The witchhunt continues...

[Kenny]

Less than 1% detransition and more than half of detransitioners did so because their health, financial or personal supports failed. And many of those retransition at a later date.

Further, even detransitioners who decides they weren't trans, a minority in the group, overwhelmingly say to not use their position to support ending gender affirming care, and do not regret their journey and would not want political groups putting that word in their mouths.

If anything, they want comprehensive team based medical care, both counseling, psychiatriatry, psychotherapy, endocrinology etc, to be more affordable amd accessible so people can maximally explore their options and evaluations and make the most informed consent.

Also, cis kids have invasive gender affirming care far more often than trans kids do. From hormone treatment for cosmetic reasons like lack of or too much body hair for comfort, to both breast reduction and augmentation which thousands of minors have every year in the United states alone, to circumcision, which is a routine surgery I would sooner ban, as it has actual regret much higher. Lol.

I think it is WAAAAAAAY to early to give statistics. What statistics we do have that are viable is the reality that dysphoria is something that a great number of children experience but return back to their genetics. That is normal. But imagine if we didn't let the normal process have its way... how many destroyed lives would we have.

 

[SkepticThinker]

What search phrases have you tried? Tell me them and I will help.

How about just providing something that backs up your claims? What did you look at or read that makes you believe what you do?

Or don't, whatever. I'm starting to lose interest at this point.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Puberty blockers are safe!!!!! There are many studies showing the opposite.

Go on then.

 

[Kenny]

You and I have been disputing these claims for the last several weeks. You do not have the rock solid "all the experts agree" foundation that you think you do. A few of the studies upon which a large portion of policies have been built, are now facing harsher scrutiny and are not holding up well to this scrutiny.

Remember that you've chosen to defend the side that is making several EXTRAORDINARY claims:

- That children who are universally viewed as too young for many adult activities can somehow, accurately appreciate the long term impacts of having their bodies permanently mutilated.

- That in an industry rife with profiteering, extremely expensive medical interventions - in this one instance - are above reproach.

- That all other environmental factors can be ignored

- That we cannot call this a "disorder"

- That we can ignore the sharp rise in suicidal thoughts across all teenagers.

==

Your side is making all of these extraordinary claims and your evidence is shaky. Not too many years ago electro-shock therapy was considered good care. So was thalidomide. Odds are that in a few years much of the approved "gender affirming care" in practice today will be seen as equally tragic.

WOW! Soooo good. Thank you for clearly stating reality.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

*****WINNER*******

An absolutely excellent post. Especially the paragraph I bolded.

Thanks.

Are you familiar with the term retronyms? "a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish it from the meaning that has emerged through progress or technological development (e.g., cloth diaper is a retronym necessitated by the fact that diaper now more commonly refers to a disposable diaper)."

There are several examples. Snow skiing was just skiing until water skiing came along. Analog clocks were just clocks until digital clocks came along.

And I disagree with the use because it is useless.

The word is being used that way by others who seem to find it useful. You don't have to approve.

I never said people claiming to be a gender are lying.

You wrote, "it is wrong for a federal or state organization to force people to state a lie." I asked you (and also Kenny) to clarify who you said was lying and what was the lie. You both declined. What does that say to me? As I've explained, I have what I consider likely reasons for any behavior I see here, and I invite others to confirm or disconfirm them, but they often just evade, so my best guess remains my working diagnosis. You have the power to modify that best guess.

What should I think it means when you or any other poster doesn't answer? What are the logical possibilities, and how do we rank them by likelihood? One is that he skimmed over the request and never saw it. Another is the presence of some kind of cognitive defect like a confirmation bias filtering ideas out before they become conscious. Another is that he doesn't think he can defend his position and so just evade and deflect. Another is that you tried to answer and thought you did, but the answer got lost in cyberspace. So, with no input from you, I've reached the end of this analysis. If you care, I'll tell you how I rank those and which I consider likeliest.

When someone claims to be a woman what characteristics are they referring to?

Why do you keep coming back to this straw man? Who is claiming to be a woman (and I mean your only definition of the word - what can now be called a biological woman by people acknowledging that the word has more than one meaning now)? The transgendered people I'm familiar with don't. What they claim is that feel like a woman and want to live and be treated as one.

I know that words change over time. But there must be characteristics a person is referring to when the say they are a woman. What are they?

