The Transgender Agenda: Critiquing its origins, ideology, methods and goals

[Kyanite]

I just came across this video today and found it incredibly interesting.

It's a talk given by a Dr last year, 50 minutes long, very clear and engaging. Hopefully others will find it interesting too.

I'm afraid it didn't impress me. If you're going to talk about the Transgender Agenda it helps to define what you mean or understand by the word "gender". Half the time Peter Saunders uses it as sex. On top of that, he believes gender differences are innate. It's weird, because he's a surgeon who's also a sociologist so I'd assume he knew better, but he doesn't consider whether differences in behaviour between boys and girls are the product of socialization. Not very scientific.

As for all that crap about second/third wave feminism - the lazy misuse of that a famous quote from Simone de Beauvoir... in fact everything he said about feminism was wrong.

Though he does talk about the transing of children, he says nothing about the effect of the transgender agenda on women. However he refuses to read out the words penis and vagina so I imagine that uttering the word lesbian would blow his socks (and his audience) away.

I was put off early on when I saw the video was from the Family Policy Institute of Washington, a homophobic anti-abortion religious pressure group. But I told myself even a stopped clock is right twice a day and kept watching. Wish I'd gone with my first impulse.

" On top of that, he believes gender differences are innate. It's weird, because he's a surgeon who's also a sociologist so I'd assume he knew better, but he doesn't consider whether differences in behaviour between boys and girls are the product of socialization"

Maybe that's because:

a) There's plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate

b) the evidence for that conclusion came from social scientists/psychologists that were trying to prove gender differences were linked to nurture

lol

It’s way too complicated to just be summed up as ‘plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate’

We do not really understand how these things work... yet...

Anyone who thinks things ‘are innate’ or conversely that they ‘are socialisation’ will probably find they are wrong as our understanding gets better.

I think what we can be pretty sure of is that all people are a combination of the highly complex interaction between innate factors and environmental factors.

We need to work on understanding how all the factors work together, in what way and at what times before making pronouncements.

Anyone making pronoucements is doing so because of ideology.

Anyone who thinks things ‘are innate’ or conversely that they ‘are socialisation’ will probably find they are wrong as our understanding gets better.

Offred I could not agree more with every word of your post.

"I think what we can be pretty sure of is that all people are a combination of the highly complex interaction between innate factors and environmental factors."

Yes, I wasn't saying that differences are 100% innate.

"Anyone making pronoucements is doing so because of ideology."

I actually addressed that earlier this morning in the Peterson thread

Peter Saunders refers to Bible believing Christians and appears to be speaking in a church. "Bible believing" is a term used by Young Earth Creationists. Someone with those beliefs is likely to hold that God created the sexes and their roles.

Well not really particularly well since you made your own pronouncement; ‘There's plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate’

We don’t understand the factors. All of the current research is speculative and all of it is based on a set of assumptions that are open to bias. It is often very interesting but also often it doesn’t tell us what we often think it is telling us.

Too many ‘often’ 😂🤣

"Well not really particularly well since you made your own pronouncement; ‘There's plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate’"

Yes, admittedly that could have been phrased better.

"All of the current research is speculative and all of it is based on a set of assumptions that are open to bias"

Surely any and every study can be dismissed or waved away with "bias?"

Here is a summary of what I said on the Peterson thread re the research (not pasting all of it):

The Big 5 personality model/traits is well established over 30 years, not questioned. All based on empirical data and statistics, no ideological axe to grind with the big 5

Not massive differences in personality between sexes but not minor/inconsequential

Hypothesis: if gender differences decrease among more egalitarian societies then nurture is the biggest influence

Let's test it, by going around the world, look at cultures and rank by gender equality of social policies.

That's exactly the opposite of what was found, repeatedly.

This is "mainstream science", the relevant studies have "thousands of citations"

"Average humanities paper has zero citations"

Addressing bias: "how do you know you can trust someones judgement about a fact? If the fact emerges despite their ideological background/presupposition

It's well known that social sciences/humanities are Left Wing dominated. No/very few conservatives amongst social psychologists = left wing bias.

It was these social scientists that came up with the data for the gender differences being bigger in more equal Countries.

They wanted to prove that gender differences got smaller as equality increased.

So any bias would have tilted them towards proving that differences decrease in more equal societies

_

That all comes from 10mins-14mins of this Peterson podcast jordanbpeterson.com/podcasts/48-ben-shapiro/

Yes, I already read it on the other thread.

I am not waving away any study using ‘bias’, what I am waving away is your confident pronouncement; ‘There's plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate’

@fmsfms, are there any gender differences in particular which you believe to be innate?

