The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

[Ingenieur]

Starting a new thread in case the first fills up.

I dunno. You can have a belief in a Gender Identity (with claims that it then strangely makes you a different biological sex, in the heel of the hunt) all you want. It is rather like saying you have three heads, but other people can only see one. Or multiple personality disorder gives rise to there being three of you biologically. That would be fun for any prosecutions. It wasn’t me guv. It would be a travesty of us other two were locked up because of what Jimmy did. Well, it does not seem so far fetched when the law appears to go softer on John when he says he is really ‘Mary’. Diddums! And then sends John aka ‘Mary’ to a womens’ prison. Even when he is a sexual offender.

Or anywhere else where John declaring he has turned into ‘Mary’ is accepted as the reality and it would have a chilling effect on women’s lives, or make them uncomfortable.

Religious believers, including Christians, hear people sneering about 'the sky fairy' and 'imaginary friends' all the time. Also lots of other stuff intended to be offensive. Water off a duck's back. And if it is 'imaginary; and 'made up' so what, it's been there for millennia (parts of the Old Testament are more than 2,600 years old) and religion is a part of most people's lives, worldwide.

Unlike 'gender' which was invented about 40 years ago by academics and started to leak into ordinary life in the anglosphere around the turn of the millennium.

Arguing that one faith is superior to another seems pointless to me. They are just beliefs, not facts and they have no place in the modern state. I really don’t care what anyone believes, as long as they don’t try to force anyone else to believe in it or participate in its rituals, or crimialise and demonise those who don’t believe.

I am very glad that some people are blunt, because it gives permission to others. Giving this belief legitimacy is how we got here. Pronouns are how we got here. Pretending that these males are a type of woman to make them feel better is how we got here.

Religious believers, including Christians, hear people sneering about 'the sky fairy' and 'imaginary friends' all the time.

Exactly, and they are often the soi-distant "progressives".

The cruelty is the point,' Democrat Rep. Becca Balint, a co-chair of the Equality Caucus, told Axios.

The honesty is the point.

plase marking

Well, that is the problem with this stuff, isnt’ it? Legislatures have evenmade laws which disbenefit the female half of the population at the behest of those pushing this anti-science bunkum.

Now, I ask you, where are the laws upholding people’s rights to ‘identify’ as endangered bats? Environmentalists who wish to stop developments would have a field day. Install themselves somewhere, and nobody could develop the area. I’m sure many of these Dr. Frankenstein like surgeons would be happy to do some little cosmetic tweak which would ‘literally turn them into bats’, and the insurance company cover it.

Your post reminded me of this news story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wryxyljglo

The other thing about religious believers is we don't pretend our religious beliefs are scientific facts rather than religious beliefs. We know what myths are, and that myths can be truth without being fact. Usually - there is the occasional young-earth creationist, but they're a pretty fringe minority and mostly in America or Northern Ireland.

Re: vagueness on policy.

Yes he is, in the same way that Brexit didn't outline an actual plan. But Leave actively went for issues that were about grievance and deliberately let the voters decide in their own minds what the policy would entail.

Trump regularly talks about doing x to one audience and then doing exactly the opposite y to another. And then denying both at one point or another. But he's got the relevant quote out thats repeated on social media, and in a world which doesn't fact check and only hears what it wants to hear, these contridactions don't matter in an election cycle. The rebuke and the deep dive aren't repeated on social media in the relevant echo chambers - they are only repeated in opposite channels.

Trump tailors his message for each any every audience in this way.

However with regards to immigration, I do note one comment he's made as its notable for us - think about target audiences here.

Trump has said he is looking at Rwanda as an option for these deportations. Its an interesting comment as its absoluetely NOT aimed at Americans but solidly Brits and Germans and other Europeans because its a topic of conversation in European circles not American ones.

This comment demonstrates an understanding/awareness beyond America/an American audience which isn't 'stupid' in the way we perhaps sometimes percieve Trump.

I'd argue this is 'soft power foreign policy' in action. We are likely to see a lot more of it. Its something thats not great for a Labour government in the longer term. Our next election is due the year after the next American one so our election cycle means we will be directly influenced by the next American election cycle (which may well be not as democratic as previous ones). Its something Labour should be thinking about hard. The timing is about as bad as it gets for them.

FWIW, over immigration, I don't think its in Trump's interests to go hard initially in policy making for hispanics who are in work and established in the community - even if their documentation isn't necessarily in order. He'll want the cheapness and optics of being seen to be 'decisive' and 'doing something', rather than costly investment in state clear outs of 'undocumenteds'. Of course how this plays out on the ground with individuals who have grievances against someone hispanic may not be so nice (think about snitches in authoritarian regimes who target anyone they don't like and use the system against them). I don't think Trump will be interested in dirtying his hands by going really heavy handed at first. He will go for easy, cheap wins. And turn a blind eye to less pleasant stuff on the ground stating 'state automony'. He has plenty of followers to do the dirty work for him.