There you go again. How can one have a discussion with you on this matter when you keep slipping back from feels like a biological woman to claims to be one?

if I claimed to be a cat would you believe I was a cat because I identify as one?

And here's more of that. You claiming to be a cat is not analogous to a biological male claiming to feel like a female.

If I pointed to a coffeepot and said that is a microwave would you agree?

No. You must think that's analogous. I don't. Unlike with a trans woman being called a woman, I would have no idea why you were saying that.

What if in 10 years everyone was calling a coffee pot and a microwave a microwave.

Now it's analogous, or closer. That would not be a problem for me. I would not have an emotional reaction to people choosing to use those words that way.

How useful is that? They re two different things called the same thing. Just like a trangenderman and a man are both called men but are not the same thing.

I don't believe that your objection relates to linguistic efficiency or clarity, nor is there a problem with ambiguity with the terms trans man or trans woman, so why go there?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I think the inmates are running the asylum and our culture and the world is going further and further down the rabbit hole.

There is always a spectrum during a transition from those who have already made the adjustment to those who can't or won't. And the stragglers commonly see the world going to pot. It's a generational cliche - the young people with their long hair and rock music will bring society to its knees.

This way of thinking is so deeply entrenched now that it is not going to go away.

Agreed. It's the march of humanistic influence. Blacks, interracial couples, gays, and women have had much of the stigma of this ancient thinking mitigated. Atheists have been throwing off the mantle of Abrahamic atheophobia and claiming their rightful place in society as well. All of this causes great consternation among those feeling threatened by a level playing field.

And here is the latest demographic that suffers from Abrahamic bigotry that deserve tolerance and equal treatment and opportunity. Those that don't agree can be expected to resist and try to preserve the past, or more etymologically properly, conserve the past as others attempt to liberate people now.

People who get themselves cancelled get cancelled because so many people have already adopted this way of thinking.

Agree again. I assume that you disapprove. I don't. Though my mother was liberal and an early champion of minority rights, my father was a conservative bigot. He taught me to disesteem Mexicans. I hated the title of the song Oye Como Va for being in Spanish. I disliked Jerry Garcia before I knew who he was because I thought he was a Mexican. And I brought that attitude to school, where I was quickly "cancelled" by peers, such is the power of peer pressure.

And it's the conservatives usually objecting to being cancelled by liberals remaking society, people that those conservatives would like to cancel themselves. Isn't that what the modern use of the word woke tries to do now? But it's pretty one-sided. The vanguard generally prevails once a movement reaches a certain size and begins having an impact on societal thinking.

I believe you've said that you are a gay atheist. If so, you've benefitted twice from progressivism. So have I. I'm an atheist Jew, born to two atheist Jews who divorced when my sister and I were 4 and 2. Their lives were harder than mine. They experienced more antisemitism than I did. And my liberal mother not only pioneered divorce, but also interracial marriage. People stared at us upon entering restaurants, often disapprovingly. Nobody I knew had either of those in their lives. But today, mixed race couples have it much better. That's progressivism. That's humanistic tolerance and egalitarianism. And it requires "cancelling" those who won't adapt.

You see, once you can get folks to believe and support this kind of thinking you really can get them to believe anything. It's fricken brilliant.

Which kind of thinking? That trans people deserve respect and equal social and economic opportunity?

I give up.

Thank you.

This path forward will only end in frustration.

Agreed. Trans tolerance is the future. From the pen of the poet on adapting to the inevitable:

Its' nothing, they explain it's like a diesel train
Better not be there when it rolls over
And when that train rolls in, you won't know where it's been
You gotta try to see a little further

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

You want a hard definition for something that does not have a hard definition. The best that we can say is that it is complicated. There have been studies of trans people and they tend to have the brain structures of the opposite sex. In other words is is ore than just feelings. Their brains are female even if their bodies are male or vice versa.

If it is more than just feelings what is it then? What are the characteristics of a male brain or a female brain and how does a transgender person know what their brain is? I don't think a transgender woman thinks they are a woman because they know their brain structure. I have never heard that argument before.

The thing to ask yourself does it harm you to call a biological male "she" if she asks you to? How does that harm you? You should be able to understand that you are harming them if you do not call them by how their own brain tells them that they are.

I have answered this question multiple times. I call a person what they want to be called. But if asked if a transwoman is a woman I will say no. That is factually inaccurate.

