How can people seriously believe....

I like being a terf. (Just saying...)

The question is not whether, the question is how.

How can people seriously believe... well often religious beliefs take some swallowing/blind faith... many people still choose not to believe in evolution.

In the clip George Carlin beautifully skewers a belief in god with the invisible man in the sky skit.

It’s about virtue signalling.

You can’t signal your virtue by supporting something plausible. It has to be something outrageous.

If you say, yes, men are more violent than women, you aren’t signaling ‘woke’ because it’s demonstrably true, and even if you didn’t know it was true you’d still think it’s plausable.

To signal a commitment to a cause you have to express a belief in something ridiculous.

You aren’t a Catholic if you just say ‘I believe there was a guy called Jesus and he said be nice to each other’ (which is plausible); you have to say that he was born of a virgin, rose from the dead, and priests can turn crackers into his flesh with magic words.

I mentioned on here a few days ago that I saw some woke people claiming on Facebook that transwomen athletes 'have no innate advantage' over women athletes. Someone's even written some sort of article 'proving' it.

I'd say 'you couldn't make this up', but they are doing - every day.

Also they should have noticed that where the law cares about whether you are a man or a woman, it is always for physical reasons. So feeling that someone can change sex socially or temporarily or honorarily isn't relevant.

Even if someone believes that people can in some way change sex, they can't possibly believe that self ID causes someone to change sex.

Nobody cuts women that much slack. It's the coddling that tells you clearly that everyone knows the individuals in question are male, even if they pretend not to.

The thing is that I was reading some worrying stuff on a very large fb group last night where those women, all mothers, who fully believed TWAW were describing it literally as a birth defect that was corrected and as it was a type of defect were also fully accepting and believing that a self Id 'd no surgery person was truly the opposite sex. and needed women's support and protection.

Deep down they are reacting to them in this way and coddling their feelings because they know they are men, not women.

I've explained myself badly. Was in a rush. He disagreed with me when I stated that humans were a binary species (then went into great detail about the science of it) and his role means that he meets lots of trans identifying children so was initially very supportive of the GRA.
Now he seems less supportive of the GRA and more "we need to be able to have a grown up conversation about it"
I'd like good blogs to send him around the subject (not the science of it) the background etc etc to bring him more onside.
His opinion has obviously started to move away from complete kool aid acceptance to a more questioning perspective.
I sent him the screen shot about the trans woman who threatened a 15 year old lesbian with rape and that completely shocked him.
I've explained that free speech is at risk because we are regularly no-debated
Waiting to see what comes back.

It's obvious the women that claim TWAW don't really.

The thing is that I was reading some worrying stuff on a very large fb group last night where those women, all mothers, who fully believed TWAW were describing it literally as a birth defect that was corrected and as it was a type of defect were also fully accepting and believing that a self Id 'd no surgery person was truly the opposite sex. and needed women's support and protection.

There were women who respectfully disagreed but gosh the number who agreed was high.

Hell SciFi - a Doctor of bloody Science needs feminists to explain to him how biology works?? If he needs "a test case to prove things legally" then he's not much of a scientist in my opinion....

Just ask him how many biological males he knows who've given birth...

It's obvious the women that claim TWAW don't really. They wouldn't fawn over a common or garden woman in that way nor gush over crappy outfits. They would be bitching about them
Men. Imo some men are more than happy to push feminine or potentially gay men out of their club

It's frustrating that he thinks it's more complicated than 2 different gametes give rise to another individual.
There are 7.5 billion examples extant on this earth, and that's only the human examples. How much more evidence does he need?

Help all. The Doctor of Science who I mention above is close to peaking. How do I get him o er the line?

I need links and evidence he's now saying there needs to be a test case to prove things legally and that we should be able to have grown up discussions about it all.

I've skipped the last few pages to post this - can't do clicked as on limping phone, but Google vox.com how politics makes us stupid.
It was linked on one of the brexit threads, and reall y explained what we can see happening. That political/religious beliefs are tied to matters of identity. The intellect is in service to our place in the tribe, i.e. Tribalism first, and our reason justifies it.

Think we should all identify as disabled and demand the right to compete in the Paralympics. The image of someone able-bodied running past the people in wheelchairs should make it visually clear how crazy self-ID is.

Then I fancy identifying as being in my late-60s so I can pick up my pension. Then I fancy identifying as 100 so I can get my letter from the queen.

Then I might identify as a multimillionaire.

All problems solved. Lovely jubbly.

NoSquirrel it is obviously not a direct parallel to homosexuality, because the transumbrella additionally comprises autogynephiles and men with paraphilia that may directly target women, while at the same time demanding direct access to women and defining our boundaries for us. It is very different, and remarkably ‚lesbian‘ autogynephiles hide behind science looking at homosexual transpeople‘s brain scans to make their (scientifically absurd) ladybrain point.

