A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

" There's no such thing as 'gender ideology.'  It's only an ideology if I don't agree with it. "

[pottedstilton]

The thing is though, the Guardian does regularly publish stuff like hate pieces from Julie Blindel or Suzanne Moore or whoever- that the left of centre sources in North America or Continental Europe wouldn't even dream of publishing. The fact that the pre-eminent left wing UK news source does so regularly publish transphobic articles is a pretty clear indicator that transphobia is much more widespread and vicious - including and especially among left wing circles - in the UK than it is in the USA or France or Germany or wherever. And it's not as if the UK is unique in having vicious arguments around issues of gender identity.

Where are these regular 'hate pieces'? I've skimmed the contributor pages for both of those writers and Moore has published precisely one article relating to trans issues in the last year, whilst Bindel has published precisely none. I regularly read the Guardian and the vast majority of the stuff relating to trans issues that I've read in that paper is broadly sympathetic (and often in lockstep with the positions of the organisations like Stonewall). Even in some of the more conservative periodicals (the Spectator, the Critic et al) there's little that can be fairly defined as 'transphobic' unless transphobia is defined as 'disagreeing with trans people/activists about anything'. The debate in the UK is not as to whether 'trans people exist' or not, or whether they should have the right to transition or not. Instead, the debate seems to boil down to two key issues:

1. The ability of trans women who haven't transitioned or are still in the process of transitioning to use traditionally female spaces (bathrooms, female prisons etc), which links into the wariness of some about self ID. There has been at least one well documented incident of a not fully transitioned prisoner sexually assaulting female inmates when place inside a woman's prison https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-prisoner-who-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life
2. The impact of 'gender affirming' approaches to therapy given to young children, especially given the enormous rise that has taken place over the last few years in the number of children declaring themselves to be the opposite gender to the one that matches their physical characteristics (with these tending to be girls as opposed to boys, which is a change from the past).

Of course, it's an emotive issue and a lot of harsh rhetoric pings around from both sides (unless of course you believe that all of the 'TERFs' are lying about the death and rape threats that they regularly receive, which seems distinctly unlikely). Nonetheless, it's better that the above, serious, issues are discussed as opposed to being swept under the carpet for fear of being called a TERF or a transphobe. It's very odd that Britain is being singled out as a uniquely transphobic country when by far the bulk of the legislative action designed to curtail the options of transgender people is taking place in the United States (and of course outside the Western world), in comparison to our own government (governments if you count the devolved ones), which mostly followed the zeitgeist on the issue until it was forced to back off over self ID, which is not a simple issue.

2590 under 18's were referred in 2018/19 out of 14 million people under the age of 18.

0.0002%

The most conservative estimate of the number of trans adults is 0.2%.

An increase of more 3000% on 2009, when it was just 77. Of course, that's just the kids who are being referred to the clinic, so it's likely a substantial undershoot of the total figure.

You're absolutely right. The number should be closer to 20000. That's what better provision for trans youth does.

When they stopped strapping left handed kids arms behind their back the number of kids who 'identified' as left handed shot up

True, but being left handed doesn't require you to spend years (potentially) in therapy, years on puberty blockers and then have a course of difficult-to-reverse elective surgery, so it's perhaps not the most apposite of comparisons.

I'm asking you to think it through.

If at least 0.2% of people are trans (and it could be closer to 1%) but only 0.0002% were referred under the age of 18, then surely the actual number who should be getting referred should be much much higher, and that a rise in referrals isn't something suspicious. Indeed what should be suspect is that the figure is too low.

However, if you believe that 77 referrals, a decade ago is correct, then what you're effectively saying is that in the UK there are in fact only a few hundred trans people. So much so that there are more trans articles in newspapers than trans people in the whole country and therefore I am sure even you being fair minded would consider that to be quite a substantive 'overkill' bordering on one of the most obsessive and punitive attacks of a small group of people this country has ever seen. That's the equivalent of having national newspapers on a daily basis and MP's in committee and thousands on twitter obsess over the members of my local gym.

