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[Emily Lake]

No. Evolution made Met gay. Evolution made trans people trans. Metaphor rejects the second statement. Thus the double standard.

Mmm... no. Evolution didn't "make" Met gay. Evolution allowed a genetic* quirk to be passed on to Met, but simultaneously prevents Met from passing that quirk on.

*IIRC, homosexuality is not genetic, it's environmentally determined in utero. But this is memory, so maybe wrong. Either way, evolution didn't "make" Met gay.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If I ask you to describe the colors red and blue to a blind person, and you are unable to systematically explain those colors to a blind person, does this mean anything? Does this make the colors red and blue non-existent? Does it mean you are a failure at explaining things?

For a starter, I can explain the colors red and blue to a blind person without using the colors themselves as the fucking definition. Additionally, I can provide definition for the color red that would have meaning to a blind person, even if they cannot actually perceive the color red themselves. Even if one might quibble about the exact wavelength range that falls into the category of red within the spectrum of visible light... a clear definition can still be provided, and it can be provided in a way that enable clear understanding by everyone involved, and can be applied in rational ways.

So no then. Yeah, you can site frequencies and all, but our brain reacts to the perceived color of the light, not the frequency frequency it is traveling at. This isn't meant as a slight, it is indicative that some things can be very hard to explain if one doesn't have enough observatory experience with it.

What we have are a very small portion of the population that say they feel as if they are the opposite gender. That their identity is that of the opposite gender. It isn't a phase. It isn't a wish. It is engrained in their psyche. So instead of asking folks to explain what they mean when they say a "transwoman is a woman", perhaps you need to step back and ask yourself, what is within the entirety of a gender? How much is our gender is the chromosomes and how much in the DNA and how much in the neurology? And which part of that matters the most in our personal identity?

And so... in your effort to be caring and compassionate to a small portion of people whose beliefs about themselves are in contradiction to objective observation... you remove a meaningful term from use for half the fucking population.

Newtonian physics wasn't tossed in the garbage disposal when scientists figured out that things worked different at different scales. This is the real world, and while we humans love to compartmentalize everything, nature has no obligation to meet that desire. Just because a definition works most of the time doesn't mean it works all the time. And just because there are exceptions doesn't make a general understanding wrong for most cases.

In order to assuage the feelings of some few men... you are quite happy to fuck over the females of your own species by robbing them of a word that captures and describes their physical reality as well as their social experience.

Yay you. It must be nice to be a man.

It is nice to be a man. Only thing that sucks is the overactive reproductive desire and ties. Otherwise, it is easier being a guy, no doubt. Of course, that has nothing to do with the neurological processes going on in the mind of a small minority of people that typically causes tremendous mental anguish and suffering because you don't seem to care about biology or other people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Indeed. It's almost as if our culture has some endemic problems with catering to prejudice.

There's a meme on the right that the whole purpose of bringing down these boundaries is to normalize pedophilia. Foucault would approve.

Basically everything from the right is projection. Note how pedos are treated by the right (head in sand) vs the left (ostracized.) Have you forgotten Q is a pedo?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Indeed. It's almost as if our culture has some endemic problems with catering to prejudice.

There's a meme on the right that the whole purpose of bringing down these boundaries is to normalize pedophilia. Foucault would approve.

That sounds like the right's problem. They see groomers everywhere.

Please!

"rights" -- more than one thing we are guaranteed from society

"right's" -- of or belonging to the political right.

I had to read your sentence several times to figure out what you were saying!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If I ask you to describe the colors red and blue to a blind person, and you are unable to systematically explain those colors to a blind person, does this mean anything? Does this make the colors red and blue non-existent? Does it mean you are a failure at explaining things?

For a starter, I can explain the colors red and blue to a blind person without using the colors themselves as the fucking definition. Additionally, I can provide definition for the color red that would have meaning to a blind person, even if they cannot actually perceive the color red themselves. Even if one might quibble about the exact wavelength range that falls into the category of red within the spectrum of visible light... a clear definition can still be provided, and it can be provided in a way that enable clear understanding by everyone involved, and can be applied in rational ways.

Nope. You can explain "red" as a wavelength of energy. A blind-from-birth person is inherently incapable of understanding the concept of "red" as in the visual perception of it because they lack any reference. (Or even blind from early on--my mother lost her sight as an infant and had no concept of the perception of color.)

If you can explain red to a blind man, please explain what a gamma ray looks like.

 

[Politesse]

, women tend to be much more liberal with respect to gay rights, trans rights, and civil rights compared with men.

