What I resent is the animosity that is expressed toward the trans community, even though I personally have no connection with them besides being fellow humans. So we have an issue of who has what rights. I am OK if the people born male are prevented from competing as females, but it sure seems like some people want to keep this subject alive to the point where they are inventing phantoms that they can shake a stick at.
But here’s the problem. Of course everyone should be treated with basic dignity and respect. That’s a given. But what the trans movement demands as “dignity and respect” is a rearranging of reality itself in order to conform to their own (false) view of what sex and gender actually is. If it was a request for general kindness and compassion, then yes of course. But it’s not that. It’s a demand that you believe in entirely different, novel and false anthropology. Compelling someone to use your “preferred pronouns” isn’t asking them to “be respectful,” it’s asking them to believe what is in essence a completely false, dangerous and profoundly stupid idea—that the way we discern what our gender is is not by the objective nature our bodies—whether we produce large gametes (eggs) or small gametes (sperm), but rather this inner-felt subjective psychological “sense” that we must never question, and which it is impossible to verify as true or false, because only the one “experiencing” that has access to verifying the claim.
Do you understand how stupid that is?
It’s not a case of simply letting a certain marginalized group have the rights and recognition that they did not enjoy in the past due to bigotry/ignorance, etc. It’s that this posited “marginalized group” does not even exist.
What I resent is the animosity that is expressed toward the trans community, even though I personally have no connection with them besides being fellow humans. So we have an issue of who has what rights. I am OK if the people born male are prevented from competing as females, but it sure seems like some people want to keep this subject alive to the point where they are inventing phantoms that they can shake a stick at.
But here’s the problem. Of course everyone should be treated with basic dignity and respect. That’s a given. But what the trans movement demands as “dignity and respect” is a rearranging of reality itself in order to conform to their own (false) view of what sex and gender actually is. If it was a request for general kindness and compassion, then yes of course. But it’s not that. It’s a demand that you believe in entirely different, novel and false anthropology. Compelling someone to use your “preferred pronouns” isn’t asking them to “be respectful,” it’s asking them to believe what is in essence a completely false, dangerous and profoundly stupid idea—that the way we discern what our gender is is not by the objective nature our bodies—whether we produce large gametes (eggs) or small gametes (sperm), but rather this inner-felt subjective psychological “sense” that we must never question, and which it is impossible to verify as true or false, because only the one “experiencing” that has access to verifying the claim.
Do you understand how stupid that is?
It’s not a case of simply letting a certain marginalized group have the rights and recognition that they did not enjoy in the past due to bigotry/ignorance, etc. It’s that this posited “marginalized group” does not even exist.
Well this demands further exploration. Maybe we just have been ignorant about all of this, and still are. I am going to say we have a hung jury here, pun intended. I am going to reserve judgment on this trans phenomenon until we have more knowledge. In the meantime, treat trans people with compassion, no minors get chemical or surgical intervention, they can stay out of female sports, and we need to learn more about this before we label them as delusional or mentally ill, because maybe we are morons ourselves about this, and we need to learn more, and even if they are mentally ill, which I doubt, the mentally ill need compassion too.
Well this demands further exploration. Maybe we just have been ignorant about all of this, and still are. I am going to say we have a hung jury here, pun intended. I am going to reserve judgment on this trans phenomenon until we have more knowledge. In the meantime, treat trans people with compassion, no minors get chemical or surgical intervention, they can stay out of female sports, and we need to learn more about this before we label them as delusional or mentally ill, because maybe we are morons ourselves about this, and we need to learn more, and even if they are mentally ill, which I doubt, the mentally ill need compassion too.
Yes, I think this is right. By “delusion,” I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way. Broadly, it just means a misperception of reality, a misperception that might be entirely honest on the part of the perceiver, but nonetheless not a true depiction of reality. And yes, the mentally ill definitely deserve compassion, sympathy and real care, not the dangerous pseudo-fix that is “gender-affirming care.”
you're frauds. under this president you have mastered insincere rhetoric that is just polished enough if you aren't paying attention how people act or the inconsistencies of the whole package, you could get it wrong.
dude, do not pretend to be compassionate when are in fact seeking license to be a big ol jerk. do not pretend to be compassionate when you not only dismiss someone's conscious thoughts, but put zero money where your mouth is on care, and in reality try to make their lives a living hell while saying it's ok because all manner of brutality is justified to jolt the deluded.
dude, y'all are so fake. in the grander scheme of things, those regretting gender surgery (1-3%) are small potatoes compared to, say, those regretting getting their boobs done (5-9%).
