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.

Flowers - my point re sex rather than gender was more along the lines of ‘if the evidence was good enough they would be understood as sex differences which would require the observed differences to be able to be reliably reproduced at a population level with a high level of certainty’

Some of them may well end up being that way. The problem is that our current understanding is too limited for this to be so. The science needs to improve.

How are you defining gender fmsfms (nb. Please don't get defensive, I am agreeing with you here)

Crikey fms that’s a shit load of research.

I already agree with that some gender differences are partly innate.

You do understand fms that at no point have I argued that there are no differences?

Simply that our understanding of where those differences come from is quite limited so it doesn’t support an assertion of ‘innate’....

🙄

offred why are you getting so hung up on the innate comment? fms has already admitted that was poor wording.

We are all a product of our biology and socialisation. I for one find all the links to the evidence for the biological influences on our personalities fascinating.

"You do understand fms that at no point have I argued that there are no differences?

Simply that our understanding of where those differences come from is quite limited so it doesn’t support an assertion of ‘innate’...."

I'm really not sure what you're getting at then or trying to debate.

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

Really not sure how can you question the existence of the evidence

Yes, I find it fascinating too.

Hung up? I don’t know that I’m hung up.

I just think generally, not just regarding this area of science, it is quite important to be careful about making assumptions. It limits the ability to expand our knowledge when we do.

I also think given the cultural context it can be quite harmful because these things are political issues.

Women throughout history have been oppressed because we were thought to be naturally lesser than men. It means we should be careful re the soundness of any conclusions regarding sex differences IMO.

None of which is a statement that I am of the opinion that everything is socially constructed and there is no biology involved.

None of which is a statement that I am of the opinion that everything is socially constructed and there is no biology involved

Great sounds like we agree.

"it is quite important to be careful about making assumptions"

What assumptions?

The whole point of science is to explore theories and test assumptions.

As explained already, the assumption was that personality differences would decrease as Countries got more equal. The differences got bigger.

The assumption came from left leaning social psychologists.

Any egalitarian society isn't far enough into that journey for the conditioning to have disappeared. We already know that parents respond differently to newborns according to sex and that's not going to change because of equal opportunities. There could be any number of reasons why there'd be this apparent shift back towards gender roles - maybe similar to how Trump got into power.

Well yes, exactly, so is the conclusion that the assumption was wrong in some way (how is egalitarian measured for example?) or that the difference must be innate?

How do we tell?

That’s my whole point... further inquiry is needed there.

And yy constantlycold. I’m just making a distinction essentially between having an opinion and ‘science proves’.

And I’m not arguing against making assumptions or speculation or theorising either.

Simply recognition that that is what’s going on.

(And yes I know how they measured egalitarianism in the study, I don’t need that explained to me.)

He does not believe gender is innate...he was talking about what the trans ideology is and the myths.

"Any egalitarian society isn't far enough into that journey for the conditioning to have disappeared. "

Nobodies claiming that it has disappeared.

Well, in that study the purpose of using egalitarianism in the first place is as a way of understanding social construction of gender roles.

The theory being that if the country scores highly re egalitarianism then the social construction of gender roles is egalitarian in those countries that score highly and therefore gender roles are more influenced by biology than socialisation in these societies. According to this theory higher levels of egalitarianism should result in an evening out of behaviours.

What it found is that doesn’t happen. It did not offer any particular insight into whether that was because the assumption was problematic to start with or because the behaviours are innate (or anything in between).

The UK has ‘very high’ development for example but I think we all understand how rigid sex stereotyping and gender role enforcement is here. The countries are assessed relative to each other not relative to principles of egalitarianism.

It’s very interesting but it doesn’t say anything much about biology vs environment. It had interesting conclusions re stress and the effect of economic insecurity though.

I wish I could find what I read, but it's well and truly buried somewhere. The gist was that humans (most animals?) have this in-built urge towards tribalism; towards an "us" and "them". Towards recognising those that are like ourselves and those that are not, and outwardly signalling our allegiance to our various groups or tribes, and our distinction from the "others".

What I'm wondering is, if that seems a reasonable enough proposition, could it be that in "egalitarian" societies where the differences between us and them (in this case men and women) are upheld less by the very structure of society, that the men and women themselves are drawn to express the distinction in a more pronounced manner?

So the "hard" distinction (i.e. built into the framework of society) is lessened, so the "soft" distinction (i.e. the two groups' expression of their self-determined difference) increases to compensate?

Obviously there will be many things at work, but I do wonder if that could be a part of it. The urge to ghettoise, to form groups and gangs is so primal - particularly when it comes to reproduction - that it only seems reasonable that people themselves would contribute to gender; and not, perhaps, because they ARE all that different, but because it serves a biological function for them to outwardly express themselves as such.

hmmm, but rat by your reasoning wouldn't you expect people to pick things like appearance rather than career choices, which I understand was one of the things measured in the study?

to show tribalism I mean

If that urge is biological not learned, then why is there no culture wide biological urge to create structures in which women can raise children.

Yes, you would imagine so wouldn't you Reluctant, I don't know. It's just something I'm batting around at the moment. The thing with career choices is that they sort of "come about" over quite a long period of time in one's life, and encompass so many choices along the way; choices one often makes when one is young and still at school. I'm sure there's an element of "not wanting to do what your elders expect you to do" too, as there always is at play with youth.

Like I say, no doubt this would be just a tiny part of a much larger puzzle.

Upstart, right, there isn't much of that on this day and age is there. I don't think there always hasn't been though. Just like I don't think there has always been a patriarchy since the dawn of time. That kind of came about too as part of our development as a species. And it seems that that won out over a cultural prioritisation of child rearing.

I suppose at some point in our history that became the dominant force in creating the structures we experienced today; perhaps when we had ample food and plenty of surviving babies to carry on the species then trade and domination over other cultures became the thing societies preferenced - the "male" societal functions I guess - and we're still living with that legacy now.

Only now we don't need it any more, and us women, it doesn't serve us, so we're calling time.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/transgender-brain-scans-promised-study-shows-structural-differences/

This is interesting (probably worthy of its own thread but relevant here too)

People with gender dysphoria have a brain structure and neurological patterns similar to the sex they identify with - which implies that bio males/females have different brain structures/neuro patterns to eachother, which would be a biologically innate difference. And clearly different brains/neuro patterns think/behave in different ways?

"we now have evidence that sexual differentiation of the brain differs in young people with GD, as they show functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender.”"

"Scientists believe gender dysphoria may be caused by the exposure of foetuses to additional hormones as a result of medication taken by the mother, as well as a foetal insensitivity to certain hormones while in the womb."

Where are all the people that dismissed the influence of testosterone and wanted me to read that Cordelia Fine book?

thread here fms

Nobodies claiming that it has disappeared.

Ergo you can't prove anything is innate if you can't control for outside influences.

"Ergo you can't prove anything is innate if you can't control for outside influences.