This week in trans: The Lancet, the ACLU, the Guardian

[Emily Lake]

It does. The 1800s had their war on reality re slavery, the 1700's had their war on reality that was the inquisition... It seems that your war against the evolution of thought is this hill. It's a dumb hill to die on, I guess I'll take it, as long as your dead on it, though....

I do wonder where it leaves us that "evolution of thought" is in direct conflict with, you know, evolution.

 

[Emily Lake]

Except when you ignore "certain" cases to maintain narrative, as you are pointedly doing in both human and other biologies, and you are inserting the context of "procreation" where it has not been invited.

Procreation is the only reason we can even have this discussion at all! It's the only reason that two (and only two) human sexes exist, and the only reason that we have socially constructed gender roles based on that sexual dimorphism.

Honestly, I'm at a loss at being on a forum that is supposedly full of atheists and people who value the scientific method... and having someone argue from a position of literally denying evolution.

 

[Emily Lake]

Why do you struggle with this concept so much? My son is NOT a 'girl living as a boy'. My son is my son regardless of what 'body parts' he possesses or doesn't possess.

One doesn't possess body parts in the way that one possess the coin in her pants pocket. Humans are bodies. Human bodies are sexually dimorphic. If your son's sex is not male then he is a young female living as a boy. Nothing wrong with that at all. Nothing wrong with calling him your son. What is wrong is to pretend that his sex has really changed. Changing one's gender does not change one's sex.

And now we are getting back to the part of the lesson that EVERYONE loves and always kills the thread: your statement is not true.

Here's a hint: the part of their body that does the behaving is not the one dangling between their legs. It's the one seated above and between their shoulders. To continue to pretend that's the bit of their flesh that matters behaviorally is as ridiculous as pretending that it is not the actual hormonal drivers among trans athletes and so as to do your thinking with the flesh BEHIND your legs.

We already see various intersexings of the genitals. What you are proposing is that the actually impactful things re behavior and personality (who someone is!) Is 100% concordant between brain and genitals. Not even genitals are 100% concordant with themselves, re menstruating penises.

And this is not even accounting for the idea that there are most likely various gendered brain regions that can absolutely end up differently configured, and while the apparent differences seem small, this is much the difference between (AND) and (NOT) in a logical system.

It only kills the thread because I don't believe in or accept the existence of a soul, let alone a gendered soul that is separate from and distinct from the rest of the body.

 

[Emily Lake]

Wow, so the totality of being human is procreation...impressive imagineering.

https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a

Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary — their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another.
<snip>
When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier.

FYI, that is an opinion piece, and it's one that rather a LOT of biologists have taken exception to. It repeatedly conflates sex with sexual characteristics.

 

[Emily Lake]

It just isn't applicable in the discussion nor is it contextual, nor is it even pertinent to your own wishful point.

Bullshit! It is absolutely contextual and pertinent. It's the entire fucking reason that the discussion even exists. If sex didn't matter, if sex really were a spectrum, if sex were actually as irrelevant to every day life as you keep asserting, transgender identities wouldn't even exist. They wouldn't be a thing at all. Without sexed bodies, there is nothing for gender dysphoria to feel anxiety about! Without sexed bodies, and the effect that such sex has on our lives - and the discrimination that comes with it - gender roles and expectations wouldn't exist at all.

Without the disparate burden of procreation, there wouldn't be sex discrimination and oppression. There wouldn't be disparate roles that relegate females to subordinate positions. Without the uncertainty of paternity, there wouldn't be a long history of men using their power to control the reproductive capacity of women and treating us as property.

Without sex, there would be no sexual orientation. Without the fundamental drive for procreation expressed as sexual desire (even if we don't fulfill that drive by bearing children) the act of sexual intercourse would not exist. There would be no discussion of gay or lesbian or bisexual or pansexual or whatever permutation you like.

It is the fundamental and inescapable reality of biological sex that is the basis for the entire fucking topic!

 

[Emily Lake]

I tend to doubt any of the the posters on either side of the ... disputes taking place here even understand what sort of evidence would support their assertions.

Hmm.
I, for one, do not understand what evidence would be necessary for my position.
I mean, someone presents as a woman, i'll accept them as a woman. I don't need evidence for this, i really don't care about whether or not she's wearing a penis. So what evidence would you expect me to cite?

What, to you, constitutes "presenting as a woman"?

 

[Emily Lake]

As soon as Trausti can adequately delineate what bearing "penis/vulva" has on "treating them in a way during normal social interactions", I will care what they say; until then I do not, nor should I, nor should anyone.

I don't give a crap about everyday social interactions. In everyday social interactions, I'll treat people as they wish to be treated. But not all situations fall into that description. Some situations are ones in which sex actually does matter, in very material, very real ways.

 

[none]

As soon as Trausti can adequately delineate what bearing "penis/vulva" has on "treating them in a way during normal social interactions", I will care what they say; until then I do not, nor should I, nor should anyone.

I don't give a crap about everyday social interactions. In everyday social interactions, I'll treat people as they wish to be treated. But not all situations fall into that description. Some situations are ones in which sex actually does matter, in very material, very real ways.

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

 

[Metaphor]

As soon as Trausti can adequately delineate what bearing "penis/vulva" has on "treating them in a way during normal social interactions", I will care what they say; until then I do not, nor should I, nor should anyone.

