How do people think you can change sex?

[CuriousBogInTheNight]

I've obviy not followed closely enough but genuinely how has it become controversial to say you cannot change sex?! Sex is encoded from the moment of conception... Are people thick or have they tried to change the meaning of the word sex?

Alice Roberts - I just don't get what's going on there. She has a medical degree, although I don't think she ever practised as a doctor. Her early academic career before she moved into TV presenting involved mostly work in anatomy, I believe. She has children, so has experienced first-hand pregnancy and childbirth. She is President of the Humanist Society and has no truck with religion. How can she not get the total irrelevance of clownfish to discussions about whether human male prisoners should be housed in women's prisons? Sport, refuges, hospital wards etc etc etc. She surely can't believe in pink and blue brains. The brain is part of the body, not a separate thing trapped inside a body.

Baffling.

Because she likes being famous and successful and doesn’t want to give it up. No integrity basically.

But she could do that and just keep quiet on this issue, as so many other prominent people have done. She's gone way beyond that and made liberal use of the block feature on Twitter so as not to have to even see any contrary points of view. How she reconciles this belief in gendered souls with being an atheist is a mystery.

@andyoldlabour

I had an interesting debate earlier on about changing sex (a car forum). I mentioned Professor Robert Winston (IMHO an absolute genius and all round nice guy) and this guy retorted that he also had a PHd in Biology and was certain that humans could change sex. He then posted links to people who had rare DSD's. He then tried to assert that the surgery which would be carried out would be identical to changing sex, with everything functioning normally. I then pointed out using a car example, where you would buy a Toyota MR2, buy a lookalike Ferrari kit, bolt it all on, stand back and admire it, knowing that underneath it would just be an MR2.

I don’t think this person could even remotely have a PhD in biology! I can’t imagine anyone at that stage of qualification who had no idea about sex chromosomes. Men in particular love to spout nonsense on the internet.

@NecessaryScene

And the younger ones are genuinely that stupid, because they are surrounded by stupidity-generating sources of misinformation.

Yes - as has just been noted over in this thread:

In a recent Year 9 PHSE lesson at my school, we discovered that every single pupil believed men could change sex to the extent that they would be able to have babies. They were shocked to learn that was not the case.

Yup, many young people do believe you can literally change sex. And then perform all the biological functions of that sex. I've met a trans boy who thought they could father biological children later on, the old-fashioned way.

In short, by being a) in denial or b) not bright enough to listen to proper scientists over dodgy and unsubstantiated pseudo-science on social media.

@necessaryscene and @allmywhat you can't discuss it with him because he just huffs and sighs and says "I can't help it if you are too thick to understand"

I asked him how he'd feel if his DDs grew up and faced bio men who identified as women on a sports team or in prison. Apparently his DDs won't grow up to play sports because that's for men, and they won't end up in prison so it's irrelevant.

I just asked my 8 year old if she thought a sex change meant literally changing sex, and she looked at me like I was crazy and said “don’t they just cut the man bits off, that doesn’t make someone actually a girl” - so I suspect a lot of the daftness of teenagers thinking this is after Tiktok and social media have rotted their brains with genderwoo.

I’ve always felt so confused about this subject because to me, I cannot change the fact I am a human female.

I can make myself look like lots of things, it doesn’t change who I am or make me those things. It’s offensive to change my skin colour, or race, so why is it ok to say you’re a female when you don’t have the genetic make up for it.

I’m quite concerned about the effect all of this is having on children, to be honest.

I fully support/respect people for their quirks and way of life, after all life would be boring if we were all the same.

Alice Roberts - I just don't get what's going on there.

"Professor for the public enagagement with Science" who locks her Twitter when people ask real questions.

Roberts is a scientist in the same sense that Mike Brewer is a car dealer or Amanda Owen is a shepherdess.

Alice Roberts is a professional TV presenter who trades on her qualifications. Any more degrees and she'd be a protractor. She values her lucrative TV career more than she cares about academic integrity.

After a period of sober jackets, she has lately returned to the little vests like some beer-gutted rocker who was big in the 80s. A few more years and she will be Charlie Dimmock.

@Jaysmith71

The Official RC line today is full-on woo: "There is a change in the inner substance of the bread and wine that passes all human understanding."

(Which begs the question of how come you can be so sure if it's inexplicable?)

Jesus spoke about making his followers 'fishers of men' and made a pun based on Peter's name, so we know he was not above the odd metaphor, so why they can't just accept that it's metaphorical is also a mystery that passes all understanding.

Catholics don't today, and never have, resorted to Bible-only arguments. There is a tradition of interpretation that is just as, if not more, important. Even from quite early on, about as early as the Biblical accounts themselves, the eucharist was treated as something other than a metaphor.

My brother seems to genuinely think

Apparently not

Great new interview by Helen Joyce just up, and there's a lot in there about how we got here, with a segment on how many children are ending up believing they can change sex.

theelectricagora.com/2021/10/15/helen-joyce-on-her-new-book-trans-when-ideology-meets-reality/

And the younger ones are genuinely that stupid, because they are surrounded by stupidity-generating sources of misinformation.

I strongly object to the notion that children and young people believe in gender ideology because they're stupid or lack critical-thinking ability.

Nowadays they are fed all sorts of nonsense about gender identity based on sexist stereotypes from the start of primary school, and why would a child not believe what the trusted adults in charge of their education tell them?

