Transgender Rights

[Doomsought]

There's a few problems with this argument though. First, a trans woman is about as capable at being a mate as a sterile female. If a sterile female wears feminine clothing, are they lying non-verbally? They are signalling their availability as a mate, but cannot have kids.

Yes.

Second, I don't really care about the original cause and purpose of gender roles. I like to think we evolved beyond that by know.

No. Gender roles originate from sexual dimorphism. Women have a hormone cycle that makes them more vulnerable to stress. Their bodies and psychology are developed to care for extremely young children, where men are more suited for disciplining older children. There are differences in risk assessment that come from testosterone. Hell, even an act as simple as crying is different for men and women, unlike men women have pheromones in their tears.

Historically we have dealt with this by having women take part time jobs or equivalents.

Defying our instincts is possible, even useful sometimes. But doing it in a large scale or consistently will only make us miserable. Emotions are how we experience our instincts. There are countless observations of women spouting feminist talking points, only to turn around and complain about a lack of male attention and companionship. They are really not difference than incels, miserable and hateful for the same reason: They have been brought up in a culture that discourages them from accepting their gender roles and this has only ended up oppressing them.

Attempting to get rid of gender roles is nothing but self destructive hubris of people who think they know better than tradition because they don't know what purpose the tradition served.

 

[LordsFire]

Attempting to get rid of gender roles is nothing but self destructive hubris of people who think they know better than tradition because they don't know what purpose the tradition served.

Making an allowing in culture for outliers to find a happy place is a good thing.

We blew way past that long ago. Sixteen years ago when I was in high school, I noticed a tendency among girls I knew to declare that they were going for some sort of high-prestige, high-pay, high-power job when they were Juniors, about to take their SAT, etc.

About halfway through their Senior year, they'd change their minds, almost always towards something like teaching, nursing, or other more traditionally feminine roles.

We are at a point where culture is trying to actively push women away from what used to be the traditional roles. Cultural iconoclasm against the most common desires is worse than cultural iconoclasm towards the most common desires. It has the same problem of not allowing those with talents, gifts, and desires that go against the accepted wisdom to easily find their place in society, and amplifies that by making it 'most people.'

 

[Doomsought]

Making an allowing in culture for outliers to find a happy place is a good thing.

Of this I agree to an extent, as long as the outliers to harm or deceive others. But we should not encourage unhealthy behavior. That is the center of this whole argument.

There is no room for doubt that gender dysphoria is unhealthy.

But there is a concerted effort to encourage it rather than discourage it. This is a problem not only on how it harms others, but because there are weaker cases of gender dysphoria that would have been cured or subsided earlier had it not been encouraged, or even in more tragic cases people who have been surgically altered but regret it later. It is so bad that even research to acknowledge the harms of the current treatments is taboo, let alone research for a cure.

 

[Abhorsen]

Attempting to get rid of gender roles is nothing but self destructive hubris of people who think they know better than tradition because they don't know what purpose the tradition served.

And I didn't say get rid of them. I said I don't care about their origin or original purpose. If they still work, I'm quite happy with them, but for example, the old gender role of men needing to be able to fight is much less important now.

Yes.

What about make up then? Flattering clothes? They make someone look better than they normally do. Is that non-verbally lying?

But we should not encourage unhealthy behavior. That is the center of this whole argument.

No, it is very much not the center of this argument. This has not been an argument about whether trans people should be encouraged or not. The debate between you and me has been about whether they should be allowed to transition, and maybe a partial debate on the efficacy of transitioning vs. conversion therapy.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Abbhorsen, you've claimed that the brains of transsexuals are different than 'normal' male or female brains.

Are they the same as brains of the opposite gender though?

This is a matter that has been the subject of considerable neuroscience study. The broad-strokes answer is that at the broad neurological level, there is no such thing as an absolute and definitive "male brain" or "female brain" in the first place. Most of the differences between male and female brains are statistical trends, not hard-and-fast, "This is this, that is that".