97-99% is almost unanimous. we're talking 1-3 of every 100 people. you can't get 97-99 people to agree on almost anything.
i am not even sure if that low a regret rate even justifies denying it to kids, since the vast majority are contented.
i mean the whole premise of this thread is some lady using emotionalism to try and distort her own personal history to manipulate people. she won the 2023 400H title. but we're gonna leave that out and ask for the headline to be how telfer denied her a title.
you then pretend to be compassionate by calling them crazy, offering no care for those you feign to diagnose, and then trying to exclude them from public life unless they accept your take on their situation.
to be clear, you're pushing the mental illness angle even though it's been decades since we treated gender issues as a general problem of anyone in that situation. in reality psychology decades ago switched to being concerned with psychopathological versions and does not view your average trans person as nuts.
if you're gonna throw around psychology catch up to 2025 mainstream psychological understanding. not just let me dust off decades old DSM versions or apply psychology like we're in the 1950s.
Mainstream psychology is a joke. It's hardly a science anymore. There are "mainstream" psychologists now saying pedophilia is ok, calling pedophiles "minor attracted people."
Mainstream psychology is a joke. It's hardly a science anymore. There are "mainstream" psychologists now saying pedophilia is ok, calling pedophiles "minor attracted people."
Please get help. And stop obsessing over children. Leads them alone. You remind me of the closeted Republican man who touches kids.
What do you think about the boys and men who are forced to compete against trans girls and women? Do you think they will treat their opponents exactly like they treat any ci boys and men?
Why wouldn’t they?
Just because you and others who believe in the primacy of gender identity over sex think males who've adopted a trans a gender identity don't belong in boys' and men's sports - and they shouldn't be using loos and locker rooms appropriate for their sex along with other blokes, either - it doesn’t mean everyone else feels that way.
In fact, if the experience of elite men’s soccer player Jonny Saelua is any indication, you might well be in the minority in believing that boys' and men's sports and spaces are no place for blokes who've adoped a trans, non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer or other special gender identity different to their sex.
Saelua, born in 1988, is a popular international footballer who played center-back on the American Samoa men’s national soccer team for nearly 20 years, and now plays on a leading men’s teams in the top division of American Samoa’s senior league. He’s worked as a coach for American Samoan national boys’ team too.
Saelua is also a fa’afafine, a “feminine” male who “feels he is a woman” and lives “in the way of a woman.”
On top of that, Saelua is openly gay.
Saelua first began playing boys’ soccer competitively as an 11-year-old in 1999. Three years later he was drafted to the men’s national team at age 14, setting a record for being the youngest player at that level.
According to Wikipedia,
Saelua plays in full make-up whenever she [sic] takes to the football field.
known for crunching tackles [Saelua] is described as a defender who "takes no prisoners".
By Saelua's own account, all through his long career in boys’ and men’s soccer, he's always been accepted and treated well by his teammates and the other boys and men in the sport.
From a NY Times article about Saelua published in November, 2011:
In an immensely popular sport that is still encountering episodes of racism in any number of spots on the globe, it is noteworthy that Saelua has been easily accepted by [his] teammates.
Saelua is part of the fa’afafine, biological males who identify themselves as a third sex in Polynesian culture. Fa’afafine means “to be a woman” in Samoan.
“To be fa’afafine you have to be Samoan, born a man, feel you are a woman, be sexually attracted to males and, importantly, proud to be called and labeled fa’afafine,” Su’a said.
On Tuesday, the 23-year-old Saelua played a key role in American Samoa’s 2-1 victory against Tonga in a 2014 World Cup qualifier.
It was American Samoa’s first victory in international soccer, ending a 30-game losing streak in which it had been outscored by 229-12. And Saelua apparently became the first transgender player to compete on a World Cup stage.
