Transinsanity thread

[Abhorsen]

Yes, children are easily encouraged to mimic what they see as social norms. In a different society they would be wanting to marry a viking instead, and in a yet different one, become a nun. The "sometimes" you put there is a very strategic qualifier though.

The sometimes is there because it sometimes happens. It's not rare, but it's not the most common either. But then neither is very young childhood sexual abuse very common.

But if it is only "statistically significant" rather than "proportional to the expected amount of homosexuals" that does fit with my theory of variable causes and forms of psychological development that later in life may coalesce into general homosexuality, though with many subgroups that may have their subtle differences.

Yes, there are variable causes. This is pretty well established. The theory I am disputing is that childhood trauma is one of them. I just pointed out that gay kids act differently. Now maybe this is a cause, maybe this is correlation, but again, it pokes a hole in the claimed trauma case argument you have.

Basically, AFAICT, your argument for childhood trauma caused sexual orientation existing is:
0) There are a variety of causes of gayness.
1) There exists a correlation between childhood sexual abuse and gayness.
2) You say that correlation exists even for children too young to act differently because they are gay. The best evidence of this you've shown was one where it was kids 11 and younger, some of which will know they are different then.
3) Conclusion: it must be that childhood sexual trauma can lead to being gay.

I agree with 0 and 1. The problem is with 2 (and to a lesser extent 3). There are serious evidentiary holes with 2. First, that a bunch of kids know they are gay at a young age (that they want the guy not the girl, for example), and this has been a thing even in places where gay was discriminated against. More, the evidence you've provided is lacking, and you are the one making a positive claim. Finally, I've presented evidence that shows behavioral differences between gays and straights at a very young age. Even if these behavioral differences are causal, whose to say that this cause does not explain the greater vulnerability to predators?

Here you have a developmental psychologists linking and discussing 4 studies on answering precisely that question. And he is very much trying to take into account correlation-causation related issues.
Overall he doesn't give a conclusive yes or no to this theory, and brings up some studies that confirm your view (4), some to mine (3), and some that this issue may be more complicated than either, that the relationship between abuse and homosexual tendencies may be bidirectional, and that it may be dependent even on the specific type of abuse.
Overall, seems rather inconclusive, i don't see why this should be handwaved away in favor of taking your view as conclusive for no reason at all.

Um, the author behind study 3 said this:

For psychologists Yin Xu and colleagues, the association between maltreatment and sexual orientation is reduced to non-significance when taking into consideration the gender nonconformity of the sexual-minority youths.

That solidly supports my position: behavior (specifically gender nonconforming behavior) of gay youths makes them more likely to be vicitimized.

I assume that is what you are referring to when you said this?

some to mine (3)

Because none of the other studies show cause either.

Absolutely not. There is no reason why lack of conclusive evidence either way should lead to a default to your opinion that this fully explains such differences, even though there is no conclusive evidence that it does. Perhaps the evidence is not conclusive either way, but rationally that should lead to it being considered, well, inconclusive, and in need of more research.
Even if it does make such children the preferred target for pedophiles, it would need to do so at sufficient numbers to explain this disproportion to confirm your theory.
Meanwhile there is separate research on what exactly makes children targets of pedophiles, and it's not exactly that:

Who Do Child Molesters Target? - TAALK

TAALK - Talk About Abuse to Liberate Kids

www.taalk.org

What the experts know about child sexual abuse and exploitation

What is grooming? How does abuse happen online? We speak to the experts at Barnardo's answering some common questions about sexual abuse and exploitation.

www.barnardos.org.uk

The pattern seems pretty obvious - unassertive, neglected by parents, disabled, generally as incapable of resisting physically and mentally as possible. While you could argue this does fit with the stereotypes of gays, by that logic girls with masculine tendencies should in fact be less likely to be targeted than the average, did anyone observe that?

My position is that there is little to no evidence supporting that CSA causes gayness. You are claiming that it does, which is the positive claim requiring evidence.