Then, as kids get older, they risk being ostracised by peers for speaking their mind around these issues and asking sensible questions about women's rights, so they quickly learn that questioning gender identity is so taboo that it's best to follow the party line. Often they also have friends who are trans or non-binary, and so it also feels like a personal attack to question the accepted narrative.

Young people aren't stupid - they're the victims here just like the rest of us.

IMO, not recognising young people as victims of gender ideology here is dangerous, as it moves the focus onto their behaviour and diverts attention away from the subtle but insidious ways that children became indoctrinated (through sexist stereotypes and misguided SRE in school and woke children's books). And if we're not acknowledging that children are being damaged and misinformed by being taught gender ideology as fact in school, then how will we challenge it?

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

But she could do that and just keep quiet on this issue, as so many other prominent people have done. She's gone way beyond that and made liberal use of the block feature on Twitter so as not to have to even see any contrary points of view. How she reconciles this belief in gendered souls with being an atheist is a mystery.

Bizarrely it seems to be something that some parts of the atheist/sceptic community have gone all in on.

Not all of course but I've definitely noticed some kind of correlation - a lot of the early atheist/sceptic crowd on YouTube are passionate believers, some adopting identities themselves.

Perhaps there's something about human nature that subconsciously seeks out belief in something? In an increasingly secular society people who have rejected traditional religion might be looking for an anchor in something else without even realising it?

I don’t think there are that many woke children’s books (though some of the authors are very woke) - and it doesn’t really seem to be about in most primary schools, which generally follow a quite sensible PSHE national curriculum.

I think the gender rot really sets in with the transition to secondary school and the use of social media around 12-13. My niece is 13 and has just started coming out with a lot of this stuff, which she’s largely got from Tiktok and from her peers.

Not all of course but I've definitely noticed some kind of correlation - a lot of the early atheist/sceptic crowd on YouTube are passionate believers, some adopting identities themselves.

It shows which ones were in those movements to show themselves as "more enlightened" and have a chance to dunk on the ignorant rubes.

Those people have moved on to these new fertile pastures. They will leave them just as rapidly when it starts to go sour.

Sex change used to be just a legal fiction to accommodate a small group, a bit like the way the Queen is received as an honorary man in some Arab states so she can meet with the rulers and be shown due respect.

Nobody thinks she suddenly sprouted male body parts; it's make-believe.

What we're seeing now is people wanting polite make-believe to be real, and insisting everyone else goes along.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Alice Roberts - I just don't get what's going on there. She has a medical degree, although I don't think she ever practised as a doctor. Her early academic career before she moved into TV presenting involved mostly work in anatomy, I believe. She has children, so has experienced first-hand pregnancy and childbirth. She is President of the Humanist Society and has no truck with religion. How can she not get the total irrelevance of clownfish to discussions about whether human male prisoners should be housed in women's prisons? Sport, refuges, hospital wards etc etc etc. She surely can't believe in pink and blue brains. The brain is part of the body, not a separate thing trapped inside a body.

Baffling.

Secular humanism is a faith based position for many adherents, IMO. There is a very elevated belief in human reason, human capacities, and morality, and for many there is no real attempt to root those ideas in a coherent or sound metaphysics, nor do they really look to root ideas about the nature of evil in a metaphysics.

I think that could very easily dovetail into all kinds of transhumanist ideas and a Whig approach to history. I suspect that's where she is coming from on this.

I hope this doesn’t hijack this thread. I think lots of people who are not biologists are redefining what sex means. I had a very awkward conversation with my MIL (most definitely would call herself a feminist, and a fairly old school one at that) about how sex is a spectrum. She listened to a ted talk about how ‘new research’ has found loads more people are intersex than we realise and your levels of hormones can affect it also. That you can have a mix of chromosomes bla bla bla. So how do we define sex? This is the same woman who have given birth twice, who was outraged that the freemasons allowed trans women to continue to attend (her argument then was that they should take on the constraints of their new ‘gender’).

@Jaysmith71

The Official RC line today is full-on woo: "There is a change in the inner substance of the bread and wine that passes all human understanding."

(Which begs the question of how come you can be so sure if it's inexplicable?)

Jesus spoke about making his followers 'fishers of men' and made a pun based on Peter's name, so we know he was not above the odd metaphor, so why they can't just accept that it's metaphorical is also a mystery that passes all understanding.

Your style jay. I like it a lot 🏌️‍♀️

Yup, many young people do believe you can literally change sex. And then perform all the biological functions of that sex. I've met a trans boy who thought they could father biological children later on, the old-fashioned way.

If this is true, then it really does undermine the argument that teenagers are mature enough to give informed consent to puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

@Skinnymuffins

My understanding is that your sex is the body you're born with but your gender is what some believe to be socially constructed based on the sex your body has been assigned.

Therefore you can change your gender quite easily and you can change the appearance of the most predominant sex organs, but actually changing sex? I'm unsure. Even if you had your uterus removed etc your sex is sex is the body that you're scientifically born with?

Perfect summary, now do you want to tell Kier Starmer. And while you're at it, post that on twatter and wait for the pile on from the TRA. (No actually don't do that you be traumatised for life)

It's amazing how it's captured healthcare. Spotted today.

[clownfish]

ah, bugger - there doesn't seem to be a Nemo emoji.