lived experience nor scientific study. I take it you don't actually know any ranchers? They would readily correct you on the supposed simplicity of animal husbandry, which is in fact a very complex industry and science.

None of that complexity arises from being able to tell which are the cows and which are the bulls.

 

[Emily Lake]

We have many records of lived experiences of people cutting their testicles off because they knew what they wanted and went all in on it to live as women, for the creatures capable of speech around them.

How often do you really need to tell us all about how much you hate your own balls? I mean, fine - you do you, and if you want to remove healthy body parts I'm not going to stop you because you're an adult. But on the other hand... your dedication to convincing everyone else that this is a perfectly normal thing is misplaced. And it certainly doesn't transform you into a female, or even into a sexless being - you're still a male even if you lop off your giggleberries.

 

[Emily Lake]

Thr reality is that we don't need to force kids to experience puberty as or when we did. They can and should have the power to delay that.

This is not a rational approach.

Puberty is a necessary and fundamental part of human development. Saying that we should give children the ability to delay their development until they feel like it is actually kind of nutty. It's as silly as saying that we should let a fetus decide when it wants to develop lungs.

Additionally, it can't actually be delayed. Perhaps by a matter of months without significant harm, but not much beyond that. Puberty is a time-bound process that involves two distinct drivers: the pituitary and the adrenal. The two work in concert, over a relatively short period of time, to finish the development process into a mature being. Halting the pituitary process doesn't stop the adrenal, and having the two out of sync has long term health problems.

Furthermore, it is *impossible* for a male youth to experience a female puberty. That's pure fiction.

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm demonstrably able to define sex, narrowly and specifically, to semantic completion, completely agnostic to gender.

You're able to make up any old definition you want for whatever concept you want, to whatever degree of specificity you want. Your made up definitions don't mean anything to anyone else. Nobody else is obligated to play your game with you.

For biologists, sex is defined by the type of reproductive system within each anisogamous species. The system that evolved to support the production of large gametes is found in females, the system that evolved to support the production of small gametes is found in males. It is a universal definition that works for ALL sexually reproductive species. It does not require that gametes be produced at all. It doesn't require that every single individual has carbon-copy systems, and it certainly doesn't preclude errors in development occurring.

 

[Emily Lake]

The right to have you fuck off while people put what they want in their own bodies to have them affected as others they have seen from mere accident rather than action.

You can do whatever the fuck you want with your adult body. Nobody cares what you as an adult do to yourself, as long as it doesn't affect anyone else.

Males invading female intimate spaces without consent doesn't fall into that description.

I reject the experience of those who refuse to experience empathy with us, to want to understand even if for them, they cannot entirely.

I can't roll my eyes hard enough. You have no empathy for others, you certainly have no empathy for actual women, and you don't even make an attempt at tolerance of other views. You're an incredibly intolerant and uncaring person who repeatedly demonstrates contempt toward those who don't agree with your dictates on any number of topics.