It’s been a while, I almost forgot this thread was basically Sturg Thinks Thoughts About Transgendered People.
Political Correctness
- Thread starter sturg33
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It’s been a while, I almost forgot this thread was basically Sturg Thinks Thoughts About Transgendered People.
Nah, it’s very dumb.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
and to be fair you had a lot of help
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I generally agree, but there’s a little more to it than that, particularly as it intersects with politics. It’s to some degree similar to the anti-vaccine movement—there are a lot of hippies and your crunchier lefties with the same general thoughts about that issue as uber-Christian homesteader homeschool types. Or even with libertarians, as it becomes an issue of personal liberty. A lot of it is based on mistrust of monopolistic, unethical, price-fixing corporate entities effectively controlling what and how we eat.
Like, I wouldn’t dream of not vaccinating my kids. Herd immunity is sound science and sound social policy, but I get the objection to the status quo where profit motive and industry money get drugs to market in a way that may not be in the public’s interest. Similarly, there’s some reasonable objections to Big Ag’s approach to competition, intellectual property, and regulatory capture which can be extended to fearmongering and conspiracy theory and dystopian nightmares, but are well-grounded nonetheless.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
You still seem fuzzy on the difference between biological sex and gender.
The reason that some people evangelize for acceptance of transgendered folk is the correlation between personal and societal acceptance and positive mental health outcomes. Basically, the more a trans individual is recognized and accepted as their gender identity, the less likely they are to struggle with depression, anxiety, etc. You’re positing that transgenderism itself is a mental disorder, but the weight of professional opinion is that it be categorized as such only insofar as the condition itself causes severe mental distress. Contemporary study of the issue indicates that, broadly speaking, it doesn’t.
I do wonder, as in the cases of polticians wanting to become the bathroom police, why you seem to care so much. Like last time this came up, I’d suggest you take a good-faith look at the other side of the coin and read some primary sources or talk to some people with firsthand knowledge of the issue.
sturg33
I
If it is not related to biology, then why do many wish to change their bodies with sex organ changes?
I care because we are now teaching children not only what it is, but that it is normal and to be celebrated. Nobody responded to jaw's study a few pages back, despite me calling that out once already.
We wouldn't teach our kids that they should be super fat and lazy. We wouldn't teach them to do drugs or drink alcohol. But we teach them that biology is no longer real...
I genuinely feel bad for these people and hope they can get the mental help they need.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
If social acceptance is such a determining factor, I have to wonder why this is only now becoming a suicide epidemic at the only point in human history that it has been in any way socially acceptable.
I also find it interesting that so many transgender people were apparently suppressing their condition throughout human history without cracking under the strain that we are only discovering now that it's a political issue.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
It wasn't much of a group until it's recent popularization, so probably not very far. My hope is that the shine soon wears off and it is replaced by something akin to the less destructive youthful cries for attention that preceded it: tattoos, mohawks, nose rings, fluorescent hair, Tide pods.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
A rough analogy comes to mind. A generation or two ago the phenomenon of PTSD among soldiers and other survivors of trauma was not well understood. We did not collect data on it. Men came back from war broken and some people tried to help and others just shrugged. Doesn't mean PTSD did not exist among Civil War vets, WWI vets or WWII vets. Or that somehow the more recent generation of vets coming home was different or weaker. We just have a different understanding of what they have been through. So probably if you look at the suicide data on PTSD victims, I suspect it is not very informative. Because it wasn't even collected on that basis until recently. But I doubt fifty years from now that PTSD is viewed as a "passing phase."
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Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
I would argue that we knew PTSD existed and that it had a clear cause and effect, it just hadn't been named or studied. Everyone in my generation knew someone that was "messed up" when they came back from Vietnam, just like we now know someone with PTSD from the Gulf.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Yeah. And my point is everyone in our generation has known someone who was "androgenous" (it is after all a very old word and a similar one exists in many languages) and everyone in our grandparents' generation also knew someone who was androgenous (to use some old fashioned terminology).
But to claim that somehow suicide rates in that population tells us anything about what it was like to be androgenous in the good old days doesn't make any sense.
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nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I remember as a college student I had a summer job in the early 80s and someone at work pointed someone else out and identified that person as a "shim"
But even before that I think there were androgenous people who simply lived their lives out in a way that did not call attention to who they were. As I said androgenous is a very old word with equivalents in many languages.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Prof. Littman is merely saying that there appears to be a social component to the trend that may be unrelated to underlying, inherent biological or psychological realities. In other words, in some cases, transgender identity is indeed “socially constructed,” which makes you wonder why someone should object to her article, since “social construction” is all the rage for the postmodern left.
Looking at these two sentences, I think I would agree with the first one. I would note that the first sentence does not state there is no underlying inherent biological basis. Just that a component is unrelated to that basis.
And then in the second sentence there is the phrase "in some cases." That is also probably true. But to claim the whole thing is socially constructed is a big leap. I don't even think the Professor Littman is claiming that. But her work is being used by people who would like to make the claim.
Science is a very valuable thing. It does get misconstrued at times. It even gets twisted for ideological purposes by people other than the scientists. That has a long and sometimes unfortunate history.
Does anyone think that Professor Littman's work is consistent with the claim that all this is a fad? That's not my take on her work.
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sturg33
I
There was a post dozens of pages ago where children psychatrists posited that children would never even think to question their gender without being told to, and our teachers are now teaching little kids about it.