Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
You might be picking up correctly what their opinion is, but not their justification for it. It's particularly strange you claim that it has something to do with the study, when they don't say anything of that sort explicitly.
Here I said trans people are happier if they are allowed to transition and get treated as their preferred gender, and that therefore they should be allowed to transition and get treated as their preferred gender, and someone pointed to the study to rebut my claim.
If "gender" is just a desire for being treated that way, than clearly that desire exists, but then people who say "no one should transition" aren't saying "X isn't their stated gender", which would have to mean "they don't actually have that desire", they're saying they're refusing to fulfill it.
Yes, the terminology would have to be adjusted. Other than that, do you agree that that view of gender is reasonable?
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Where the hell did THAT come from?
Mainstream anti-trans rhetoric. Not you specifically.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Imane Khelif isn't even trans! By all accounts, she has a vagina and was raised as a girl, and she and her entire family have believed she is female her whole life. Even if she does have XY chromosomes (not confirmed), a hundred years ago we wouldn't have even known that and no one would have questioned her womanhood.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
My understanding is that the reason for segregating locker rooms by sex is to prevent men from looking at women because that would make the women uncomfortable, not to protect men's eyes, and, to a much lesser extent, to prevent women from looking at men because that would make the men uncomfortable, not to protect women's eyes. Yes, this does ignore LGB people, but sex-segregated locker rooms originate in an era when LGB people were ignored.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Go try and edit Wikipedia to reflect your belief that Elliot Page was a woman when he played a pregnant teenage girl. Heck, go on Wikipedia and edit the Elliot Page article to state that Page might be a man now but he still is biologically female and was born female (rather than merely being “assigned female at birth” by an ignorant doctor)
You're just nitpicking about terminology. Everyone knows that "AFAB" is a euphemism for "born female". Do you campaign against euphemisms in general or is it this one specific pair of euphemisms that you consider the great political issue of our time?
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
The vast majority of us allegedly "anti-trans" folks aren't being bigots; we're just trying to restore a measure of normalcy.
The vast majority of anti-trans people are not enacting minimum standards to use toilets or do other sex-segregated activities: they're banning trans people completely, regardless of how well they pass, how much effort they've put in, or how sincere they are. That is the mainstream anti-trans view. Your view, if you have described it accurately, is fringe.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
rewriting history and Wikipedia to avoid "deadnames" in a very Stalinesque/Orwellian way
Where does that happen? Let's look at Wikipedia specifically. The articles for Caitlyn Jenner and Elliot Page have their former names right there in the first sentence. I think a lower-profile trans person who wasn't notable before transitioning might have their name excluded, maybe because there are no reliable sources available stating their former name, maybe as a courtesy, since it is of no interest to the public anyway. The same courtesy was unfortunately not extended to Scott Alexander, but it is extended to, for example, the streamer Jerma985 whose real name you won't find anywhere in his article. It formerly contained a fake real name, which he presents as his real name, presumably to protect his privacy, but even that has now been removed.
policing of pronoun usage, with penalties ranging from loss of employment to jail
Has anyone ever lost their job because they didn't use the right pronouns? If they did this consistently, especially if they did it to customers, it could be seen as disrespectful, akin to calling their coworkers or customers names, which is a valid reason to lose a job.
Has anyone ever gone to jail because of pronouns? As far as I can tell, that is just a fantasy of Jordan Peterson's.
being forced to loudly affirm that trans people and ideologies are the bestest ever, with penalties ranging from loss of employment to jail
Has that ever happened?
destroying the categories of "male" and "female" in all discourse
If you look carefully, you'll notice that all they've done is change the terms to "AMAB" and "AFAB", respectively. Having these categories is, in fact, necessary, and even trans activists can't get away from them. All they can do is be politically correct.
having no willingness to rein in (or even acknowledge) bad actors who are feigning transness as a way to invade women's spaces and sports
If that's your concern, talk about that instead of claiming that all trans people are perverts, rapists, misogynists, etc., and none of them should be treated as their preferred gender. FWIW, I agree these concerns are valid.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Your summary presupposes that some trans people are their stated gender, and I don't know if it's more accurate than other summaries that don't make that assumption, for example "this subset of trans people are deluded in this specific way (while others are in other ways)".
But the typical anti-trans claim is that being trans is itself a delusion, that one cannot change one's gender, or there is no such thing as gender, only sex, which cannot be changed, etc. In that case, why you believe you are a different gender is irrelevant.
No, absolutely not.
If gender identity and dysphoria is fixed at birth, then you have to deal with which rights to give them and what medical treatments to perform. "None" is a valid answer, even if it's not one I like.
If gender identity is mutable and dysphoria can be caused, then you also have to deal with social policies that cause or prevent it.