On the issue of prison sexual assault this might astound you, but the hyper majority of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual offenses in mens prisons are inflicted by men on men and in women's prisons by women on women.

Indeed in England in Wales, in 2019, only 1 sexual assault was carried out by a trans prisoner. 11 m2f transgender prisoners, remaining in the prison facility as they remained legally male, but identified as female were victims of sexual assault. In women's prisons, over the preceding decade, 95% of prisoner on prisoner sexual assaults were carried out by cis women.

Of course the matter of sexual assault in prisons is not a particularly substantial problem, but it illustrates the problems which can arise when well-intentioned people open up 'gendered' spaces to trans people etc. As an aside, it is worth noting that there are only 125 transgender prisoners in England & Wales, of whom 60 were convicted of sexual offences (as of 2018), so the scale of this problem is limited by that. But the real question is whether it is possible for the presence of trans people in certain environments to pose an issue. It should be permissible to say that issues can arise whilst still acknowledging barriers faced by trans people which ought to and can be removed. By crudely labelling anyone who raises concerns as 'anti-trans' or 'transphobic', the debate inevitably descends into a shouting match between the most extreme feminists and the most extreme trans rights people. This seems to be a sub-optimal outcome.

[DaleCooper]

It seems to me like extremists are trying to prevent reasonable people from being public advocates for LGBT issues, and this is a potential explanation for the far left's attempts to harass Contrapoints into oblivion and it also in a slightly different situation explains the insane anti-gay attacks they used against Pete Buttigieg as well.

At the risk of wading into the sort of hardened radical queer theorist territory for which I have a bit of notoriety here, the attacks on Pete from queer voices on the left weren't about his sexuality in isolation, but the perception that he had sold out his queerness to neoliberal/neoconservative pandering and ensconced himself in the values and expectations of a social order built on upholding cisgender heterosexuality (academic types will call this "homonormativity"). The idea that the "queer community" is unified and needs to know better for its own interests is patronizing and paternalistic, and ignores the perspective of many queer voices that have come to reject broader social norms rather than try to seek their approval. I would certainly much prefer a world where I wouldn't risk getting murdered for being transgender, but debates like this where cishet perspectives with no firsthand knowledge of our experience act like they know what's best for a very heterodox collection of people makes me wonder if it's ever worth the effort to get the world on my (or our) side, and while I'd prefer a world with less hot-button discourse eating my people alive it's the inevitable result of advances in queer rights and the Information Age atomization of sociopolitical spheres.

In some cases it was about his sexuality. I think it was Chapo Trap House that compared him and his campaign to the homosexual rape scene from 120 Day of Sodom. It was about on par with if not worse than what I'd expect from the Westboro Baptist cult.

As for the radical queer theory stuff, the left should be careful about this sort of thing. Calling gay people "homonormative" or sellouts just because they live ordinary lives is quite insulting. Neoliberal Pete Buttigieg knows all the fear, isolation, self-doubt, and discomfort that comes with the gay experience. His politics do not negate that and it seems to me like there's a trend online where leftwing people tie the legitimacy of LGBT identity to how far left the person in question is.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

The big issue I see with all these accusations of transphobia is that it seems like everything published about trans issues is accused of being transphobic by some portion of the trans community, even when written or spoken by trans people themselves.  

The “cancellation” of Contrapoints (Natalie Wynn) last year is a perfect example.  She is a trans YouTube creator who has a very popular channel where she discusses a lot of different topics, with an emphasis on trans viewpoints.  I myself found her channel very enlightening in understand trans perspectives.  But she apparently said the “wrong” thing about the medical basis for gender dysphoria, and included a quote from the “wrong” trans activist, and was vicously attacked by some sector of the trans community to the point where she had to delete her twitter and put her channel on hiatus for several months.  (And Contrapoints is a leftist socialist herself; this doesn’t even touch on more deliberately heterodox trans creators like Blair White.)

