Motivated reasoning and gender identity

[ThisFunSheep]

As a lurker/occasional poster, I’m somehow still not banned from Reddit and elsewhere!

Since the NHS guidance in particular, there seems to have been a concerted effort to portray trans people as oppressed, using claims that don’t seem to stand up to scrutiny.

A few examples off the top of my head in the last week:

• The BBC and slogans: claims of discrimination over a trans slogan, when the BBC doesn’t allow slogans full stop.
• NHS Wales and surgery suspensions: claims that pauses are down to bigotry, whereas NHS statements cite concerns raised by patients and clinicians, referral data and other factors.
• The Campaign for Joelle: a sad hospital death a few years being presented as being caused by being in a side room and so treatment being delayed, without any objective evidence like coroners reports, formal complaints or even reported in mainstream media. Now suing by oddly Trans Legal group. Not medical negligence, specialist lawyers who do no win no fee.

I wonder how much of this is a deliberate strategy and how much is genuine belief. I suspect many people sincerely believe the narrative they’re repeating.

Which brings me to a question: could the psychological factors underlying gender dysphoria, in some cases, also affect reasoning, insight or the ability to evaluate factual evidence? That's the sort of thing that could be tested for, but probably isn't!

Or is the apparent unwillingness to engage with contrary evidence better explained by ideological commitment and motivated reasoning, as it is in other areas?

Not suggesting there’s necessarily one explanation for everyone, but I’m interested in what others think.

Bit of a lunch break rant, but thoughts welcome and I will read through when I can!

could the psychological factors underlying gender dysphoria, in some cases, also affect reasoning, insight or the ability to evaluate factual evidence? That's the sort of thing that could be tested for, but probably isn't!
Or is the apparent unwillingness to engage with contrary evidence better explained by ideological commitment and motivated reasoning, as it is in other areas?

What is the difference between the two?
Ideological commitment affects reasoning, insight or the ability to evaluate factual evidence.

Gender dysphoria itself does not inherently impair an individual's reasoning, insight or ability to evaluate factual evidence. Experiencing a mismatch between one's gender identity and sex assigned at birth is a distinct psychological phenomenon not a cognitive or logical deficit.

However there are specific scenarios where overlapping psychological factors, severe emotional distress, or distinct co-occurring conditions can temporarily or structurally impact a person's cognitive processes and reality testing.

Your examples assume there's no bias involved & we really don't know for sure so its entirely possible there was particularly given the BBC were inconsistent in applying their branding/slogan policy in the same episode.

bsky.app/profile/mara.carminerebellion.uk/post/3mxragdi3es2g

No, anti-trans hostility is not imaginary, and trans people can reason perfectly well. Jesus is that ignorant of you.

Making stuff up about trans people based on absolutely nothing, then 'debating' it like it's real - when it bears absolutely no resemblance to trans people's real-life experience - adds to the perception that trans people are an attack, dangerous and should not be allowed to exist.

And violent men feel emboldened to attack trans people because of it.

Once more, with feeling: my son was told at school that it "didn't count" if he was sexually assaulted.

Trans men, trans women and indeed many people who present ambiguously are treated with suspicion and contempt for breaking gender norms.

Maybe educate yourself, read what trans people actually experience and stop adding to the unbearable atmosphere of violence trans people live in fear of. Yes there is widespread hostility to trans people in the media and other institutions. Of course there is. it's becoming more widespread in society as well. You're part of it.

So you seem very keen to make all spaces mixed sex, but how does this benefit transpeople? If TIM are “unsafe” in male spaces, how will mixed sex spaces be any safer? The very males they are afraid of would be there? Unless of course you are saying we should only allow those males claiming to be women into female spaces?

pic we did allow males with a trans identity into female spaces, how would this make women safer? I see on another thread you have said GC women opposing males in female spaces has made women unsafer, so how will allowing males in female spaces make women safer? What material benefit do women achieve by allowing their spaces to become mixed sex?
you also have stated males are responsible for a great majority of the attacks perpetrated on women. As “”transwomen” are male and therefore theoretically pose the same risk as any other male, how will allowing them into female spaces protect women?

could the psychological factors underlying gender dysphoria, in some cases, also affect reasoning, insight or the ability to evaluate factual evidence?

There are plenty of things that could affect reasoning, insight or the ability to evaluate factual evidence, maybe so called 'gender dysphoria' is also caused by those things, and is just another symptom not the cause.

“Trans people can reason perfectly well”.

Then why don’t they?

”making stuff up about trans people…”

Like that trans women are women, trans men are men, & that any mammal is “non-binary”, you mean?