I don't give a crap about everyday social interactions. In everyday social interactions, I'll treat people as they wish to be treated. But not all situations fall into that description. Some situations are ones in which sex actually does matter, in very material, very real ways.

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

Is your unisex bathroom at home open to strangers? I personally don't let the public into my own home to use my toilet.

 

[Emily Lake]

Not in this thread, but aren't we all in these disputes? If someone comes up to you and says they're 'Mrs. Smith' would you accept that or would you want to see into their pants, first?

Depends on the situation. At a business meeting or a block party, my response is "Hi Mrs. Smith, nice to meet you. What do you think of the weather?"

On the other hand, if Mrs. Smith is a 6'2" bearded person with an obviously masculine physique and they want to insist that their identity as "Mrs. Smith" entitles them to enter the girls shower in a middle school... I might very well decline to agree with them.

 

[none]

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

Is your unisex bathroom at home open to strangers? I personally don't let the public into my own home to use my toilet.

Strangers like you?

 

[Emily Lake]

And as Trausti has been put to question...

 

[ZiprHead]

It just isn't applicable in the discussion nor is it contextual, nor is it even pertinent to your own wishful point.

"What it takes for two people to make a baby once they connect and decide to have sex" is entirely insignificant to "how much respect you pay others' privacy with regards to their private parts, and how and why that is accomplished."

Qué? “Respect” is a whole different subject from the inviolability of Nature’s binary. The reason sex exists is for procreation. And there are only two sexes.

Is that Neil DeGrasse Tyson in the photo on the left?

 

[Emily Lake]

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

Do strangers regularly walk into your home bathroom while you're in there?

 

[none]

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

Do strangers regularly walk into your home bathroom while you're in there?

It's a preference thing. I see this bald woman with a stroller but after my last "friend" I'm weary.
The point is not strangers, the point is it is unisex.

 

[Emily Lake]

Is this going to go back to unisex bathrooms that are in every home, except maybe the minister's house.

Do strangers regularly walk into your home bathroom while you're in there?

It's a preference thing. I see this bald woman with a stroller but after my last "friend" I'm weary.
The point is not strangers, the point is it is unisex.

And my counterpoint is that unisex is perfectly fine when you control the individuals that have access. It's something completely different when unisex means complete strangers have access at will.

 

[none]

It's a preference thing. I see this bald woman with a stroller but after my last "friend" I'm weary.
The point is not strangers, the point is it is unisex.

And my counterpoint is that unisex is perfectly fine when you control the individuals that have access. It's something completely different when unisex means complete strangers have access at will.

Last thing I want to see is my daughter being frisked over your paranoia.
Seriously, this culture you are fighting for is problematic.

 

[Toni]

Human sexuality, physically and mentally, is far closer to 50 shades of grey than their black and white projections and fears...and such binary people seem to have a hard time accepting the reality that our society has grown a little more caring and respectful of our human differences; and that these differences are ok.

Nature is binary. Nature is uncompromising that mammals (and nearly all multi-cellular life) need a male and female to procreate. There's no shades of grey there.

Nature provides us also with hermaphroditism as found in multiple animal species with individuals producing male and female gametes. Not to mention plants!

Or human hermaphroditism, people with non typical sex chromosome code figurations, homosexual individuals, bisexual individuals, asexual individuals —and transsexual individuals.

So all that nature is binary is simply crap. Your brain may only be able to understand binary but that’s not all that nature provides.

 

[WAB]

Yep, we have come to the biology lesson of "the trans thread". Just tag me in when you get bored.

Your it I only initially commented as TomC seems to be a reasonable person, and I was curious as to whether there was any rational discussion going on in the latest trans hobby horse thread; and I wanted to clarify a point on the word 'normal'.

There is plenty of rational discussion going on in this thread, and all over the joint. You just have to read very carefully. More carefully than usual. Not that you don't. I am not accusing you of that, but using "You" in the universal sense.

*deleted the rest*

 

[Trausti]

Human sexuality, physically and mentally, is far closer to 50 shades of grey than their black and white projections and fears...and such binary people seem to have a hard time accepting the reality that our society has grown a little more caring and respectful of our human differences; and that these differences are ok.

Nature is binary. Nature is uncompromising that mammals (and nearly all multi-cellular life) need a male and female to procreate. There's no shades of grey there.

Nature provides us also with hermaphroditism as found in multiple animal species with individuals producing male and female gametes. Not to mention plants!

Or human hermaphroditism, people with non typical sex chromosome code figurations, homosexual individuals, bisexual individuals, asexual individuals —and transsexual individuals.

So all that nature is binary is simply crap. Your brain may only be able to understand binary but that’s not all that nature provides.

Human sexuality, physically and mentally, is far closer to 50 shades of grey than their black and white projections and fears...and such binary people seem to have a hard time accepting the reality that our society has grown a little more caring and respectful of our human differences; and that these differences are ok.

Nature is binary. Nature is uncompromising that mammals (and nearly all multi-cellular life) need a male and female to procreate. There's no shades of grey there.

Nature provides us also with hermaphroditism as found in multiple animal species with individuals producing male and female gametes. Not to mention plants!

Or human hermaphroditism, people with non typical sex chromosome code figurations, homosexual individuals, bisexual individuals, asexual individuals —and transsexual individuals.

So all that nature is binary is simply crap. Your brain may only be able to understand binary but that’s not all that nature provides.

0.0012% of births are intersex, ergo humans are not binary? Yeah, no.