Unless we use our reason, we`re done for

I don't think we can reject the possibility that functionally there are some differences between male and female cognition. Especially once you include hormones. It's dangerous, IMO, to hang to much on the rejection of any differences of that type between men and women.

Again, you're right and again that's not what proponents of the doctrine of gender identity claim.

Like you, I believe that there may be found to be some differences between men and women besides the obvious physiological ones, and I think the most promising research may be around aggression, its presence and the lack of it. We're not there yet, but I expect that we'll find some few differences are innate (on average). Many other differences have been found to be due to nature rather than nurture of course, and given that our brains are both plastic and elastic, there's typically no way to say whether an observed difference in the brains of male and female adults isn't due to nurture rather than nature.

Again however that is not what proponents of the doctrine of gender identity are concerned with. They claim that preferences for traits, behaviours and mannerisms associated with femininity or masculinity are innate. You are born with them and they don't develop, they emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon and the child merely becomes aware of them.

That's clearly bollocks. As is the often found idea that a man becomes unable to do certain things once he identifies as a woman, because those are not womanly things.

Ladybrain = unable to do DIY, to read a map, to assert oneself, likes to watch chickflicks and cry, wear makeup and high heels etc etc basically it's a neat package of the most sexist stereotypes bundled up and projected onto the concept of male and female brains.

And there is no evidence for that kind of innate binary in neurological research. There cannot be since sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes vary between places and times.

meant to bold "age 3 to 4" and "how the whites had tried to commit genocide against the native people"

"I used to belong to a parenting group, which I left in the end because they were making me crazy - they were among other things very pro-gender. But another incident that was illuminating was when one mum was upset by what her child's pre-school (so age 3 to 4) was doing for the month when they were focusing on Native American culture. Which was stuff like little art projects which she felt infantalized the culture. She felt they should learn, in an age appropriate way of course, how the whites had tried to commit genocide against the native people, and that it would be a good idea to talk about things like the Trail of Tears."

Warrior

One of the things I've noticed in general about this is that many of the people pushing the idea of trans children don't have much understanding of childhood development. With regards to any children, their judgments are just way out there.

I used to belong to a parenting group, which I left in the end because they were making me crazy - they were among other things very pro-gender. But another incident that was illuminating was when one mum was upset by what her child's pre-school (so age 3 to 4) was doing for the month when they were focusing on Native American culture. Which was stuff like little art projects which she felt infantalized the culture. She felt they should learn, in an age appropriate way of course, how the whites had tried to commit genocide against the native people, and that it would be a good idea to talk about things like the Trail of Tears.

And lots of the mums agreed with her. It didn't seem to occur to the that what four year olds might get out of that would not be especially good for them.

But those are old school transsexuals. Proponents of the doctrine of gender identity claim that it has nothing to do with one's sexed body and exists independently of it. And that is only possible if we have ladybrains or a female essence.

I don't think we can reject the possibility that functionally there are some differences between male and female cognition. Especially once you include hormones. It's dangerous, IMO, to hang to much on the rejection of any differences of that type between men and women.

The fact is though that nothing like that has been found that accounts for gender dysphoria, so it simply isn't empirically supported, and it still would not necessarily tell us that someone was "really" the opposite sex. This is something that needs to be emphasized in the general public, because there are still hoards of people whose support of gender ideology is almost entirely based on a belief that it is scientifically supported.

The soul thing is interesting. It might work in eastern religions, but not in western ones, because the soul is essentially understood as the form of the body. They couldn't be at odds in that way. Which is why people into New Age type stuff will go for it but the Catholic Church, or the EO, for example, don't.

It is in German but maybe the browser translation works:

www.grenzecho.net/65018/artikel/2021-11-11/dummheit-ein-buch-uber-blodheit

She is a neurologist/psychologist who is basically saying stupidity is at an all time high. And is defining stupidity as essentially making up your own facts to suit your beliefs. And that dialogue in principle is important but not when it isn't wanted on both sides.

Once this development has reached the middle stage, kids police each other relentlessly, seeking to enforce the stereotypes. A perfectly normal stage that sees girls refusing to play with boys and vice versa. But that becomes far less pronounced before the children hit puberty.

As most children on the autistic spectrum either don't conform to this stage or may do so much later, due to difficulties with social interaction and understanding social communication, they're less likely to be influenced by peers. (Obviously this is an extreme generalisation.)

In my setting for example many pupils still thoroughly enjoy programmes and characters that "neurotypical " peers have moved on from several years previously, or, relatively rarely, are only interested in the stereotypes of the opposite sex. Some of this starts early on through sensory enjoyment or avoidance.

I remember that both my sons started tuning into what's "for boys and girls" from as young as 2.5/3. (Challenged of course!) 3,5 year old now got it but gets confused / adamant if I challenge the stereotypes.

One of mine went through a week of "anxiety about the weather affecting plans" at around 2.5-3; Ive taught children on the autistic spectrum who go through the same stage when much older, around y2-3, and lasts longer (7-8) . There are so many of these social communication / awareness stages that we just miss and/or take for granted with neurotypical children.

To me this is why there is a larger number of trans identifying children referred to GIDS than in the general population. But it would apparently be very wrong of me to say so.