Yet when I criticize your personal perspective, you say that "a man is refusing to listen to women". I have pointed out several times over that not all women agree with your views, and that in fact women are more likely than men to oppose sex discrimination, even specifically on the issue of bathrooms and changing rooms. Trans women are also the target of your views, so presumably you don't want their views considered at all. You and you alone get to decide which women should be listened to and which should be dismissed as irrelevant. But I, a queer lad of honestly pretty indeterminate gender, supposedly represent "the patriarchy" for believing that women, whether cis or trans should have the same rights of any other citizen. You have the right to use public spaces. No one has the right to kick people out of them on the basis of religious prejudice.

 

[ZiprHead]

No. Evolution made Met gay. Evolution made trans people trans. Metaphor rejects the second statement. Thus the double standard.

Mmm... no. Evolution didn't "make" Met gay. Evolution allowed a genetic* quirk to be passed on to Met, but simultaneously prevents Met from passing that quirk on.

One could say evolution is nothing but quirks. And gay guys never get women pregnant???

*IIRC, homosexuality is not genetic, it's environmentally determined in utero. But this is memory, so maybe wrong. Either way, evolution didn't "make" Met gay.

IIRC, even Metaphor would disagree with that. But don't hold me to it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Indeed. It's almost as if our culture has some endemic problems with catering to prejudice.

There's a meme on the right that the whole purpose of bringing down these boundaries is to normalize pedophilia. Foucault would approve.

That sounds like the right's problem. They see groomers everywhere.

Please!

"rights" -- more than one thing we are guaranteed from society

"right's" -- of or belonging to the political right.

I had to read your sentence several times to figure out what you were saying!

Fixt it. Thanks.

 

[Bomb#20]

Man, nothing like having a post dissected out of context and just shat on.

...says the guy who wrote:

Bomb#20 and TSwizzle must mock the Downs Syndrome "trainer" on the football team bench too, belittling his actual talent.

You made a damaging false accusation against me with malice and reckless disregard for the truth, and you're complaining about how I treated your post.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Indeed. It's almost as if our culture has some endemic problems with catering to prejudice.

There's a meme on the right that the whole purpose of bringing down these boundaries is to normalize pedophilia. Foucault would approve.

That sounds like the right's problem. They see groomers everywhere.

They are the groomers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

*IIRC, homosexuality is not genetic, it's environmentally determined in utero. But this is memory, so maybe wrong. Either way, evolution didn't "make" Met gay.

Since we haven't determined the trigger I don't think we can say that. It's clearly not entirely genetic, but it very well could be genetic + trigger.

 

[ZiprHead]

The homophobia continues.

 

[Emily Lake]

The only questions that remains are, how much do people not want to believe gender is more than genitals,

Gender isn't genitals at all. Gender is a set of social barriers places around members of each sex, which lock them into roles and behaviors that society has determined are acceptable to those sexes.

how much do people want to belittle what people say they feel within the core of their being,

I don't feel any need to belittle how people feel at the core of their being. I do, however, recognize that how they feel at the core of their being is irrelevant to anyone other than them. And it is definitely irrelevant to the formation of public policy. If you disagree... well... I've got another whole set of questions for you because this is some rampant and short-sighted special pleading.

and how much belittling does one want to do to those that are Standard of Deviations away from the peak of the bell?

The peak on WHAT exactly? Are you somehow insinuating that people with severe gender dysphoria are somehow varying by a measurable SD from the peak of "male" or "female"? How exactly do you apply a quantitative measure to a completely qualitative and subjective element?

 

[Emily Lake]

You mean the genitals, why do you say biology when you only mean the genitals. You handwave neurology like it doesn't exist.

Nah buddy, you're making a whole pile of assumptions here. 1) You're assuming that severe gender dysphoria is neurological rather then psychological and 2) you're assuming that ALL people who claim to be transgender have severe gender dysphoria and 3) you're assuming that severe gender dysphoria ought to be held as more important than the physical aspects of objectively observable sex.

Basically, you're assuming that the person who believes themself to be Napoleon Bonaparte should be accepted by all of society as actually BEING Napoleon Bonaparte, in every possible way... because the brain is a biological element of the human body.

It's an inane argument.

 

[ZiprHead]

You mean the genitals, why do you say biology when you only mean the genitals. You handwave neurology like it doesn't exist.

Nah buddy, you're making a whole pile of assumptions here. 1) You're assuming that severe gender dysphoria is neurological rather then psychological and 2) you're assuming that ALL people who claim to be transgender have severe gender dysphoria and 3) you're assuming that severe gender dysphoria ought to be held as more important than the physical aspects of objectively observable sex.

