The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

Yes, fact is different from truth in this context. For me the timescale does make a big difference. To go back to Astrology, the different systems - Chinese, Indian, Western - have all been worked over for many centuries, have developed multiple subtleties, have definitions and descriptions that have been argued out, challenged, theorised over - that all seem to give them some heft.

Gender as a thing a person can have wasn't born or thought of until about 20 years ago, and still has no agreement on what it is.

It doesn't make it any more or less likely to be true.

Actually that's a better way to phrase what I was trying to say ⬆️

At a basic level (is it true or not?), nope.

The length of time the belief has been established is irrelevant. It doesn't make it any more or less factually true.

Edited for clarity.

You don't see any difference in a belief system established two thousand years ago, rooted in a religious tradition that had already been established for a millennium or so, and a belief spun out of academic theorising in the last 20 years?

I'm not pretending anything is a perfectly reasonable belief that's valid to hold.

I'm just recognising that some people believe that everyone has a gender identity. They're as welcome to that as the people who believe that Jesus is the son of god. Both beliefs are as valid as each other. Both beliefs are as nonsensical as each other.

I'm also recognising that some people find it offensive when others deny their belief.

Interesting observation/question and responses from Australia

https://x.com/TaniaAMarshall/status/1857244588337168486

We won't know for a couple of months whether the Trump win ushers in a world of horrors, maybe it will, but just at the moment the election result seems to be letting some people feel able to say the previously unsayable.

The fact that many of us don't believe it even exists is irrelevant to them.

Reality is challenging for them, yes. The answer is not to legitimise misogynistic, and yes, make-believe worldviews as equally valid.

When it comes to people identifying as animals, which they do, how far should we pretend that's a perfectly reasonable belief to hold? How about able bodied people who identify as disabled? Men who identify as 6 year old girls?

If it's been discussed here elsewhere then I've missed it. It looks like material reality might be coming back into fashion.

Very encouraging indeed.

It's ridiculous. Obviously. Nobody would do this.

But of course, historically, we know this is not actually that ridiculous. We had the Puritan rule after the English Civil War. If history has taught us anything, it’s that as absurd as something is, as unfathomable it is that it happened even once, as unjust as it was that people may have died in the pursuit of that thing and its implementation, it can (and often will) happen again.

For @mcduffyand others, here's Megyn Kelly talking about a recent ruling from the US courts about Title IX:

If it's been discussed here elsewhere then I've missed it. It looks like material reality might be coming back into fashion.

In case Kelly's presentation is too lively for people's tastes, here's an article discussing it:

www.ctinsider.com/news/article/ct-transgender-high-school-athletes-lawsuit-19896739.php

Yep.

I appreciate that the religious analogy is far-fetched. And also (as TempestTost says) that closing shops on Sundays wouldn't be that bad. But imagine it starts with that and we're then told that church is mandatory, then it's also mandatory to end all work meetings with the lord's prayer (similar to starting meetings with pronoun sharing) because it's hateful not to.... because worshiping god is important... and so on.

It's ridiculous. Obviously. Nobody would do this.

But so is law and policy which forces people to deny the reality of sex. And people are doing this. Even TRAs know that sex is a biological reality, they just say that gender identity is more important. The fact that many of us don't believe it even exists is irrelevant to them.

It's about the conflict between the belief system and our real physicality, and so it is resulting in all kinds of problems.

Exactly.

Aha.... I hooked you in with sympathy and now you're feeling obligated to Be Kind.

It was all part of my evil wonderful plan to change the law and make sure everyone accepts that ghosts are real. Ghostphobia won't be tolerated. Children will be taught how glorious it is to become a ghost. To be remembered for ever more. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm going to appropriate build on Mexico's Day of the Dead. It will be celebrated every year in workplaces. I might even move it to November 20th as that's tomorrow and I really think a Day of Remembrance with lots of fear being stoked up respectful reverence is exactly what we need after this Trump win. Trump wants to change laws to ban people like me. He wants to deny my existence and that of my ancestry.

Now where did I put that Denton's document? I'm sure there are lots of different ways I can make sure that everybody has to accept that ghosts are real and make them a part of their everyday lives. They're a marginalised minority. It harms nobody to show them respect.

<Add more sleights of hand as needed to ramp up the pressure to Be Kind>

Or something like that.

🙃

On a more serious note, I think this year's Trans Day of Remembrance (tomorrow, I believe?) is going to be particularly full-on with fear being stoked up following the Trump win.

Edited for typos

The real issues imp is that so much the idea of gender identity as the fact that somehow it erases or overshadows physical sex - something that is very clearly real.

It's about the conflict between the belief system and our real physicality, and so it is resulting in all kinds of problems.

Off the top of my head I can't really think of another example, even where we might talk about making laws or policies about something that is more of a belief. A law that says we have to close shops on Sunday for example as was common in the past - well maybe it would be inconvenient, and certainly some might think it is silly. But it's difficult to see that it would cause anything like the same kinds of basic problems.

