Do trans-activists allow for trans-moderates?

[icehorse]

You're leaving out the part where you argued for positions that put trans people at risk of violence.

Can you be specific?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Can you be specific?

Prohibiting trans people from their proper bathrooms, for one.

... though this might be your way to exclude trans people from public spaces ("if they can't pee safely at the mall, they won't go to the mall") than it necessarily is about putting trans people in situations where they're likely to be the victims of violence (e.g. forcing a trans woman to use the men's room or a trans man to use the women's room).

You also suggested that trans prisoners shouldn't be imprisoned based on gender identity, which suggests you're proposing that trans women be locked up with cis men.

 

[icehorse]

Thanks for your responses.

I just wanted to jump in and offer my answer to a series of queries, from what I understand.

How is that simple? It's circular.

Also not a good definition. There are trans people who do not "feel like they have the wrong body". A trans person is any person who does not identify or associate with the gender assigned to them at birth.

By not associating with your assigned gender at birth.

Can you provide better definitions for "woman" and "trans"? I've been asking for better definitions throughout this whole thread.

To be clear, I agree that sex and gender are often not aligned. When I say that a transwoman is not a woman, I'm referring to sex, not gender.

So we should just ignore the conclusions of doctors and other experts? Do you apply this logic to all medical opinions or exclusively to the medical consensus about trans people? Are you a climate skeptic? A flat earther? Do you think Covid was a hoax?

I've offered several links that indicate that doctors and other experts have not settled these questions.

Let me ask you this: Do take the stance that we should always trust everything the healthcare community says? For example, do you think the "food pyramid" represents the best thinking on diet?

If you agree that sometimes we should be skeptical, then how do YOU determine when to be skeptical and when not to be.

What do you think about Carl Sagan's advice to be rigorous when confronted with extraordinary claims?

The medical system is not what we use to solve social problems. They exist to medically assist individuals to prescribe best practice for their individual treatment. A doctor who prescribes anti-depressants to a person whose depression is brought about by social isolation or alienation due to a broad range of cultural, social or historical factors isn't aiming to cure those cultural, historical or social problems. They're just taking what they think is the best route to keep that person alive. And when we have thousands of studies all saying that the best way to keep these particular people alive is with a specific range of treatments, you cannot just ignore it because there could be social, cultural or historical sources for it. What matters in the first instance is keeping people alive. Social change is a separate issue, and tends to come with time.

I'm going to try to steelman you here. I believe you're saying that this is a triage sort of situation, and that keeping people alive (I guess you're talking about reducing suicides?), should take priority. I agree !

But healthcare professionals are also bound by the "first, do no harm" idea.

 

[icehorse]

Prohibiting trans people from their proper bathrooms, for one.

... though this might be your way to exclude trans people from public spaces ("if they can't pee safely at the mall, they won't go to the mall") than it necessarily is about putting trans people in situations where they're likely to be the victims of violence (e.g. forcing a trans woman to use the men's room or a trans man to use the women's room).

You also suggested that trans prisoners shouldn't be imprisoned based on gender identity, which suggests you're proposing that trans women be locked up with cis men.

Both strawmen.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Both strawmen.

In what sense?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Can you provide better definitions for "woman" and "trans"?

In social terms, "woman" is a gender label with varied cultural associations.

I provide a definition of trans further down the post.

To be clear, I agree that sex and gender are often not aligned. When I say that a transwoman is not a woman, I'm referring to sex, not gender.

Then you should be saying "a trans woman is not a biological woman", because, by definition, a trans woman is a woman. Even your own definition of a woman makes no reference to biology (aside from them being "adult"), only gender.

I've offered several links that indicate that doctors and other experts have not settled these questions.

Medical consensus on the treatment of trans people is overwhelming on this issue. Dissent exists, but is about as relevant at this point as dissent about climate change. What can be areas of contention are issues of best practice in individual cases, but this is fringe and very specific stuff.

