"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."
Woke gender ideology in a nutshell.
I have never in my life had anything to do with any kind of "woke" ideology.
You are projecting. Other people besides you talk about gender, and some of them are woke ideologues, and their views are the reason Mr. Meriwether's employers chose to violate his civil rights
I do not give a shit. This lunatic anti-woke crusade has already led to aggression against me, at my place of work, and I have been put into a position where I have to talk to a counselor in order to try to figure out what to do. I have a naturally mercurial temperament, and my alternative to seeing a therapist, at this point, is to put the dude into a choke-hold. When your bullshit and your rhetoric leads to people at my place of work literally threatening me, I am not going to blame that guy because he is uneducated. When the dude got fired, I literally asked my managers to bring him back because I did not want a father to lose his job on my account. I am have gone out of my way to continue sharing a workplace with a man that has threatened me because I am trying very hard to be a decent human being.
Here is the kind of person I really am: a horse once kicked me in the elbow, leaving a bloody gash and my arm unable to go through its full range of motion due to disrupted nerves. I stood up, and I immediately apologized to the horse for startling him. That is the kind of person that I choose to be, not just toward animals but toward my fellow human beings. This is what I am trying to be in spite of the fact that I am also the kind of person that is capable of explosive violence and of dark, brooding rage. I choose peace and reconciliation.
Something I need to tell you forcefully, though, is that an "anti-woke" ideology is not going to solve any problem, but it is creating a new one that is worse than the original. It is going to bring danger and violence into the lives of people that otherwise would have stuck their necks out to help you, and in the long-run, it will only cause more mayhem in our society.
and find themselves on the losing end of a lawsuit, and I get to talk about such people whether you feel you're of their number or not; plus, Bronzeage repeated his post three times and to expect me to just leave that lying there is to demand superhuman forbearance. When I talk about you, you'll know it.
I have provided more than adequate evidence that the fact that I am transgender is based on my neurology.
Certainly -- whether someone likes strawberries is based on neurology.
Suppose for the sake of discussion that it's possible to put a person who self-diagnoses as transman in an MRI machine and measure whether the above person has a brain neurologically closer to the average male brain or to the average female brain, and thereby confirm or refute t.a.'s self-diagnosis. Suppose some Shawnee State professor had agreed to call some student she believed to be female "Sir" on condition that said student bring her a doctor's note confirming that the student had had a brain scan done and had been found to have a male-like brain. Do you think this compromise would have satisfied the Shawnee State administrators' objections to their professor's unwillingness to take on faith a truth claim that had been offered without empirical evidence, or would they have ordered her to say "Sir" with or without a doctor's note, and reprimanded her for it anyway when she declined?
What I see you doing, by belaboring this story, is fanning the flames of strife.
We transgender people are not born with comprehensive knowledge about how to discuss our gender or our concomitant needs. In some cases, when we start the process of seeking gender-affirmation, we are even more confused about how to move forward than the cis-gender people around us. I am actually an advocate of transgender people seeking counseling services, so they can learn how to navigate these sorts of complex situations. My recent situation with a coworker has only driven me to internalize this belief and to apply it to my own life.
Most of the time, I get along with people alright, where my gender is concerned. Most people understand me when I say that it helps my own self-esteem if I assert my own feelings, in regard to my gender, whenever someone else seems to demonstrate a lack of knowledge about those feelings. It is not a demand upon them or an order or a condemnation, but it is an expression of self-assertiveness that helps me feel more confident in general, not just about my gender.
What I want to talk to my therapist about is how to deescalate situations where I have been misunderstood, so I can avoid getting at cross-purposes with anyone in the future.
Unfortunately, that person I got at cross-purposes with had formed the belief that my attempts to be self-assertive about my gender meant that I was going to threaten his job or expose him to unwanted censure or embarrassment, and whenever these kinds of stories make rounds in social media, people like him become afraid that people like me are a threat to him.
This fear does nothing to protect them at all, but it creates situations where they actually could lose their jobs as a consequence of acting out, based on that fear. Again, that guy would still be out-of-work if I had not gone out of my way to firmly reassure my managers that I was still willing to have him in the same workplace, even though he had threatened me.
Current research suggests that the affirmation of transgender people's gender identity significantly increases their chances of survival. As a consequence, it has become a matter of social protocol, in many places, to do so.
Okay, now I'm talking about you. I've seen you in action enough times to know that you are very likely to ignore the actual meaning of the words I'm about to say and will probably accuse me of saying or meaning something completely different. So I'm cautioning you not to do that.
I do not believe your claim that the increased chances of survival you credit for the social protocol change are what actually caused the social protocol to change. I think the social protocol changed for a different reason and would have changed the same way whether it increased survival chances or not. When you say the one was "As a consequence of" the other, you're making a claim of causality, a truth claim that you have not given empirical evidence for.
Let me be very clear here. I am not disputing your claim that affirmation of transgender people's gender identity reduces suicide rates, or challenging you to provide evidence for that claim. It's your claim about what caused the social protocol change that I'm calling into question.
For me, it sure is.
