The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

'transphobia' is such a silly word. I suppose words for bugaboos and monsters under the bed always are.

Hopefully!

Nancy Mace does, though, seem to be attracting a lot of very strongly worded push-back about her poposed new bill. Saying how quickly it moved on from fairness in women's sports to " outright transphobia"

Imposing a compulsory gender identity on those of us who don't have one is deeply, deeply, deeply shitty.

If so that's fascinatingly clever.

If they are, it is. Although as demonstrated on this thread, when one person holds a belief they know to be "true" (whether that's in gender identity, ghosts, astrology or whatever) it can create a whole different conversation when they hear something that they perceive to be dismissive about their belief. Including whether the belief is a belief or a fact (that not everyone knows/understands).

This is a microcosm of the problem that has been happening with gender identity. As an analogy, if UK Christians within parliament successfully passed a law that everyone needs to go to church on Sundays, they would get pushback from the public. Some Christians would oppose it, some might welcome it (they might talk about how beneficial it is for everyone to take time out and be a community etc.... Be Kind). Some atheists might welcome it on the same basis. The opposition from atheists would be a mix of a) people saying it's wrong to impose this on everyone, because not everyone believes in god and b) people getting angry at the overreach and saying that god doesn't exist. That's what's happening here with the "playing make-believe" comment.

The question is, will the reaction to the "playing make-believe" comment be a loud conversation that overshadows the real issue, so that people spend time arguing about whether it was kind or offernsive? There will always be people who believe that we all have a gender identity, just like any of the other beliefs above.

Edited for clarity.

Ps everyone is welcome to tell me that ghosts aren't real.

Or the Republicans have found an issue which their research has determined is a vote / popularity loser for the Democrats, and they want to keep it constantly in the media spotlight and at the forefront of the public's mind.

I swear there are non-human species with a higher IQ than Trump. The same is not true of the Republicans' PR wonks.

They do seem to be enactng things now, ahead of the new administration, to either signal intent, or to try to disrupt what they anticipate may be the new agenda.

So back to the Senate toilet, do we think this has been done deliberately to demonstrate that the Democrats are still going to make the rights of trans identifying males the most important issue?

If so that's fascinatingly clever.

Do you mind if i opt out of this dialogue with you now.....it seems pointess and is just creating unnecessary enmity. Feel free to repond further, of course, but I won't be.

Given the nature of the thread I think you are misreading...

Of course, I'm more than aware of that......which is why I normally keep it to myself.

I'm gob smacked your aggression and hostility. For a person of normally voluminous verbosity, how else can a one word reponse be interpreted? Ever considered that i maybe mis-read your meaning or intent?

Precisely.

Which is why we shouldn't teach it as fact in schools, or bake it in to laws, sports, prisons etc as if it's true.

I've just seen this post now.... This point answers my previous question about whether you accept that not everyone believes in it. Thank you for confirming.

You can believe, or disbelieve, what you like about it, of course.

But (and I'm so sorry if this comes across as blunt).... this bit....

I refuse to sit, by, though, and have people dismiss something so central in my life and work - without any real understanding of it themselves.

... illustrates the point I was making upthread. People who believe in gender identity see any pushback about it as offensive. I'm pleased for you that it's central to your life and work. That's great. But me saying I don't believe it's true isn't me not understanding it. I understand enough to know I don't believe in it. Same as with god and with gender identity.

I'm sorry that this feels dismissive. That's presumably how gender identity believers feel too.

On a plus note, I don't think anyone is trying to base laws on astrological predictions. Just as nobody is trying to base laws on the existence of ghosts. So we can all rub along together in society.

It's a belief......

I appreciate it feels real to anyone who studies celestial bodies and sees a link between these and events that happen on earth. But it's a belief. Not everyone believes it's true.