As for your attempt to point out gender non-conforming girls as a possibility, note that abuse patterns vary by sex, especially as access to kids by non-parental males varies by sex.

Why the assumption that if some cases of homosexuality can be caused by traumatic experiences, these cases have to be curable, and if they aren't, that means this whole theory has to be invalidated?

The assumption is that if sexuality cannot be changed on purpose in one direction, it cannot be changed in the other direction.

That's an argument going into technicalities and politics. Some skin disorders have no meaningful impact on one's life besides aesthetics which can be relative, yet they are still considered disorders.

And i've shown multiple articles by psychologists claiming that trauma may have some causative effect, even if they aren't willing to call it a 100% sure thing.

No, you haven't. You showed one. And that was one guy, and I already posted my response to that.

That's the second one, and you obviously didn't read the first one:

Ah, thanks. This is interesting!

Of course on the scale of millions of people unusual cases exist - people who lift cars, people who can bend themselves at unusual angles, people who can outrun most animals, but that doesn't invalidate the average.

That's not what I'm talking about. I mean that as a whole group, the likely relationships have substantially shifted in just 50 or so years. This was massive culture change for the better, not just a few outliers.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

That solidly supports my position: behavior (specifically gender nonconforming behavior) of gay youths makes them more likely to be vicitimized.

It should be pointed out in conjunction with this that even outside of outright conversion therapy efforts, certain "experts" actively encourage parents to respond to gender nonconforming behavior among children with punishment and abuse in order to attempt to dissuade them. This makes those children vastly more vulnerable to victimization by third parties.

 

[Marduk]

The sometimes is there because it sometimes happens. It's not rare, but it's not the most common either. But then neither is very young childhood sexual abuse very common.


Yes, there are variable causes. This is pretty well established. The theory I am disputing is that childhood trauma is one of them. I just pointed out that gay kids act differently. Now maybe this is a cause, maybe this is correlation, but again, it pokes a hole in the claimed trauma case argument you have.

You have provided evidence that some gay kids act differently, not that all the kids that act differently turn out gay, nor that all the kids that turn out gay act differently earlier. The difference, if i remember correctly, was around 10-15 points on a 100 point scale, so this principle may be either occasional or apply solely to some "subtype" cause of homosexuality, but it doesn't seem like anything near absolute, reliable pattern.

Basically, AFAICT, your argument for childhood trauma caused sexual orientation existing is:
0) There are a variety of causes of gayness.
1) There exists a correlation between childhood sexual abuse and gayness.
2) You say that correlation exists even for children too young to act differently because they are gay. The best evidence of this you've shown was one where it was kids 11 and younger, some of which will know they are different then.
3) Conclusion: it must be that childhood sexual trauma can lead to being gay.

I agree with 0 and 1. The problem is with 2 (and to a lesser extent 3). There are serious evidentiary holes with 2. First, that a bunch of kids know they are gay at a young age (that they want the guy not the girl, for example), and this has been a thing even in places where gay was discriminated against.

And as i said, it's not conclusive of much, and on top of that, very assymetrical between male/female homosexuality.
By this:

When do gay kids start "acting gay"?

A Minnesota school district is facing a Department of Justice investigation and a private lawsuit over its alleged failure to combat antigay bullying....

slate.com

The relationship isn’t one-to-one, however, and it’s certainly not the case that all boys who love Barbie dolls will later identify as gay. The correlation is much weaker in the other direction: A disproportionate number of boys who don’t conform to gender stereotypes turn out to be gay men, but lots of gay men played with G.I. Joe as boys and quarterbacked the high-school football team.

Psychiatrist Richard Green conducted the leading study in this field in the 1970s and ‘80s. He followed 44 boys who defied traditional gender roles from early childhood to adulthood. Thirty of them became gay or bisexual adults while just one child from a 34-member gender-conforming control group turned out to be gay. The subjects who strayed the most from conventionally boyish behavior were the most likely to be gay. Green’s study has since been repeated by other researchers with similar outcomes. (Studies on females show that only around one-quarter of gender nonconforming girls grow up to be lesbians.)