Let me ask you this: Do take the stance that we should always trust everything the healthcare community says?

Depends what is being said and what it's based on. But this is not an argument against the fact that you are being very selective about what your are willing to accept on the basis of medical consensus and what not to accept.

For example, do you think the "food pyramid" represents the best thinking on diet?

No, because it was never meant to be. It wasn't a scientific theory, it was fundamentally a promotional technique used by governments to encourage more eating of certain foods. It's similar to the "five fruit and veg a day" thing. There's nothing medically miraculous about the quantity of five portions of fruit and veg that suddenly qualifies a healthy diet - it's essentially a marketing tactic to encourage people en masse to eat more fruit and veg rather than a rigorous, conclusive scientific consensus. Personal nutrition is more complicated than that, as any doctor would say - even decades ago - but the general idea of "getting people to ear more healthy food" is the intention.

If you agree that sometimes we should be skeptical, then how do YOU determine when to be skeptical and when not to be.

I am always skeptical. But skepticism doesn't mean you refused to believe something at all times. It means it takes overwhelming reasons to become convinced. I have no option, as a lay person, but to defer to medical opinion in a vast number of things. In this case, I happen to have had the benefit of working in the medical field, as well as being familiar with a fair amount of research on it. I trust the medical consensus on trans people about as much as I trust the medical consensus on cancer treatment.

What do you think about Carl Sagan's advice to be rigorous when confronted with extraordinary claims?

I agree with it.

I'm going to try to steelman you here. I believe you're saying that this is a triage sort of situation, and that keeping people alive (I guess you're talking about reducing suicides?), should take priority. I agree !

But healthcare professionals are also bound by the "first, do no harm" idea.

So what harm do you think is occurring? Right now, practically every study we have on the short and long-term outcomes of widely available gender-affirming care is ovewhelmingly positive. Trans people who are allowed to medically transition are significantly less likely to kill themselves, trans people who socially transition are significantly less likely to kill themselves, and the regret rates from trans treatments and transitions are vanishingly low.

"First, do no harm" applies to the harm caused by delaying or denying gender-affirming care as well.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"First, do no harm" applies to the harm caused by delaying gender-affirming care as well.

It's probably worth pointing out to @icehorse that gender-affirming care isn't just for trans people.

Breast restoration surgery after mastectomy is gender-affirming care, for instance.

Most of the care that's now used for gender-affirming care for trans people started out for - and continues to be used for - gender-affirming care for cis people.

The only difference is that when a cis person expresses the idea that their body doesn't reflect their gender identity, the bigots don't freak out the way they do when a trans person says it.

 

[Yerda]

thanks!


I asked questions about those findings and recommendations and didn't get any good answers. I found those citations to be poorly and ambiguously worded. You can also find doctors who are concerned about administering hormones to teens who might be trans. In a nutshell, I don't believe the medical community has arrived at any consensus. Sure, some groups have, but not all. And sad to say, there is a LOT of profiteering in medicine!

But to answer your question about being dogmatic, I strive to be open to good evidence.

I don't think you're taking on the best available evidence here. Maybe I'm wrong, because I'm far from an expert, but that's how it looks like to me.

Let me give you another example from medicine, back operations. In recent studies, top spinal surgeons - as a group - are completely unable to tell which patients are in pain based on looking at X-rays or other imaging. An amazing finding is emerging, and that is that there is a very low correlation between chronic pain and tissue damage. That's an idea you have to let bounce around in your mind for a while. The bottom line is that a significant percentage of back operations - intended to relieve pain - are without merit. But man oh man, are they ever profitable.

As I mentioned earlier, the trans-medical industry is a multi-billion dollar one.

So are you questioning all of medicine here?

In the UK most therapy for gender dysphoria is through NHS clinics and children aren't given cross-sex hormones or surgery. The children do undergo a lot of couselling and assessment by trained professionals before they can be prescribed hormone-blockers.

