Not at all... I answered it. I guess you weren't looking?
Let me ask you this, did Jesus judge any actions?
I did give science. What does XX mean? What does XY mean?
And you are wrong.
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The witchhunt continues...
- Thread starter Father Heathen
- Start date
Let me ask you this, did Jesus judge any actions?
I did give science. What does XX mean? What does XY mean?
And you are wrong.
I understand that there are several debates happening simultaneously on this thread.
== Context
For me, the context of the discussion is that the "standard of care" for trans youths in many countries includes the possibility of surgical or chemical castration. Since these are obviously extreme interventions, the people who defend them usually claim that such interventions save lives because they reduce suicide rates for trans youths. I hope we can all agree that we want to reduce rates of suicide for ALL people, and ALL youths. So of course if these extreme interventions reduce the rates of suicide, then they're probably a good idea.
But, it turns out that the studies that have been done to determine if suicide rates go down are perhaps not as robust as they should be. Upon re-evaluation of these few, oft-cited studies many countries are now deciding that these studies have flaws, and so they are revising their standards of care and sharply limiting castration as an option.
==
***mod edit***
And we also have posters claiming that puberty blockers are safe, even though I've seen strong evidence that they are not, and I believe in this thread such evidence has been linked to. Off hand, I think that AT THE VERY LEAST puberty blockers damage bone growth permanently.
Next we have posters acknowledging that minors are having their genitalia removed, but apparently it would be incorrect to call that procedure castration.
Additionally, it has been mentioned several times that suicide rates are up SHARPLY for all youths. Of course if a young person is suicidal and not experiencing gender dysphoria we do not castrate them. But none of the apologists for castration have bothered to tackle the question of why suicide rates are increasing across the board. When the idea of considering environmental factors has been offered, the apologists have chosen not to enter into that, related topic.
I hope we can agree that these extreme interventions are a very consequential topic? Now, over the course of several recent threads on this topic, many links to articles and papers have been provided. The other thing I notice is the tendency of many posters to claim "this is not happening". Hmmm. If we step back from this topic for a minute, as debaters we know in general that proving something does not exist is an almost impossible undertaking. We also know it's a busy world, with millions of stories happening all the time. Given all that, posters seem satisfied that if they're not aware of a thing, it's not happening? That seems like yet another extraordinary claim.
To exacerbate that issue, posters will not take the time to review recent threads to find links already provided. So they have their ad hoc opinions, and will do little or nothing to support them or reconsider them.
==
My conclusion is that this topic is highly politicized. It is obviously the politically correct stance to march in lock step with any and all proposals and conclusions created by trans activists. What I've seen repeatedly in these threads is that if you question any of the trans activist's proposals or practices, you are categorized as a right-wind conservative, or a transphobe, or a sexist, and on and on. So for this topic, apologists who are experienced debaters repeatedly attempt to conflate the ideas with the messengers.
As I've said several times, actual right-winger or alt-righters or transphobes or sexists are not stupid. They WILL analyze ideas coming from the left, and if they find weaknesses, they WILL exploit them. We see this sort of occurrence repeatedly used by trump and his allies to somehow retain 70 million loyal followers - argh!
IMO, the extreme left is distributing some dangerous propaganda. And they also are quite good at it. It takes a lot of concerted effort to not fall prey to propaganda. It seems to me that many posters here have "drunk the kool-aid". Of course it's true that the right is also spewing propaganda. So we have to be aware of falling into those traps as well.
But I know I have been on the receiving end of countless weak arguments in these debates. I've been slurred, and all of the weak arguments I've listed above have been used repeatedly.
While I'm sincere in my belief that the practice of castrating youths is abhorrent, I'm also taking on the role of contrarian against the arguments of the extreme left. I AM a liberal and several times in the recent past I've posted long lists of what I believe in as a liberal. Not once has anyone pushed back on my list. So as a liberal I'm saying to all my liberal, apologist opponents in these discussions, your weak arguments are making things worse. Your seemingly thoughtless virtue signaling is empowering the right.
== Context
For me, the context of the discussion is that the "standard of care" for trans youths in many countries includes the possibility of surgical or chemical castration. Since these are obviously extreme interventions, the people who defend them usually claim that such interventions save lives because they reduce suicide rates for trans youths. I hope we can all agree that we want to reduce rates of suicide for ALL people, and ALL youths. So of course if these extreme interventions reduce the rates of suicide, then they're probably a good idea.
But, it turns out that the studies that have been done to determine if suicide rates go down are perhaps not as robust as they should be. Upon re-evaluation of these few, oft-cited studies many countries are now deciding that these studies have flaws, and so they are revising their standards of care and sharply limiting castration as an option.