The thing that I don’t like about the parallels with homosexuality argument (and I know this wasn’t the point you were making really, and it is an interesting one) is that the fear/unnatural thing around homosexuality was really born of men’s reluctance to accept gay sex as natural- even though you see it in the animal kingdom too. Men have been afraid that other men would assault them sexually. Because of ... male violence? Homosexuality and tolerance is very historically and culturally quite well accepted in lots of societies. Women have generally not been ‘afraid’ of homosexuals.

So when the equivalence is drawn with this debate it feels off - we’re not afraid of ‘trans people’ because it’s unnatural we’re afraid of male violence and the unintended consequences of a too-liberal law.

That's the thing, even if there was something in the brain that explained it, what is that meant to prove? That other people must therefore interact with the person based on some invisible-to-them feature of their brain structure? What we see is the face and body, and therefore that's what we react to.

There might actually be a link between gender dysphoria and homosexuality. (None of what I say implies this is necessarily monocausal, so a correlation does not mean this is the one cause leading to transgenderism/homosexuality).
Blanchard suggests that gender dysphoric very effeminate homosexuals might subconsciously conclude living as a woman is the best/easiest/most authentic way to live. There are indications hormones in the wombs might play a role regarding homosexuality, and studies indicate differences to heterosexual male brains on average for homosexual and homosexual transwomen brains (doesn‘t mean you can look at a brain and tell sexual orientation).
As far as I know, nobody has ever compared average features of gay men and homosexual transwomen, to find out whether these differ or are similar.
In any case, not even a brain with a pink bow on it has any bearing on the organism‘s sex. Sex is determined by the reproductive system.

Yes, I think it's very challenging to know where biology ends and psychology starts, because we're all a mix of both and psychological disorders can have a biological basis. I totally agree with you that the idea of having a 'spirit' which doesn't match your body seems a bit crazy, but personally I think this is where the parallels with homosexuality come in. Because the evolutionary purpose of your sexual organs is to reproduce and from a biological point of view, this is only possible if a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina. But gay people don't want to do that, so in a sense their identity doesn't align with their biology. Historically this was an argument against homosexuality, because it was unnatural, but over time it's been accepted that this isn't the case.

So I personally think that I can accept that it could well be a normal variant to consider that your 'identity' doesn't tie in with your body. But I would also agree with you that we definitely can't rule out that it could be, at least for some people, that psychological interventions are worth considering. Particularly with younger people where I definitely think there is an element of social contagion.

Really interesting to discuss this

There is some evidence that gender dysphoria has a biological basis, but I think it is still very unclear whether it is a normal variation of human characteristics (like homosexuality) or a mental health condition (like depression). Maybe it depends on whether you think gender dysphoria is benign or pathological? And there may also be different kinds of dysphoria, with some having a genetic or congenital basis and others with a strong acquired or psychological element.

I see what you mean, although I just can't really see how thinking that your body doesn't match your mind - your innate 'spirit' - could be anything other than a psychological issue REGARDLESS of whether it is triggered by biological/genetic/'nature' reasons or whether it is a result of social conditioning/trauma/upbringing/any other 'nurture' reason etc.

I absolutely don't think that one or the other is more 'true trans' than the other - it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

I think you should be supported with mental health counselling regardless to explore the reasons why you think your body doesn't match your mind and make sure you are not falling prey to changing your life irreversibly when perhaps you could feel better about yourself and your place in society by psychological interventions first and foremost, and radical acceptance of yourself as you are. And then if you are truly never going to be happy as you are disphoric, then of course you should be supported to transition from a place of 'good' mental health.

Everyone deserves to be happy.

But I don't think transition should be seen as the first step, and I don't know how you could possibly untangle it from a psychological "problem" in the first place.

Well, I do. You compel everyone else to say biology doesn't matter and only internal 'gender' does. Which is unworkable.

@Nosquirrels

I kind of do, and kind of don't agree with you there

There is some evidence that gender dysphoria has a biological basis, but I think it is still very unclear whether it is a normal variation of human characteristics (like homosexuality) or a mental health condition (like depression). Maybe it depends on whether you think gender dysphoria is benign or pathological? And there may also be different kinds of dysphoria, with some having a genetic or congenital basis and others with a strong acquired or psychological element.

On the other hand, I would argue that being absolutely convinced that your male genitalia ie your penis is female, is so strongly delusional, that it's difficult to believe that this is not a mental health condition.

And I also think that there is a group of people who are just appropriating the condition for nefarious purposes and the trans gender lobby does itself no favours in denying this.