I can only answer that question on a case by case basis

So not everyone who think "a trans (wo)man is a (wo)man" is a dangerous extremist?

I agree that these are real problems. In general I think that dogmatic positions often lead to harassment and worse.

What could make you reconsider the opinion that "a trans (wo)man is not a (wo)man"?

Yes, but we might disagree as to why. We should NOT underestimate right wing strategists. A short answer here is that liberals need to stop pitching softballs to the right. They will hit them out of the park. I consider the loud claim that "a transwoman is a woman" to be an example of a softball trans-activists have pitched to the right. Of course they'll take advantage of such extraordinary claims!

As for eroding women's rights in general - that's EXTREMELY troubling, and I think consistent with right wing strategy.

It isn't only trans activists who think "a trans (wo)man is a (wo)man". In the UK it is the overall majority position.

Far right people already hate trans people and don't need any encouragement - the strategy of the anti-trans right is to use trans people as a wedge to split the moderate vote. The far right are picking off liberals and centrists with bogus claims of rapey transpeople in toilets, transwomen stealing women's sporting achievements, trans activists grooming kids in conjunction with the radical left. Have you not noticed this?

 

[Callisto]

I think it’s the use of the word “trans” (which inherently means that the person in question is not cis by birth) but don’t quote me on that lol

Oh, I see. I think I misinterpreted what you were saying.

 

[SomeRandom]

Oh, I see. I think I misinterpreted what you were saying.

Oh fair enough. It happens

 

[Callisto]

To say that this woman is a transwoman, or this man is a transman is to say that they have a gender that doesn't conform to our biological expectations, is it not?

I like the analogy of adoptive parents. To be an adoptive parent is to be a parent but you wouldn't suggest that they are ignoring biology by calling themselves a parent would you?

Not the same thing. When we're talking about the origins of a child, then "parent" is used in the biological sense, referring to whoever procreated the person, i.e. the progenitor from which the child has received their genetic makeup. Then there is the use of the word in the societal, legal sense of fulfilling the role of who is responsible for the child. When the biological parents are still around but someone else is taking care of the child, that person has guardianship and is referred to as the child's "guardian" not "parent" even though they have assumed the societal role of parenting (caring and providing for). In the case of a biological parent remarrying or an orphan being adopted, "parent" is usually prefixed with "adoptive" or "step", again to indicate they have assumed a societal role but are not the child's progenitor. An adoptive or step-parent is never going to that person's biological mother or father and, legally, they're designated as step or adoptive.

 

[Yerda]

Not the same thing...

Of course it isn't the same thing. It wouldn't be an analogy if I used the same thing...

 

[Callisto]

On the issue of privacy, neither of us can speak for everyone. But I've heard stories from some women who feel some combination of "grossed out" and threatened.

This has more to do with the sideshow element that has infiltrated the trans community than it does with actual trans persons. I mentioned elsewhere the fact trans persons are nothing new and, until very recently, most people would have no idea if the person who filed into the restroom with them was transgender. Most transgender persons want to live a "normal" life which used to mean alleviating their dysphoria and presenting in society as the gender they identify with. What has everyone riled up are individuals who seem to thrive on standing out and creating a scene so they can feign being victimized. If someone is early in their transition and still clearly presents as their biological sex, they know they're going to create concern walking into an area designated for the opposite sex. It's all for the clicks and the likes.

Agreed. I would propose that transwomen need to be imprisoned elsewhere altogether

It would probably be best for everyone's safety to have separate wings for trans inmates. Putting aside the specific debate of transgender, what this boils down to is another segment of prisoners for whom being in general population is problematic. Separating them can be because of the individual prisoner's crimes or behavior, sometimes it's the potential for actions by others against them. This is nothing new, upon intake prisons assess where incoming prisoners should be assigned and there are various reasons prisoners are divided into designated groups.

 

[Callisto]

Of course it isn't the same thing. It wouldn't be an analogy if I used the same thing...