I'm addressing people who answer "none". People who believe trans people should have rights and get treatment, etc., but also ROGD is a thing, etc., are certainly not the majority of the anti-trans movement. I am, in fact, such a person, but I am not part of the anti-trans movement.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
As I said, I agree there should be standards for trans people to be treated as their preferred gender. But if that's what you believe, advocate that, instead of claiming that all trans people are perverts, rapists, misogynists, etc., and none of them should be treated as their preferred gender.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
That's not cherry-picked information. That is one of the medical interventions in question. That is an actual trans medical intervention, and that is what happens in that surgery. The penis is removed. You are left with an hole that needs to be constantly dilated. You don't get to just waive your hands and say the magic words "cherry-picking" to dismiss arguments you don't like.
You pointing us to to reddit . com for a bunch of people happy with that same surgery is an actual example of cherry-picking.
I've seen the images they've seen, the collages, the screenshots, the threads, that gave them that opinion on SRS. It's not neutral, unbiased coverage.
I mentioned people unhappy with their surgeries and if you'd bothered to click on the link you'd've seen the thread titled "Unhappy with my results" right there on the front page (it was there yesterday, it's a bit more hidden now; instead there's one titled "Really disheartened." now).
It was never just this, don't lie to us.
So are you saying that if that had been the demand, you would have agreed, but you disagree with the greater demands that trans activists are actually putting forth? If that is the case, treat people as their preferred gender, since you agree that's reasonable, and don't acquiesce to the greater demands. There are certainly many things trans activists advocate that I disagree with.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Okay, are we talking about toilets or locker rooms?
Regarding locker rooms, how does a trans woman's penis negatively affect the cis women in the locker room? Just look away.
And does it not equally violate social norms to have a trans woman's breasts, which look like normal female breasts, displayed in a men's locker room?
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Firstly, I think it's profoundly condescending to tell someone they've been "fed" cherry-picked stories, dumb sheeple that they are.
Maybe "fed" is the wrong word, but I've seen the images they've seen, the collages, the screenshots, the threads, that gave them that opinion on SRS.
Secondly, @Shakes wasn't passing a value judgement on the efficacy of bottom surgery: the part of his comment that you quoted is literally just an (accurate) description of what a vaginoplasty entails.
Doctors would not describe a neovagina as an "open wound".
Thirdly, it's rather hypocritical of you to accuse someone of having fallen for cherry-picked stories that portray bottom surgery negatively, then link to a subreddit that selects for people who are happy with their surgeries while excluding detransitioners (or, more sadly, people who took their own lives after undergoing bottom surgery).
I mentioned people unhappy with their surgeries and if you'd bothered to click on the link you'd've seen the thread titled "Unhappy with my results" right there on the front page (it was there yesterday, it's a bit more hidden now; instead there's one titled "Really disheartened." now).
This proves too much. Heroin addicts claim to feel better when they use heroin. (I don't even disbelieve them – I'm sure they do feel happier in the short-term.)
Usually they admit when it wears off somewhat that they're actually miserable and their life sucks. They're not acting rationally when they shoot up. Trans people don't go back and forth like that.
The fact that gender reassignment surgeries open their recipients up to a host of health problems they would not otherwise have had seems as good an "objective" metric as any other. As you more or less concede in the top-level comment, the question of whether surgical transition actually improves trans people's mental flourishing certainly seems to be an open one, and the point of medical studies is to give us hard data which will inform our decisions on whether it's a good idea for individual patients. If 90% of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria saw a durable uplift to their subjective well-being after undergoing surgical transition, it would be a no-brainer. 70%? Sure. 50%? Hmm – you might need to have a bit of a think about that one. 30%? Probably not until you've already tried several years of talk therapy. 10%? Only as a matter of last resort for those in such severe psychic distress that it's this or suicide.
If a person is considering undergoing a major elective medical procedure which will render it impossible for them to have children and opens them up to a host of medical problems they would not otherwise have had, we need robust data on the efficacy of that procedure in improving its recipients' subjective sense of well-being. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, some people feel better afterwards" simply isn't good enough. (All of this goes double if you're expecting the taxpayer to foot the bill, as some trans activists demand.)
I'm confident that criteria could be developed that, when administered by an experienced psychiatrist, their mind clouded neither by transphobia nor by trans-affirming delusions, could determine whether someone would actually benefit from transition with >90% accuracy.
When convicted male rapists with intact genitalia are demanding to serve their sentences in the female estate and these demands are being granted – then yes, this is a woke perversion to be fought. It's pure historical revisionism to claim that gender-critical people started this fight and that "trans people just want to live their lives in peace".
If your concerns are about trans prisoners specifically, talk about that instead of accusing all trans people of being perverts, rapists, misogynists, etc.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
The sex in this case was consensual. No one was harmed, other than the potential children if they didn't end up being aborted. The claim was trans women would be raping cis women prisoners. If anything, having consensual sex makes your prison experience nicer. Not that I think it's a good thing.
