What broader issues has the trans (lack of) debate opened your eyes to?

Other things I’ve learnt from this debate is that many people have poor comprehension skills, and/or are prepared to be completely disingenuous. Two common issues that impact many areas of life .

Your post upthread Prodigal

Whatchatalkingabout, Lemonade?

Let’s test this by asking ourselves where all the middle aged women who are now able to reveal themselves as trans are. Where are the 52 year old married women with two children, suddenly telling the world that they always felt like a man and now that the world is more accepting, they are free to be their true selves? And being given a newspaper column in which to document their testosterone induced stubble and newfound love of the pub? Oh yes there are none. There are no women like this. No elderly women either. No females at all apart from the teenagers and 20somethings.

Well, there are some, but I take your point that there seem to be far fewer than the other way around.

But this may just come down to Goosefoot's point (which I have seen elsewhere) about sexual paraphilias, fetishes and irregular development generally being far more common among men than women. It's quite possible that there could be far more M>F transgender people than F>M, without that making the experience of the first group any less real or meaning they are "faking it". There's not really any reason why the numbers should be similar.

At this point if people started arguing passionately that the little green men/lizard people have been here all along and it's them behind coronavirus I'm not sure I'd be surprised.
Ah...um..... just...
wow.
So we've gone to trans people to little green men and lizard people?
I..... that's...... rational.
Did I take a wrong turn into the David Icke forum?!

Mermoose that is truly frightening

TheProdigalKittensReturn

Exactly. It's really depressing because the area she's in is one I really care about (it's not to do with the trans issue).

I've given up, although sometimes we have unavoidable arguments - for example, I'm being very careful about social distancing and she isn't, and she got annoyed about that. That kind of sums us up pretty well - I tend to be cautious, and she isn't, which is fine so long as it's only affecting her. Except, she's very happy to force the risks that she chooses onto others.

But anyway it's just a possible explanation of how Self ID has been introduced everywhere - maybe people go for these jobs because they feel confident enough, and they feel confident enough because they don't see the complexity and because they ignore anything that doesn't fit with their existing views.

So basically what will be will be, but only if it's something she wanted to happen anyway(or not). How very convenient! I don't think there's much point trying to argue with someone like that, though with her decisions having impact on others I can see why you'd want to try.

So, as an example, are people meant to be poor, in her mind? What does that mean in terms of how she thinks society should respond to poverty?

No, I don't think she thinks that poor people are meant to be poor. There's not very much consistency to it, but it seems to deeply affect how she sees risk or conflicting interests. So, she won't say 'Poor people are destined to be poor' but if she's in favour of something (like Self ID) and you point out possible risks, she'll say 'Nah, none of that will happen, and anyway, what's meant to happen will happen.'

She also believes in fate. Her belief is that whatever happens, is meant to be. I can't think of many beliefs less suitable for someone who's supposed to work out government policy.

So, as an example, are people meant to be poor, in her mind? What does that mean in terms of how she thinks society should respond to poverty?

I've seen a lot of policies that don't really make sense, but Self ID took the biscuit and really made me feel very anxious about what else governments can do. I have a friend who works in the civil service on policy making and she's entirely supportive of Self ID. She also believes in fate. Her belief is that whatever happens, is meant to be. I can't think of many beliefs less suitable for someone who's supposed to work out government policy. I've stopped having conversations with her about anything of importance because it is just depressing and deeply irritating - whatever it is (not just the trans issue) she will refuse to consider any conflicting interests or trade-offs.

This has made me wonder if the Dunning-Kruger effect has a big influence on governments & policies. I'd never have applied for a job making policies, because I would have thought about how complex and finely balanced a lot of the issues are, and decided there were better people than me for the job. But this woman I know had none of those qualms, because she has no appreciation of the difficulties - to her, whatever she first decides on, she'll stick with, because it was 'meant to be'.

After being involved with a political party for a while I have a similar opinion of political candidates - I think the Dunning-Kruger effect is (often, not always) selecting those with poor clarity of thought.

At this point if people started arguing passionately that the little green men/lizard people have been here all along and it's them behind coronavirus I'm not sure I'd be surprised. This whole thing has been like a mass experiment in social compliance, one with rather worrying results.

For me, it's the way mystical, irrational beliefs can spread like wildfire and become unassailable even in modern society with all its knowledge. It makes me wonder what other ideas might spread in the future. Pretty much anything is possible.

Maybe we're just seeing more trans people because now people are generally more accepting nowadays?

Let’s test this by asking ourselves where all the middle aged women who are now able to reveal themselves as trans are. Where are the 52 year old married women with two children, suddenly telling the world that they always felt like a man and now that the world is more accepting, they are free to be their true selves? And being given a newspaper column in which to document their testosterone induced stubble and newfound love of the pub? Oh yes there are none. There are no women like this. No elderly women either. No females at all apart from the teenagers and 20somethings.

And yet there’s no end of men in this category - in fact they run the shop. Funny ain’t it...

Just out of interest, what does a rum cream and milk look like? Not often I run across a mixed drink I haven't heard of!