An analogy is used to show a similarity; the two aren't similar.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

As much as the topic is of interest to me only in limited spheres, I do think @icehorse has a point, even if I disagree where the line is on 'moderate' as it pertains to this topic.

Whilst I see lots of good arguments, I also see some straw manning. What I'm not seeing is much steel manning. Essentially lots of people are suggesting that the science is set...without specificity...and that there are 2 sides to this discussion.

That's kinda the point of the OP, I think, although I'm happy to be corrected.

There were also suggestions that centrists and liberals are being picked off by bigots and convinced to be transphobes by edge positions. I would hesitate to speak for anyone but myself, but I'd push back strongly on that. It's worth noting that there is aggressive campaigning by both extremes of this debate. I align much, much more with the 'extreme left' than the 'extreme right', but I remain wary of the desire by some (generally....not meaning people here) to present positions as obvious, or not brooking further discussion.

I would apply the same thinking to ANY topic. Discussion and acknowledgement on nuance are more effective than demanding concensus in driving effective change, imho.

The alternative is to risk reactionism which drives further polarisation and actually doesn't achieve a fairer and more equitable world.

Again...just my humble opinion. I'm happy to defend that or take questions if I'm being too vague. Happy also to state where I currently sit on any issues, etc.

 

[icehorse]

Far right people already hate trans people and don't need any encouragement - the strategy of the anti-trans right is to use trans people as a wedge to split the moderate vote. The far right are picking off liberals and centrists with bogus claims of rapey transpeople in toilets, transwomen stealing women's sporting achievements, trans activists grooming kids in conjunction with the radical left. Have you not noticed this?

I have. That's why liberal's talking points have to be rock solid. That's why I'm raising these concerns, because I think the left is making talking points that aren't that strong and that are not likely to win the hearts and minds of undecided moderates!

 

[Debater Slayer]

Whilst I see lots of good arguments, I also see some straw manning. What I'm not seeing is much steel manning. Essentially lots of people are suggesting that the science is set...without specificity...and that there are 2 sides to this discussion.

That's kinda the point of the OP, I think, although I'm happy to be corrected.

I think a lot of the science is established enough to render most of the "DON'T" claims in the OP both harmful and incorrect, at least unless a lot of evidence leads to significant changes in the current positions of medical professionals on this topic.

I see a major difference between saying, "There are still a lot of details to iron out concerning optimal treatment for different trans people and how to accommodate them in various spaces" and an overtly harmful position that denies medical guidelines by saying, "All surgery and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria should be banned for minors." The former is a necessary discussion with a lot of nuances; the latter is a position that has underpinned anti-trans legislation and can literally kill some trans people by denying them medical care.

I'm glad to see that this thread has gotten such strong pushback as it has, because I see it as a presentation of harmful positions and casual, unqualified dismissal of established medical treatments on ideological grounds while labeling that stance "moderation." Once an ideological opinion starts drastically affecting others' lives, it opens itself up to as much pushback as it could get.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think a lot of the science is established enough to render most of the "DON'T" claims in the OP both harmful and incorrect, at least unless a lot of evidence leads to significant changes in the current positions of medical professionals on this topic.

I see a major difference between saying, "There are still a lot of details to iron out concerning optimal treatment for different trans people and how to accommodate them in various spaces" and an overtly harmful position that denies medical guidelines by saying, "All surgery and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria should be banned for minors." The former is a necessary discussion with a lot of nuances; the latter is a position that has underpinned anti-trans legislation and can literally kill some trans people by denying them medical care.

I'm glad to see that this thread has gotten such strong pushback as it has, because I see it as a presentation of harmful positions and casual, unqualified dismissal of established medical treatments on ideological grounds while labeling that stance "moderation." Once an ideological opinion starts drastically affecting others' lives, it opens itself up to as much pushback as it could get.

Fair enough.