==
***mod edit***
And we also have posters claiming that puberty blockers are safe, even though I've seen strong evidence that they are not, and I believe in this thread such evidence has been linked to. Off hand, I think that AT THE VERY LEAST puberty blockers damage bone growth permanently.
Next we have posters acknowledging that minors are having their genitalia removed, but apparently it would be incorrect to call that procedure castration.
Additionally, it has been mentioned several times that suicide rates are up SHARPLY for all youths. Of course if a young person is suicidal and not experiencing gender dysphoria we do not castrate them. But none of the apologists for castration have bothered to tackle the question of why suicide rates are increasing across the board. When the idea of considering environmental factors has been offered, the apologists have chosen not to enter into that, related topic.
I hope we can agree that these extreme interventions are a very consequential topic? Now, over the course of several recent threads on this topic, many links to articles and papers have been provided. The other thing I notice is the tendency of many posters to claim "this is not happening". Hmmm. If we step back from this topic for a minute, as debaters we know in general that proving something does not exist is an almost impossible undertaking. We also know it's a busy world, with millions of stories happening all the time. Given all that, posters seem satisfied that if they're not aware of a thing, it's not happening? That seems like yet another extraordinary claim.
To exacerbate that issue, posters will not take the time to review recent threads to find links already provided. So they have their ad hoc opinions, and will do little or nothing to support them or reconsider them.
==
My conclusion is that this topic is highly politicized. It is obviously the politically correct stance to march in lock step with any and all proposals and conclusions created by trans activists. What I've seen repeatedly in these threads is that if you question any of the trans activist's proposals or practices, you are categorized as a right-wind conservative, or a transphobe, or a sexist, and on and on. So for this topic, apologists who are experienced debaters repeatedly attempt to conflate the ideas with the messengers.
As I've said several times, actual right-winger or alt-righters or transphobes or sexists are not stupid. They WILL analyze ideas coming from the left, and if they find weaknesses, they WILL exploit them. We see this sort of occurrence repeatedly used by trump and his allies to somehow retain 70 million loyal followers - argh!
IMO, the extreme left is distributing some dangerous propaganda. And they also are quite good at it. It takes a lot of concerted effort to not fall prey to propaganda. It seems to me that many posters here have "drunk the kool-aid". Of course it's true that the right is also spewing propaganda. So we have to be aware of falling into those traps as well.
But I know I have been on the receiving end of countless weak arguments in these debates. I've been slurred, and all of the weak arguments I've listed above have been used repeatedly.
While I'm sincere in my belief that the practice of castrating youths is abhorrent, I'm also taking on the role of contrarian against the arguments of the extreme left. I AM a liberal and several times in the recent past I've posted long lists of what I believe in as a liberal. Not once has anyone pushed back on my list. So as a liberal I'm saying to all my liberal, apologist opponents in these discussions, your weak arguments are making things worse. Your seemingly thoughtless virtue signaling is empowering the right.
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Are you going to find a cherry-picked example that shows Jesus was a hypocrite, thus wiggle room for Christians who want to condemn anyone they please?
That is 1st grade science, not the very complex science involving gender identity. See, you admit you lack of understanding, and you should admit you aren't well-informed enough to have an opinion.
You accused gender identify challenged folks as lying, yet you offer no evidence for this conclusion.
Really, you offer no evidence or explanation, so I reject your claim. If you were correct I would think you able to show it.And you are wrong.
I see nothing here worth addressing. Simple biology should be simple enough unless you are a flat-earther. Everything has been addressed and repeating it all over again would be circular in effort.
But I do respect your right to have viewpoints.
Nice long post, but you still haven't provided any evidence that castration of minors is actually happening. ***mod edit***
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This is such an extraordinary example of 'scratch a liberal and a conservative bleeds.' A liberal insofar as not inconvenienced in any way, such as using pronouns I'm unfamiliar with or disagree with. Because the 'protect the children angle is just call to emotion bs the same as it's ever been. No such concern over the millions of cis kids who have used puberty blockers, no such concern of genital surgery on intersex kids (or cis kids because the bulk of genital motification surgeries are in fact on cis kids for cosmetic reasons), just concern over one small limited outlook of men and women being challenged. Which makes the ensuing pompacity and 'be careful or you'll make more radical righties' just so hilarious.
Especially coming from the well of ineffectual ego that is contained in antitheism. As if they've ever done anything but entrench theists they 'more-intellectual-than-thou.'
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SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Here it is again, Kenny ...