For what it's worth, Bonfire Lady, I think it's irrational to say that ghosts don't exist although I've never seen anything that seemed like a ghost..

Hmm, but facts are just statements about the material world.

Things like moral precepts, or constructs like human rights, are not facts in that sense.

Policies, say about the environment, or economics, or covid lockdowns, aren't mainly about facts, they are about values - whatever the facts, our actions are around the outcomes we want, and these are based on values.

A heck of a lot of what states do is encode and act on values and beliefs.

Tbh I am finding your post a little vague - what do you think it is they are likely to do so far as deporting illegal immigrants that you think people don't want?

I suspect that what he will actually do is likely to be a lot less than what many would prefer, for pragmatic reasons.

But I also think that most people who are looking for tighter border control, including HIspanic Ametican supporters, think that there should be a very straightforward, consistent response to people who aren't there legally, which is to say they should be returned to where they came from.

Are you saying that there are people who voted for Trump and tighter border controls who don't in fact want that?

It is quite odd. In the beginning, they said/ say it is separate from biological sex. But then these men just must go into the places and spaces where women and girls are in a state of undress, or vulnerable. And where it will cause women and girls to avoid or feel uncomfortable. Then, use their biologially male bodies to do women out of fair competition, scholarships and prizes in sports etc. Then they place their biologically male bodies on women’s places on political parties quotas.

I won’t even say how revolted I am that a rape crisis centre placed traumatised women (their whole supposed raison d’etre) below the wishes and desires of these biological men. There is no limit to how little a biological woman and girl matter if a man wishes to trample their boundaries.

If it is basically a self declared feeling in the man’s water, why does he get to transgress all decency in the treatment of women and girls? With everyone cheering him on, and changing the law to let him do it more easily. While they have the brass neck to call the women and girls the bad ones if they don’t play along with this nonsense.

I think the whole concept of an innate "gender" that is based on sex but can be separate from sex is sexist and incoherent. As pp said the fact that I'm thinking about it at all indicates that it's being imposed on me in some way. I'm not having someone else's belief in ghosts imposed on me so it's not as important whether they exist (I'm agnostic about them)

So when this imposition happens I'm going to make it quite clear that to me that the belief itself is offensive and misogynistic, as well as incoherent, and an attack on women's rights. Im perfectly happy to explain why if asked. I'm not going to participate in legitimising it in any way. I think it's actively harmful.

It certainly seems to have ignited a blaze......which will, of course, bring the issue more to the fore, but also most likely simply reinforce existing prejudices.

This really is a battle of fundamentally clashing ideological beliefs. One lot will try to enforce, the other lot will push back or cancel.........I really think it will only be the passage of time and the growing emergence of a body of evidence - regarding consequences - which will really turn the tide.

Hopefully things will gradually move away from the extremes towards the centre where sensible and responsible accommodations can be sought and enacted.

But as you said above, some people are now saying that Mace has gone too far and is being transphobic. In other words, the conversation is perhaps in danger of being overshadowed by a public discussion about whether she's being offensive or not.

I think it's a positive thing, to have these discussions. The more discussions the better.

People who go against the grain of established beliefs or accepted 'facts' often attract opprobrium; they get called conspiracists or charlatans or wackos.

Some of the Republican vote this time around came from people for whom the Covid lockdown and the authoritarianism of the pro/enforced vaccine lobby contravened their long held feelings, attitudes and practices around diet, health, well being and bodily autonomy.

They also didn't take well to being called idiots or reality deniers, either. There was a lot of social pressure and shaming that went on during Covid - with some people seeing themselves as arbiters of what was good and morally right......and if you were against mandatory vaccines then you ought to be socially excluded, forbidden from travel, or even censured from discussing the issue on line.

Some types of belief system are seen as being naturally superior to others - and the God of Pharmacology and established allopathic medicine was one of them. People reacted against that type of ideological certainty and censure. It tended to be the Left here, and Democrats in the States that were most fervent in calling for harsher penalties for non compliance, harsher, longer lockdowns etc

Agreed.

That's the point I'm making.

Perhaps badly, I'll accept!

But as you said above, some people are now saying that Mace has gone too far and is being transphobic. In other words, the conversation is perhaps in danger of being overshadowed by a public discussion about whether she's being offensive or not. Rather than the fact that she's standing up against an enforcement of gender identity belief as fact.

I knew it was going to be this! DP was telling me about this the other day.

Why would people be eager to tell you that "gosts aren't real", though, if you were not pushing it on them in the first place? That's the difference, isn't it. People are free to identify or feel about themselves however they wish so long as they don't enforce it on other people, or expect other people to alter their habits and behaviours on account of it.

Your experience of, or belief in, ghosts doesn't by its nature demand that others accept that reality and change theirs on account of it; and what would be gained by others denouncing you or calling you silly - since there is no material impact upon them in your belief? People in your private life probably know of your belief and most likely feel relaxed with just letting you hold it.