Basically, you're assuming that the person who believes themself to be Napoleon Bonaparte should be accepted by all of society as actually BEING Napoleon Bonaparte, in every possible way... because the brain is a biological element of the human body.

It's an inane argument.

I believe it was Jarhyn that cited several neurological studies that said sexual dimorphism was neurological in nature, not psychological.

 

[Emily Lake]

If humans weren't primarily heterosexual we would have died out long ago. Of course evolution made us that way. Probably the most primal function of our being is the desire to reproduce. Metaphor has rejected the way we were made to reproduce. I have no problem with that. I made a similar choice when I decided I didn't want children.

This is akin to saying that a person born with a medical condition which causes them to be sterile has "rejected" evolution. Or that a person born with polydactyly has "rejected evolution". It's rampant nonsense.

From a species-level perspective, homosexuality is a genetic dead-end. It's also, IIRC, not definitively genetic, and there's a high level of support for the hypothesis that it may be a combination of environmental factors while in utero and epigenetic things (I really don't understand epigenetics except in the most pop-sci way possible, so take it as read that I'm just repeating what I think I heard)

I'm saying evolution made Metaphor gay. I'm saying evolution made trans people trans. I have no problem with either of them. But Metaphor has a problem with trans people.

I don't know that I accept your declaration that evolution made Met gay, nor that it made trans people trans.

Even if something is 100% the result of evolution, that doesn't imply that anyone else is obligated to be okay them or accept them. Cape Buffalo are 100% the result of evolution, and I still don't want one in my backyard. Nor do I want a nest of venomous snakes living in my bed, just because evolution "made" them. Hell, by your logic, serial killers are made by evolution... am I the asshole if I don't want serial killers left alone to live their lives how they please?

Beyond that, let's be clear. Met doesn't have a problem with transgender people. Nor do I. What Met (and I) have a problem with is POLICY that places the entirely subjective internal feelings and beliefs of some people as more important than the objective reality of everyone else. What Met has a problem with - as do I - is POLICY that pretends that someone's words-said-out-loud overrides the sex-based protections and rights of women.

You know what? Let trans people be as trans as they feel like being - it still does not change their sex. And a fully normal male-bodied man is NOT a female, and does not get to strip down in the women's shower, nor should he get placed in a female prison wing. How strongly he believes, how strongly he feels he should be with the ladies is irrelevant. The FACT is that he is male, and in the majority of cases he is a completely phenotypically, karyotypically normal male in complete possession of an entirely male physiology. Wishes don't magically change his sex.

What I want is for people to stop intentionally conflating gender with sex.

Did you not read his posts. He constantly put trans people down as being trans only because of the "thoughts in their heads". He specifically rejected that they could have been that way because of their brain states. We've all seen it numerous times.

What is so hard about understanding this?

Nothing is hard about understanding it, unless one (you) has gotten entirely mixed up and lost touch with one's (your) skeptical background. No matter how you parse it, gender identity is an entirely internal, subjective, unverifiable set of beliefs about one's inner essence and feelings. It is LITERALLY thought in one's head. There is no test that can be done to verify it. There is no objective measure that can confirm it. Calling it thoughts in one's head is a bit more polite (IMO) than calling it a dedicated belief to a gender soul. But realistically, there's no difference.

Gender identity is completely thoughts in a person's head.

Sex, on the other hand, is physically observable, objectively verifiable fact. Sometimes it takes more than a cursory glance, but sex is still a tangible factual element of a person that other people can confirm and verify.

Met's use of the phrase "thought in their head" is because so many people in this thread have decided that they are completely on board with accepting a person's declared gender soul as overriding observable fact. People in this thread seem dedicated to developing and supporting policies that revere the souls of some special people and elevate them above normal mortals, indeed going so far as to place those special gender-souled people into spaces that put mere female mortals at increased risk.

I object to that religion. If you label me heretic for rejecting your faith-based dogma, so be it. I've been a heretic my whole life. I will very happily hold on to science and facts and continue to argue that policy and society should place objective facts above wishes and belief.

 

[Emily Lake]

If humans weren't primarily heterosexual we would have died out long ago.

Nah, as long as humans have lots of sex with lots of partners, they could be primarily bisexual or homosexual, and the species would persist.

As long as sexual encounters massively outnumber pregnancies (as they certainly do in humans) being primarily heterosexual isn't necessary for the species to persist and even thrive.

Um... Bisexual I'll give you. But a homosexual person can get it on with someone of the same sex every minute of every day for their whole life and I guarantee they will not make babies.