Given all of this internal infighting, I can understand why the vast majority of people who are not trans and have little personal interaction with trans people are just left perplexed by what a reasonably enlightened perspective on this should even be.

I think this plays to a larger spectrum of activism, often on the left. You have people that probably mean well and would tend to want to be allies, but are perhaps not completely educated on some particular subject (and with the intersection of all kinds of issues, it’s really difficult to be) that then get dogpiled and likely dissuaded from further support.

To get on a somewhat related tangent: Heaven help me if I were to say that “Bird Names for Birds” is something of a waste of energy. There’s a movement to rename a number of bird species that were named after some rather unsavory characters that just seems like a waste of time/energy when there’s so many birds that are endangered. And honestly, who actually knows what the guy named Barrow (as in Barrow’s Goldeneye) actually did. It’s not like there’s a Hitler’s Warbler or Mao’s Sparrow or something like that. The people these birds are named for aren’t exactly commonly known people, but I’d probably get canceled by bird twitter for saying it’s something of a waste of time. I wouldn’t be against not naming birds after people for new species, but it seems silly to worry about literally every bird named after someone.

[SInNYC]

I think this plays to a larger spectrum of activism, often on the left. You have people that probably mean well and would tend to want to be allies, but are perhaps not completely educated on some particular subject (and with the intersection of all kinds of issues, it’s really difficult to be) that then get dogpiled and likely dissuaded from further support.

To get on a somewhat related tangent: Heaven help me if I were to say that “Bird Names for Birds” is something of a waste of energy. There’s a movement to rename a number of bird species that were named after some rather unsavory characters that just seems like a waste of time/energy when there’s so many birds that are endangered. And honestly, who actually knows what the guy named Barrow (as in Barrow’s Goldeneye) actually did. It’s not like there’s a Hitler’s Warbler or Mao’s Sparrow or something like that. The people these birds are named for aren’t exactly commonly known people, but I’d probably get canceled by bird twitter for saying it’s something of a waste of time. I wouldn’t be against not naming birds after people for new species, but it seems silly to worry about literally every bird named after someone.

Audobon's father ran a plantation in Haiti and fathered many children with slaves. Audobon himself owned/traded slaves after coming to the US. I wonder what these people think of the name for the Audobon Society.

Just to be clear, I am not supporting renaming the Audobon society or any other such stuff.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The big issue I see with all these accusations of transphobia is that it seems like everything published about trans issues is accused of being transphobic by some portion of the trans community, even when written or spoken by trans people themselves.  

The “cancellation” of Contrapoints (Natalie Wynn) last year is a perfect example.  She is a trans YouTube creator who has a very popular channel where she discusses a lot of different topics, with an emphasis on trans viewpoints.  I myself found her channel very enlightening in understand trans perspectives.  But she apparently said the “wrong” thing about the medical basis for gender dysphoria, and included a quote from the “wrong” trans activist, and was vicously attacked by some sector of the trans community to the point where she had to delete her twitter and put her channel on hiatus for several months.  (And Contrapoints is a leftist socialist herself; this doesn’t even touch on more deliberately heterodox trans creators like Blair White.)

Given all of this internal infighting, I can understand why the vast majority of people who are not trans and have little personal interaction with trans people are just left perplexed by what a reasonably enlightened perspective on this should even be.

I think this plays to a larger spectrum of activism, often on the left. You have people that probably mean well and would tend to want to be allies, but are perhaps not completely educated on some particular subject (and with the intersection of all kinds of issues, it’s really difficult to be) that then get dogpiled and likely dissuaded from further support.

This definitely happens and activist should do more (in most situations) to avoid causing it, but it's irrational and a bit pathetic. If one's beliefs can be destroyed or their curiosity quashed by the rudeness of fellow travellers, they were never fully committed to understanding and had merely conflated that with finding a community (a worthy aim, but separate).

It's also often a little bit suspect. "I stopped believing in unionisation because I was cancelled over a tangential videogames debate," really stretches the credibility of this phenomenon, but we hear its like a lot, especially when it comes to trans rights. It's often the hallmark of a dishonest hack whose opinions should be disregarded.