I was actually reluctant to pursue gender-affirmation before I was absolutely sure that there was a neurological basis for it, and I needed a tremendous amount of reassurance that it could make my life better. Curiously enough, I am actually intensely risk-averse, so I really prefer to go into depth to explore my options and my alternatives before I make a decision that is going to stick. While I might be at risk of "paralysis of analysis" because of that, the same risk-averse nature has also made it unlikely that I will ever kill myself for any reason whatsoever. For me, that is a major "chicken and egg" question. Sometimes, I wonder if past experiences that have caused me to ponder killing myself have led me, self-protectively, to form a risk-averse habit of thought, or was being naturally risk-averse the reason why I never actually did it? In any case, by the time I went to pursue gender-affirming care, I knew almost as much about it as my doctor did (let me flatter myself), and she specializes in it.
When I talk to others about my preferred pronouns and my preferred name, I am open with them about my purpose. I am also open with them about the fact that I am new to this (I was, anyway), and as a consequence, I am still learning how to talk about this aspect of my life. I may start out as awkward, but I hope that I will develop grace in time. I present myself as someone that is still learning how to take better care of her health.
At my place of work, at least, I hope that others around me will see that I actually have become happier and more socially outgoing. I hope that they will notice that I make eye-contact more often, communicate better, have a more interesting self-presentation, and take a more active interest in helping to make their jobs easier. I hope that they will see a general improvement in my character. I am determined to make it worth their while to try to get me.
I see an inherent connection between improving my own mental health and giving my coworkers a clear payoff as a consequence. I want them to feel good about me feeling good.
Unfortunately, I now have a coworker that is afraid of losing his job because of me, and I am mortified that anyone would ever feel afraid of me. I do not like for other people to be afraid of me. It upsets me deeply. It breaks my heart. It makes me seem to be a very different kind of person than the kind of person that I am trying to be.
If I can be said to have any ideology, then that ideology is the notion that empirical evidence is necessary for any truth claim about any topic whatsoever. To imply otherwise, regarding my ideology, simply makes you objectively wrong.
Okay, now I'm not talking about you any more. Now I'm talking about me. I made no implication about your ideology. To imply otherwise regarding what I implied is objectively wrong.
The fact that I am a dragon has no empirical evidence whatsoever, though. You can take my word for it or not. "Dragon" is a metaphor.
Okay, now I'm talking about you again. Given your explanation upthread of what you're using "dragon" as a metaphor for, I don't need to take your word for it. You have presented a cornucopia of empirical evidence that you are a dragon.
The visualization is actually highly effective at improving my communication with others. If you want to, you can try using that visualization next time you reply to me.
Remember, though: dragons are not animals. We are a different type of sapient. We are particularly clever in some ways and curiously limited in others. When we are in speaking in our area of strength, though, then we are worth listening to. If you meet enough of us, then I think you will agree.
And I am really tired of hearing the term "woke." It constitutes projecting beliefs onto people that they have not espoused at all.
Well, when you go into a forum with "infidels" in its name, you're running the risk that somebody out there will have imagined that means he's allowed to post even if he doesn't accept your opinions on faith. If you can point out anybody I've called "woke" who didn't espouse woke beliefs, knock yourself out.
I do not ask you for faith, merely to read my citations.
Both transgenderism and homosexuality are facets of human biology, believed to derive from different sexual differentiation of the brain. The two phenomena are, however, fundamentally unalike, despite an increased prevalence of homosexuality among transgender populations. Transgenderism is...
www.nature.com
Now, the reason why some transgender people get angry when you ask for proof is that transgender people come in all personality types and in every possible level of intelligence. Many of them, if you start talking about white matter volumes, gray matter volumes, and fractional anisotrophy, will just think you are trying to imply that they have some kind of a disease. They do not act this way because they are transgender, but they act this way because they are human beings. Human beings, in general, can be seriously frustrating. It is very useful to learn how to be patient with them and to acknowledge their limitations as a known quantity. Most people, including most transgender people, are a little bit intimidated by heavy scientific talk, and some of them are grossed out by scientific talk about the squishy parts.
I am unusual because I can actually furnish you with a very comprehensive understanding of what makes me different and why there is not a damn thing that I can do about that difference. I am the transgender woman that, metaphorically speaking, will gleefully step into an ex-ray and let you take a look at my bones with no self-consciousness whatsoever. I am an exhibitionist in the sense that I want you to see all of the little parts and how they work. For me, this is fun. I am enthusiastic to explain this stuff to you. This stuff excites me. I am a nerdy version of a shameless hussy.
Burke, Manzouri, and Savic did a wonderful job with that report. I highly recommend it as reading material.
Furthermore, the American Academy of Pediatrics did a fantastic job of explaining why it is a sound policy to support transgender youth. Their report on this topic is very well put together. It is very easy to read. It clearly explains why it is so necessary, especially for young transgender people, to receive support and affirmation. They give you documented evidence for their views. The format is easy to follow.
As a traditionally underserved population that faces numerous health disparities, youth who identify as transgender and gender diverse (TGD) and their families are increasingly presenting to pediatric providers for education, care, and referrals. The need for more formal training, standardized...
publications.aap.org
