So
@Bomb#20, it would be really useful at this point, for establishing good faith, to just acknowledge,
whether or not you knew already, "Sigma, it is indeed obvious that people are born transgender, and affirmation is clearly necessary for transgender people's health, especially that of transgender youth." Again, I do not care a button whether you already knew or not. I just need us to clear that communication hurdle, so I can know if it is okay to stop reposting those links.
It's not clear why you posted them in the first place; but I guess I need to congratulate you on having the sense not to post them a third time and become a living example of "What I tell you three times is true." But as far as I can see they have no bearing on any dispute I'm having with you; you seem to have invented out of whole cloth some position for me that you keep arguing against even though I've given you no reason to think whatever position you're fighting against is mine.
Do feel free to clarify your position. I increasingly find anti-wokeists to be the most abysmally useless pieces of shit that I have ever met on the Internet, though, and the more I interact with them, the more I want to punch them in the eye.
Feel free to explain what your actual positions are.
I have been attempting to explain what my own positions are.
Further, it's not clear why you imagine I would need to agree with your above assertion in order to "establish good faith". As far as I can see you haven't offered any evidence for it. There were no babies in the studies you posted. How the heck do you figure anisotropy in diffusion in the brains observed in teenagers and adults says anything one way or the other about whether the anisotropy arose before they were born or during childhood?
In other words, you ask us to speculate that the brain has a degree of plasticity that it does not, as far as anyone knows, have. I have adequate knowledge of neuroscience that it behooves me to regard such speculation to be dubious and silly. Unless current conclusions regarding the likely bounds of neural plasticity were to have changed, I suspect that you would engage in outright magical thinking rather than the simpler acknowledgement that a person's gender identity is set at least by childhood. Furthermore, speculation otherwise flies in the face of the current advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics. If you want to argue against some of the most highly educated doctors in the world, then be my guest. They do not take commands from me.
If you are attempting to deny that gender identity is fixed by the time it is recognizable, then you might as well be asserting that being transgender is just a "thought in my head" contrary to the evidence that I have offered.
I have furnished empirical evidence that my gender is something that I am stuck with. I have furnished you with the highly authoritative position statement of some of the most educated pediatric experts in the entire country.
For me to be clear on what your position is, I need you to simply acknowledge that, based on the scientific knowledge that is currently available to us, my gender identity is most likely fixed, and as a consequence, it is sensible, practical, and reasonable for me to pursue the social affirmation of my gender identity, which is supported by a broad scientific consensus.
The year-long review screened more than 4,000 studies and identified 56 that assessed whether gender transition improves the mental well-being of transgender individuals. The analysis concluded that 93 percent of the studies found positive effects from gender transition, indicating “a robust international consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that gender transition, including medical treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries, improves the overall well-being of transgender individuals.”
A new data analysis has found strong consensus that undergoing gender transition can improve transgender well-being.
news.cornell.edu
You'd have to measure it in newborns to find that out.
While the research on transgender people is still in the starting stages by comparison, sexual orientation, at least, has been traced to the last weeks of gestation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been confident enough, regarding transgender children most likely having a fixed gender identity, to recommend "social transition" even for young children. I believe that one of the foremost pediatric institutions in the world is an adequate scientific authority for practical decision-making.
For that matter, why do you care so much?
Because there is no realistic alternative to seeking gender-affirming care and asking for the support of our communities in seeking affirmation in our gender identity. For us to do otherwise is untenable, and to demand otherwise of us is deranged.
What's so bloody important about the moment of birth that it would make a difference whether transgendered are born that way? You know all humans are preemies, right? We were naturally selected to be born early so our massively oversized brains won't kill our mothers on the way out. Our brains keep developing along a preprogrammed schedule for years after we're born, same as the rest of our anatomy. So if it turns out transgenderism isn't determined until some brain cells grow this way instead of that way at the age of two, what's the big deal? Why is that any more important than if it happens 8 months after conception so most transgendered people are born that way but not the ones who pop out after 7 months? Why should that affect anybody's decisions?
If what you keep posting links to prove is that people are transgendered because of brain anatomy, who do you think you're talking to, a Christian? You think I think it's caused by having a sinful immortal soul or something? I'm an atheist! Of course it's caused by brain anatomy! I don't need a study to tell me that. What else besides brain anatomy could cause it?
I am therefore physically different from a cis-gender person. To treat me as if I were the same as a cis-gender person would therefore be demented. Someone that demands that I be given the same pronoun as a cisgender person is simply behaving like a lunatic for no reason.