"
Parents of Transgender Youth:
“Well, it’s interesting that folks might say that these are woke parents ‘cause my husband and I weren’t really woke about this. We had a child who was telling us that they – that, you know, she’s been a girl her whole life, and we were not really listening. So I am not sure how woke we were….I kind of wish we were more woke. I wish we had been able to hear her sooner. Took us a few years to really listen and appreciate that she was telling us who she was. And when we did, she was – she was like a new child. She just literally lit up, woke up. She woke up when we supported her. We said, ‘we recognize that this is who you are, and we are gonna support you in our house. And we’re gonna support you in your life.’ And when that happened, she’s like, ‘this is amazing.’ She really didn’t have words for it as a 10-year-old. She had been telling us since she was three. And since that time, what we deal with now is a child who is now almost going to college. She’s in high school. And, I told someone the other day, I said, ‘You know, her being trans is the least interesting thing about her.’”
“So the year before she transitioned, I knew – she was verbalizing that she did not want to live. And I said ‘I don’t want to lose my child,’ so we may have had our heads in the sand about what was really going on, acknowledging this. So there was a razor’s edge for sure at that point. Once we actually affirmed this child, she’s actually been fine. She’s on her phone too much. That’s her biggest problem. Once she had the gender-affirming care of her parents – she blossomed.”
– Keisha Michaels, PTEC Parent
“First I’d just like to make sure that we clarify the different types of transitions. Because we’ve talked about, there’s no medical intervention. So, Avery socially transitioned at the age of four. So it was just name, pronouns, hair, saying daughter instead of son. Before we did that kind of affirmation, Avery was depressed, talked about death all the time, and actually tried to jump out of our car – at four. She just could not handle it. Doing that kind of social affirmation gave us a kid who smiled again, who said ‘mommy I love you’ all the time. We have a whole year, between three and four, where we don’t have a photo of Avery smiling. And that changed just through social affirmation. So when people call us child abusers and say it’s horrible to do this, they don’t understand the realities.”
“It was completely out of my realm of understanding. I was very conservative, evangelical, you know, Southern Baptist, GOP. But at the age of four, Avery said, ‘Mom you think that I am a boy, but I’m a girl. I’m a girl on the inside,’ and very directly told us. We had no idea what that meant. It was out of our thinking. We thought maybe we have a confused gay boy… We wanted to ask questions. We talked to doctors. We went to the endocrinologists just to check the XX, XYs, all the things. And we had to come to understand that our child knew who they were. And mind you they’re 15 now. This was more than a decade ago. They weren’t influenced by TikTok. They weren’t on Facebook.”
– Debi Jackson, PTEC Parent
www.hrc.org
"
Parents of Transgender Youth:
“Well, it’s interesting that folks might say that these are woke parents ‘cause my husband and I weren’t really woke about this. We had a child who was telling us that they – that, you know, she’s been a girl her whole life, and we were not really listening. So I am not sure how woke we were….I kind of wish we were more woke. I wish we had been able to hear her sooner. Took us a few years to really listen and appreciate that she was telling us who she was. And when we did, she was – she was like a new child. She just literally lit up, woke up. She woke up when we supported her. We said, ‘we recognize that this is who you are, and we are gonna support you in our house. And we’re gonna support you in your life.’ And when that happened, she’s like, ‘this is amazing.’ She really didn’t have words for it as a 10-year-old. She had been telling us since she was three. And since that time, what we deal with now is a child who is now almost going to college. She’s in high school. And, I told someone the other day, I said, ‘You know, her being trans is the least interesting thing about her.’”
“So the year before she transitioned, I knew – she was verbalizing that she did not want to live. And I said ‘I don’t want to lose my child,’ so we may have had our heads in the sand about what was really going on, acknowledging this. So there was a razor’s edge for sure at that point. Once we actually affirmed this child, she’s actually been fine. She’s on her phone too much. That’s her biggest problem. Once she had the gender-affirming care of her parents – she blossomed.”
– Keisha Michaels, PTEC Parent
“First I’d just like to make sure that we clarify the different types of transitions. Because we’ve talked about, there’s no medical intervention. So, Avery socially transitioned at the age of four. So it was just name, pronouns, hair, saying daughter instead of son. Before we did that kind of affirmation, Avery was depressed, talked about death all the time, and actually tried to jump out of our car – at four. She just could not handle it. Doing that kind of social affirmation gave us a kid who smiled again, who said ‘mommy I love you’ all the time. We have a whole year, between three and four, where we don’t have a photo of Avery smiling. And that changed just through social affirmation. So when people call us child abusers and say it’s horrible to do this, they don’t understand the realities.”