Unfortunately no figures for comparison for gays and lesbians who had gender role conforming childhood behavior.
Still, seems like this behavior is strikingly good when happens but not strictly necessary predictor of future homosexuality in case of boys (some who didn't do it also become gay as mentioned), but not very accurate at all in case of girls, only 1/4 of them becoming lesbians later (some who didn't do it possibly also become lesbian, not mentioned).

More, the evidence you've provided is lacking, and you are the one making a positive claim. Finally, I've presented evidence that shows behavioral differences between gays and straights at a very young age. Even if these behavioral differences are causal, whose to say that this cause does not explain the greater vulnerability to predators?

Maybe it is, but can we be sure of that? No.
Both claims are positive, as there is always the "we can't be sure either way with what we know" option in the middle.

Um, the author behind study 3 said this:

That solidly supports my position: behavior (specifically gender nonconforming behavior) of gay youths makes them more likely to be vicitimized.

I assume that is what you are referring to when you said this?

Umm, study 3?

3. From the U.K. Avon Longitudinal Study: Xu and associates reported boys with a history of childhood parental maltreatment are more likely to be nonheterosexual “even after controlling for important covariates.”

In case of that being true, the gender non-conforming behavior of girls would imply that tomboys would have similar chances of being victimized as lesbians, while gays without stereotypical gay childhood would have similar rates of victmization to heterosexuals. Do we have any indications of that?

May be an error as these two statements are kinda contradictory, or referring to different studies by the same person.

My position is that there is little to no evidence supporting that CSA causes gayness. You are claiming that it does, which is the positive claim requiring evidence.

As for your attempt to point out gender non-conforming girls as a possibility, note that abuse patterns vary by sex, especially as access to kids by non-parental males varies by sex.

I'm claiming that with current state of knowledge it might, and we can't exclude that possibility.
This is why the article's author throws in some questions in later paragraph:

Questions this research raises but does not answer include: Does childhood maltreatment directly cause or shape a not-straight orientation? That is, does the parental and peer abuse cause children to be not straight? Given the well-established finding that sexual-minority youths are more gender nonconforming than straight youths, do children provoke the abuse by being gender deviant? That is, do parents abuse their gender unorthodox children in an attempt to straighten them out? Do peers abuse them because they are disgusted with masculine girls and feminine boys? Do the not-straight children elicit sexual encounters with same-sex adults because of their homosexual inclinations? Are not-straight youths biasing their retrospective recall of abuse?

Long story short, this field doesn't seem to be explored throughly enough to make definitive statement, so let's not play burden of proof games with the implication that if i can't find hard evidence that option B is true, we can be safe to assume that option A is true despite having enough unanswered questions among which option B might be hiding, and approach the issue with healthy skepticism.

The assumption is that if sexuality cannot be changed on purpose in one direction, it cannot be changed in the other direction.

Which as i said is a wild assumption, because many less controversial mental distorders do not follow this assumption, as in we have a far better idea on what is their cause exactly and even how to replicate it if it wasn't ethical than on how to make people suffering from them normal.

No, you haven't. You showed one. And that was one guy, and I already posted my response to that.

Replied to that earlier.

Ah, thanks. This is interesting!

That's not what I'm talking about. I mean that as a whole group, the likely relationships have substantially shifted in just 50 or so years. This was massive culture change for the better, not just a few outliers.

Homosexual divorce rates are massively higher than heterosexual, even though that implies happening in places pro-LGBT enough to have homosexual marriage in the first place, and people leaning enough towards long term relationship to bother with using it.

 

[Abhorsen]

In case of that being true, the gender non-conforming behavior of girls would imply that tomboys would have similar chances of being victimized as lesbians, while gays without stereotypical gay childhood would have similar rates of victmization to heterosexuals. Do we have any indications of that?

May be an error as these two statements are kinda contradictory, or referring to different studies by the same person.

