A queer perspective of the acronym with no name

[Ingenieur]

Queer Majority, an LGBT website, has published an article discussing the issue with the acrobym we cannot name here.

https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/the-forbidden-knowledge-of-autoheterosexuality

Followong long delials that this exists, or is an anti-trans dogwhistle, perhaps we have reached the point where it is admitted that "yes it does exist, and it's a good thing".

non-binary people exist

In what sense?

Yes, I think that's right. But if you generalise too much, such as saying or implying that it applies to all older late transitioning males, you can also be deleted.

It's like the word 'cult'. It can be used in some contexts but not others. Also 'grooming' and 'fetish'.

It'll be interesting to see if this post stays up.

You have previously said that trans people exist and non-binary people exist. Now you seem to be agreeing with me that they only exist as categories of people who believe they are trans or non-binary.

It's an important distinction. It's like the difference between saying that some people believe the earth is flat and saying you believe it because some other people do.

There's plenty of info on paraphilias, and fetishistic crossdressing has long been included.

This information has just been quietly sidelined in favour of Most Marginalised Stunning and Brave.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/paraphilias-and-paraphilic-disorders-diagnosis-assessment-and-management/8DA2119F2AE98194BDFD48D7FC883D67

Specific info on multiple paraphilias:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1562953/

@OldCrone there are categories within the context of having a faith such as Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Jedi, Wicca, Pagan etc. along with people of no faith. I believe people of each faith or of no faith exist but I don’t necessarily believe what they believe. Does that mean they don’t exist?

@ArthurbellaScott thank you.

There's a difference between saying 'people who believe they have a non binary identity' exists and 'Non binary people exist'. The latter implies acceptance of and accordance with their belief system, which is gender identity.

It's more like saying 'kuffirs exist' than saying 'Muslims exist' (apologies to anyone who finds the term offensive, I'm looking for an equivalent of a term that relies on the framework of belief).

'Arahats exist' or 'gentiles exist' or 'saints exist' or 'angels exist' or 'sinners exist' would be other equivalents.

To compare it with another belief system you'd need to say 'believers in gender identity exist'.

So, yes, Buddhists exist. To say that 'arahats exist' implies a shared belief in the existence of and possibility of achieving nibbana/nirvana and the acceptance of the Eightfold Path as key to reaching that.

That sex in humans is binary and immutable is not a belief, it is an observable, provable fact.

Just as it's an observable, provable fact that the Earth is a sphere (or actually a irregularly shaped ellipsoid) and not flat, and that the Earth orbits hhf Sun, not the other way round

@ArthurbellaScott I think I get what you are saying, subtleties of language are not always my strength.

We have discussions like this quite regularly on here. I'll repost what I said on another thread a few weeks ago which some people said they found useful, so I hope it might make it clearer for you.

I compared "trans people" with "reincarnated people".

Some people believe in reincarnation. It's even a part of some religions to believe this. If I say I don't believe in reincarnation or that "genuinely reincarnated people" don't exist, I'm not saying that people who believe in reincarnation don't exist. I'm not saying that the people who believe they have been reincarnated don't exist, I'm just saying that I don't believe they are genuinely reincarnated.

A trans identity seems to me to be very similar to a belief someone might have that they have been reincarnated. Both are about the mind or soul being separate from the body so that it can be born into a body. Both require a belief in such a soul.

Put it this way; do you genuinely think that people who were male or female but have decided to become a third sex have actually changed sex?

Are they actually becoming a new sex called 'Non binary' or do they remain the sex they always were but choose to call themselves 'Non binary'?

I was banned for a week for saying both.

I think it depends on if your post gets reported.

I was trying to remember who said this brilliant analogy the other day.
It's really helpful in the belief discussion and I was about to bring it back in (by crediting it to a MNer whose name I couldn't remember) on a different thread.

The "what next?" question on the acronym's journey is already taking place all over Twitter. There is quite a furore about a male who attended the Genspect conference in a dress that looked totally incongruous to the event - a marginal improvement on the clothing that Freda Wallace wore to the IEA. Unfortunately Genspect didn't seem to spot this and sent out a tweet promoting him and his book... and now there is lots of shouting and infighting about what was right and what was a mistake.

From my perspective, understanding gender identity as a belief is key. At that point it can be accommodated appropriately in law, education and healthcare - and meaningful discussions can be had about 3rd spaces, for example. If that stops some people acting out their fetish, tough. Fetishes which involve pulling others in to get a sexual thrill don't belong out in public. Anyone who has this fetish should be offered help to control it - and if their narcissism stops them seeking help there should be controls in law to manage any impacts that this may have. Conflating this fetish as a sexual orientation (which is what the conference attendee and book author was advocating for) is a step back towards gender affirming care.

The "dust-up" is still ongoing. If anyone is on Twitter it's worth a look. I'm surprised there isn't a thread yet specifically about it.

@OldCrone I understand your example but as I said I think it is a subtlety of the language both you and @ArthurbellaScott are picking me up on.

I believe there are two sexes and you cannot change sex. People with DSD are not a 3rd sex they are natural variations of male and female which can be genetic or due to differences in the way they developed in utero but are either male or female. I do not believe trans people change sex.

Some people believe in Gender Identity theory which includes the concepts of trans and non-binary and as part of their belief they believe they are trans or non-binary. So trans and non-binary people exist whether or not you and I believe in GI. I think the subtlety in language you are picking me up on is that I didn’t add the wordy “people who believe they are”.

Most posters do not write “people who believe they are” when talking about this subject. I hope you both pick up every other poster and correct their use of language.

