The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

[Ingenieur]

Starting a new thread in case the first fills up.

Off to bed now, will pick up later

A few pages ago you mentioned that Texas made being trans in public illegal. Do you have a link for that? I'm in the US but I never heard about that!

Edited to add that Google doesn't show me anything.

HRC is very anti-women/pro-trans captured, and don't want the Dems to change tack, so of course they will say that. 12 million (from 2020 election numbers) of Democrat voters sat this one out. Feminists were faced with voting for a misogynist who grabs women by the pussy, or a party that puts males in female only intimate safe single sex spaces and males stealing the medals and sporting places and scholarships of girls and injuring them, as happened to a girl who is now partially paralysed by a male spiking the ball really hard at her. It was a MAJOR issue. The Democrats own polling group showed post-election that it was number three (3) for reasons people voted Trump in swing states.

Keeping your head in the sand and denying that women and feminists are angry at the loss of our rights won't help. The Dems will stay out of office till 2036 unless they change their misogynistic course now. LISTEN to women! Learn the lessons! We want our rights back, and we won't stop until we get them! Learn what happened in Scotland, and the pushback in the UK in July. Now the US. LISTEN to women! Learn the lesson!

No, you mean anti-women. You call it 'anti-trans' so you can cloak your misogyny.

They lie and exaggerate. There is no possible way to make being trans 'illegal'. Honesty and facts don't matter to these people.

There were several lesbians (and a couple of gay men) on twitter who said they were voting for Trump on this issue, a few lesbian couples even posting pics of them voting.

Anyone who denies that the anti-women policies of Biden/Harris didn't play a very major part is very, very, very deeply in denial. This issue has awakened women all over the world. Handmaidens are in denial.

The law was written in a vague way (purposefully) so that if you were trans and in a public place where a child could reasonably expect to be (grocery store for instance), and you displayed characteristics of the gender opposing your birth sex, you were "performing sexually."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/texas-transgender-ban-drag-shows-criminalize-parents.html

Actually had a friend get targeted by this legislature, he is a gay man who does drag performances clothed neck to toe, there is nothing meant to be fetishist about it more so than a Christmas panto.

No, I don't.

You are entitled to feel however you like, and I understand why you may feel that way, but I do not agree.

This is the definition from the article you posted. It seems to be targeting drag? Are you saying all who do drag are trans?

'Both bills define drag as “a performance in which a performer exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience for entertainment.”

The example given in the article of entertainment being someone in drag at a football game singing the anthem is really stretching credulity. Is that 'before an audience for entertainment!

No, I am saying this bill targets anyone who is trans, and anyone who does drag.

This sort of incoherent belief is the result of backward reasoning to prop up another belief. The reasoning in this case is something like: Jesus is the son of God, not the son of Man. Therefore he is not the result of any form of human sexual intercourse. The only way that can be guaranteed is by having Mary a virgin.
Similarly the Immaculate Conception. Jesus is without sin, being God incarnate. Therefore he cannot have been born of a mother tainted by original sin, therefore Mary must have been conceived free of it.
The fact that this belief system is supported by quasi-logical arguments that have been developed and embedded for centuries doesn’t make it more true, though it does make people more inclined to give it credence and strengthens the institutions that benefit from people believing it - which are not averse to using coercion to force people to accept their teachings.

I think Covid.

Because it is missing the context of the full convo.

People here literally thought they were giving trans surgeries to undocumented ("illegal") immigrants.

The pundits and politicians implied that the prisoners in question were immigrants in the detention camps at the border.

Interesting.

Presumably as a centrist who works with children, you've been keen to understand the risks that the UK Cass Report has highlighted?

If the children's parents/carers are concerned that their child is being pulled towards a belief that they're in the wrong body, perhaps because the child is an autistic girl who hates her body changing during puberty (breasts and periods feel uncomfortable etc) and she's hearing adults talking about the idea that you can be any "gender" that feels right for you, and they're also concerned about the unknown impacts of puberty blockers... so they said no when their child asked for them.. Do you think these parents are a risk to their child?

Is this an example of a child who is at risk of homelessness, if the child wants to socially transition with a new opposite-sex name and a change in pronouns, where the parents want to follow a watchful waiting approach (so they say no to the name and pronouns) instead? Are the parents being hateful and anti-trans?

According to the BBC:

When Harris was running as a Democratic candidate for president in 2019, she checked a box in a questionnaire from a civil rights group saying that as president, she would use her authority to ensure that transgender-identifying detainees in prison and immigration facilities would have access to "treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care".

How people choose to interpret this is up to them, but that it might apply to as yet undocumented immigrants is as valid as any other interpretation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgj4qyxlxn1o

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'?

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.

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.

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