The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

Meant to quote @BonfireLady

I'll maintain my "middle ground" assessment of all of it: religious belief is equally as valid and equally as nonsensical as the belief that we all have a gender identity.

This isn't a "middle ground" assessment, it's a particular viewpoint that you have that there is no value in religious belief and it's equivalent to whatever other odd belief people might have.

I'm an agnostic atheist, but I think people's tradition, culture etc that goes back thousands of years is more understandable and legitimate than an incoherent, very recently formed idea that everyone has a "gender", fully based on sex stereotypes, which can be distinct from sex, and I'll continue to treat them accordingly.

Agreed.

As a natural lefty/liberal it saddens me no end that there are more people speaking sense from the side whose politics don't align with mine.

Even more so that some of their motivations (in the US, not so much the UK) stem from religious beliefs which see homosexuality and people with transgender identities as immoral. I fear for LGB people in the States that they'll get caught up in a backlash resulting from this. Hopefully more Democrats will wake up and work out what's actually going on. LGB people are going to need the political voice from the left to counter the bias towards the religiously
-motivated voice from the right.

To add: my experience of religion in the UK is that the positioning of LGB people as immoral is limited. Thankfully there seems to be a far greater tolerance here than we see in the US. Obviously I could be wrong on that but that's my impression from everything that I've seen.

What I am fed up with is cynical left wing politicians so hung up on appearing progressive and righteous that they will jump on the latest so called " liberal" idea no matter how stupid it is. The Labour party ended up aligned with paedophiles in the 70/80s because of this. The Democrats handed their opponents an open goal because of this, and as a result the world will now have to cope with another Trump presidency

YY.

Trump will certainly shake things up and disrupt the status quo.

Quite.

Yet apparently there are rules where some of these beliefs should be described as "playing make-believe" and other beliefs should be described as valid.

I'll maintain my "middle ground" assessment of all of it: religious belief is equally as valid and equally as nonsensical as the belief that we all have a gender identity.

Obviously the potential for radicalism within each of these types of belief is different because there are much greater societal safety nets to identify and address religious radicalisation e.g. people at risk of causing harm to themselves and/or others stand a better chance of being identified and helped on to a pathway that has a healthier outcome. Tackling this doesn't require challenging the belief head-on e.g. I'm assuming Prevent teams don't try and address the next (sadly inevitable) religiously-driven public attack by saying "why are you doing this in the name of a god who doesn't even exist?". Instead, they acknowledge that the person holds a belief and focus on the impact that this belief can have if left unchecked. If someone has been radicalised to the point where they think causing harm to themselves and/or others, it's clear that there is far more to unpick than just whether or not god is real. Ergo the logic that it's not always productive to directly challenge someone's belief in gender identity when addressing the impact of the belief.

What I am fed up with is cynical left wing politicians so hung up on appearing progressive and righteous that they will jump on the latest so called " liberal" idea no matter how stupid it is. The Labour party ended up aligned with paedophiles in the 70/80s because of this. The Democrats handed their opponents an open goal because of this, and as a result the world will now have to cope with another Trump presidency

Myths exist in all societies and cultures and they are the way that humankind seeks meaning in life. The, themes, though all tend to share the same characteristics. All cultures have frameworks of beliefs - and in a post religious world many turn to secular religions: political ideologies, transhumanism in contemporary times; the wellness industry; the " be your best self" industry, technology....

Mind-body dualism as a concept has been seen as one of the gravest heresies throughout the Christian centuries. Descartes late-in-the-day stuff notwithstanding.

Body and mind are one. The soul is part of that, central and without sex, nationality, sect There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus Galatians 3:28.

Paul didn't think slavery didn't exist, or that women and men didn't exist, and his political and legal troubles meant he knew perfectly well that he was a Jew and that that had repercussions. But he was pointing out that the soul was separate from all of that and transcended it.

Yes, some people will believe almost anything - the dafter the better, it seems.

Others don’t feel the need, and are continually pestered as a result.

Christianity embedded the concept of mind - body dualism whereby spirit and matter were seen as being separate; though ironically Jesus came to earth in a body of flesh to redeem mankind. Probably because Christianity arose out of earlier earth centred paganistic practices and beliefs that revolved around birth, death, renewal...the natural round of life.

People have always struggled with the inevitable limits and frustrations of the flesh and the earthly material world, and in one form or other all seek transcendence.There can be something very healing about the concept of trans-substantiation whereby body can once again be united with spirit.

(Astrologically Christianiity arose in the age of Pisces.......the sign of the fish swimming in opposite directions - both towards the earth, but also away from it. Suffering, sacrifice,Redemption. Virgo, the sign of the Virgin is opposite. The sign of purity and cleanliness and redemption through service)

So your friend is a male who mocks women in womanface. Then he deserved to get in trouble.

You are comfortable with advising young people who are struggling with the normal range of adolescent identity issues, including same sex attraction and autism, to embark on a medically unnecessary path of drugs and even radical surgery - in order to feel comfortable within themselves?

Sex is real. This is a measurable and mundane fact of earthly reality. And sex has consequences. Do you dispute this?

It has got nothing to do with feelings. Women would never win if they competed with men in the vast majority of events; and in many others they would be seriously injured. And why should men have to play tippy toe for fear of injuring their female team mates. Where's the fun or the incentive for excellence in that?