@BonfireLady From my perspective, understanding gender identity as a belief is key. At that point it can be accommodated appropriately in law, education and healthcare - and meaningful discussions can be had about 3rd spaces, for example. If that stops some people acting out their fetish, tough. Fetishes which involve pulling others in to get a sexual thrill don't belong out in public. Anyone who has this fetish should be offered help to control it - and if their narcissism stops them seeking help there should be controls in law to manage any impacts that this may have. Conflating this fetish as a sexual orientation (which is what the conference attendee and book author was advocating for) is a step back towards gender affirming care.

Exactly, I have been consistent on threads that gender dysphoria and paraphillia’s such as autogynephilia, voyeurism and exhibitionism are two different things. This is why the article is useful as you have an autogynephile being honest.

We cannot turn the clock back to the early 2000s and repeal the GRA, what we can hopefully do is get revisions to the GRC and EA2010 so they more accurately reflect the breadth of the GI Belief and separate sex and gender. We can only do that by acknowledging people have GI beliefs and that they believe themselves to be trans or non binary (hope I got that language right).

We can only do that by acknowledging people have GI beliefs and that they believe themselves to be trans or non binary.

But you can't base laws and policies on beliefs that are contrary to reality.

For example, you cannot allow a thirty-year-old to enroll in a nursery class or allow a twenty-year-old to receive a state pension.

Even if a male person believes he is female or non-binary, he is not and never will be. That fact has to be acknowledged in law and policy. The same with a female person and her belief. The same with any individual and their "trans identity" beliefs.
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Some people believe in Gender Identity theory which includes the concepts of trans and non-binary and as part of their belief they believe they are trans or non-binary. So trans and non-binary people exist whether or not you and I believe in GI.

Most posters do not write “people who believe they are” when talking about this subject.

This is exactly how I see it. Once it's framed as a belief that not everyone holds it helps to position everything. Including keeping fetishes in their rightful place. It's one of the reasons why I still stick with Christianity as my go-to analogy in the first instance (the reincarnation analogy makes much more sense from a soul-having feelings perspective though). The same would work with any religion but I used to be Christian, so my knowledge of it is better at a details level than my knowledge of other religions, and I also used to think that I had a gender identity when I first heard about the concept. Priests exist (to spread the word of the Bible etc), whether or not I believe in God. They exist in a meaningful way within the Christian belief and they exist as real people. Without a belief in Christianity, priests are just ordinary people whose job it is to stand inside a building which has lots of nice windows, tell an audience things on a weekly basis which they might find helpful, listen to their concerns and help them forgive themselves when they make mistakes.

Thankfully the Christian belief isn't being positioned as a truth, so any impacts relating to it aren't cutting across others' boundaries.

Perhaps the problem is that the phrase 'such and such exists ' is an activist phrase. People don't say 'enlightened beings exist' when they mean 'people who believe themselves enlightened exist'.

I've only ever heard trans activists use the phrase. And I'm not getting at you, Sisterpita, just discussing the use of the phrase.

Non binary people also don't exist in any sense in legislation.

To link to the pp's example above:

People who claim to believe in reincarnation obviously exist. There they are.

However to say people who have genuinely been reincarnated exist is nothing more than an opinion, belief based and contentious, and not everyone will willingly go along with it.

It works exactly the same regarding TQ+ identities.

And often the whole 'exist' thing is wholly unexplained by activists (and never can be explained) and is frequently thrown out to make people go around in circles trying to work out what 'they exist' actually means, which effectively shuts them up when the argument is not going the activists' way.

So it's a phrasing that yes, has a bit of a history and relevance in several ways.

@Chersfrozenface you say “But you can't base laws and policies on beliefs that are contrary to reality.” Then you go on to say

“Even if a male person believes he is female or non-binary, he is not and never will be. That fact has to be acknowledged in law and policy. The same with a female person and her belief. The same with any individual and their "trans identity" beliefs.”

The GRA and EA2010 are laws based on GI belief and conflate sex and Gender Identity Belief. Repealing the GRA is not going to happen, amending it to be based on GI belief and completely separating it from sex is the most likely outcome. This means sex reverts in law to human male or female and not the ludicrous legal sex version we now have.

People who believe in God have protection under the religion and belief pc. Those who don’t believe in God are similarly protected. GC belief is protected so it is not unreasonable to have the GI belief protected as a distinct belief. This is totally separate to sex.

There is eventually going to be a huge bun fight over definitions as I very much doubt there is a clear and unified definitions of trans, gender, non-binary etc. Sex is much easier as sex = human male/female.

Just seen this one. Yep.
The only bit I would question is the idea that we can't repeal the GRA. My understanding is that we could (and I'd love to see this debated in parliament as per the slow burning petition that is currently active) but it sounds like there would be knock-on effects with interconnected laws, so it wouldn't be a fast process. There are a few old threads about this that go into lots of details. It sounds like a minefield.

If Christians were trying to get their faith accommodated as truth I would feel just the same. Mandated church on Sundays and prayers before meals can be eaten in restaurants, no thanks.

But having a self-confessed acronym person (I just daren't type it 😬😬😁... My one and only deletion was when I did) sharing information about what it's all about, in lots of detail, is helpful. It adds another layer of information to go with what we know from elsewhere. That's why it wasn't the attendance at the Genspect conference that disappointed me, it was the failure to recognise that the someone's propensity to perform at any given chance hadn't been picked up and mitigated. If it hadn't been, chances are it's also made its way in to the proposed Genspect framework which offers an alternative pathway of care. I've only just started my review of it (it's currently under public consultation) but what's missing IMO right from the start is the simple fact that gender dysphoria is predicated on someone believing in gender identity. Any care pathway should be also looking to draw out, in a respectful way, whether this person really has a belief in gender identity or just believes it because they've been told it's a truth. I also hope that they have separated out the care pathways to support the various different types of gender dysphoria and also how to recognise and treat the acronym people. I'd imagine that many adolescent boys who have it don't even realise that they do.