”violent men feel emboldened to attack ‘trans people’ because of it”

Yeah: all those violent men who listen to what feminists have to say, which is why we’ve totally eradicated MVAWG… aka whatever rule of misogyny it is that says that whatever men do is women’s fault.

Many trans-identified men ARE violent men, which is why they’re more likely to murder than be murdered.

“Maybe educate yourself”

The problem you face is that we did educate ourselves, continue to do so, & therefore know what a pile of tired & tendentious BS you are attempting to peddle.

In 2017 this might have had some traction among newbies, but we’ve all put in a lot of learning since then and we simply do not agree with your counterfactual claims.

While I appreciate you may have a personal motive to keep on flogging this dead & very smelly horse, it’s demonstrably not working.

Indeed I’d suggest your interventions may contribute, in small but perceptible measure, to the loss of credibility accorded to such ludicrous trans claims.

no need to blaspheme... (esp. as you claim to be sensitive to all people...)

there are repeated challenges on here to show evidence for the claims being made - not surprisingly, no evidence is forth-coming...

where are the stats on violent men attacking 'trans people' - does the lack of stats confirm the lack of attacks? There are plenty of stats repeatedly linked to on here showing that 'trans women' are statistically as violent or more violent than other men in general...

gender norms are broken all the time and no-one really cares - a chap wearing pink clothes is normal in many parts of society (esp. the posher parts!) yet pink is seen as a gender-female colour... high heels were brought into the country for men originally and now they are seen as gender norm for women... People do care though about deceit (claiming that a man is a woman), and invasion of women's spaces / privacy... they don't like abusive, misogynistic, aggressive, male-pattern behaviour and the lies, deceit and gas-lighting that goes with it - wearing a skirt is really not so big an issue...

but back to the original question - if there is a person who makes claims that they have done the impossible and changed from a man to a woman, then why would there not be suspicion that other claims they might make may not be accurate either?

the simple factual reality is that the 'trans movement' has had all the bias on its side for many years, has been the aggressive party, has dominated, coerced, gas-lighted, etc. - simply because when you base a movement on deceit and lies there is no gentle persuasion available, you have to bully and refuse to discuss otherwise the logic collapses immediately...

now however people are refusing to be bullied, refusing the word verbiage which makes absurd and unfounded claims, presenting them as truth and refusing to discuss them - people are simple repeating the bare facts - the truths that once a man, always a man - and will keep repeating them ad infinitum until the 'trans movement' stop lying and making false claims, stop bullying people and invading their space, stop taking situations and twisting them to pretend something else.

the reality is that if you have someone male claiming to be female then either:

• they are genuinely deluded / suffering from mental health issues - in which case that is the context for understanding any other claims...
• or they know full well that it is a lie and are making the claim for nefarious reasons - in which case, that is the context for other claims - probably lies made for their perceived benefit.

either way, anyone claiming something so obviously false as a man changing into a woman, must have their other claims seen in the same light, and that means with suspicion and assumption that the claims are not accurate...

Experiencing a mismatch between one's gender identity and sex assigned at birth is a distinct psychological phenomenon not a cognitive or logical deficit.

Most people, on every side of the debate, can agree with this: it's not intrinsically illogical to accept the possibility of gender incongruence.

Nor is it illogical to seek the best medical treatment for the problem, using standard empirical methods. At this point, though, motivated reasoning can start to creep in. Clinicians hope to make money or a reputation. Patients would rather hold out hope for a physically transformative miracle than endure the long slow grind of learning to live with the body that they have.

I believe the problem alluded to by OP lies elsewhere, and is of a more metaphysical nature.

There exists a belief that every person suffering gender incongruence must be treated by law and custom exactly as if they are of the opposite sex, and that to fail to do so is a human rights abuse. This is illogical because the (few) laws and customs that treat the sexes differently do so precisely because of sex.

It's when debating these matters that I encounter skewed thinking in trans friends, which is similar to that encountered in religious believers. Except that my religious friends don't accuse me of hating them if I refuse to believe that the universe is only 6,000 years old.

Your hyperbole ramps up every new post.
"Unbearable atmosphere of violence".
It's as if you chose to initially refused to engage with the GC mainstream voices in society, claiming any debate was transphobic, to be on the losing side of the argument, so all you have left is the emotional blackmail tactic
Well, if there was genuinely an unbearable atmosphere of violence, we'd see an absolute epidemic of GBH, murders and suicides.
But of course, we don't.
Then again, the TRA trope that misgendering is actual violence (a claim that would make Michel Foucault proud) would I guess mean that your definition of violence is different from the rest of society.