The Transgender Agenda: Critiquing its origins, ideology, methods and goals

Well, in that study the purpose of using egalitarianism in the first place is as a way of understanding social construction of gender roles.

The theory being that if the country scores highly re egalitarianism then the social construction of gender roles is egalitarian in those countries that score highly and therefore gender roles are more influenced by biology than socialisation in these societies. According to this theory higher levels of egalitarianism should result in an evening out of behaviours.

What it found is that doesn’t happen. It did not offer any particular insight into whether that was because the assumption was problematic to start with or because the behaviours are innate (or anything in between).

The UK has ‘very high’ development for example but I think we all understand how rigid sex stereotyping and gender role enforcement is here. The countries are assessed relative to each other not relative to principles of egalitarianism.

It’s very interesting but it doesn’t say anything much about biology vs environment. It had interesting conclusions re stress and the effect of economic insecurity though.

"Any egalitarian society isn't far enough into that journey for the conditioning to have disappeared. "

Nobodies claiming that it has disappeared.

(And yes I know how they measured egalitarianism in the study, I don’t need that explained to me.)

And I’m not arguing against making assumptions or speculation or theorising either.

Simply recognition that that is what’s going on.

Well yes, exactly, so is the conclusion that the assumption was wrong in some way (how is egalitarian measured for example?) or that the difference must be innate?

How do we tell?

That’s my whole point... further inquiry is needed there.

And yy constantlycold. I’m just making a distinction essentially between having an opinion and ‘science proves’.

Any egalitarian society isn't far enough into that journey for the conditioning to have disappeared. We already know that parents respond differently to newborns according to sex and that's not going to change because of equal opportunities. There could be any number of reasons why there'd be this apparent shift back towards gender roles - maybe similar to how Trump got into power.

"it is quite important to be careful about making assumptions"

What assumptions?

The whole point of science is to explore theories and test assumptions.

As explained already, the assumption was that personality differences would decrease as Countries got more equal. The differences got bigger.

The assumption came from left leaning social psychologists.

None of which is a statement that I am of the opinion that everything is socially constructed and there is no biology involved

Great sounds like we agree.

Yes, I find it fascinating too.

Hung up? I don’t know that I’m hung up.

I just think generally, not just regarding this area of science, it is quite important to be careful about making assumptions. It limits the ability to expand our knowledge when we do.

I also think given the cultural context it can be quite harmful because these things are political issues.

Women throughout history have been oppressed because we were thought to be naturally lesser than men. It means we should be careful re the soundness of any conclusions regarding sex differences IMO.

None of which is a statement that I am of the opinion that everything is socially constructed and there is no biology involved.

"You do understand fms that at no point have I argued that there are no differences?

Simply that our understanding of where those differences come from is quite limited so it doesn’t support an assertion of ‘innate’...."

I'm really not sure what you're getting at then or trying to debate.

"There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate / plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate. It might be reasonable to theorise that behaviour is influenced by both biological and environmental factors but that’s not the same thing as there being evidence for that in the science."

Really not sure how can you question the existence of the evidence

offred why are you getting so hung up on the innate comment? fms has already admitted that was poor wording.

We are all a product of our biology and socialisation. I for one find all the links to the evidence for the biological influences on our personalities fascinating.

You do understand fms that at no point have I argued that there are no differences?

Simply that our understanding of where those differences come from is quite limited so it doesn’t support an assertion of ‘innate’....

🙄

Crikey fms that’s a shit load of research.

I already agree with that some gender differences are partly innate.

How are you defining gender fmsfms (nb. Please don't get defensive, I am agreeing with you here)

Flowers - my point re sex rather than gender was more along the lines of ‘if the evidence was good enough they would be understood as sex differences which would require the observed differences to be able to be reliably reproduced at a population level with a high level of certainty’

Some of them may well end up being that way. The problem is that our current understanding is too limited for this to be so. The science needs to improve.

Unless you define gender as only the heavily socially influenced behaviours. Which would be helpful imo

"There are many studies showing differences in many areas and at various points of life"

Ok science bomb time:

Sex differences in personality/cognition: Lynn (1996): bit.ly/2vThoy8

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2fBVn0G

Weisberg (2011): bit.ly/2gJVmEp

Del Giudice (2012): bit.ly/2vEKTUx

Larger/large and stable sex differences in more gender-neutral countries: (These findings run precisely contrary to social constructionist theory: it's been tested, and it's wrong).

Katz-Gerrog (2000): bit.ly/2uoY9c4

Costa (2001): bit.ly/2utaTT3

Schmitt (2008): bit.ly/2p6nHYY

Schmitt (2016): bit.ly/2wMN45j

Differences in men and women's interest/priorities: Lippa (1998): bit.ly/2vr0PHF

Rong Su (2009): bit.ly/2wtlbzU

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2wyfW23

See also Geary (2017) blog: bit.ly/2vXqCcF

Sex differences in academic achievement unrelated to political, economic, or social equality:

Stoet (2015): bit.ly/1EAfqOt

Big Five trait agreeableness and (lower) income (including for men): Spurk (2010): bit.ly/2vu1x6E

Judge (2012): bit.ly/2uxhwQh

The general importance of exposure to sex-linked steroids on fetal and then lifetime development: Hines (2015) bit.ly/2uufOiv Exposure to prenatal testosterone and interest in things or people (even when the exposure is among females):

Berenbaum (1992): bit.ly/2uKxpSQ

Beltz (2011): bit.ly/2hPXC1c

Baron-Cohen (2014): bit.ly/2vn4KXq

Hines (2016): bit.ly/2hPYKSu

Primarily biological basis of personality sex differences:

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Ngun (2010): bit.ly/2vJ6QSh

Status and sex: males and females

Perusse (1993): bit.ly/2uoIOw8

Perusse (1994): bit.ly/2vNzcL6

Buss (2008): bit.ly/2uumv4g

de Bruyn (2012): bit.ly/2uoWkMh

Awaiting the inevitable (already addressed) cries of "BIAS!"

I am with fmsfms on this one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the statement
"There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate"

There are indications in the science that support ‘complex factors involving environment and biology’ as a theory. Not the same as conclusions and this provides more questions than answers IMO.

Either of these conclusions;

There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate

plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate

There are many studies showing differences in many areas and at various points of life, there are some looking at animals. None of them reliably conclude the above^

It might be reasonable to theorise that behaviour is influenced by both biological and environmental factors but that’s not the same thing as there being evidence for that in the science.

Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’

That's a really good question offred. It all depends on your definition of gender doesn’t it?

There is very good evidence for both innate and socially induced differences between the sexes. I lean towards a definition of gender as the socially influenced behaviors that different between sexes, whereas those that are innate could be described as sex-based behaviour variation. Which are which is only beginning to be unravelled.

what conclusion? That there are innate differences in personality between the sexes/gender

"Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’"

pedantic

Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’

I am dismissing your conclusion.

If the actual studies themselves conclude that then I will also dismiss their conclusions, though I haven’t read any that assert that as a conclusion, only many many newspapers that incorrectly report that as a conclusion.