The key issue in "gender dysphoria" is "what is the diagnostic process which yields a diagnosis of gender dysphoria"? Well, with gender dysphoria, the diagnostic test is "I have gender dysphoria". There is not objective test, no sign available to a neutral observer, that GD is present. Recently, a prominent physician in trans, Jack Turban, has said that the entire question of "diagnosis" was transphobic, and that a self-declaration was all that is needed.
Let's say I go to a physician and say "I am in pain, and need opioids. Can you give me a 3-month supply?" In most cases, you will not get that supply. Not only are physicians reluctant to prescribe opioids, but there are increasing pharmacy triggers for excessive opioid use. We know that "self-declaration" of "need for opioids" is not appropriate. Society has decided that opioids cannot be obtained in this manner and recreational use is bad for the individual.
Why shouldn't a person be allowed to self-prescribe opioids? There are many reasons: 1) they impair judgement 2) they lead to the use of other drugs 3) they impair medical treatment in other ways (when a person is an opioid addict, use of opioids for anasthesia is compromised - you can't sedate them for surgery) 4) opioids CAUSE pain (opioid-induced hyperalgesia). We don't allow "doctor-shopping" or self-prescription.
Why is self-diagnosis allowed in gender dysphoria? The answer is simple - gender dysphoria is a false condition and is a delusion.
Gender dysphoria is a real condition for both some children and some adults. That doesn't mean that there aren't other treatments besides "transitioning". Debbie Hayton, a trans woman in England (who is against transgender ideology), recently published his/her book "Transsexual Apostate". He describes wanting to be a girl as a child, and he describes keeping those feelings under control during his life as "holding a beach ball under water". Finally, in middle-age, he succumbed to the feelings and got the surgery (to the chagrin of his wife).
My point is, pretending that gender dysphoria isn't real isn't a solution to these issues. The fact remains, however, that it is fairly rare, and that many of the people who believe they are dysphoric actually have other problems.
If I'm coming down on you a little hard, it's because I am gay, and I imagine someone saying that my homosexuality is a delusion -- and believe me, it isn't. At a certain point in life you know how you feel and what you are.
The issue with children is that they have a chance of outgrowing those feelings if they don't act, and, additionally, they don't have the emotional maturity to make that decision as children. "Transitioning" (to whatever extent it is even possible) must be for adults only.
Now, as for self-prescription, the issue there is different than it is with gays. A gay man can self-prescribe all he wants, and it does him no harm because there is no medical treatment. It is because self-prescription in the trans world invites medical intervention that doctors must agree with the self-prescription -- and to that end, we need to bring back the gate-keepers that trans activists have managed to get rid of.
There is no evidence that "gender dsyphoria" is anything other than another form of delusion. Yes, psychotic delusions exist. But they are not real. If I am deluded into believing that "I am Napoleon", that is not a real situation, but just a delusion. Gender dysphoria is no different than any other form of delusion.
Why is it treated differently? In the writing of DSM V, gender activists got into the process and controlled the diagnostic designation process. No science was involved. It was all politics.
You are always wrong, and you always have to argue.
It is not for you to judge how other people feel. For a man to say that he feels like a woman is a different thing from saying he is Napoleon. If there is evidence that he doesn't have actual dysphoria, but rather has other psychological problems, then we can question it. But how many trans women do you actually know so well that you can question their motives like that?
A delusion is a belief which is not grounded in reality. Trans is a delusion. There is no evidence in genetics, physiology, or otherwise objective reality that "trans" is other than a delusion. You believe that it is real. Show me the evidence. And, no, the statement "I am a woman in a man's body" is not evidence. It's just the delusion talking.
The bullshit that "you need to know trans people" is just another version of "my reality is just as real as your reality". In other words, it is the reification of delusion. I don't need to know trans people. I need to know if there is an objective test for this condition. There is not. It's a delusion.
I'm not going to show you anything. By your definition, all emotions are delusions because they can't be proven.
Okay, let's get specific: You are talking about beliefs, and I am talking about feelings. We ALL can doubt a man who BELIEVES he is an actual woman. What we can't question is how he feels.
But what the trannies want to say is that trans is NOT a delusion. A delusion is a feeling which is not grounded in reality. The trans delusion is that a person with XY chromosomes can be a woman.
We all have emotions. Many emotions are based in reality. If your dog dies, you are sad, and any other person can understand and sympathize. The emotion has a real basis. If you fall in love, this is due to the existence and proximity of another person. Others can understand that. Emotions are widely shared, and we can all relate to them. In addition, emotions are based on hormones, and the existence of the emotion can be tied to the existence of the hormone level. So your notion that "emotions are delusions" is false.
But that “woman feeling” somehow can’t be described except in the most stereotypical, shallow, autistic way. There is no actual way to “feel like a woman.” Sorry, but this whole thing makes no sense from top to bottom.