Only certain specific parts of the brain, such as the BSTc region, display strong sexual differentiation, and there has been a consistent set of studies done by multiple groups over the past few decades that have shown BSTc differentiation in trans people *is* consistent with their claimed gender identity; moreover, the later of those studies shows that this BSTc differentiation exists even in trans people who have not undergone hormone therapy.

And above all of this, suicide rates amongst transgender people have not been observed to drop post-transition.

The suicide rates among trans people drop dramatically post transition. There's *one* major set of studies that is often cited as evidence otherwise, but the actual authors of that study have explicitly stated that this is an inaccurate reading of their study results. What that study actually showed was that in the older (pre-1986) tranche of trans patients, post transition suicide rates were still significantly higher than general population; for the later tranche of trans patients, suicide rates dropped to the point of not having any statistically significant difference from general population. The oft-quoted Swedish study did not compare pre and post transition rates at all.

(Just so I'm not accused of strawmanning here: the Swedish study does not disprove the narrower claim you made, but it is important to address because it's so commonly misquoted.)

Other studies have actually looked at pre versus post transition depression and suicide rates, and those studies have found that suicide rates do improve greatly with transition, even though they are not fully addressed by transition alone.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

No, it is very much not the center of this argument. This has not been an argument about whether trans people should be encouraged or not. The debate between you and me has been about whether they should be allowed to transition, and maybe a partial debate on the efficacy of transitioning vs. conversion therapy.

This is one of the key points -- for all the criticism levelled at transition therapy, the *only* argument made for conversion therapy is that it makes people *other than the patient* happier because it lines up better with their general ideological/social beliefs. Conversion therapy has a consistent track record of negative patient outcomes, to the point where every major professional group in medicine condemns it.

Transition therapy isn't perfect, but -- rather like democracy itself -- it's the best treatment that exists.

 

[Doomsought]

No, it is very much not the center of this argument. This has not been an argument about whether trans people should be encouraged or not. The debate between you and me has been about whether they should be allowed to transition, and maybe a partial debate on the efficacy of transitioning vs. conversion therapy.

Are you a compulsive liar or just stupid? Transition verses conversion therapy is encourage versus discourage.

 

[Terthna]

This is one of the key points -- for all the criticism levelled at transition therapy, the *only* argument made for conversion therapy is that it makes people *other than the patient* happier because it lines up better with their general ideological/social beliefs. Conversion therapy has a consistent track record of negative patient outcomes, to the point where every major professional group in medicine condemns it.

Transition therapy isn't perfect, but -- rather like democracy itself -- it's the best treatment that exists.

Assuming that the patient actually needs it of course; the recent spat of "trans-trenders" makes me worried that a number of people will later regret going through with transition therapy (or worse, being forced to go through with it by their parents at a young age). Though to be fair, many that I've seen don't seem interested in going beyond simply claiming ownership of the transgender identity, and making a few basic cosmetic changes to their appearance.

 

[Abhorsen]

Are you a compulsive liar or just stupid? Transition verses conversion therapy is encourage versus discourage.

No, it isn't. There's a huge difference. First, the first group are methods, the second goals. Method wise, science finds that transition works and conversion therapy just causes harm (this was the secondary discussion). Goal wise, I'm very much on the live and let live side, that people should be allowed to do what they want, including voluntarily attending conversion therapy for adults (yes, I think that's stupid, but that's their choice as an adult), while you are, by what I can interpret, on the side of banning adults from changing how their bodies look.

The only justification you have for this is some imagined 'harm' it causes others due to 'lying'. The fact that you think that any woman who dresses well that can't have kids is lying, btw, is hilarious. Just because you imagine that they are ready to have kids because a woman looks good, doesn't mean a) she can have kids, b) she wants kids, or c) she'd want kids with you.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

I don't think there are any good answers. Transgenderism hits home on a human level that nature makes mistakes on a fundamental level. Either nature puts people in the wrong body, or nature messes someone up so much they can't tell their right body from their wrong body, and that opens a can of worms. If nature makes mistakes, how far do we go into correcting it? What defines "A mistake?" and more importantly WHO gets to define a mistake? the "Solutuion" in times of yore was to simply hide these people and ignore them. That's not an option anymore.

