This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What's your evidence for this claim?
I mean it's not rocket surgery, assuming no need for secondary gain you just ask some pretty basic questions and you can figure out which of the phenotypes are here (assuming secondary gain it's harder but we do have inventories for that).
Coming up with and validating a structured interview or formal scale request genuine research and investigation, even if a few guys in a room can quickly spitball something that likely does the job that ain't the same thing a formal gold standard form of testing.
As for if it actually exists, I mean you have people who are attracted to feet, children, being murdered and eaten. Getting the gender/sex wires crossed seem to be a much simpler thing.
I'm not sure what your point is here. It sounds like you are saying that one can determine if a person is a "real trans person" is by interviewing them in some kind of rigorous way. What is your evidence for this claim?
What's your evidence you can't do this? You can determine if someone likes bananas, is a neurotic person, has had an episode of diverticulitis from just talking to them.
You can even do very hard things like determine if someone in jail is pretending to be crazy or not.
Why would this specific thing be any different?
Ok, so if I understand you correctly, your position is as follows:
There are "real trans" people as well as people who are not "real trans"
There must exist an objective way to distinguish between them which involves interviewing them, although this method has not yet been developed.
You know this to be true because (a) there objective ways to ascertain other things about people's mental state by interviewing them, such as whether those persons like bananas; are neurotic; or have suffered from diverticulitis; and (b) there is no reason to think that being "real trans" is any different from these other conditions.
People who are "real trans" should be treated by society as their preferred gender.
Do I understand your position correctly?
No, you don't.
To my recollection I don't really take a stance on what to do about people who (actually) identify as trans or have trans thought content.
I also think (based off of my reading of other comments you make in this thread) that you've missed the core insight of my initial post.
Which is: The problem is that a number of phenomena that vary from pretty convincingly "true" trans to not really trans at all (tomboys) to definitely not trans and even activists should acknowledge it (forensic malingerers) all get labeled the same thing.
This has all kinds of negative effects, such as not getting people the correct care (ex: Schizophrenic patient needs antipsychotics, malingering patient needs boundary setting) and also things like an inappropriately enhanced level of skepticism in the moderate and conservative population.
How difficult to deal with trans people are is entirely orthogonal to the question of why they exist and it seems obvious they should exist given the variation in the human population (especially if you believe in non-woke biology).
This is not helped by the woke incoherent post-modern understanding of gender theory that probably doesn't match the biological roots of the true underlying phenomena.
My apologies, I assumed that you were distinguishing between "real" trans people and others for purposes of treatment by public policy, society, other people, etc.
Let's try again and see if I understand your position correctly:
There are "real trans" people as well as people who are not "real trans"
There must exist an objective way to distinguish between them which involves interviewing them, although this method has not yet been developed.
You know this to be true because (a) there objective ways to ascertain other things about people's mental state by interviewing them, such as whether those persons like bananas; are neurotic; or have suffered from diverticulitis; and (b) there is no reason to think that being "real trans" is any different from these other conditions.
You aren't arguing that "real trans" people should be treated any differently, you are simply drawing the distinction for academic purposes.
Do I understand you correctly?
Are you going anywhere with this?
I am simply trying to understand the pro trans position. So far, everyone's responses have pretty much confirmed what I already strongly suspected: That it's a bunch of ridiculous nonsense on the level of astrology, supported by silly word games.
Anyway, I take it that you decline to answer my question?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link