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For the folks here who talk heatedly about trans issues - I want to pose a thought experiment. Let's say it's the year 2300, and people can quickly, cheaply and painlessly switch their sex from male to female, and vice versa. There are no long term side effects, and it's as simple as going to buy a pill from the corner store.
On top of that, fertility issues have been handled, babies are grown/raised by artificial wombs and many different types of family structures are available with parents being able to choose what works best for their preference. Gender and sex can play a role if needed, but only for those who wish to have traditional families. It is not socially stigmatized to raise a family with two women, or two men, etc.
If this all were the case, would you have issues with people transitioning genders/sex still? If not, at what point along the line do you think it becomes okay to freely switch?
No, it’s not ok. We should stigmatize options other than traditional families, because other options make a shitty default and seem unable to just coexist without being supremely annoying and whining about how their near-constant promotion isn’t good enough.
Preliminary: I'm assuming (this being a gender discussion) that by "options other than traditional families", you mean gay/lesbian/trans parents, not single-parent households, which are obviously fucked.
Trans parents may be at higher risk of suicide, but that's covered by "let's not have parents who are suicide risks", and not related to them being trans specifically.
So we're left with "gay/lesbian/trans-not-a-suicide-risk parents". I claim they're just as fine. I offer two citations from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LGBT_parenting&oldid=1126262442#Research: this Australian Psychological Society literature review that cites a shitload of papers, and this amici in Obergefell. I find it unlikely that all of the papers cited therein are shit, but happy to spot-check a few.
Anyway, you also say the stigma is justified due to them being annoying. I am unaware of any ethical system that supports stigmatizing people because you find them annoying. Stigmatizing someone clearly does them more harm than any amount of "whining" could balance out. What's wrong with stigmatizing whining itself? Whining is pretty annoying. Also, you don't have to listen to them!
Moreover, I concur with @drmanhattan16 that you have no evidence that they have to whine. It is not an analytic truth. So, you have to demonstrate that there's something innate to the collective existence of non-traditional families that creates whining. I can't see any. But that's besides the point, because I've already established that whining isn't severe enough to justify stigmatizing them.
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I tend to agree. Traditional family structures and especially living contiguously around a small group of people your whole life seems to be the best way to have everyone be mentally stable, happy etc. Unfortunately not possible in the modern world, so my thought is that we need to find some good alternatives, or at least ways to emulate that in light of modern economics and the large geographical span of our societies.
Eh, I know some trans people who are okay with not being promoted everywhere. They just kind of want to do their thing. Problem is these types of people tend to just cut out all their social connections except a few, anecdotally, so you don't hear about them as much. Sort of a selection effect. Sadly we have collectively decided to give credence to the loud ones, instead of shutting them down like we would a nerd who railed about how people need to treat him like a saint because he's great at Magic the Gathering.
That is the thing. The person who transitions socially and acts and dresses appropriately, even if they don't pass perfectly, and just wants to live an ordinary life? Yeah, we can get along. Calling them "Sally" and using "she/her" is courtesy. I'm not even going to get hot under the collar about sharing a bathroom. The Darren Merager kind of person? Barricade the doors.
What is aggravating is the loudmouth activists who don't even try to pass, or who try to pass as strippers from a hentai anime, or have loud theoretical demands about society totally changing the entire understanding of sex and gender and who have a bingo card of 'neurodivergency' or 'disabilities' along with being trans so you have to accommodate all their demands and requirements, you bigot!
It's Rachel Levine versus Sam Brinton (though I'm still unsure if Brinton is trans or not; they are described as bisexual and gender fluid or non-binary, but in that Instagram they describe themselves by implication as trans). Levine may be open to criticism that they only started wearing the uniform, even though technically they're in a civilian role, after their promotion, but they're old-school trans who do try to act and look as female as they can. Brinton is a show-off looking for attention. (Levine may have a touch of that going on, too, but it's nowhere near the level of Brinton).
The 'Rachel Levine' kind of trans is someone you can live with, even if you disagree. The 'Sam Brinton' kind you can't, because the whole point is to get up in your face and make demands and keep making more and more limit-pushing demands.
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If we have the technology to easily switch sexes, it seems likely we'd have enough control over other things, including biology, to discover new happy living arrangements that aren't currently technically possible.
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What's your proof that non-traditional-family advocates are unable to exist without "whining"?
This being a negative claim, I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that they indeed possess such an ability.
What's your proof that full-communism won't happen if we stack a few more million bodies? That Jesus Christ is not God? That there isn't a teapot orbiting Saturn?
Nope, the default assumption is that we don't know if they are unable to exist without whining. Anyone who wants to come down on either side of it has to prove it either way.
Well, note, what I actually said was ‘seem unable to just coexist without being supremely annoying and whining about how their near-constant promotion isn’t good enough.’
This is, notably, not a strong ontological claim. It’s an epistemic claim(they come off as unable to stop being annoying and cease complaining about needing to be promoted more).
It’s factually true that non-traditional family advocates spend a lot of time complaining about how broader society needs to further reorient itself towards validating them and promoting their lifestyles, in spite of everything society is already doing along that line. Them being annoying isn’t a claim that can be objective; it’s inherently a subjective value judgement. And my lived experiences and preferences are as valid as theirs are.
It can be to an extent. We already defined the word "annoying", so we can presumably show cases of them fitting the definition. If you're going to say that they spend a lot of time complaining about how society isn't good enough for them, I'd like to see proof of them doing this.
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It never ceases to amaze me how quick people are to join me in radical skepticism if their assumptions are pressed. But surely if you hold to such high standards you must know that nothing at all can be proven, right? As Pyrro, you must realize in the wisdom of this logic that knowledge is impossible. Because it ultimately always could be that what has been deemed true could be invalidated, and that forever remains this possibility. Therefore the default assumption should be that we don't know that anything is true.
But then, let's assume for practical purposes that we're not stabbing at the truth but at a practical empirical model that would allow us to make predictions. One that holds to, among other principles, parsimony.
Would you agree that such a model must consider all negative claims to be false by default?
I'm not jumping to radical skepticism because my assumptions are pressed, the person I was responding to was making a positive claim without proof. I think I can have my own assumptions and also note the lack of evidence being offered by the other person.
I think Phoebe said the same to Ross in Friends at one point when it came to the dinosaurs, but even I understood at that age that Ross should have responded that both of them had an obligation to believe whatever the evidence said at this time. That we might update our knowledge doesn't mean we can't have it, as far as I know.
I don't understand how you wouldn't be approximating truth by doing that.
Incorrect. They were making a negative claim. That is a statement about the nonexistence or exclusion of something. Saying something is impossible is not a positive claim, it is a negative one. By definition.
And Ross would be mistaken, clearly, as being wrong in a context that gave you good reasons to think your error was the truth is still being wrong. At least in the absolute terms we speak of here.
What Ross should have said is that this is our best approximation of the truth. And that operating under one's best guess is reasonable.
Oh but it does mean just that. What you think is knowledge isn't knowledge. It's a model. The map is not the territory.
You would, but there is no other possible thing you can do.
Okay, fine. They were making a claim without evidence. There you go. I don't know what the point of this philosophical discussion is, it seems to be fairly trivial.
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