The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

[Ingenieur]

Starting a new thread in case the first fills up.

Yes... But there's a difference between, I don't know, me disagreeing with you on israel/palestine but we agree on women's rights so we work together on that. And us disagreeing on a fundamental level on one thing but both voting for the same person because we believe he has promised opposite things. There is working with people you disagree with and compromise - that always has to happen in a 2 party system. And the "believe what you want about reality" world of Trump. I agree that if all the other side has is "believe exactly what we tell you" they aren't offering a compelling alternative.
Eg no one knows what is happening with Trumps deport the immigrants rhetoric. Different people seem very convinced that he promised to deport different groups or definitely won't touch these people. I don't know who he is actually going to deport and no one else does either really.

I think that's related to the famous phrase from The Atlantic about Trump:

“the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

Ouch! Those replies did not hesitate to tell her that she is definitely behind the times - she brought 2018 facts to a 2024 discussion 😣

Which brings us back to the subject of the thread. Democrats at the moment cannot have a honest conversation on gender identity because they cannot disown mad views that they've not only held for years, but have aggressively and ruthlessly enforced.

As the story goes...

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.

I got about 2/3 through the original thread and will go back and finish it, was one of the most informative I can remember reading. I especially enjoyed the Megyn Kelly YouTube link, she was a breath of fresh air

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14098953/nancy-mace-trans-lawmaker-bathroom-capitol-hill-sarah-mcbride.html

A trans war has broken out on Capitol Hill after a Republican lawmaker proposed a measure that would block the first transgender member of Congress from using biological women's restrooms in the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Nancy Mace is pushing for the new rule ahead of the arrival of Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride, who will take office in January as the first openly-trans lawmaker in the United States.

McBride blasted Republicans after the proposal, claiming they were using it as a 'distraction' tactic.
'This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,' McBride said in a statement.
'We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.'

Mace, a staunch conservative, stood by her measure.

'Playing make believe dress up doesn't mean you should be allowed in women's private spaces,' she wrote on X.

The proposal has set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill with Democrats rising to the defense of their soon-to-be colleague. McBride was elected last month and will take office in January.

'The cruelty is the point,' Democrat Rep. Becca Balint, a co-chair of the Equality Caucus, told Axios.
'This is not just bigotry, this is just plain bullying,' Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.

Mace's proposal prohibits House members and staffers from 'using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.'

The proposal would require the sergeant at arms to enforce the measure.

'Biological men do not belong in private women's spaces. Period. Full stop. End of story,' Mace said in a statement.

She told reporters on Capitol Hill she was standing up for women's rights and protecting female spaces.

Republicans backed the proposal with some suggesting expanding it to all taxpayer facilities.
'I support a resolution that keeps biological men out of women's bathrooms,' Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters on Capitol Hill.

She even suggested expanding it to 'all taxpayer funded facilities.'

'He is a man,' Greene said of McBride. 'He is not allowed to use our women's restrooms, our women's gym, our locker room, our spaces that are specified for women. He's a biological. He has plenty of places he can go.'

She rejected the notion of adding gender-neutral bathrooms to the Capitol.

'No he can go in the men's room. And he has a bathroom in his office,' she said.

She pointed out the election decided the issue, when many Americans showed their disapproval of biological men participating in women's sports.

'The American people spoke in the election. They're sick of this s*,' Greene said.

Oh dear.

Here's a trap of the Democrats own making. Will they walk straight into it? Yes, yes they will.

Optics. Have the Democrats noticed yet that they can't talk about the real issues when the optics are all about trans and they divert all their energy to take action at the drop of a hat regardless of what they say.

Meanwhile, yes it's a great distraction technique for the Republicans because the Democrats have created their own self trapping mechanism.

Facepalm.

‘He has a bathroom in his office’ ( toilet ).

Says it all, really.

Optics. Have the Democrats noticed yet that they can't talk about the real issues when the optics are all about trans and they divert all their energy to take action at the drop of a hat regardless of what they say.

YY, exactly. I honestly think many of them know it and think winning hearts and minds politically is less important than signalling their righteousness to the smaller number of people who agree with them.