Some people actually understand how reproduction works.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think there is folly in thinking something has gone wrong or using words like "as intended".

There certainly is a baseline, and there is certainly deviation from the baseline. And those deviations seem to be quite inevitable.

Yeah, I'm considering the baseline to be "as intended".

The only questions that remains are, how much do people not want to believe gender is more than genitals, how much do people want to belittle what people say they feel within the core of their being, and how much belittling does one want to do to those that are Standard of Deviations away from the peak of the bell?

Yeah--the issue is whether deviations from that baseline are an issue or not. I don't care how many standard deviations away it is, just whether it causes harm to society. Things like sexual alignment and gender can be an issue for the person but they do no harm to anyone else.

I see atypical people to be the source of most of the most celebrated ideas throughout history even if some of them aren't exactly great in hindsight.

it is the willingness to boldly live one's own life without giving into the pressures of the world around them that defines the innovator. Being able to say "no, thanks" to the things everyone else does and thinks is important. For whatever reason, abnormal sexuality has a high comorbidity to other atypicality.

I don't think they are an issue to the person. Rather, I think it might be more feature shaped than bug shaped: knowledge one will not reproduce the normal way drives other forms of social contribution and frees the individual up for other interests, amid the clear ability to find some things more important than reproduction.

Frankly, while I am not religious, I think a certain verse in Matthew about eunuchs is a lot more important than most people realize to understanding the phenomena. Gender Atypicality was documented in ~200ce and LAUDED!

I will note, I don't really see a CIS person promoting becoming a eunuch. It's really the sort of thought you only communicate if it's a thought you yourself have, and so I claim the author of even a gospel of the bible as one of our number of gender "atypicals".

Even hyper-religious people tend to downplay the significance of it. Rather it wasn't suggesting that to be "holy" you have to be celibate, but rather stating that it's OK to want to be or to want to be a eunuch.

Again, while I'm not religious, I find that to be a really important discussion to have.

If it does harm to society, the harm comes as a mixed blessing, and is part of a larger trait structure that is vital to the evolution of the species through memetic rather than genetic contribution.

It is the "freak" and the "weirdo" that our best stories celebrate, and "having children and a family" is rarely the selling point, except for Disney princesses.

It's a really weird moral stance to take, to "revere" people who were mutilated and harmed against their will.

 

[bilby]

If humans weren't primarily heterosexual we would have died out long ago.

Nah, as long as humans have lots of sex with lots of partners, they could be primarily bisexual or homosexual, and the species would persist.

As long as sexual encounters massively outnumber pregnancies (as they certainly do in humans) being primarily heterosexual isn't necessary for the species to persist and even thrive.

Um... Bisexual I'll give you. But a homosexual person can get it on with someone of the same sex every minute of every day for their whole life and I guarantee they will not make babies.

Some people actually understand how reproduction works.

Evolution is a population level phenomenon. As long as exclusive homosexuality isn't a trait exhibited by the overwhelming majority of humans, the species can persist and even thrive, because the remaining individuals are quite capable of taking up the slack.

Many species exist, persist, and thrive, in which we observe only a minuscule percentage of individuals producing any offspring at all.

Some people actually understand how evolution works.

 

[Politesse]

If humans weren't primarily heterosexual we would have died out long ago.

Nah, as long as humans have lots of sex with lots of partners, they could be primarily bisexual or homosexual, and the species would persist.

As long as sexual encounters massively outnumber pregnancies (as they certainly do in humans) being primarily heterosexual isn't necessary for the species to persist and even thrive.

Um... Bisexual I'll give you. But a homosexual person can get it on with someone of the same sex every minute of every day for their whole life and I guarantee they will not make babies.

Some people actually understand how reproduction works.

Evolution is a population level phenomenon. As long as exclusive homosexuality isn't a trait exhibited by the overwhelming majority of humans, the species can persist and even thrive, because the remaining individuals are quite capable of taking up the slack.

Many species exist, persist, and thrive, in which we observe only a minuscule percentage of individuals producing any offspring at all.

Some people actually understand how evolution works.

Survival of offspring to adulthood is also a factor. Not just humans, but in many other species who rely on bonded pairs or triples to raise young, we see homosexual mates playing a role in the ongoing survival of the species, by taking on parenting roles for young who have been orphaned or abandoned by their birth parents. So it isn't just straights picking up slack for gays, the door swings both ways to create a more flexible and therefore rigorous population of potential parents. Infertile heterosexual parents, likewise historically ostracized and ashamed of their situation, should not be, as they play the same very important role in the tree of life.