“It was completely out of my realm of understanding. I was very conservative, evangelical, you know, Southern Baptist, GOP. But at the age of four, Avery said, ‘Mom you think that I am a boy, but I’m a girl. I’m a girl on the inside,’ and very directly told us. We had no idea what that meant. It was out of our thinking. We thought maybe we have a confused gay boy… We wanted to ask questions. We talked to doctors. We went to the endocrinologists just to check the XX, XYs, all the things. And we had to come to understand that our child knew who they were. And mind you they’re 15 now. This was more than a decade ago. They weren’t influenced by TikTok. They weren’t on Facebook.”
– Debi Jackson, PTEC Parent
ICYMI: Watch Jon Stewart Debunk Anti-Trans Myths about Gender…
Watch Jon Stewart’s Take Down Here For Free
Oh I forgot - also LOTS of poor minding reading attempts being made. Again, not a strong debating approach. With all that said...
I believe you are making an apples to oranges comparison here, no? All surgeries come with risks. Most surgeries are necessary.
Remember the context here: The claim justifying castration of youths is that it saves lives by reducing suicides. So this is not a medical necessity, it is - apparently - a psychological intervention, correct?
As for it being a small number, let me ask you this: If my claim is correct, and these extreme interventions do not in fact save lives, then in your opinion, how many needlessly mutilated children is acceptable to you?
Hmmm, I thought we were supposed to debate ideas and not slur posters?
If you'd like to debate the usefullness - or not - of antitheism, I'll happily debate that topic if you want to start a thread.
OK? Not sure where the science is but I hear their hearts. And respect their viewpoints.Here it is again, Kenny ...
"
Parents of Transgender Youth:
“Well, it’s interesting that folks might say that these are woke parents ‘cause my husband and I weren’t really woke about this. We had a child who was telling us that they – that, you know, she’s been a girl her whole life, and we were not really listening. So I am not sure how woke we were….I kind of wish we were more woke. I wish we had been able to hear her sooner. Took us a few years to really listen and appreciate that she was telling us who she was. And when we did, she was – she was like a new child. She just literally lit up, woke up. She woke up when we supported her. We said, ‘we recognize that this is who you are, and we are gonna support you in our house. And we’re gonna support you in your life.’ And when that happened, she’s like, ‘this is amazing.’ She really didn’t have words for it as a 10-year-old. She had been telling us since she was three. And since that time, what we deal with now is a child who is now almost going to college. She’s in high school. And, I told someone the other day, I said, ‘You know, her being trans is the least interesting thing about her.’”
“So the year before she transitioned, I knew – she was verbalizing that she did not want to live. And I said ‘I don’t want to lose my child,’ so we may have had our heads in the sand about what was really going on, acknowledging this. So there was a razor’s edge for sure at that point. Once we actually affirmed this child, she’s actually been fine. She’s on her phone too much. That’s her biggest problem. Once she had the gender-affirming care of her parents – she blossomed.”
– Keisha Michaels, PTEC Parent
“First I’d just like to make sure that we clarify the different types of transitions. Because we’ve talked about, there’s no medical intervention. So, Avery socially transitioned at the age of four. So it was just name, pronouns, hair, saying daughter instead of son. Before we did that kind of affirmation, Avery was depressed, talked about death all the time, and actually tried to jump out of our car – at four. She just could not handle it. Doing that kind of social affirmation gave us a kid who smiled again, who said ‘mommy I love you’ all the time. We have a whole year, between three and four, where we don’t have a photo of Avery smiling. And that changed just through social affirmation. So when people call us child abusers and say it’s horrible to do this, they don’t understand the realities.”
“It was completely out of my realm of understanding. I was very conservative, evangelical, you know, Southern Baptist, GOP. But at the age of four, Avery said, ‘Mom you think that I am a boy, but I’m a girl. I’m a girl on the inside,’ and very directly told us. We had no idea what that meant. It was out of our thinking. We thought maybe we have a confused gay boy… We wanted to ask questions. We talked to doctors. We went to the endocrinologists just to check the XX, XYs, all the things. And we had to come to understand that our child knew who they were. And mind you they’re 15 now. This was more than a decade ago. They weren’t influenced by TikTok. They weren’t on Facebook.”
– Debi Jackson, PTEC Parent
ICYMI: Watch Jon Stewart Debunk Anti-Trans Myths about Gender…
Watch Jon Stewart’s Take Down Here For Free
Cosmetic surgeries are not necessary by definition. Cis children can and do have unnecessary cosmetic surgery, including genital surgery. Not just the billions of unnecessary routine circumcisions, but conservatives such as you aren't actually throwing up roadblocks against minors having things like reductions and augmentation or unnecessary revisions on intersex kids. You only care about trans kids.