It does really doesn't it?

The Dems didn't need to make a big deal of this.

And the side effect in demanding to use the shared facilities it shows up that it's not the toilet that is being used but the women in it.

Actually astrology is a millenia old system and body of knowledge, full of rich symbolism. Just because it gets bastardised in the form of popular sun sign stuff does not negate it. I've been using astrology for over 40 years - and have to say it is the most incredible tool......if you truly learn its basics and have spent many years in study, observation and reflection.

I get fed up of people dismissing it in such flippant and blythe ways without having ever studied it for themselves.Just because there is a superficial pop science branch does not undermine it, any more than pop science under-mines hard science.

The scientific method involves study, application, testing , observation and refinement...it is a way to approach truth; not truth itself. Scientic method can be applied to anything.

Thanks @Shortshriftandlethal

It was a fairly flippant comment, but I'm happy to be corrected if you are able to share the utility of astrology as a tool.

You cannot expect me to distil a lifetime's knowledege and experience into a post on a forum such as this. Astrology is all in the application. I simply get sick of the script that " everyone knows...." . Astrology is not a belief or a faith.....it is rich body of knowledge, symbolism, pattern and formation...and being able to translate and decipher that is a skill.

It is not about telling people what will happen to them....it is about working with patterns and movements, images and symbols to aide self development and awareness.

it can also be applied at a global level....and that is where it gets particularly interesting when it comes to patterns and movements in the collective......such as we are witnessing now. Patterns shift and repeat through time, in slighlty different formations.....but the patterns and alignments themselves tend to be made up of the same basic component parts....though operating in changed fields and contexts.

Sorry for sounding a bit grumpy.....but i've had a lifetime of such dismissals......so I tend to keep it to myself and to my colleagues in the field.

Can I add that anyone familiar with Carl Jung, or who has practised Jungian therapy will be well aware of astrology as a body of knowledge.

Regarding forecasting ( though not the primary use of astrology), it is a practice used in many areas of study or knowledge whereby people look at the data, information, movements, formations and patterns of whatever it is ( weather systems, stock markets, consumer demand and so on)......and make educated guesses as to how that pattern will develop

https://jungiancenter.org/jung-on-astrology/

Exactly. He's excluding Muslim and Jewish women, women with trauma, women with children and just women who want safety and privacy.

He doesn't care about them, he wants to at best use them as props for his validation (we all know what the 'at worst' is but even here we're not allowed to say it even though a lot of trans identified biological males talk about it all the time as well as demonstrate it in their behaviour all the time - see breast exposing Whitehouse man).

The POINT is access to women who don't consent and forcing their unconsenting exposure to someone they will perceive as a man in a woman's space. Not very inclusive.

This is crazy, he already has a private space, he just wants to humiliate the women in the building...

I very much hope that a journalist asks him why he is so desperate for access to unconsenting women that his own personal bathroom isn't enough? Republican women have made it quite clear they want single sex spaces and do not consent - why do their needs and wants come below his? There are more of them!

I hope some male representatives let him know he's welcome in the male toilets if he gets caught short.

This isn't the argument you think it is.

Lots of religions have wisdoms and teachings that are meaningful to people. Buddhism in particular is the one that sticks in my mind. And people swear by superstitions. One of the biggest troubles with astrology is that it has been used by a great many charlatans to exploit vulnerable individuals and to fleece them for cash.

I'm sure your belief is important to you and gives you something, but its still a belief. Fair plan to you. Crack on. You do you. But if there was something more to it, we've had many many years to prove this but we've not found anything to support it so I very much lean towards it being a bunch of beliefs which fulfil the human need for something to believe in. Nothing more.

What erks me here is your choice of conversation to get the huff over people saying they don't believe in astrology.

You can't seriously be saying, particularly after the conversation weve had over the last few days that, astrology is real and we should take it seriously as fact but we shouldn't take genderwoo as real and its a complete load of made up stuff and its offensive that we put astrology into the same box.