It's very much like my belief in ghosts. I know it's real because I heard a ghost joining in a conversation I was in. Another person in the conversation heard it too. Even though I was the only woman in the room (and I know I didn't say the words), unfortunately the other person doesn't believe it happened (they think I laughed, then said "oh dear"). I accept that others don't believe me and that many (most?) people don't believe in ghosts.

Hopefully you accept that many people don't believe in astrology?

Where's the scientific evidence that everyone has a gender identity? Especially given lots of people say they don't. And there is no tangible evidence of gender identity in other mammals. Indeed lots of unhappiness when mammals such as dogs can smell the difference between human adult males and females and don't recognize gender identity.

There's plenty of scientific evidence backing up the two sexes in humans fact and despite their protestations, the gender ideologues tend to know what a biological woman is when they need a surrogate.

I'm also glad that some people are blunt about it.

I'm just interested to see how that lands in the public discourse. Obviously many (all?) people who believe that everyone has a gender identity don't even recognise it as a belief. They see it as a fact.

Thankfully Christians and recognise their "truth" (e.g. that god exists) as belief-based.

Presumably part of the reason gender identity believers get so angry is because they think it's a scientific fact that everyone has one. So logically they would either think the person refusing to acknowledge it as fact is stupid, offensive or both.

Indeed.

But this is the point. Unfortunately it's either being written in to law as a truth (e.g. the "legal fiction" of the GRA) or interpreted as if the law does this (e.g. where organisations assume gender identity is a protected characteristic).

That's the absurdity. The belief itself is no more or less absurd than a belief in god, astrology, reincarnation, ghosts etc.

I'm gobsmacked by your lack of self awareness.

What do you mean by "wow"?

I'm reading your posts as hostile, but maybe i'm just being over-sensitive.

Wow.

Which is more rude and disrespectful?

Saying that a person who appears to you to be an adult male in a dress is 'playing dress up'.

Going into women's spaces knowing that many in that space neither expect nor consent to a male there. Knowing that for the vast majority 'woman' still means biology not feelings so are being deliberately lied to about what that space entails. Knowing it will scare and exclude women and children, some of them very vulnerable.

Why is this woman's perception of reality valued as less than the man's? Playing dress up is a pretty mild insult, if one at all.

It is allowing this ridiculous policing of language that has allowed male rapists in women's spaces, it's a tacit acceptance that only the man matters. Same thing as with the reporting of 6ft5 Dolatowski's attack on a girl in a 'womans' toilet. No mention of the victims pronouns because it's all framed as only the man - even in this case as a convicted paedophile - that matters.

It's not bullying, it's her opinion and perception McBride is man adopting the sex role stereotypes (eg dress) associated with women. This is factually and scientifically correct.

Bloody ridiculous this is seen as bullying. The bullying is all in the other direction to the women who can't fight back and the women who McBride excludes. Classic darvo.

Well done Nancy Mace.

I understand the difference between a belief and a fact..... certainly in the mundane world of material objects and material reality.

Let's agree to differ, though, in how we approach truth, meaning, understanding and making sense of the world around us, as well as the methods we use to approach it.👌

It helps when people understand the difference between belief and fact for absolutely everything though.

It goes back to the whole fact v opinion thing - and how we have seen a shift from expensive journalists who research and demonstrate a story to cheap opinion columns and how so many people can't tell the difference between the two.

A lot of people don't get the difference and how and why it matters.

Of course.

The trouble is if your mentality is that Trump supporters are stupid and incompetent, you aren't even going to see that possibility coming so you'll walk straight into it.

Understanding and promoting the idea that even child rapists have equal human rights is a hard sell. (Especially when you are in a position where you possibly should have considered safeguarding more earlier down the road in some areas).

Yes, the ghosts and other phenomena...... anything which is out of the ordinary is automatically dismissed. I've not seen a gost myself......but I'm fairly sure that different 'zones' and times can sometimes converge and ghosts and other phenomena are the result of that.

Anyway back to the theme of the thread. But. when people are dismissed as being stupid or easily led etc, it does tend to provoke a response. People know what is important to them.