Years ago I was at a talk given by Dr Helen Ball, I believe she heads up the infant sleep lab at Durham University. She showed videos of mothers and babies co-sleeping and it was quite amazing, the mother was subconsciously aware of her baby while asleep, when the baby moved the mother would move. IIRC men just slept on regardless and didn't respond at all to their babies. Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?

"what I am waving away is your confident pronouncement; ‘There's plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate"

So on what grounds are you dismissing the many studies that imply there is a connection between gender differences being innate?

Do I really need to post all the studies again from that thread?

@herfemaleness

Yes that's a good example. I believe that if you could erase overnight all social stigma/conditioning that says mothers should stay at home to raise the children, that if you gave men equal parental leave and removed all related barriers then the majority of parents that take career breaks and/or the majority of parental leave would still be women.

It's absurd (IMO) to suggest that the sex that conceives the baby, carries it for 9 months, gives birth to it, feeds it from her breast etc, only decides to be the primary caregiver because society tells her it's a womans job.

Isn't there also evidence that at childbirth mothers are flooded with hormones that create the bond with the infant.

Also evidence that a babies crying affects men and women differently?

to clarify @Offred, I've already conceded my phrasing was poor

"‘There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate"

Do you disagree with the above revised version?

Agree prawn. This is ‘science’ that has an end goal in mind. It isn’t helpful to anyone.

I am dismissing your conclusion.

If the actual studies themselves conclude that then I will also dismiss their conclusions, though I haven’t read any that assert that as a conclusion, only many many newspapers that incorrectly report that as a conclusion.

Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’

what conclusion? That there are innate differences in personality between the sexes/gender

"Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’"

pedantic

Re your new phrasing, I would say ‘which differences specifically and why are you using the term ‘gender’. If they are innate then they are sex differences surely?’

That's a really good question offred. It all depends on your definition of gender doesn’t it?

There is very good evidence for both innate and socially induced differences between the sexes. I lean towards a definition of gender as the socially influenced behaviors that different between sexes, whereas those that are innate could be described as sex-based behaviour variation. Which are which is only beginning to be unravelled.

Either of these conclusions;

There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate

plenty of evidence for gender differences being innate

There are many studies showing differences in many areas and at various points of life, there are some looking at animals. None of them reliably conclude the above^

It might be reasonable to theorise that behaviour is influenced by both biological and environmental factors but that’s not the same thing as there being evidence for that in the science.

There are indications in the science that support ‘complex factors involving environment and biology’ as a theory. Not the same as conclusions and this provides more questions than answers IMO.

I am with fmsfms on this one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the statement
"There's plenty of evidence for gender differences partly being innate"

"There are many studies showing differences in many areas and at various points of life"

Ok science bomb time:

Sex differences in personality/cognition: Lynn (1996): bit.ly/2vThoy8

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2fBVn0G

Weisberg (2011): bit.ly/2gJVmEp

Del Giudice (2012): bit.ly/2vEKTUx

Larger/large and stable sex differences in more gender-neutral countries: (These findings run precisely contrary to social constructionist theory: it's been tested, and it's wrong).

Katz-Gerrog (2000): bit.ly/2uoY9c4

Costa (2001): bit.ly/2utaTT3

Schmitt (2008): bit.ly/2p6nHYY

Schmitt (2016): bit.ly/2wMN45j

Differences in men and women's interest/priorities: Lippa (1998): bit.ly/2vr0PHF

Rong Su (2009): bit.ly/2wtlbzU

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2wyfW23

See also Geary (2017) blog: bit.ly/2vXqCcF

Sex differences in academic achievement unrelated to political, economic, or social equality:

Stoet (2015): bit.ly/1EAfqOt

Big Five trait agreeableness and (lower) income (including for men): Spurk (2010): bit.ly/2vu1x6E

Judge (2012): bit.ly/2uxhwQh

The general importance of exposure to sex-linked steroids on fetal and then lifetime development: Hines (2015) bit.ly/2uufOiv Exposure to prenatal testosterone and interest in things or people (even when the exposure is among females):

Berenbaum (1992): bit.ly/2uKxpSQ

Beltz (2011): bit.ly/2hPXC1c

Baron-Cohen (2014): bit.ly/2vn4KXq

Hines (2016): bit.ly/2hPYKSu

Primarily biological basis of personality sex differences:

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Ngun (2010): bit.ly/2vJ6QSh

Status and sex: males and females

Perusse (1993): bit.ly/2uoIOw8

Perusse (1994): bit.ly/2vNzcL6

Buss (2008): bit.ly/2uumv4g

de Bruyn (2012): bit.ly/2uoWkMh

Awaiting the inevitable (already addressed) cries of "BIAS!"

Unless you define gender as only the heavily socially influenced behaviours. Which would be helpful imo