Claims of rape are still baseless. Trans women who've been on hormones for years can't even get an erection. And a feminine-looking individual, regardless of what you believe their gender is, is at serious risk in an American men's prison (not that most feminists care about men being raped). Ideally a distinction would be made between people who were on hormones before going to prison and those who "come out" as trans only after being locked up to stir shit because they're antisocial degenerates who want to watch the world burn. (I mean, ideally prison rape would be addressed, but that's far more ambitious.)
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
The implementation of the liberal affirmative model accompanying a medical model put this to bed. You can't have a medical condition and a socially affirmative model assisted by wide celebration of concepts of identity placed in proximity to the general population, including children.
Some people are attention-seekers; therefore, everything believe is wrong?
You can't do so and claim you are adhering to rigorous medical research which has a default answer of "We don't know" to many basic questions about the condition, causes, and populations effected. Not when advocates and experts in medicine insist dysphoria is not a prerequisite for transgenderism.
If your belief is that there isn't enough gatekeeping – which I agree with – then argue that, and not that all trans people are wrong and need to be stopped, etc.
If the Dutch Protocols led to 20 years more rigorous study with small experimental cohorts that invited critical dissent and testing, trans people not only would be better off but we might have a more advanced understanding of the condition. Of course if you tolerate slow, plodding research that demands dissent to progress in experimental areas -- to question and define the nature of gender, sex, identity and dysphoria -- you will have condemned some small number of trans people to suffering. They would have suffered for a purpose, namely a greater understanding and a lower profile that provided more tolerance via obscurity. Maybe we could do brain scans by now to screen or something.
The ideal outcome was for trans research to go on as a medical venture without ideological or social interest. An interesting article in The Atlantic would have popped up every few years.
Yet no one (other than me?) is arguing that. It's either the unquestioningly pro-trans side, with all the valid criticisms you listed, or the absolutely anti-trans side, claiming trans people are perverts, rapists, misogynists, etc.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
is a statement of complaint about some real events, rather than an illustration of the reasoning being explained.
I would say it's reasonable to expect an illustration of reasoning you disagree with to be a somewhat plausible application of that reasoning to a somewhat plausible scenario.
A combination of a lot of things, many little, a few big. The big/overarching ones would be: being tired of how much motivated reasoning I had to engage in; reading primary sources of the most highly-regarded "scholarship" that underpins intersectional feminism and realizing that there's no there there; noticing the complete lack of self-awareness by the supporters of the ideology in analyzing their own motivations for believing and supporting the ideology (i.e. searching for self-serving reasons that explain one's genuine belief in the ideology), which extended to punishing people for attempting to be self-aware themselves. This led me to conclude that this truly was a secular religion that was faith-based to its core, with, at most, one grain of truth (i.e. people sometimes treat other people unfairly due to their biases) which had already been incorporated into basic liberalism for decades anyway.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I have long been sceptical of "intersectionality" and related ideas, but it's never led me to oppose trans people as a whole. If people share bad arguments in favour a position, or if bad people share arguments in favour of a position, that doesn't imply (in the sense of logical implication) that the position is wrong.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
I agree that this study is not enough to conclude that, but I don't I've seen anyone say "this study clearly shows that no one should transition".
That's the certainly the impression I got from people citing the study, even if none of them said so explicitly. Do you agree some people should transition?
Instead, it is a rebuttal to the pro trans narrative that claims they are able to accurately diagnose dysphoria, and that these interventions not only help, but are medically necessary. This conversation has a long running context, where the pro-trans side was deliberately misleading people and attacking skeptics for years, so I don't think it's right to try and portray them as saying "well, we just think there's a non-zero number of people who might benefit from this"
I am not the pro-trans side; I am one person on this website. You are arguing with my claim that some trans would benefit from, and should be allowed to, transition.
The kind of people who say "no one should transition" don't so much believe some one "isn't their stated gender", they question the very concept of gender. I think it's a strong argument, "gender" is effectively a religious belief. Specifically it seems that it's a secular version of the belief in a soul, and I think it's fair to say that this is not a valid basis for a medical intervention
A simple concept of "gender" that avoids any metaphysical or spiritual claims is that "my gender is 'woman'" means "I want to be treated, in most social situations, as you would treat the average person with XX chromosomes (however you refer to such a person)". I realize this is not the version typically advocated, but I am not the typical pro-trans advocate.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
There are some treatments I would never consider good treatments no matter how many people they made feel better. That's not me trying to argue as such, that's just me trying to be open about how much I'm willing to concede. For instance, I just don't think "having your dick cut off" or vaginoplasty is really a valid form of treatment. I'm not saying this as the result of any evidence about post-op follow-up studies. For me that evidence doesn't even register. You can call me retrograde for this, I won't mind.
