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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   23371 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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so the fact that people are self-reporting it is the evidence.

Ok, thank you. So it seems there is nothing to distinguish trans people from those who self-report as being Jesus; or who self-report as having been abducted by aliens; or who self-report as having been spoken to directly by some deity; etc. Agreed?

A common argument is to ask the person you're arguing with, "If you woke up this morning and found you had been transformed into a stereotypical example of the opposite gender, how would you feel about that?" If you would prefer that to your current body, this means that you are transgender.

I think this argument proves too much. If I woke up tomorrow morning and found that I had been transformed into a man who looked pretty much like Henry Cavil and was 25 years old, I would be pretty happy about the change. That doesn't say anything about my innate identity as a short mediocre-looking man in his 50s with graying hair, though.

I think this argument proves too much. If I woke up tomorrow morning and found that I had been transformed into a man who looked pretty much like Henry Cavil and was 25 years old, I would be pretty happy about the change.

I think the assumption here would be that there are people who would basically go crazy and try to tear their skin off every time they looked in a mirror and saw Henry Cavil. Like, the fact that you would be personally fine with it is not necessarily a generally true fact about how identity works.

(Sadly, we'll have to wait until the singularity to properly test this.)

I think the assumption here would be that there are people who would basically go crazy and try to tear their skin off every time they looked in a mirror and saw Henry Cavil

There may be people like this, but I'm not. (But I'll make it even easier. If I woke up tomorrow morning and I was transformed into a 25 year old version of myself, I'd be delighted. ) This single counter example disproves the entire generalization.

Unless of course, what transgender really means is that the person desires to be the other gender. Which I strongly suspect is pretty close to the truth.

Nobody in this thread is saying it's universally true though. In fact lots of people, me included in the comment you're replying to, say that it isn't.

Nobody in this thread is saying it's universally true though.

I strongly disagree. Here's what the person had said:

A common argument is to ask the person you're arguing with, "If you woke up this morning and found you had been transformed into a stereotypical example of the opposite gender, how would you feel about that?" If you would prefer that to your current body, this means that you are transgender.

This person is clearly making a universal generalization. He doesn't say "this probably means that you are transgender" or "this might mean that you are transgender." Rather, he says "this means that you are transgender" without any qualification. Therefore a single counter-example is sufficient to disprove the entire argument.

But okay, obviously you are not on the hook to defend another person's argument. So let me ask you this:

Under what circumstances is it true that a desire (or preference) to "wake up as a woman," indicates that the individual is transgender?

A common argument is to ask the person you're arguing with, "If you woke up this morning and found you had been transformed into a stereotypical example of the opposite gender, how would you feel about that?" If you would prefer that to your current body, this means that you are transgender.

Hang on, how is this in contradiction? If you have a strong sense of gender perception, then the test works? If you don't have a strong sense of gender perception, it's unclear in what sense the concept of transgender even applies to you.

Hang on, how is this in contradiction? If you have a strong sense of gender perception, then the test works? If you don't have a strong sense of gender perception, it's unclear in what sense the concept of transgender even applies to you.

I have no idea what your point is here. The person is making an unqualified generalization. Therefore a single counter-example will suffice to disprove the generalization.

So it seems there is nothing to distinguish trans people from those who self-report as being Jesus; or who self-report as having been abducted by aliens; or who self-report as having been spoken to directly by some deity; etc. Agreed?

These other claims all, to varying degrees, depend on external facts to be true. For example by asserting you've been abducted by aliens, you're asserting that aliens exist.

Gender ideology views gender claims as being more similar to someone saying "I had a dream about aliens last night." If you're talking to some weirdo who's never had a dream before, you may need to convince them that it's possible, but to most people it's obvious that the claim is both plausible and not really possible to disprove.

These other claims all, to varying degrees, depend on external facts to be true.

What external facts need to be true in order for a person to be Jesus?

What external facts need to be true in order for a person to be black?

What external facts need to be true in order for a person to be a cat?

To be Jesus: Jesus needs to actually be the religious figure he is depicted as in the Bible. (Or, I guess it's possible that Jesus was just an ordinary guy, but reincarnation is possible more generally.)

To be Black: The definition is usually something like "My ancestors were born in Africa [during some specific time period]", but it is more difficult to nail down, and different people often mean slightly different things.

To be a cat: Some people do accept that you can be a cat in the same purely-internal-identity way that you can be a woman. Other people would draw a line based on genetics or physiology in a way that's acceptable to do for species but not gender.

To be a cat: Some people do accept that you can be a cat in the same purely-internal-identity way that you can be a woman. Other people would draw a line based on genetics or physiology in a way that's acceptable to do for species but not gender.

I don't get this. They rejected trans-race on this grounds, but sex is far less clinal than race, and it's funny, because it's the same type of people who point this out in the HBD debates.

To be Black: The definition is usually something like "My ancestors were born in Africa [during some specific time period]", but it is more difficult to nail down, and different people often mean slightly different things.

To be a woman, you need to have two X chromosomes.

The definition is usually something like "My ancestors were born in Africa [during some specific time period]"

Who gets to decide what the "usual" definition is of such a category? And would you agree that a big societal change in the definition requires a compelling reason?

Some people do accept that you can be a cat in the same purely-internal-identity way that you can be a woman.

I'm asking about the mainstream progressive view. If there is no such view, I am asking about your views.

in a way that's acceptable to do for species but not gender.

Who gets to decide what's "acceptable"?

Gender ideology holds that these definitions, and the boundaries of what's acceptable, are obvious and self-evident. They're just what Good People believe, and if you don't believe them you're a Bad Person.

In practice this means that they're set by the people who have enough persuasiveness/social power/etc to successfully ostracize the people who don't believe in them. To the extent that gender ideology internally acknowledges these people at all, it mostly credits them in the same way you'd credit a mathematician with "discovering" or "communicating" some inherent property of numbers that was true even before the mathematician published the proof.

I think that both "you can identify as a cat" and "you can't identify as a cat" are within gender ideology's Overton window at the moment. I lean "can't" at the moment, but it's better to avoid committing to that in case new obviously self-evident truths get discovered in the future.

Gender ideology holds that these definitions, and the boundaries of what's acceptable, are obvious and self-evident. They're just what Good People believe, and if you don't believe them you're a Bad Person.

Ok, thanks for answering my questions.

Assuming that you have given answers that are in line with mainstream progressive thought, I am satisfied that gender ideology (or whatever you want to call it) is a bunch of ridiculous nonsense -- fundamentally no different from belief in astrology. Except of course that believers in astrology aren't trying to reshape public policy in ways that cause real harm to real people.

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