[Former President tack50]

One reason for this might be that the US does not have a single-payer system, which reframes the debate in terms of whether or not the government should openly discriminate against transgender people who have the temerity to want to play sports or go to the bathroom. In the UK, the debate will be heated because there are severe ethical considerations attached to allowing minors to begin transitioning to another gender and the NHS must decide its course. In my view, when people focus on this element of the transgender divide, people are much more liable to become "TERFs" but it isn't something people think about in the US.

If the issue was simply derived from NHS coverage, wouldn't the libertarian argument of "trans people should be able to get whatever treatment they need, but should pay for it out of pocket", be more common?

From the posts of our British posters I'd say the NHS doesn't really have anything to do with Britain's trans discourse

[ingemann]

The thing is though, the Guardian does regularly publish stuff like hate pieces from Julie Blindel or Suzanne Moore or whoever- that the left of centre sources in North America or Continental Europe wouldn't even dream of publishing. The fact that the pre-eminent left wing UK news source does so regularly publish transphobic articles is a pretty clear indicator that transphobia is much more widespread and vicious - including and especially among left wing circles - in the UK than it is in the USA or France or Germany or wherever. And it's not as if the UK is unique in having vicious arguments around issues of gender identity.

Noow I can only speak for my own country, but I suspect that the reason that trans issue is less of wedge issue in continental Europe is because we're not part of Anglophone discourse on the issue. If you don't talk about a issue and most people are unlikely to interact or discover that they interact with a transgender person, most people really don't care. What have happen in the Anglosphere is that the issue have been to the first line, but it also happen first in USA and then hit the UK, so it had already been rather radicalized before hitting UK, so the local feminist hadn't been "acclimatized" into the American Overton Windom, where anything other than full accept of the new Orthodoxy was bigotry and as such reacted stronger, aand then they created a unholy alliance with the people who are tired of the woke bullsh**t flowing in from USA to the UK.

[HisGrace]

The reason for this is that there's not a coherent argument being presented. What even is a "brain sex"? I've yet to hear any of the proponents of the idea give examples of how it manifests itself that aren't stereotypical and shallow. For instance, how someone chooses to dress is obviously not biologically determined and is a result of culture. In fact in most cultures (Africa, middle east, east Asia, many parts of Europe) men have traditionally worn clothes similar to dresses, so there's no argument to be made that wanting to wear one now means you have the opposite "brain sex".

The claim that opposition to this is "conservative" could not be further from the truth. Stating that gender is a social construct and the only real definition of "man" and "woman" are the basic physical characteristics is as far removed from socially conservative views on gender as you can get.

I'm undecided on what I think of this but the arguments being presented are so poor and emotionally driven that I do find myself gradually becoming more sympathetic to the "gender critical" segment. Academia is at least nominally still dedicated to empirically proven claims so it's understandable that they would be starting to have doubts as well.

Ultimately this has created a big intellectual difficulty for the left. They've spent decades saying that gender was a social construct and that there were no differences between men and women beyond the "equipment". If gender is a social construct how can there be such a thing as being transgender?

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

[If my soul was made of stone]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

What "proof" is needed beyond someone's stated gender identity? Anything else is exclusionary purity-test nonsense that absolutely goes against your principle of respecting other folk.

[Ferguson97]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

I can and will absolutely get mad at someone for misgendering and disrespecting a trans person.

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

What "proof" is needed beyond someone's stated gender identity? Anything else is exclusionary purity-test nonsense that absolutely goes against your principle of respecting other folk.

“I said so” isn’t proof for any claim.

[HisGrace]

In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

Another thing about this is if a biological man for instance tried to say that he had a male "brain sex" and that's why he behaved in outwardly masculine ways, he'd get shouted down by feminists and cultural progressives these days for defending toxic masculinity or whatever. I guess his feelings and respecting his self identification don't matter. Same deal with a SoCon woman saying women were inherently more drawn to family and children.