Now, when you spread around rhetoric that could stir up fear against transgender people, you make their situation not only awkward but dangerous. Fear makes people dangerous, whether you mean for it to or not. When people are afraid of me, they become dangerous to me.
Why do you keep laying that at my door? What the hell rhetoric am I spreading that you think makes people afraid of you?
The use of terms like "woke religion" is inflammatory. Claiming that people are trying to "force a religion" on you is inflammatory. The fact that you and others around you consistently use that rhetoric, surrounding transgender issues, is eventually going to lead to serious violence. Someone is going to get hurt.
The anti-wokeists have basically just created a hate group for the sake of creating a hate group, and as a consequence, violence against transgender people has been getting worse every year for the last few years.
I say "somebody is going to get hurt," but somebody has already gotten hurt. People are dead because of the violence against transgender people that the anti-wokeists have already stirred up, and it is going to get worse.
Where the bejesus have I posted anything critical of transgendered people?
For the sake of clearing up communication, then, it would be easier if you just acknowledged that you understand the contents of those articles, and I can stop reposting them. Are you aware of the scientific evidence that transgender people are biologically different from cis-gender people and not realistically able to change this difference? Furthermore, are you aware that there is a scientific consensus that gender-affirming care actually works to help improve transgender people's health?
You can just say "yes" and "yes," and, once we have established that, you can clarify what your views actually are. As a transgender person, I have a practical need to clear that communication hurdle.
You think pointing out that people who don't give a rat's ass about the First Amendment tend to be a problem for the rest of us is somehow by magic instilling fear of everybody with gender dysphoria? Is there anything else I say that causes people to be afraid of you? Should I keep my mouth shut about nuclear power being the safe and sane way to stop global warming in case somebody takes that as incitement to beat up trans people?
When I have a coworker threatening me just because I use my own freedom of speech to assert my gender identity when I disagree with his insinuations to the contrary, then that constitutes someone attempting to use physical violence to limit my own freedom of speech.
My views on using preferred pronouns around transgender people is that you should no more need a law for it than you should need a law to know that it's inappropriate to talk about your marital problems around your boss. Not all of us that say "What the fuck is wrong with you?" want to create a new law, but just because there shouldn't necessarily be a law doesn't mean you have to be a fucking douche-flute toward other human beings. There are many things you shouldn't do that also shouldn't necessarily be a crime, but just because it shouldn't necessarily be a crime doesn't mean you aren't being a fucking asshole if you do it.
If we say that misgendering people should not be considered to represent acceptable social decorum, then that is not taking away your legal rights at all. You do not have a right for people to respect you, and if you behave like an uneducated savage, then people are not going to respect you.
What is amazing is how many people think that I am saying they deserve to be treated as criminals just because I tell them "Please at least try to get my pronouns right, you useless fucking douche-flute, because I have been telling you this every fucking day for months. You wonder why I do not like you. The reason why I do not like you is that you are a dense twat."
I am not really that rude to people in actual practice, but these are the thoughts, toward people, that I politely keep to myself, most of the time, because voicing those thoughts is also not acceptable workplace decorum. I can say the same shit in more politically correct, workplace-friendly ways, but just because I am not saying it does not mean that I am not thinking it.
So no, I am not saying there should necessarily be a law to tell you that there is a socially acceptable way to talk to and about transgender people. You should not need one. You should want people around you to believe that you have an above-average IQ. You should want people around you to not be embarrassed of you.
If you already understand this, then fine. It would be a good thing if you did. I would not see that as a concession by you, but I would see that as only affirmation that you choose to be a respectful person. I do not know if you do not tell me. Many anti-wokeists do not want to see eye-to-eye with me that far.
Trans people does not equal woke people. If we mustn't criticize stupid religions, then what's the point of having a forum for infidels?
Anti-wokeism comes across to me as more like a religious cult, to be honest.
I am not some cult that is trying to oppress you,
Nobody said you were. This isn't about you. This is about Shawnee State and its administrators' apparent preference for an ideological monoculture.
If you are taking the position that employers should not have a right to set standards of decorum, then I can recognize that as a point-of-view that you might actually have.
I know that that point-of-view would not fly with my boss. I know that that point-of-view would not fly with human resources at my place-of-work. If I got fired for testing that theory, then I would not get more sympathy than a pat on the head. I am sure that nobody would doubt that I believed that I was in the right.
It just wouldn't get me far.