Some quick comments;

1) I made no comments regarding specific items in the OP relating to trans rights, and specifically said I would disagree with the OP on where the 'moderate' line would be.
2) Science is often 'established'. But unless dealing with specific claims in context, I'm honestly not sure what that means. Climate science is 'settled' too, in that climate change is broadly agreed. That doesn't mean all actions to proactively deal with climate change have equal scientific support and evidence. If you want to bring that back to trans issues, I'm not for a moment arguing against gender dysmorphia, or anything else I'd see as settled science.
3) Assuming all the claims in this thread are correct (let's say from the left side, which is clumsy, I know. But you get my meaning...) there is still a whole lot of thought and discussion that should be happening. Personally, I don't think enforcing a consensus via echo chambers lead to anything other than reactionism. To whit, are people more interested in being 'right' or effecting change? These things aren't always aligned (at least not completely).
4) Stepping back from specific claims made in the OP...like I said, I don't align with them...what does a trans-moderate look like in your opinion?
5) What broad percentage of either your country, the USA, or Australia do you think clears that bar (trans-moderate) and what do you think the best way to increase that percentage is?

 

[Stevicus]

As much as the topic is of interest to me only in limited spheres, I do think @icehorse has a point, even if I disagree where the line is on 'moderate' as it pertains to this topic.

Whilst I see lots of good arguments, I also see some straw manning. What I'm not seeing is much steel manning. Essentially lots of people are suggesting that the science is set...without specificity...and that there are 2 sides to this discussion.

That's kinda the point of the OP, I think, although I'm happy to be corrected.

There were also suggestions that centrists and liberals are being picked off by bigots and convinced to be transphobes by edge positions. I would hesitate to speak for anyone but myself, but I'd push back strongly on that. It's worth noting that there is aggressive campaigning by both extremes of this debate. I align much, much more with the 'extreme left' than the 'extreme right', but I remain wary of the desire by some (generally....not meaning people here) to present positions as obvious, or not brooking further discussion.

I would apply the same thinking to ANY topic. Discussion and acknowledgement on nuance are more effective than demanding concensus in driving effective change, imho.

The alternative is to risk reactionism which drives further polarisation and actually doesn't achieve a fairer and more equitable world.

Again...just my humble opinion. I'm happy to defend that or take questions if I'm being too vague. Happy also to state where I currently sit on any issues, etc.

I think there are different ways of looking at this or any other issue. There are issues of human rights, legal issues, political issues, but also matters of science and medicine. For me, I prefer to leave the science to the scientists and look at it more as a human rights issue. It doesn't mean I ignore the science, but I'm not going to claim any scientific expertise or suggest that the science is settled, since I'm not qualified to say that. But as a general principle, I believe people have the right do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm other people.

This issue gets complicated, though, when it comes to children, as they're minors and considered, from a legal standpoint, as not being capable of making decisions regarding their own life. The assumption is that the parents have the child's best interests at heart and therefore should be the ones making the decisions - and this is the major point of contention where most of the fighting seems to emanate from.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think there are different ways of looking at this or any other issue. There are issues of human rights, legal issues, political issues, but also matters of science and medicine. For me, I prefer to leave the science to the scientists and look at it more as a human rights issue. It doesn't mean I ignore the science, but I'm not going to claim any scientific expertise or suggest that the science is settled, since I'm not qualified to say that. But as a general principle, I believe people have the right do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm other people.

This issue gets complicated, though, when it comes to children, as they're minors and considered, from a legal standpoint, as not being capable of making decisions regarding their own life. The assumption is that the parents have the child's best interests at heart and therefore should be the ones making the decisions - and this is the major point of contention where most of the fighting seems to emanate from.

That seems fair, and I'm pretty much similar. Sports is a relatively less important area, but one I'm personally heavily invested in. And as a parent and former teacher, I do think the potential conflict between the rights of parents vs children is a tricky and important consideration.

My only other consideration really is more along economic lines, in terms of what is paid for by insurance/government vs private funding.