I'm not so sure those are the only possibilities. It could also we that we have an inherent capacity to form identities, including related to our sex. They would presumably be formed around all the ways patterns of sex based behaviours and cultural elements of them interact in a given culture.

I think there are some good arguments that issues with identity formation can result in a variety of psychological problems.

You are right in that. But that was the old way of understanding this issue. It has been rejected by proponents of the doctrine of gender identity because it correctly identifies a disruption in normal development as the cause of gender dysphoria.

If you read the last 120 years' worth of the literature into early childhood development, that's exactly what it showed. The same pattern present in all children - developing an understanding of one's sexed body, developing an understanding of where that places one in the world, developing an understanding of the norms and expectations placed upon each sex by one's society, developing an understanding of the possibility of not conforming to these stereotypes, developing an understanding that these are stereotypes and not inborn traits.

Once this development has reached the middle stage, kids police each other relentlessly, seeking to enforce the stereotypes. A perfectly normal stage that sees girls refusing to play with boys and vice versa. But that becomes far less pronounced before the children hit puberty.

What the research also showed is that where the early stages of this development are disrupted, this can lead to problems in the formation of the child's personality. Certainly if you read the autobiographies of some of the most prominent members of the trans community this disruption is not difficult to see. They often point it out themselves.

But those are old school transsexuals. Proponents of the doctrine of gender identity claim that it has nothing to do with one's sexed body and exists independently of it. And that is only possible if we have ladybrains or a female essence.

There are only two ways the claim that we all have a gender identity can be true - either male and female brains, encoding preferences for sex stereotypes from conception, or male and female souls.

I'm not so sure those are the only possibilities. It could also we that we have an inherent capacity to form identities, including related to our sex. They would presumably be formed around all the ways patterns of sex based behaviours and cultural elements of them interact in a given culture.

I think there are some good arguments that issues with identity formation can result in a variety of psychological problems.

(Obviously not disease, but people want to believe in this.)

This is another factor

I saw his tweets earlier nauticant. Runs a show on atheism but expects us to respect as an act of faith that a fully intact man is a woman on his say-so. And all to override the wishes of women and girls to have an exclusively female-only space. Not just without their consent, but in full knowledge that they have said no.

That all put me right off him, and it's a shame because I loved most of his books. He has a very enjoyable writing style.

The sceptic community embracing this nonsense was a real shock to me. Going from fairly militant atheism intent on scrutinising everything and questioning anyone making any kind of novel and/or ideological claims to unquestioningly embracing an ideology that is so allergic to scrutiny they made "no debate" into their rallying cry is incomprehensible to me.

Here's someone with a reasonably high profile in the atheism community lashing out at everyone who doesn't share his faith including Dawkins:

twitter.com/Matt_Dillahunty/with_replies

If it wasn't so tragic is would be genuinely funny.

And then, as Emma Hilton and Colin Write found, when scientists risk their jobs to write rebuttals, the community is so terrified of the BeKind® mob, it gets vilified. For being accurate.

Attwood was referring to similar rubbish.

The problem is there's a hell of a lot of crap being written by woke thick scientists which blindsides most who actually are very clueless about biology.

They're using more recent scientific understanding around genetics, DSDs and hormones to argue the toss for sexist interpretations of science.

(Mostly) Nothing they write about is untrue in the context of what ever they're using as a prop, but none of it is anything to do with trans.

When a neuroscientist spouts forth, people think it must be true.

The DARVO is strong with this one:

blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

The sceptic community embracing this nonsense was a real shock to me. Going from fairly militant atheism intent on scrutinising everything and questioning anyone making any kind of novel and/or ideological claims to unquestioningly embracing an ideology that is so allergic to scrutiny they made "no debate" into their rallying cry is incomprehensible to me.

And Dawkin's silence hurt. He's an evolutionary biologist, he knows they're talking crap. But in typical fashion, he has not merely called it out for the nonsense it is, he has gone all in and signed the Women's Human Rights Declaration.

So now I'm watching the sceptics turn on him like they've turned on everyone else who dared to disagree. And still they cannot see it.

The cognitive dissonance must hurt.

I remember these cases and my parents (who were a level headed pair) saying that it sounded very much like a witchhunt (no joke intended) and that the so called professionals were getting all over excited and egging each other on.

And my mum has a sixth sense when it came to ‘bad people’ - it’s like she had a radar for people that shouldn’t be allowed near kids or women (she called Rolf Harris waaay back).

One of the unexpectedly depressing aspects of all this, as well as the obvious, is how disappointing it is to realise how unintelligent people are.

Yes, it does remind me of something! I'm not keen on Ronson, so I only listened to the first episode.

One of the scariest things about the current plight we're in re the sex and gender debate is that so many professionals - doctors, teachers, lawyers, politicians, policy makers - have managed to detach critical analysis from their thinking. This means they are imperveous to reasoned debate.

I'm listening once again to the Nolan podcast in between reading Simon Edge's 'The End of the World is Flat' (a parody of the money-making and cynicism behind the current version of Stonewall) and I am furious and despairing in equal measure.

Both of these are bonkers ideas and yet seemingly clever intelligent people not only fall for this claptrap but condemn as bigots those of us who say it's nonsense.

(Rainbow optimism hat on)

Would certainly be good timing - managing to get in just before the tidal wave of people walking back, so he doesn't look like someone following the herd. Not much time left in that window, I think.