So it's some kind of irrational bias?
I mean, do you think that there is no perversion in the trans movement at all? Gay rights went through this in the 90s where a significant part of the movement was in fact made up of organizations like the "North American Man-Boy Love Association". And the movement kicked those people out and tried to present itself as "normal". And then the public started to accept it more. And there are still people who dress up in leather on the sidewalk and piss on each other in public. And there are gay activists who declare that they're proud to be perverts and that being perverted is good.
As in, you're trying to fundamentally change what people understand by the basic biological categories of male and female, and not only is that controversial by itself, but there is in fact a lot of deviance within the trans movement. And I don't say that to be mean, I'm sure there are a lot of trans individuals who are basically "normal". But acting as though everything in the movement is totally normal and it's the anti-trans activists who made everything toxic seems like denial as a strategy.
Certainly there are perverts, according to any reasonable definition, in every letter of LGBT. What I object to is the notion that being trans (or LGB) is in itself a perversion.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Who's complaining? Please point out to me where in my:
e.g. someone who comes out as gay after years of enthusiastic heterosexual sex that they didn't regret was always gay from the moment of birth to now.
implies in any way that this is a bad thing or that I'm complaining about it.
The tone of the entire paragraph certainly suggests that you disagree with what you have dubbed "dualism".
I'm basing this on actual conversations I had with actual trans activists who I was on the same "side" as all the way through around early 2020s. I used to be an intersectional feminist (still a feminist today, just not that kind) who was very much on the entire "break down all social norms and queer everything" train (heh) up to that point
If you don't mind sharing, what made you change your mind?
and know for a fact that, yes, trans activists do draw a very clear distinction between trans women and drag queens, but they certainly see the normalization of the latter as a good tool for normalizing the former, via attacking heteronormativity and opening up people's minds to the possibilities of human expression and sexuality and etc. that are being suppressed by our current oppressive system.
I'll have to concede on this, as I am not personally involved in activist circles and am not privy to this kind of strategizing.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Both the Substack article and the Wikipedia article seem to be suggesting that all this is merely the prelude to mass killings, along the lines of the ten stages of genocide. The Wikipedia article, being a page on a wiki, is admittedly less coherent.
Indeed, they don't treat gay men very well, but it's very interesting how this doesn't extend to trans people. This suggests that transness is not necessarily a controversial political question closely associated with LGB rights. It just became one in the West due to contingent historical circumstances. But it could have gone the other way, and that is the whole point of bringing up Iran. Iran is not some kind of progressive utopia – trans rights don't have to be a progressive, woke, liberal or left-wing issue.
It's a very interesting question, and certainly one which people who want to discuss the culture war rather than wage it should care about, why and how something becomes a culture war issue.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Who knows? Doesn't matter, according to the "born this way" metaphysics of homosexuality.
It doesn't make sense to complain about some bad thing your opponents caused if it never actually happens. I find it most implausible that someone should have "years of enthusiastic heterosexual sex that they didn't regret" and then come out as gay.
Which is why, e.g. pushes against "Drag Queen Story Hour" and similar activities have been labeled as part of "trans genocide" - the reasoning being that, if you don't normalize subversive gender expression like that among children, there will likely be at least some of them who would have discovered their innate transness but never did to due to not encountering such subversions, which reduces the population of trans people.
With all due respect, this suggests to me that you don't actually understand the other side very well. Trans activists, drag queens, and associated people draw a very clear distinction between trans women and drag queens. It is mostly anti-trans people who conflate the two.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
Do you look at other people's genitals in the toilet or the changing room? How does it affect you? Especially women's toilets which only have stalls and no urinals.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
I think your perception is skewed. For one, the most powerful person in the world, elected by a majority of American voters, is anti-trans.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
e.g. someone who comes out as gay after years of enthusiastic heterosexual sex that they didn't regret was always gay from the moment of birth to now.
How often does this happen?
Furthermore, if they actually go through their natural puberty, they might believe that they "grew out" of their innate transness, which means one less trans person than there otherwise would have been, which is one of many forms that "trans genocide" takes place.
No, the concern is that (1) being treated as the wrong gender is extremely unpleasant, and the sooner it ends, the better, and (2) transitioning later will make it more difficult to pass. I don't think trans people think people deciding they're cis after all is bad in any way. Some might believe it never happens, but for those who accept that it does, I don't think they consider it "trans genocide". Claims of "trans genocide" focus on alleged actual killings of trans people.
I'm finding sources from 2016 for your claim. Maybe you haven't been following the news, but in his second term Trump has enacted all sorts of executive orders restricting trans people in various ways.
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