Because thus isn't about caring about children. It's about looking anywhere for studies (including far right rags) to reinforce your cognitive bias on trans identities or treatments being illegitimate. Up to and including invoking massive 'ideological' conspiracy theories.
Your claims are trash.
"What is the difference between a liar and a lie? Liar is an agent noun, a noun that denotes someone or something that performs an action described by the verb from which the noun is derived. The verb in question is lie, meaning “to say something that's not true.” So, a liar is a person who lies—a person who says something they know is not true."
They are when lying. It's like saying that everybody has baked but not everybody is a baker. They were when they were baking even if it was only once. You're a thief when you thieve and a cheat when you cheat. How many times does one need to murder to be a murderer or embezzle to be an embezzler?
Maybe, but so what? I'm not accepting the judgment of your parishioners, and you don't know what the ones who didn't come back thought.
The last time I was in a church listening to a preacher give a sermon, I thought his homophobic message was destructive. Nobody but my wife, who agreed, knew that I thought that, and I doubt that anybody else there thought that unless there were other invited guests.
That's not love to me and has no value to me. Love is what we do for those whose welfare we care about. Your church isn't interested in my welfare, nor am I interested in its welfare. I'm interested in its disempowerment. It wants my tithes and for me to serve as another vector to spread its message.
The Bible? Harmonizing? Understandable? This is why I don't accept the judgment of believers regarding anything religious.
I've already described my problem with the Christian definitions of love and wisdom. The Christian model for mercy is a god that will torture you eternally for not believing unfalsifiable and unsupportable claims about it, with no appeal or hope of parole. So, a hard no to that as well.
And grace, like sin and blasphemy, like heaven and hell, are meaningless terms that refer to nothing actual. Those are things for believers to worry about.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
The science is there as well. Jon Stewart also brought in an MD and an endocrinologist. I implore you to watch the entire episode. It's not very long and it's incredibly informative.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Way to go and water down the issue there and ignore that trans youth face issues not faced by others.
It's the same sort if garbage when someone responds to black lives matter with all lives matter. No ****. That's not the topic or discussion.
If I had a teen-aged daughter who wanted a breast reduction or mastectomy, and we decided it would be the right thing to do, and the doctor decided it would be the right thing to do, we'd do it. Especially if she is being sexually harassed because of her breasts. No waiting until she's 18, because the harassment is occurring NOW, and will likely continue after she becomes an adult. If some self-righteous authoritarian politician wants to pass a law prohibiting her from it in the name of protecting her from abuse, then you can expect me to do everything in my power to prevent the State from interfering in our private medical decisions. Especially if the breast reduction was to stop harassment and abuse she might be experiencing because of her breasts. (Not to mention avoiding future breast cancer.)
Politicians are not doctors. Doctors are not lawyers, and should not be intimidated by politicians who don't know squat about medicine making asinine laws prohibiting sound and beneficial medical practices.
Politicians are not doctors. Doctors are not lawyers, and should not be intimidated by politicians who don't know squat about medicine making asinine laws prohibiting sound and beneficial medical practices.
Yep. I had precocious puberty and started growing large breasts as an early teen. I didn't like how I looked or that it prevented me from doing the swim sports I enjoyed so much. My mom also had a breast reduction and understood the feeling so I went and got one. At 14 I had 5lbs of breast tissue removed. One of the best decisions I made. It wasn't because of a life threatening or even very serious clinical reason, it's because I didn't want to look or feel like that. My parents understood. That's reason enough.
One denotes perpetuity and defines a person. The other denotes an error and defines the moment.
There is a difference between a person who got drunk and one who is a drunkard.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
I went to high school with a girl who had very tiny breasts (mosquito bites, to use the colloquial term). Then she got pregnant, her breasts swelled up to the size of watermelons and never went back down. Her back was happy when she had hers reduced.
Your lack of knowledge about gender identity issues is showing in the form of prejudice and deliberate bias. Simple biology is not enough to understand the issues facing many people. You must want a 1950’s level of understanding to assess gender identity issues while the rest of us are in 2023.
Yes, you repeat and repeat as if proud of backwards thinking.
But not those individuals who are having experiences the rest of us don’t and you are judging them based on your lucky norm. The right wing seems more interested in ignoring that biology is not completely binary and stable, and are exploiting this new category of marginalized individuals for ideological gain.
Right, I got drunk because a friend’s daughter revealed that she wanted to trans, and me not understanding the issue was against it. But I sobered up after hearing trans people talk of their experiences and with another friend who is a PhD in gender identity psychology, I adjusted to a more informed perspective.
The drunkards are those who have the opportunity to expand their understanding of the issue but refuse to due to their ideological bias.