So if their brain is telling a man they are a woman then it is just that they feel like a woman right? What feelings do they have that indicate they are a woman? What are they comparing themselves against?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I think it is WAAAAAAAY to early to give statistics. What statistics we do have that are viable is the reality that dysphoria is something that a great number of children experience but return back to their genetics. That is normal. But imagine if we didn't let the normal process have its way... how many destroyed lives would we have.

The notion that it's waaaaaaay too early only comes from people who haven't read up on it. There's been gender clinics studying dysphoria (though it wasn't called such at the time) since WW2. This isn't new and it's not poorly studied.

Also, that most kids decide they're not trans after going through evaluation is great! Means that the evaluation is doing its job. But because detransition and regret rates are, in fact, lower than any joint surgery on this earth means that when people do transition, it's overwhelmingly to help gender dysphoria, and that it does.

So keep voting for widespread accessibility to mental health services and endocrinology. *thumbs up.*

 

[Subduction Zone]

Are you familiar with the term retronyms? "a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish it from the meaning that has emerged through progress or technological development (e.g., cloth diaper is a retronym necessitated by the fact that diaper now more commonly refers to a disposable diaper)."

Field hockey was just hockey until ice was invented?

 

[Subduction Zone]

If it is more than just feelings what is it then? What are the characteristics of a male brain or a female brain and how does a transgender person know what their brain is? I don't think a transgender woman thinks they are a woman because they know their brain structure. I have never heard that argument before.


I have answered this question multiple times. I call a person what they want to be called. But if asked if a transwoman is a woman I will say no. That is factually inaccurate.

So if their brain is telling a man they are a woman then it is just that they feel like a woman right? What feelings do they have that indicate they are a woman? What are they comparing themselves against?

I am sorry, but right now I am tired. Why don't you search for medical conditions of transgender people. Otherwise I can answer later.

 

[Kenny]

The notion that it's waaaaaaay too early only comes from people who haven't read up on it. There's been gender clinics studying dysphoria (though it wasn't called such at the time) since WW2. This isn't new and it's not poorly studied.

Also, that most kids decide they're not trans after going through evaluation is great! Means that the evaluation is doing its job. But because detransition and regret rates are, in fact, lower than any joint surgery on this earth means that when people do transition, it's overwhelmingly to help gender dysphoria, and that it does.

So keep voting for widespread accessibility to mental health services and endocrinology. *thumbs up.*

And in the inception of the study, everyone understood that it was a "dysphoria" and treated as not normal.. The problem is created is that in many cases they aren't evaluated, they are pushed.

 

[icehorse]

How about just providing something that backs up your claims? What did you look at or read that makes you believe what you do?

Or don't, whatever. I'm starting to lose interest at this point.

Do Extreme Interventions for Trans Youths Save Lives?

This thread is a continuation of a few recent threads on RF. Context: In the last decade, there has been a 2,000% increase in people coming out as transgender. It is widely reported (and not contested in this OP), that trans youth have a high incidence of suffering from various mental health...

www.religiousforums.com

 

[icehorse]

Which kind of thinking? That trans people deserve respect and equal social and economic opportunity?

Man oh man, the number of strawmen in this thread is STAGGERING !!

Do you really think any of the posters in this thread are arguing against respect and equal opportunity?

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Who cares if you personally actually believe people are "who they say they are?" As long as you treat people with dignity and respect, that's the main thing.

I 100% agree and have always agreed. That may be the main thing but not the only thing. Truth matters.

One could argue you've most likely been doing this your entire life up to this point, whenever you've met any person, anywhere, when they tell you who they are and give you their name. I mean, unless you've been checking the genitals, DNA, chromosomes, etc. of every person you've ever met, which I seriously doubt you've done. That's what gets me about this whole thing. Same goes for the bathroom thing. Just carry on as you did before. What's the big problem?

My point has never been about how I know if a person is a man or woman. It has always been about truth. That a transman is not a man. I have continually said I call someone by what they prefer.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

I didn't say they are the same. I am specifically talking about your use of the word "ACTUAL".

For example, if I were to say "children with learning disabilities are not the ACTUAL children of their parents", and you were to point out that what I said makes it sound like I was calling disabled children illegitimate or lesser, do you think a reasonable response from me would be to say "you can say they're actual if you like, but that still does not change the fact that non-disabled and disabled children are not the same".