The abstract from that study:

This study tested whether associations between childhood maltreatment and adolescent sexual orientation were accounted for by childhood gender nonconforming behavior (GNCB) in a prospective birth cohort (N = 5,007). Childhood parental maltreatment (physical and emotional) and GNCB were assessed on multiple occasions up to age 6 years, and sexual orientation at 15.5 years. Boys with a history of maltreatment were significantly more likely to be nonheterosexual. Using propensity score weighting, maltreatment was associated with a 3.5% (p = .03) increase in the prevalence of nonheterosexuality accounting for confounders not including GNCB, and by 2.9% (p = .06) when also accounting for GNCB. These findings suggest that maltreatment is associated with an increased prevalence of nonheterosexuality in boys but may be explained by confounding factors including GNCB.

Note that the p value is not significant (a p values of less than .05 is what is normally used) once GNCB is accounted for.

So no, that study again supports my position.

I'm claiming that with current state of knowledge it might, and we can't exclude that possibility.
This is why the article's author throws in some questions in later paragraph:

That's not what you claimed initially:

Between the "abuse effect" and the cultural differences, i think it's established that it is possible to manipulate the sexuality of a person after birth, even though the exact mechanisms aren't well explored, their reliability is hard to quantify

Here, you cite the abuse effect as evidence that it is possible to manipulate the sexuality of someone after birth, not just saying it might be the case. That's what I'm pointing out you do not have evidence for, and in fact, the evidence seems to argue against it.

As for the author, it's psychology today. Not the worst, but not an author I'll take advice from either (though I will look at the studies and quotes from people they have).

Basically, all the evidence we seem to have doesn't endorse this position. Obviously, it's tremendously difficult to prove a negative, but I see no reason to assume the positive with the evidence you've shown.

Homosexual divorce rates are massively higher than heterosexual, even though that implies happening in places pro-LGBT enough to have homosexual marriage in the first place, and people leaning enough towards long term relationship to bother with using it.

I'm not saying they are in a perfect spot. I'm saying the trajectory is tremendously pointed in the right direction. Long term relationships used to almost never happen, now they are. Also, data from divorce seems to be somewhat mixed:

Divorce of same-sex couples - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Marduk]

The abstract from that study:


Note that the p value is not significant (a p values of less than .05 is what is normally used) once GNCB is accounted for.

So no, that study again supports my position.

That's a big *may* before that support.

That's not what you claimed initially:

Here, you cite the abuse effect as evidence that it is possible to manipulate the sexuality of someone after birth, not just saying it might be the case. That's what I'm pointing out you do not have evidence for, and in fact, the evidence seems to argue against it.

Of course, after you have excluded from our discussion the more extreme cases of manipulation of sexuality as not counting (Afghan abuse of boys creating abusers, trans-trending), we are left limited gay and lesbian, and for those specific scenarios of course there is less material to work with.
However, in the general understanding manipulation of sexuality would refer to all these scenarios and more, no matter how pathological, unusual or immoral immoral, not just limited to the straight-homosexual dimension.

As for the author, it's psychology today. Not the worst, but not an author I'll take advice from either (though I will look at the studies and quotes from people they have).

Basically, all the evidence we seem to have doesn't endorse this position. Obviously, it's tremendously difficult to prove a negative, but I see no reason to assume the positive with the evidence you've shown.

My point exactly. "We don't have enough information to conclude one way or another" is a result i'm perfectly willing to accept.

I'm not saying they are in a perfect spot. I'm saying the trajectory is tremendously pointed in the right direction. Long term relationships used to almost never happen, now they are. Also, data from divorce seems to be somewhat mixed:

Divorce of same-sex couples - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It does however seem that the part of the mix was from short term studies that didn't give much time for divorce to happen after marriages.

Lesbian couples are TWICE as likely to divorce as gay men

Of those same-sex couples who divorced last year, 589 - 72 per cent - took place between women. There were 233 between men, Office for National Statistics data showed.

www.dailymail.co.uk

If the UK data is any indication, the early comparisons for obvious reasons aren't indicative of much.