In the match against Tonga, Saelua provided an assist on one goal and made a 90th-minute goal-line clearance with American Samoa’s goalkeeper Nicky Salapu already beaten on the play.
“He’s like a brother to us and he’s like a sister to us,” Salapu said of Saelua.
[Saelua] began playing soccer at age 11, in private school. By age 14, he had risen to be an international player for American Samoa.
“I read somewhere that it was a record when I was drafted into the national team [at such a young age]” Saelua said. “I was reserve the whole tournament and I had to leave because I was still in high school.”
[He] added that the coach “ put me in for 10 minutes.”
But Saelua is now older, and integral to the team. When the American Samoa coach Thomas Rongen — who took the United States under-20 team to three World Cup finals and won the Major League Soccer title with D.C. United in 1999 — was hired three weeks ago, he promoted Saelua to the starting lineup for the first time.
“I just go out and play soccer as a soccer player,” Saelua said. “Not as transgender, not as a boy and not as a girl. Just as a soccer player.”
Back in 2011, Saelua told the New York Times that the other players on the men’s teams he’s played on have always
“made me feel like a part of them.. They don’t make me feel different because I am the way I am. t is what anybody needs to feel wanted within a team. That is why I always do my best. I can’t let them down.”
So my question to you is: why do you have such a problem with the prospect of members of your own sex like Saelua, CeCe Telfer, Becky Pepper Jackson and Parker Tirrell competing in men's and boys' sports; using men's and boys' loos, locker rooms, and showers; and bunking/being housed with other blokes?
Why can't you and other men who like to preach about "diversity and inclusion" - and are always wagging your fingers at girls and women, ordering us to "be kind" to the blokes you guys don't want in your own sports and spaces - ever put your own money where your big mouths are by stepping up to "be kind" to other members of your own sex like Saelua, Telfer, Jackson and Tirrell yourselves?
Why can't men and boys like you show an accepting, welcoming and " inclusionary" attitude to members of your own sex who say they are trans?
we tolerate the samoan in world cup soccer, or the girl playing baseball for brown, or the girls playing football in d1 or d3, because this is not actually about strict policing of the gender lines, or locker rooms, or all that malarkey. it's about supposed unfairness.
we say it's fair for women or gays to play with men because that's "fair."
we then generally ignore that most of these trans athletes are about as good as JV or junior high boys. which is pertinent to evaluating fairness.
the icky part is they pretend there's a strict line when there isn't. the line is fluid heading boy. they then if pressed pretend like the football star sprinter is the one transitioning when most of the time it's an effeminate scrub who would be running JV or worse as a boy.
to me it's a basic failure to acknowledge the type of person who is likely to want to present as female and still play sports. i doubt many trans people want to switch to pink then play sports. and the ones who do i doubt want to express some macho, physical persona.
You should be ashamed. I'm proud to stand up for women's & girl's rights, sports and spaces. But I'm also proud to stand up for boys who are more feminine and girls who are "tomboys" who should not have their healthy reproductive organs surgically removed and sentenced to lifelong drug and hormone treatments. Let them grow up to be intact and healthy, whatever their sexuality turns out to be.
Mainstream psychology is a joke. It's hardly a science anymore. There are "mainstream" psychologists now saying pedophilia is ok, calling pedophiles "minor attracted people."
Please get help. And stop obsessing over children. Leads them alone. You remind me of the closeted Republican man who touches kids.
the guy the other day who 5 seconds after making headlines offering a bill about "Trump Derangement Syndrome" was caught propositioning an underage girl.
if people want to pretend they care or have compassion, come up with some other solution than "go back in the old box right now." to me the solution while people grow the eff up is a third category. i don't like bullies. i don't like watching jerks try to shove people out of sports over politics.
come up with some other way they get to play other than you trying to wind the clock back to 1950. if it's unpopular right now to have them with girls, ok, let's do a third category with wheelchair, special olympics, and everyone else the current model forgets leaves out.
get your bigoted, exclusionist, accept my politics or drop out of sport, crap out of the fun.