And I already agreed with you on this. Call them all actual children. But the fact is they were not born from the same mother. How is this controversial?

Do you see the non-sequitur there?


I don't have a huge problem with that. My issue was with calling adopted children "not the ACTUAL children" of their adoptive parents, which sounds pretty obviously wrong on a few levels.

My point was to say the adopted children were not born from the mother of the family. And the analogy to the transgender discussion. I am not talking about how we should treat people. of course we should treat people with respect. I am talking about what is true.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Yes.

Thanks for the answer.

What makes a transgender woman a woman?

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

You wrote, "it is wrong for a federal or state organization to force people to state a lie." I asked you (and also Kenny) to clarify who you said was lying and what was the lie. You both declined. What does that say to me? As I've explained, I have what I consider likely reasons for any behavior I see here, and I invite others to confirm or disconfirm them, but they often just evade, so my best guess remains my working diagnosis. You have the power to modify that best guess.

I have said many times the lie I was talking about was the lie I would tell if forced to say a transgender woman is a woman becasue I don't think they are women. A transgender woman is not lying when they say they are a woman. They believe it.

What should I think it means when you or any other poster doesn't answer? What are the logical possibilities, and how do we rank them by likelihood? One is that he skimmed over the request and never saw it. Another is the presence of some kind of cognitive defect like a confirmation bias filtering ideas out before they become conscious. Another is that he doesn't think he can defend his position and so just evade and deflect. Another is that you tried to answer and thought you did, but the answer got lost in cyberspace. So, with no input from you, I've reached the end of this analysis. If you care, I'll tell you how I rank those and which I consider likeliest.

I answered above.

Why do you keep coming back to this straw man? Who is claiming to be a woman (and I mean your only definition of the word - what can now be called a biological woman by people acknowledging that the word has more than one meaning now)? The transgendered people I'm familiar with don't. What they claim is that feel like a woman and want to live and be treated as one.

That is great. Adults should be able to live their life how they want. I will call anyone the pronouns they want. My point has always been that it is not true a transgender woman is the same as a biological woman.

There you go again. How can one have a discussion with you on this matter when you keep slipping back from feels like a biological woman to claims to be one?

I will ask again, when you refer to a woman what characteristics are you referring to that you decided to use the word woman?

And here's more of that. You claiming to be a cat is not analogous to a biological male claiming to feel like a female.

Why not?

Now it's analogous, or closer. That would not be a problem for me. I would not have an emotional reaction to people choosing to use those words that way.

So now you are dismissing my disagreement by claiming it is an emotional outburst?

I don't believe that your objection relates to linguistic efficiency or clarity, nor is there a problem with ambiguity with the terms trans man or trans woman, so why go there?

So what do you think my objection is based on?

 

[metis]

No... what I was answering was the "law" portion... or maybe I just misunderstood. Personally I would take the position (because of the long lasting effects, the fact that many are now de-transitioning, none of it has long-term studies), that there should be a law until one is old enough (18 currently) to make a decision about their own bodies. When one is mature enough, as we know that many children readjust their identity over time, one can make a free choice of what they want to do with their bodes whether transgender procedures, homosexuality et al.

Only roughly 1 & 1/2% of teens nationwide have a transgender operation, and the rest are given hormone suppressants if they, their parents, and their doctor agree, and they are commonly used and quite safe. Our oldest daughter is currently on them to suppress her breast cancer and has no noticeable side effects.

So, the question is why should government make such a personal decision? Do they live with the teen? know the teen's issues? act like the teen's doctor?

Also, trans teens that don't have any procedure done have a noticeable higher suicide rate versus those that do.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

And in the inception of the study, everyone understood that it was a "dysphoria" and treated as not normal.. The problem is created is that in many cases they aren't evaluated, they are pushed.

"Not normal" Is meaningless here. Red hair is not normal.

But no, Gender dysphoria treatment has been with sexual assignment surgery since WW2 also. Because researchers realized early on that conversion camps went about as well for trans as it did for gay people: inhumanely with ghastly results.

Also, nobody is going through GAC without evaluation. Thats fear mongering by the right. Same same as when they were saying kids were being pushed to be gay.

 

[Soandso]

It's wild to me that people are so hyper focused on less than one percent of a population that they at most have tertiary contact with in the real world