And anyway, what kind of trans-identifying male are we even picturing here? An effeminate gay man, who finds it easier to t try to present as a woman? Or are we talking about the heterosexual fetishistic transvestites and autogynephiles, whose “woman feelings” are usually *quite* different from those of the homosexual trans-identifying male?
You are like a lot of gay folks were 30 years ago - trans is the new gay. It is not. The two conditions are completely different. So reciting "gays know they are gay" does not improve your understanding of trans, which is simply another cult belief.
"Another cult belief"? Are you saying that believing I am gay is a cult belief?
And by the way, as an anti-trans activist going back a decade or more, I have NEVER believed that "trans is the new gay". I have been arguing against that for ages now.
He was quite obviously not calling homosexuality simply another cult belief. His whole point was how trans and gay are two different things. Trans as “another cult belief” is like belief in demonic possession, voodoo, homeopathy, etc.
Homosexuality is demonstrably not a delusion though. If one was so inclined, one could strap an instrument to your penis and show you erotic images of men and erotic images of women, and you would have a measurable vascular response to the former and not to the latter. This is just a false equivalence, like saying we can’t say trans identification is a delusion because then someone might say that diabetes is a delusion. It’s not. We can prove that.
Furthermore, woman and man are not feelings. It’s true that if a person says he is sad, we have no way to prove or disprove that. He could lie and say he is sad when he is actually happy, but sadness is by definition an interior emotional state. It makes no more sense to say you feel like a woman than to say you feel like a dentist. These aren’t feelings, these are categories of things in the world. If you are not a graduate of dental school, currently or formerly licensed to practice dentistry, you’re simply not a dentist, and it doesn’t make any sense to claim to feel like one or to claim that whatever internal experience you’re referring to somehow makes you a dentist. Similarly, if you’re not an adult human female, you’re simply not a woman. These are words have an external meaning in the world.
Sorry I didn't respond sooner. All I'm saying is this: There ARE trans people who seem to have true gender dysphoria. Debbie Hayton, in England, who transitioned in middle age and recently wrote the book Transsexual Apostate, has written about how, as a child, he was obsessed with women's clothing and would wear it when he didn't think he would be caught. He described his feelings of wanting to be a woman as a beach ball that he was trying to keep under water. Finally, he couldn't repress the feelings any more, and he transitioned. He considers himself to have autogynephilia (did I spell it right?). The point is, people who are truly trans and not just part of the fad are feeling SOMETHING that drives their behavior. To pretend that they don't have the feelings they have is just disrespectful.
As an anti-trans activist, I argue against the bad ideas in transgender ideology, I don't argue against anyone's feelings.
On the other hand, Eliza's excellent research indicates that there are more trans people who have conflicted feelings than people like Debbie Hayton had. Eliza does a good job of unmasking their true motives.
I understand everything you're saying. I keep going back to the experience of Debbie Hayton, who lives in England. As a boy, he was fascinated by girls' and women's clothing, and sometimes wore them. He had feelings of wanting to be a girl. In his book, he talked about trying to repress the feelings as holding a beach ball under water. He didn't "transition", however, until middle-age. Now, whether that is gender dysphoria or autogynephilia, I don't know.
I have long wondered if the “transwomen” in sports question would be the issue that breaks the spell in the belief that trans rights are civil rights.
More and more parents, more and more sports fans, and more and more girls and women athletes are confronting the reality and can see the blatant unfairness.
Sports aren’t about sexuality or wearing dresses or other sexual issues—issues that progressives can insist on supporting because letting one’s freak fly is the greatest good. They can call objections to public displays of paraphilia bigotry.
Sports are about discipline, sportsmanship, competition, skill. Boys and men competing in girls and women’s sports is on its face unfair. And the results are visible!
It doesn’t take deep knowledge of gender ideology to see this, and I think this is peaking people like no other gender issue.
“Be kind” and “live and let live” has been the position nice liberal people are supposed to uphold. Easy enough to say when it’s about what people do in the privacy of bedrooms.
But a different proposition when it comes to sports!
I’d guess it’s the “all or nothing” strategy, as TRA Erin Reed helpfully notes. We’ve got to take it all. But this is the hill they will likely die on and lose.
Gender is a proxy for the even wider question: does objective reality exist, or is reality formed by a political process? When the Berlin Wall was smashed down by ordinary people wielding hammers, those emblematic Soviet tools, academia retreated from this disappointing reality and hasn't yet emerged. Common sense isn't the sense we all have in common, or even the sense that is commonplace; it is the sense of the commoners who are forced by circumstance to live in reality, not by theory.