Again the Dems face a dilema here: if they see issues with how illegal migrants are being deported, what do they do? Their only recourse is probably through the courts. But the optics of fundraising to help illegal migrants is problematic in its own right for them now because of identity politics and how the well is now totally poisoned...

I don't 'believe' in it either. It is a device; a tool - which you have to learn to understand, then use. It's an actual body of knowledge, not a theoretical concept.

Again the Dems face a dilema here: if they see issues with how illegal migrants are being deported, what do they do? Their only recourse is probably through the courts. But the optics of fundraising to help illegal migrants is problematic in its own right for them now because of identity politics and how the well is now totally poisoned...

That's the case if Trump's team has any common sense at all and deports illegal immigrants who can be presented as "bad apples" meaning that the Democrats have the option of either going to the courts on principle or waiting until those deported can be spun as "nice folks".

It's not a belief. It is a system that works.....which you would only know if you were familiar with it. and had employed it regularly. You can believe, or disbelieve, what you like about it, of course.

And none of what you say above is what I do, or am doing now. As I've said I keep it to myself. my friends family and colleagues. That you cannot cope with my explanations for how I see it and use it, is your issue.

I refuse to sit, by, though, and have people dismiss something so central in my life and work - without any real understanding of it themselves.

You are not the only one that can sometimes get " irked".

Yes, the ghosts and other phenomena...... anything which is out of the ordinary is automatically dismissed. I've not seen a gost myself......but I'm fairly sure that different 'zones' and times can sometimes converge and ghosts and other phenomena are the result of that.

Anyway back to the theme of the thread. But. when people are dismissed as being stupid or easily led etc, it does tend to provoke a response. People know what is important to them.

Of course.

The trouble is if your mentality is that Trump supporters are stupid and incompetent, you aren't even going to see that possibility coming so you'll walk straight into it.

Understanding and promoting the idea that even child rapists have equal human rights is a hard sell. (Especially when you are in a position where you possibly should have considered safeguarding more earlier down the road in some areas).

It helps when people understand the difference between belief and fact for absolutely everything though.

It goes back to the whole fact v opinion thing - and how we have seen a shift from expensive journalists who research and demonstrate a story to cheap opinion columns and how so many people can't tell the difference between the two.

A lot of people don't get the difference and how and why it matters.

I understand the difference between a belief and a fact..... certainly in the mundane world of material objects and material reality.

Let's agree to differ, though, in how we approach truth, meaning, understanding and making sense of the world around us, as well as the methods we use to approach it.👌

Which is more rude and disrespectful?

Saying that a person who appears to you to be an adult male in a dress is 'playing dress up'.

Going into women's spaces knowing that many in that space neither expect nor consent to a male there. Knowing that for the vast majority 'woman' still means biology not feelings so are being deliberately lied to about what that space entails. Knowing it will scare and exclude women and children, some of them very vulnerable.

Why is this woman's perception of reality valued as less than the man's? Playing dress up is a pretty mild insult, if one at all.

It is allowing this ridiculous policing of language that has allowed male rapists in women's spaces, it's a tacit acceptance that only the man matters. Same thing as with the reporting of 6ft5 Dolatowski's attack on a girl in a 'womans' toilet. No mention of the victims pronouns because it's all framed as only the man - even in this case as a convicted paedophile - that matters.

It's not bullying, it's her opinion and perception McBride is man adopting the sex role stereotypes (eg dress) associated with women. This is factually and scientifically correct.

Bloody ridiculous this is seen as bullying. The bullying is all in the other direction to the women who can't fight back and the women who McBride excludes. Classic darvo.

Well done Nancy Mace.

Wow.

What do you mean by "wow"?

I'm reading your posts as hostile, but maybe i'm just being over-sensitive.

I'm gobsmacked by your lack of self awareness.

Indeed.

But this is the point. Unfortunately it's either being written in to law as a truth (e.g. the "legal fiction" of the GRA) or interpreted as if the law does this (e.g. where organisations assume gender identity is a protected characteristic).

That's the absurdity. The belief itself is no more or less absurd than a belief in god, astrology, reincarnation, ghosts etc.

I'm also glad that some people are blunt about it.

I'm just interested to see how that lands in the public discourse. Obviously many (all?) people who believe that everyone has a gender identity don't even recognise it as a belief. They see it as a fact.

Thankfully Christians and recognise their "truth" (e.g. that god exists) as belief-based.

Presumably part of the reason gender identity believers get so angry is because they think it's a scientific fact that everyone has one. So logically they would either think the person refusing to acknowledge it as fact is stupid, offensive or both.