As I said above I am undecided on this and I think the nature nurture debate in regards to gender is a borderline unknowable question unless there's some kind of major breakthrough in understanding the human brain. But a lot of cultural progressives opinions on this stuff just come off like contrarianism and knee jerk opposition to whatever they perceive as "traditional". 

[GeneralMacArthur]

The culture war almost always revolves around race, sex, and religion.  Religion has become less important because Democrats stopped caring too much about religious stuff in the 60s and Republicans have abandoned the moral majority in favor of adopting Trump as their God.

So we're left with race and sex for the culture war, which is never anything more than a distraction from actual policy.  Democrats are winning in the policy debate, so Republicans have to find some way to forcibly inject the culture war into the narrative by ginning up fake controversies around race and sex issues and forcing Democrats to adopt the poll-tested less-popular position.

The current strategy is to point the finger at schools and, in particular, universities.  "Critical race theory" and "Gender ideology" are apparently a miasma sweeping our colleges and universities and poisoning the brains of our children with intolerable levels of wokeness.  Only by voting for Trump 2024 can you stop them.  This is like 50% of the Republican strategy right now based on my recent viewing of Fox News.  It's finally knocked Squad/Sanders/Socialist fear-mongering off the pedestal it held for the last five years.  Getting AOC to say some stupid thing about how Amerikkka sucks and then repeating it for 24 hours is a free news cycle.  But have you ever tried to get some derpy university adjunct professor to say some stupid thing about how gender is a social construct and little kids should be taught to decide for themselves whether they want to be boys or girls?  It's just easy money.

The strategy works because the Fox puts a magnifying glass on the looniest parts of the left and then lie and say that's the position of the entire Democratic Party and not only is it our position, it's our top priority.  Since they're highlighting the looniest people, all they have to do is say sane-sounding things, and since most people agree with those sane-sounding things, Fox wins.  Since most Fox viewers only watch Fox, they're never exposed to the reality that these are not, in fact, mainstream views in the Democratic Party, in fact we barely ever talk about race/sex education at all and most of us couldn't care less.  We have old white centrist man Joe Biden trying to push voting rights legislation through Congress right now, that's the reality of the party.  But if you watch Fox, the face of the party isn't Joe Biden.  It's some wackadoo schoolteacher in Portland who wants to teach her kids that white people are the devil.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

How is telling someone “I still think you’re 100% a man” respecting them?  Why would you say that when it is obviously very hurtful to the person you are saying it to, and doesn’t make any difference to the way you live your own life?

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

How is telling someone “I still think you’re 100% a man” respecting them?  Why would you say that when it is obviously very hurtful to the person you are saying it to, and doesn’t make any difference to the way you live your own life?

It’s just them stating their opinion on how gender works.

[John Dule]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

How is telling someone “I still think you’re 100% a man” respecting them?  Why would you say that when it is obviously very hurtful to the person you are saying it to, and doesn’t make any difference to the way you live your own life?

It's more respectful to be honest about your opinions than to engage in a false charade to protect other people's feelings. Treating others as fragile is not showing respect; it is the opposite.

[Ferguson97]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

What "proof" is needed beyond someone's stated gender identity? Anything else is exclusionary purity-test nonsense that absolutely goes against your principle of respecting other folk.

“I said so” isn’t proof for any claim.

That's literally how gender works.

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

What "proof" is needed beyond someone's stated gender identity? Anything else is exclusionary purity-test nonsense that absolutely goes against your principle of respecting other folk.

“I said so” isn’t proof for any claim.

That's literally how gender works.

According to you, sure. According to others (and Western society up until the last ~15 years) it’s dependent on your chromosomes.

Who’s to say whose right when gender has no real definition?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

How is telling someone “I still think you’re 100% a man” respecting them?  Why would you say that when it is obviously very hurtful to the person you are saying it to, and doesn’t make any difference to the way you live your own life?

It’s just them stating their opinion on how gender works.