I'm not sure it's a real mixed drink, as such. It's just rum cream (I like J.D.Shore which is made locally to me) and as much milk as I want to add to it.

It's a nice crap weather drink.

My eyes are also opened to the fact that men seem to be able to develop a sexual fetish about literally anything! As far as I am aware, women don't tend to. I never really thought much about this before. Are males like baby chicks, imprinting onto odd things around them at a crucial developmental time?

Yes, there is a fair bit of research on this, and it seems to be a significant developmental difference between men and women. (Which might not sit well with the socialisation-only supporters.) The vast majority of fetishes belong to men, and there seems to be a period, usually in early adolescence or even childhood, where exposure to something that elicits a sexual response can create the fetish. It might be something that really is sexual, but not necessarily, it could also be something normally unrelated to sex. And it's not something the child does on purpose, the mechanism isn't really understood.

It happens occasionally with women but it's uncommon.

I've wondered if we haven't seen a real increase in this sort of thing as a result of sexual openness in the media for example. The assumption that kids don't understand certain images and so it won't affect them may simply not be the case for some kids, and it could go on to direct their sex life in a way that it otherwise might not. Porn now would obviously also fall into that.

As for why it happens, maybe there is some advantage to having a sort of imprinting of what would have at one time been a societies usual sexual practices - people used to have a lot less privacy and most young people would have some exposure to regular sex. It would allow the cultural mating behaviours across the species to be pretty flexible rather than very fixed. Fetishes might be what happens when that mechanism works a little too well. That's just a sort of guess about a possibility though, as far as I know there is no evidence of that.

For me it was the extent of the medical malpractice that came as a surprise. I knew plastic surgeons had been allowed to harm patients with impunity, but what has been done to children by medical professionals came as a shocker.

My big question is "if they can get away with telling a lie so big and obvious, what else are the media and policy makers lying to us about?"

Oh yeah, this has been the big question lingering for me too. Especially now when we're watching the Chinese government develop a lie about coronavirus for propaganda purposes in real time in a way that wouldn't have been possible to do without modern media and the internet.

Just out of interest, what does a rum cream and milk look like? Not often I run across a mixed drink I haven't heard of!

There have no doubt always been people who didn't like some/all of the sex role stuff expected of them, and the extent to which societies accommodated nonconformity has varied, but only a minority of countries ever had the concept of what we might now call trans, and it's significant that it's tended to be the ones where the lowest degree of nonconformity is tolerated. So really it's a symptom of sex roles that are so strict that they essentially shove some people out into an "other" category, which makes it interesting and relevant that there's been such a dramatic leap in young women saying they're not actually women/girls recently. Also, the societies that did historically have an "other" category didn't think the people in it actually changed sex, because that's daft. The idea that some actual change is happening is tied up in medical and surgical stuff and thus very recent.

Maybe we're just seeing more trans people because now people are generally more accepting nowadays?

Up until very recently, in children it was predominantly boys who identified as transgender. In the last few years an enormous number of teenage girls have started identifying as trans, but the increase has been much lower in boys. If it was simply about society being more accepting, I would expect the male-female ratio to have remained approximately the same with similar proportional increases amongst boys and girls.

In adults the majority of trans people are male. If we assume that in the past there were enormous numbers of teenage girls who didn't identify as trans because of a lack of acceptance (assuming the large numbers of trans identifying teenage girls of today are 'really' trans), I would expect there to be a corresponding huge number of middle aged women who would now be coming out as trans. Where are they?

I think what has happened in terms of acceptance is that it is now 'acceptable' to flaunt your fetish in public (AGP males). I'm not sure that many people realise exactly what they are being accepting of.

What's your opinion on Rachel Dolezal or Emile Ratelband? People seem to have been less accepting of Rachel Dolezal than they are of men who identify as women

I remember the Emile case in the news - I definitely remember him getting a lot of ridicule and rounded on as well
They both got a lot of flack.

Maybe we're just seeing more trans people because now people are generally more accepting nowadays?

I doubt there was much appeal in days when women were actively punished for being sexual and had no legal rights.

What has being gay got to do with being trans? I can't see any similarity at all

Trans has nothing to do with being gay at all, way to spectacularly miss my point!
Which was that if someone is saying "there's an epidemic of trans people nowadays" that's exactly the same what some people say about gay people.
Why is it OK to say it about one group but not another?

Your comment sounds an awful lot like someone I know who says everybody seems to be gay nowadays

What has being gay got to do with being trans? I can't see any similarity at all.

If you want to compare transgenderism to another 'identity', it would be more appropriate to compare it to other 'trans' identities, like trans racial or trans age.

What's your opinion on Rachel Dolezal or Emile Ratelband? People seem to have been less accepting of Rachel Dolezal than they are of men who identify as women. Why is that do you think?

men seem to be able to develop a sexual fetish about literally anything! As far as I am aware, women don't tend to. I never really thought much about this before. Are males like baby chicks, imprinting onto odd things around them at a crucial developmental time? Or is it more like dogs humping random cushions and passers by

Oh, good point. That is certainly food for thought!