You should be ashamed. I'm proud to stand up for women's & girl's rights, sports and spaces. But I'm also proud to stand up for boys who are more feminine and girls who are "tomboys" who should not have their healthy reproductive organs surgically removed and sentenced to lifelong drug and hormone treatments. Let them grow up to be intact and healthy, whatever their sexuality turns out to be.
Yeah so who are you arguing against? Surely not me. You seem awfully proud about taking a common sense position on something. So what? I don’t think most people are pounding the drum in favor of interventions regarding minors.
Here is a question coming from someone who is not immersed in this subject: When you folks discuss what sex a person is “assigned” at birth, are there mistakes being made? Like what does this really mean? I would assume that in 99.9 % of the cases there is no real ambiguity? Like one looks down there and it is a no brainer? So then when one says one was assigned the wrong sex, one usually isn’t saying that a mistake was made by the assigner, but rather that the assigned feels that the mistake is due to some misalignment between their physiology and their psychological sense of what their sex should be? Does anyone understand this, in the sense of what the hell is going on here? Are these people victims of this seeming inconsistency? And if they are, or regardless, they should be treated with compassion, but it is true that their rights will have limitations predicated upon how those rights potentially infringe upon the rights of others? And it is true that some will feel slighted no matter how we slice the pie?
re "assignment at birth," one reason the GOP moves the goalposts around is sometimes, particularly in poor countries, they still just go by what they see, and they see female, but they have internal male parts.
or, someone might have a natural hormonal issue.
or you might have a genetic issue where you will have some male hormonal things but be physically female.
most of those would be labeled female on a birth certificate, or given a choice, if they have to play within the boxes.
hence we end up shifting the goalposts over to something like hormones or genes even if someone would present as female, could get pregnant, etc. would be accepted in the locker or bath rooms thrown down as the supposed end all be all.
so, yeah, you look at semenya and you can see where the issue actually extends beyond trans and takes a narrower view of female than they would admit. a birth certificate might not be enough when the goalposts are set up certain ways. eg you might be allowed to play sports in texas but not in pro level.
as someone from the south it starts to sound a little bigoted and "one drop of blood." like we are protecting a certain kind of woman, prototypically blonde with a millimeter science and religious veneer around it, from progressivism. and any hint of masculinity in any number of directions -- including just being a tomboy -- is seen as progressive.
after all i have heard stories of biological girls who are gay or simply present as fairly tomboy, getting harassed over whether deep down they are boys excluded under these rules. where's your birth certificate, make her take a test, etc.
you see where at a point that is not even necessarily about protecting, but as much about bashing someone who doesn't come off as a blonde haired blue eyed pony tail wearing stereotype. which covers not just trans but also those who don't try to look the part. you start to see where politics and a particular view of womanhood is coming in.
you want me to get particularly punchy i will point out to the self labeled protectors of the locker rooms are the ones giving jim jordan positions of power after what he either missed or decided to overlook.
Here is a question coming from someone who is not immersed in this subject: When you folks discuss what sex a person is “assigned” at birth, are there mistakes being made? Like what does this really mean? I would assume that in 99.9 % of the cases there is no real ambiguity? Like one looks down there and it is a no brainer? So then when one says one was assigned the wrong sex, one usually isn’t saying that a mistake was made by the assigner, but rather that the assigned feels that the mistake is due to some misalignment between their physiology and their psychological sense of what their sex should be? Does anyone understand this, in the sense of what the hell is going on here? Are these people victims of this seeming inconsistency? And if they are, or regardless, they should be treated with compassion, but it is true that their rights will have limitations predicated upon how those rights potentially infringe upon the rights of others? And it is true that some will feel slighted no matter how we slice the pie?
Of course, mistakes are made. It's not easy to predict how a new born baby would phenotypically develop, especially with some DSDs like PAIS (partial androgen insensitivity syndrome). This happens in both directions. (People who were assigned female at birth developing male sex characteristics and vice versa.)
This is also closely related to one's gender identity. A person assigned female at birth and raised as female is more likely to develop gender incongruence if they start developing male secondary characteristics.
How easy or hard to correct this depends on where you live.
Disorders of sex development (DSDs) are estimated to be prevalent in 0.1-2% of the global population, although these figures are unlikely to adequately represent non-white patients as they are largely based on studies perform...