If you walk up to a random person and say "your face is ugly", that might be your sincere opinion, and it might not be disprovable, but it certainly wouldn't be respectful.  It wouldn't even by respectful if you said that to your friend.  

There are lots of contexts where it is not respectful to share one's opinion, and a non-trans person's opinion of the "true gender" of a trans person is going to be one of those times virtually always.

[TheReckoning]

This thread has been an absolute mess, and intellectual arguments are being reduced to inane drivel, a lot of which is totally irrelevant.

The thing is, what is gender? If you can’t answer that question, then this debate becomes totally unintellectual in nature, and is more based in personal feelings. In the latter case, then the feelings of a trans person who calls themselves a gender different than there biological sex are no more important than the feelings of someone who thinks that “a man with a uterus” is an oxymoron. Simple as that. They can still respect one another, but you can’t force either one of them to respect the other persons view.

The difference is that for one person, this is just an opinion about a set of issues that barely affects their life in any way, while for the other (trans) person, the way society feels about this issue determines their ability to be safe and successful in every aspect of their lives.

Even if this does come down to a debate about feelings, why would you deliberately hurt someone’s feelings when it costs you nothing to just treat them the way they are asking to be treated?

Like I said, it’s not too much to expect them to respect one another (for example, use requested pronouns). But if the person says, “I still think you’re 100% a man” when the person claims to be a woman, you can’t get mad at them for stating that when you can’t prove them wrong.

How is telling someone “I still think you’re 100% a man” respecting them?  Why would you say that when it is obviously very hurtful to the person you are saying it to, and doesn’t make any difference to the way you live your own life?

It’s just them stating their opinion on how gender works.

If you walk up to a random person and say "your face is ugly", that might be your sincere opinion, and it might not be disprovable, but it certainly wouldn't be respectful.  It wouldn't even by respectful if you said that to your friend.  

There are lots of contexts where it is not respectful to share one's opinion, and a non-trans person's opinion of the "true gender" of a trans person is going to be one of those times virtually always.

Calling someone delusional to their face is certainly disrespectful. Disagreeing on what constitutes “gender,” doesn’t.

[Tartarus Sauce]

It seems to me like extremists are trying to prevent reasonable people from being public advocates for LGBT issues, and this is a potential explanation for the far left's attempts to harass Contrapoints into oblivion and it also in a slightly different situation explains the insane anti-gay attacks they used against Pete Buttigieg as well.

At the risk of wading into the sort of hardened radical queer theorist territory for which I have a bit of notoriety here, the attacks on Pete from queer voices on the left weren't about his sexuality in isolation, but the perception that he had sold out his queerness to neoliberal/neoconservative pandering and ensconced himself in the values and expectations of a social order built on upholding cisgender heterosexuality (academic types will call this "homonormativity"). The idea that the "queer community" is unified and needs to know better for its own interests is patronizing and paternalistic, and ignores the perspective of many queer voices that have come to reject broader social norms rather than try to seek their approval. I would certainly much prefer a world where I wouldn't risk getting murdered for being transgender, but debates like this where cishet perspectives with no firsthand knowledge of our experience act like they know what's best for a very heterodox collection of people makes me wonder if it's ever worth the effort to get the world on my (or our) side, and while I'd prefer a world with less hot-button discourse eating my people alive it's the inevitable result of advances in queer rights and the Information Age atomization of sociopolitical spheres.

I recognize that this is exchange was somewhat tangential to the broader discussion happening in this thread, but this response here stood out to me as actually bolstering Dalecooper's point. You reject the idea that the queer community is supposed to be unified for its own interests when its imposed upon by outsiders, but this apparently is in fact the operating logic of a certain segment of the queer community the moment one of their own strays from activist expectations. Why else would leftist queer people have cared as to whether Buttiegieg "sold out" his queerness and "ensconced himself" in the world of cishet values? If queer folk don't need to be unified, it shouldn't have mattered. "You should have known better" seems like exactly the kind of sentiment being lobbed at Buttiegieg here by other queer people, despite your protestations to such a notion being valid.