Ultimately I think we are going to have to make a decision and just take the losses. Peronsally I think the OPTION for treatment needs to always be on the table, but not required until you get into some crap like a trans parent trying to force a child to go trans. That's my opinion for now at least. it'll probably change in the future

 

[Abhorsen]

Ultimately I think we are going to have to make a decision and just take the losses. Peronsally I think the OPTION for treatment needs to always be on the table, but not required until you get into some crap like trying to force a child to go trans. That's my opinion for now at least. it'll probably change in the future

Generally I'm in the boat of not allowing a child to transition or go to conversion therapy before adulthood, then let the adult decide. Trans Teens (actual ones, not trenders) seem to 'grow out of it' around age 18 or so, (there are other threshold years as well, from what I've read/heard, but those are earlier), and a lot of the time, the kid is just gay/a tomboy.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Generally I'm in the boat of not allowing a child to transition or go to conversion therapy before adulthood, then let the adult decide. Trans Teens (actual ones, not trenders) seem to 'grow out of it' around age 18 or so, (there are other threshold years as well, from what I've read/heard, but those are earlier), and a lot of the time, the kid is just gay/a tomboy.

I think one of the first things I would do is get rid of gender studies. While learning what often makes the two genders tick in theory sound like an interesting idea, all it does is sew confusion while ironically forcing HOLLYWOOD steterotypes. You can't have a vagina and love cars, beer, and fighting without either secretly being LGBTQ according to modern acedemia.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Generally I'm in the boat of not allowing a child to transition or go to conversion therapy before adulthood, then let the adult decide. Trans Teens (actual ones, not trenders) seem to 'grow out of it' around age 18 or so, (there are other threshold years as well, from what I've read/heard, but those are earlier), and a lot of the time, the kid is just gay/a tomboy.

Assuming that the patient actually needs it of course; the recent spat of "trans-trenders" makes me worried that a number of people will later regret going through with transition therapy (or worse, being forced to go through with it by their parents at a young age). Though to be fair, many that I've seen don't seem interested in going beyond simply claiming ownership of the transgender identity, and making a few basic cosmetic changes to their appearance.

Allow me to address both of your concerns with some scientific studies.

The idea that a significant portion of trans children are actually "just gay or a tomboy" was pretty much the standard assumption among child psychologists for a very long time, to the point where this was largely taken as axiomatic without actually studying it. And when it was actually studied, the results genuinely appeared to support that thesis. The most commonly cited study, the one by Steegma's research group, tracked 127 child patients into adolescence, and found that 80 of them had "desisted" by age 15-16.

However, those studies include one huge method flaw: the study measurement of "desistance" was based on the percentage of children referred to gender clinics by their parents who were still being treated for gender dysphoria at the same clinic on follow-up studies. That sounds straightforward at first, right? But think about how that works demographically:

1. Children who never actually identified as transgender, are being counted as "desistance" cases. With the Steegma study, the initial gender clinic classified 38 of the 127 patient cases as "sub-threshold", i.e. they did not actually meet the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. Steegma nonetheless included these cases as if they had actually been diagnosed as transgender.​

​

2. Children with no follow up are being counted as "desistance" cases. Again, I will take Steegma as an example because hard numbers are available: out of the 80 cases he reported as "desisting", 28 were actually cases where the research team were unable to locate the same patient or the patient's family declined to participate in the follow-up. Instead of marking those as null results, Steegma counted them as "desisting". There were only 52 actual responses of "desistance" and again, that's *without* counting the 38 cases that weren't actually diagnosed transgender at all.​

Note that Steegma himself acknowledges these methodology flaws, but now states that the flawed desistance numbers don't really matter because the desistance numbers are looking at the study backwards in the first place -- he was counting persistence, not desistance.