Female categories give women and girls a chance to excel on level playing field.

Goodness, have we gone back in a time machine to 2016?

Not so much "pre-prepped" as hard won, researched and considered over many years. You need to bother because these questions and criticism are entirely valid, and because when they become aware, most people agree.

It forms part of a 'bouquet' of motivations. People were voting ( or not voting at all.......11 million Democrats stayed at home) at a gut level in many cases......out of a sense of how they saw America and American values.

Culture is important; very important...it should not be under-estimated. People don't like their daughters being expected to share a bathroom or a sports locker room with boys. They don't like the way the Pharma-Medical industry is preying on young people in the guise of 'gender affirming care'. They don't like being told they are phobic haters for saying so, either.

Exactly. You too have pre prepped argument which is based on your experience and belief. Others here have seen these arguments before...for years. You haven't brought something new or fresh.

We are all watching and waiting for the evidence or a new perspective that challenges our belief or experience.

The paucity of evidence is at the very least 'interesting ' and arguably a wilfull reluctance to provide evidence.....?because it may be exposing? Something, anythig that hasnt been debunked. Maybe Olsen Kennedy research, account for conviction stats, long term improved wellbeing post social or surgical transition. And perhaps a clear how we differentiate quickly between a man in a dress and a sex offender in a dress. Until we get evidence why would we go on your 'I reckon its basically fine'?

Maybe people weren't being entirely truthful with you - for reasons of social shaming; feeling they couldn't be honest about their real thoughts and feelings. A Democrat senator said as much the other day -and was shamed for doing do . He said that Democrats were " not supposed to say or think such things"....and he was an actual elected representtaive, not just an undecided voter.

I personally know of a few who voted for Trump for other types of reason than pure economics.

I think you'll find all over the western world populations are rejecting the politics of progressive liberalism - which has been in the ascendent for quite some time, and which has assumed a form of ideological hegemony; embedding itself at every level of institutional life.

That's literally not what was being said down here.

I live in a border state (for now). People fully believed immigrants at the border were being (or would be) given gender surgeries.

Is it appropriate? The US government is certainly not one I look to for wise accounting decisions in general. Would it make me angry if this happened and my tax dollars went to it? No. It would be a drop in the bucket.

Typically I tell kids that nobody should tell them what they are, and they should speak to their health practioner and be fully educated on the risks and side effects of medical intervention. I don't know any adult in my setting telling kids they can be any gender, just that it's ok if they are or they are questioning.

Typically the no to pronouns and name and haircut is delivered is in an unsupportive and needlessly fearful manner. It is atypical in my experience that caregivers want to watchful wait and are not doing so in an invalidating manner (the usual case) or harmful manner (less often now but was the normal 5 years ago.)

I have a few detransitioned friends. I understand parental fears around the issue. I think if someone is worried about harm reduction, they need to weigh social transitioning carefully and not refuse it out of a place of "what if this leads to more"?

It is not a gateway drug.

Precisely.

It took quite a few centuries for the laws and cultural societal rules underpinning (often upon pain of death) the enforced belief in god to be quietly removed from countries like the UK.

Christianity and science butted heads for centuries. Darwin's Origin of the Species was one of the turning points that allowed society to gradually figure out a way of accommodating both the belief in god and the lack of it.

Gender identity belief has been radically pushed in the last 20-30 years, appropriating established cultural examples of a belief in some kind of gender that is separate from the body along the way (like the hijra in India and many other world examples). When picked apart - which Helen Joyce does brilliantly in Trans - these old cultural examples from around the world tend to stem from a societal desire to "fix" homosexuality, by finding a way to accommodate it. But there's no doubt that many people have embedded the belief that everyone has a gendered essence of some kind in to their understanding of the world for a very long time.

Both religion and a belief in gender identity are examples of how we search for answers and meaning, and how in doing so we're OK with circular arguments or moments when science comes up with a different answer.

That's OK. What's not OK is forcing people to adhere to a belief, either culturally or in laws. Hopefully we're now at a tipping point where people will be able to openly challenge the enforced belief of gender identity. It doesn't matter whether they say that people are "playing make-believe" or "biological males shouldn't play in women's sports". The most important thing is that the message is heard at scale and resonates with enough people.

I'll accept the criticism above that my bias is towards the latter approach, but that's because it's what resonated with me. But I still value the former. I used to be shocked and appalled at what I saw as "anti-trans". It took me ages to open Graham Linehan's substack, for example. From what I'd read, I thought he was awful so I wasn't interested in going near his views. Had I not been so invested in understanding this whole issue, it's possible I'd still be one of many people who finds comments like "playing make-believe" to be unhelpful/offensive. It's equally possible that the more hardline message would have eventually cut through to me the more I heard it. I've got no idea. But as I find Donald Trump revolting, I suspect I'd have been less inclined to listen to that kind of messaging coming from one of his party members in the past. I imagine it would have pushed me the other way, to side with the underdog.

Edited to add: I fully accept that I had misjudged Graham Linehan. I've written about this on several threads before.

No. People thought that she was in favour of taxpayer funded trans surgeries for prisoners - just ordinary criminals who were in prison for various crimes. Nothing to do with immigrants.

Are you saying that she didn't say she was in favour of that?

Many people don't think this is an appropriate use for the money they pay in taxes. Do you? Considering that most people in the US (who are not in prison) have to pay for healthcare.