Its fine to have a belief if it works for you and you think it improves your life so long as you don't expect others to also believe it and then berate them for thinking its a load of made up nonsense AND you fully acknowledge that there are a lot of people who do use astrology to pedal a load of made up nonsense and don't delve into these years of experience learning the art, because they just see it as a quick opportunity for a grift.

I respect your right to believe in astrology but really, please don't start with telling everyone else how wrong they are and how disrespectful they are for thinking its nonsense and has major issues with individuals using it to exploit the emotional vulnerabilities of others for personal gain because they've been manipulated or convinced by what they've been told and this had then led them to make decisions that they would not otherwise take and may be against their own self interest...

This really is the wrong thread for trying to convince people that we should accept astrology as real and then take umbridge with people who don't share that opinion.

Astrology is a grifters paradise and the number of 'true beneficiaries' is small compared to the number of people who get sucked into it and potentially harmed for other reasons. A bit like something else we know.

Its a fair comparison.

(I spent quite a lot of time looking at full charts based on time of birth etc in my teens. I still have a book or two knocking about somewhere. I really do think it is woo woo even at that level. It was a nice bit of timewasting fun for me but still definitely woo woo which plays into psychological pre-existing bias a lot of the time).

Go on Donald. You know you want to.

Ironically, a male bladder is bigger and without having had surgery the chances of a male getting 'caught short' and much much lower than females, particularly ones who have given birth.

Because biology.

I don't know.

I'd agree he's quite vague on policy.

However, as I see it his supporters aren't just randomly or hopefully saying he doesn't "really" mean what Democrat supporters claim. They think that a lot of Democrats are being deliberate in misrepresenting him on issues.

For example, his Hispanic supporters don't think he "doesn't really mean" he is going to deport everyone Hispanic. They think it's just a complete misrepresentation to say that in the first place, why would anyone think talking about stopping illegal border crossings would mean somehow getting rid of legal immigrants,much less people who have been in the US for generations? That seems like quite an unjustified interpretation.

I'm curious what you specifically see as the contrary things his supporters are ignoring?

Playing make believe dress up doesn't mean you should be allowed in women's private spaces,' she wrote on X.

Blimey. Obviously there are people who genuinely hold a belief that everyone has a gender identity.

I wonder how this will land. Imagine the equivalent about a different belief that is genuinely held by people...

"Playing make-believe that god exists and praying to him is like hanging out your stocking as an adult and wondering why nothing has been put in it on Christmas Day".

Even though I'm an atheist, I wouldn't say that to a Christian because it is mocking their belief and I don't see the value in doing this. In fact I think it's pretty offensive, despite the fact that I don't believe in god myself. Referring to it as playing make-believe suggests that they lack the intelligence to understand what's real and what's not. Likewise, I wouldn't describe someone's belief that they have a gender identity and the way that they express their belief (e.g. by wearing a dress) as "playing make-believe".

This comes back to language policing and the importance of clarity. I'm not saying that everyone should address this like I do (I know that some people on this board don't like the way that I approach this because they've told me so on other threads, despite me saying that I know and value the multiple ways in which this issue is addressed 🤦‍♀️), but I do think it's important to keep in mind that not every biological male who identifies as a woman is from Málaga Airport. Even when being clear that biological males shouldn't be using facilities for women.

The difference is that people in the US have not been lectured to and sneered at over the past decade by Christians calling them bigots.

People have been treated with contempt for years by those who adopted a morally superior position and I don't think people in general are going to be exercised over blunt and not tip-toey speaking. Even if it's unkind.

This post illustrates what I mean about how we talk about other people's beliefs.

It can indeed be dismissive.

I don't believe in astrology but I do believe in ghosts. I am used to the eyerolls and I just suck it up. But part of me is rather miffed that even my own family (husband and kids) just dismiss it as me being odd.

I fully agree about the difference.

Obviously this did used to happen in the past e.g. people being burned at the stake for heresy.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how that kind of approach lands. Thankfully this wasn't necessary for secular societies to depriotise law making based on beliefs e.g. shops now open on Sundays.