This was carried forward in Steegma's 2011 follow-on study, where he actually filtered for cases that were actually diagnosed and then also actually participated in the follow-on interviews, and concluded that there was a critical age range of approximately 10-13, beyond which point all interviewed patients (both persistent and desisting) reported a firmly fixed gender identity. He also found that the reported motives for gender exploration were distinct between persistent and non-persistent cases.

This led to further study and even more explicit clarification in his 2013 follow-on study, which concluded that "intensity of gender dysphoria" was a strong predictor of persistence; i.e., those cases where children strongly and definitively stated a specific gender identity, as opposed to those whose parents merely thought they might be transgender based on "cross gender behavior".

In other words, the evidence suggests that many/most children who exhibit behavior that goes against social gender norms are not necessarily transgender. However, the evidence is highly definitive that when children strongly and definitively assert a specific gender identity, they are absolutely persistent in that gender identity. There is therefore no need to restrict transitioning in such cases, certainly not beyond the 10-13 age range -- which is actually less restrictive than current medical practice.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

About halfway through their Senior year, they'd change their minds, almost always towards something like teaching, nursing, or other more traditionally feminine roles. We are at a point where culture is trying to actively push women away from what used to be the traditional roles.

Except society constantly redefines what the traditional roles even are. Teaching and nursing were historically all male jobs, not "traditionally feminine" at all.

The modern perception of nursing as feminine is heavily a function of the Clara Barton mythos, ignoring the fact that Clara Barton was ridiculously controversial in her day for being utterly rebellious against traditional gender roles, and that Clara Barton was not actually a nurse in anything remotely resembling the modern sense; she had no medical training (although she improvised well under battlefield conditions), and what she actually did was more along the lines of a volunteer supply coordinator combined with what we tend to now call candy stripers.

For an example in the opposite direction, computer operation started as a traditionally feminine job, and was changed to a masculine job by intentional social pressure during the Cold War, because it was perceived that computers were now becoming important and it was felt that the only way to guarantee large numbers of computer scientists was to turn it into a prestigious career for college educated men.

 

[Terthna]

Allow me to address both of your concerns with some scientific studies.

The idea that a significant portion of trans children are actually "just gay or a tomboy" was pretty much the standard assumption among child psychologists for a very long time, to the point where this was largely taken as axiomatic without actually studying it. And when it was actually studied, the results genuinely appeared to support that thesis. The most commonly cited study, the one by Steegma's research group, tracked 127 child patients into adolescence, and found that 80 of them had "desisted" by age 15-16.

However, those studies include one huge method flaw: the study measurement of "desistance" was based on the percentage of children referred to gender clinics by their parents who were still being treated for gender dysphoria at the same clinic on follow-up studies. That sounds straightforward at first, right? But think about how that works demographically:

1. Children who never actually identified as transgender, are being counted as "desistance" cases. With the Steegma study, the initial gender clinic classified 38 of the 127 patient cases as "sub-threshold", i.e. they did not actually meet the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. Steegma nonetheless included these cases as if they had actually been diagnosed as transgender.​

​

2. Children with no follow up are being counted as "desistance" cases. Again, I will take Steegma as an example because hard numbers are available: out of the 80 cases he reported as "desisting", 28 were actually cases where the research team were unable to locate the same patient or the patient's family declined to participate in the follow-up. Instead of marking those as null results, Steegma counted them as "desisting". There were only 52 actual responses of "desistance" and again, that's *without* counting the 38 cases that weren't actually diagnosed transgender at all.​

Note that Steegma himself acknowledges these methodology flaws, but now states that the flawed desistance numbers don't really matter because the desistance numbers are looking at the study backwards in the first place -- he was counting persistence, not desistance.

