Is it hateful to say humans can’t change sex?

[1971feminist]

In a landmark hearing at the NZ Human Rights Review Tribunal, the question of whether it is hateful and harmful to say that men can’t be lesbians is under scrutiny. Read more about it here https://open.substack.com/pub/resistgendereducation/p/is-it-hateful-to-say-humans-cant?r=24091f&utm_medium=ios

An important point.

So many people these days don't really understand that truly moral behaviour often involves difficult interactions and weighing up of complex matters.

Not just feeling good in the moment, patting oneself on the back and never thinking about wider implications.

And there are times when correctly sexing people is both a kindness and safe guarding

if a trans man is sent to prison and wants to go to a male prison because they think TMAM, it woukd be both cruel and dangerous to go along with their request.

likewise a trans man would not have their kidney failure managed as if they were a man because that could kill them.

There was a trans man sent to a mens prison recently. They were processed according to their presentation. It was “discovered” when they arrived , I assume people are stripsearched.

Sent off to Cornton Vale ( women’s prison) the next day.

It can never be wrong or immoral to say humans can’t change sex. It’s simply the reality of life.

Would it be equally hateful to say that they weren’t going to heaven because it doesn’t exist? It’s not nice to say that, certainly. But should it be considered “hate” to say it to a Christian or member of other religion? It’s a very slippery slope.

I am deaf. Is it hateful to say I don’t have a disability or I’ll be able to hear again naturally? Of course not. It’s just a fact, as is gender.

Wasn't the Tavistock closed down at least in part because they allowed some patients to believe that it is possible to change sex?

It’s harmful. Particularly to children who need adults who don’t lie.

But you say it yourself - if someone truly believes they can change sex, they do need some sort of HCP help which is tactful/sensitive. They don’t need randomers on the intetnet, or even in person saying it to them.

It’s not the responsibility of “randomers” to prop up their worldview either, is it.

Except that

1. An individual's sex is also relevant to others.

2. We are not just talking about individuals with poor mental health, but a political argument about the concept of sex. This is the context of the court case referred to in the OP.

Indeed @Merrymouse

It would be hateful of me to pretend you are not deaf. You would miss important information, get omitted from the coffee run, be disciplined for ignoring instructions, and get burnt to a crisp when I don't tell you about the fire alarm.

It would be similarly hateful of me to treat a TW as if he was a man, although the harms are more nebulous (not allowed in the women's changing room? the horror!).

The difference, of course, is that you really are deaf.....

Who were the idiots that made an actual law saying that black is white and the world is flat?

Talking of which, Simon Edge's book on that theme would make a great stage musical. But it won't happen, because transphobia.

False equivalence. Gender is not a fact. Gender is, variously, an opinion, or belief, or grouping of stereotypes.

Sex, like deafness, is a fact.

If you, a deaf person, identified as a a hearing person and demanded that I tear you according to your identity, you would suffer, as described by a PP.

It would not be kind to treat you as something you are not. It would be an act of active unkindness to blindly follow along with your identification as a heating person. Although, in this case, only you would come to harm as a result, unlike in cases where men demand to be treated as women, or adults insist that distressed girls be treated as boys.

When some archaeologists in the future do whatever fancy DNA/ genome testing they have then on human remains, it will come up with male or female, it won’t know if they were lesbian, gay, trans or whatever other identity people may come up with, or what pronoun they identify by.

Truth rarely hurts although it may be uncomfortable for some. It is seldom harmful.
Lies often hurt and are very often harmful.

Truth and facts are definitely preferable to lies and make-believe.

If it was an individual who thought they were Marie Antoinette.

But gender isnt this, its a whole group of people who are harming other people. Demanding that laws are changed and their feeling are so important the get to decide what can and cannot be said.

Its as if they are writing the script for everyone else because everyone else exist to support them. Its exhausting. Im sick of going into cafés and having to watch the pronouns i use in case i inadvertently offend the obvious man or women working there.

I find it interesting that you keep changing the narrative, each example you’ve come up with is not what was being asked originally. If grown men with AGP invade these threads, as they do regularly, I don’t see any problem with ‘randomers on the internet’ telling them straight that they’re men with a fetish. If we are talking about children or young people who have been brainwashed by SM or unscrupulous or weak adults into believing they’ve been born in the wrong body, then that’s where MH services come in.

Hateful? No idea

The Truth? Definitely

Is saying the truth hateful?

Absolutely yes, if I approached someone with a faith on their death bed, and said "none of it is exists, there is no heaven, you're just going to be gone and you'll never see X loved one again" in a deliberate attempt to upset/distress, and clearly, in that context serving no purpose whatsoever, purely because of a deep dislike I felt for them or one of their characteristics (including for example, if I hated Christians) - then within that very narrow, specific context, that statement would be hateful.

Of course, I'd agree that in general it's not hateful to say "well I don't think you're going to heaven, because heaven doesn't exist" in a large number of different contexts. For example, in a discussion or debate where the existence of an afterlife it's a pertinent, it's not only not hateful to make such a remark, but may actually be a completely necessary thing to say, even potentially achieving aims that could be thought of specifically as kind, such as, wanting someone to make the most of their one and only life on earth instead of making unfair personal sacrifices in the hold out for an afterlife etc.

Just to be clear - I am gender critical (also, incidentally, an atheist) I believe that human beings can't change sex and that actually, the assertion that they can change sex (eg trans ideology) is fundamentally misogynistic (see my first post on this thread!) and not only can, but should, be challenged in most instances.

The only point I'm making is that it is possible to conceive of very specific, narrow circumstances where that isn't the case - which is all I think the previous poster was trying to do. I think actually meaningfully engaging with "are there any circumstances where this is hateful" is quite a useful, clarifying exercise because it reveals, you've got to think quite hard to come up with a scenario where this important statement of fact is actually hateful.

As an Antipodean Briton, many of us are utterly barking and still nodding along to the 'why can't you just be kind' bs.

It’s not “hate” in the “hate crime” sense. You’re missing the point.

You’re conflating “really quite nasty” with the commonly understood idea of “hate” against a protected minority. You can be “really quite nasty” to atheists.

And I don’t think saying there isn’t a heaven, like you can’t change sex can or should ever be taken as a hate crime regardless of the circumstances. I’m not required to pretend I think these things are true in either case and I find it worrying that people appear to think there are times when I do have to.

Fair - I hard agree stating the truth can/should never be a hate crime. Such a policy would be extremely worrying.

But the question asked by the OP was is it hateful, they haven't used the term "hate crime" so I wasn't aware that was the main focus of the discussion. Obviously what constitutes hateful is a bit more subjective.