This was carried forward in Steegma's 2011 follow-on study, where he actually filtered for cases that were actually diagnosed and then also actually participated in the follow-on interviews, and concluded that there was a critical age range of approximately 10-13, beyond which point all interviewed patients (both persistent and desisting) reported a firmly fixed gender identity. He also found that the reported motives for gender exploration were distinct between persistent and non-persistent cases.

This led to further study and even more explicit clarification in his 2013 follow-on study, which concluded that "intensity of gender dysphoria" was a strong predictor of persistence; i.e., those cases where children strongly and definitively stated a specific gender identity, as opposed to those whose parents merely thought they might be transgender based on "cross gender behavior".

In other words, the evidence suggests that many/most children who exhibit behavior that goes against social gender norms are not necessarily transgender. However, the evidence is highly definitive that when children strongly and definitively assert a specific gender identity, they are absolutely persistent in that gender identity. There is therefore no need to restrict transitioning in such cases, certainly not beyond the 10-13 age range -- which is actually less restrictive than current medical practice.

All transgenders were at one point children, so there's really no arguing against the fact that there are children who are transgender. The issue arises in correctly diagnosing it at a young age; which is decidedly difficult in this day and age, what with all the regressive leftist ideology surrounding transgenderism muddying the waters.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Teaching and nursing were historically all male jobs, not "traditionally feminine" at all.

Eh in teaching that may have been true at the university level, but in early America-you had the school marm. A young woman that taught children of differing ages in one building or room, all of a town. Elementary or child education-has been at least in the US seen as the province of young unmarried women(though in fairness there were plenty of male school masters-to give a literary example would be Ichabod Crane). Also usually it was expected a woman would stay at home and leave teaching once she married. But it varied a lot.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Eh in teaching that may have been true at the university level, but in early America-you had the school marm. A young woman that taught children of differing ages in one building or room, all of a town. Elementary or child education-has been at least in the US seen as the province of young unmarried women(though in fairness there were plenty of male school masters-to give a literary example would be Ichabod Crane). Also usually it was expected a woman would stay at home and leave teaching once she married. But it varied a lot.

As documented in this paper, teaching in the United States was an all-male occupation during the colonial period, and shifted to a predominantly female occupation by around 1900. The female school teacher for young children that you're thinking of was unheard-of prior to around the 1800s, and did not become common until closer to the 1850s, in parallel with early urbanization and cultural changes associated with increasing literacy among middle to upper class white women.

 

[Deleted member 88]

As documented in this paper, teaching in the United States was an all-male occupation during the colonial period, and shifted to a predominantly female occupation by around 1900. The female school teacher for young children that you're thinking of was unheard-of prior to around the 1800s, and did not become common until closer to the 1850s, in parallel with early urbanization and cultural changes associated with increasing literacy among middle to upper class white women.

Well yes, I didn't deny that changes occurred. Teaching in say colonial Massachusetts being a male profession is hardly shocking given it was a Puritan, Calvinist, and strictly religious society. And that is what I was referring to-the 19th century.

My point being that as a cultural archetype, the school marm existed in American literature and history in the 19th century. Prior to that yes, school masters were men.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

reading back I need to be more specific. When I was refering to treatment I was refering to methads to help break disphoria and help someone accept thier biological gender. I think that needs to always be on the table but doesin't need to be forced unless someone is provong to be a danger to others (again abusing a child by forcing them to go trans) yes we don't need to be encouraging mental illness, but we also don't want it to where putting someone in a straitjacket and scrambling their brain until they yield or become a vegetable is a norm either.

 

[Abhorsen]

reading back I need to be more specific. When I was refering to treatment I was refering to methads to help break disphoria and help someone accept thier biological gender. I think that needs to always be on the table but doesin't need to be forced unless someone is provong to be a danger to others (again abusing a child by forcing them to go trans) yes we don't need to be encouraging mental illness, but we also don't want it to where putting someone in a straitjacket and scrambling their brain until they yield or become a vegetable is a norm either.

I don't know that therapy actually works though. Is there any evidence that therapy (and not aging out) actually does anything?