Perhaps a good place to start would be differentiating between gender dysphoria and fetish identities like autogynephelia, or at the very least having common sense discussion about it. The very nature of where affirmation stems from is largely born from the adult fetishization of gender-bending. There is a huge contingent of adult males who desire the unassailable right to be validated by everyone and every situation they encounter so that they can feed their fetish based lifestyle of cosplaying women. This should not inform policy. This should not inform healthcare. As the author points out, any relinquishment on the death grip of validation leads immediately to the slippery slope of, well, reality. And fetishization is a distinct goal that depends on a total departure from reality. We cannot have both, and we should start having the righteous concessions that there must indeed be some form of gate-keeping in this discourse to protect minors. For the same reasons some cultures do not accept alcohol consumption, body modification or plain old voting rights. I feel like I was more comfortable decades ago with the idea of transgenderism when my community, livelihood and safety wasn’t on offer to be co-opted based on whether or not I agreed to refute the evidence of my eyes, ears and experience as a natal female.
I was taken aback several weeks ago when I saw an obvious cross-dressing autogynephile storming across the wide concrete floors of the local Costco with a defiant look on his face. I lack the vocabulary to describe women's fashion adequately, so I will just say that he was a fireplug of a stereotypical Italian cop type all dolled up like his New Jersey grandma on an outing to Manhattan with her girlfriends.
His wig was an inverted jet-black bowl with white tips. With his fake eyelashes and makeup he looked like a parody of a hooker.
When I say he was "storming" across the room, I mean he was moving at an extremely fast defensive pace that kept others from getting a good look at him for very long. The last I saw of him was from behind, when I watched him speed towards the exit, bow-legged and in black stockings.
I could not help feeling he was getting a sexual charge from the experience.
His right to make a spectacle of himself ends when other people are compelled to treat him as if he were a real woman and when he attempts to insert himself into women's spaces where he is not wanted.
Except for Democrats like me, who are dead set against it. We aren't ALL nuts. And I might add that your average rank-and-file Democrat doesn't support this nonsense either. The Dems who support the "woke" nonsense are the ultra-liberals.
" might add that your average rank-and-file Democrat doesn't support this nonsense either." Either it's wishful thinking or an average Democrat is a coward or an average Dem doesn't care . Can you name 5, or even 3 , Dem politicians who are openly against trans nonsense? Or do "normal" Dems elect only non-normal politicians who DO believe in this nonsense? If MOST of you are against it, then how come pretty much NONE of the Democrats are speaking out publicly?
I'm on my way to bed, and I'm tired, so I don't have a lot of energy to answer. But let me ask you, why do I have to explain politics to you?
Yes, most Democratic voters (at least, the ones who understand the issue) are against trans women in women's sports, and also the medicalization of children. But when Democratic politicians agree with them on 80% to 90% of the issues, they vote Democratic. I don't vote Republican because I agree with Republicans on only 10% to 20% of the issues. Does that make it clear enough for you?
As for why most Democratic politicians are "all in" on trans rights, it's because they don't want to lose the one-issue trans voters. Frankly, I think they have calculated that most Democratic voters don't care that much about the issue, so they have fallen in line with trans activists so that the activists won't fight them publicly. Let's not forget that the trans issue is a complicated issue. It is not that easy to understand all the ramifications of it, so there are still a lot of Democrats who don't vote on this issue -- especially since a lot of them have never met a trans person.
I don't think you've "got" anything. People are concerned about some issues and not concerned about other issues. That's normal. If they don't know any trans people, why should they be concerned about the issue? And by the way, Republican politicians are just as stupid and biased as Democratic politicians. How many of them despise Donald Trump but still endorsed him to please their voter base?
Please try to think before you post. One would think you were born yesterday. Goodnight.
Good thread and glad it seems that you had the last word. I was thinking the same thing, about the silence on both sides of the aisle on many issues, political expediency, hedging bets to get votes, etc. But you got it! And I hope you had a good night too.
I believe it was a significant factor. Trump put a lot of money into advertising against the "woke" stuff. If you go to my Substack, read my open letter to my Senator Whitehouse.
There seems to be an effort to marginalize it as a factor. A niche issue inflated by cynical right wing operatives. But I can't help but think trans undermined the Democrats’ overall credibility. If they're on the wrong side of a basic and obvious reality like human sexual dimorphism, what else might they be wrong about? It's telling that the Harris campaign evidently didn't respond to Trump's ads on this subject.
Allegedly the Harris camp did shoot some counter ads, but chose not to run them. I wonder why! What were they going to say? That Harris didn’t really say what she clearly said? That, okay, maybe she did say that, but realized it was insane and changed her mind? Or double down on her proposal that “trans” inmates (i.e. mentally ill and/or predatory men) should receive “sex change” operations at tax payer expense, and that you’d have to be a reactionary bigot to disagree? There is no good reply, because her position was indefensible.
I’d love to see those ads though. I hope someone leaks them.
I don't disagree with you. The only reason the trans issue hasn't been hurting the Democrats until now is that the greater public was only marginally aware of it. Also, Democratic support for abortion overshadowed it. That has all changed. As my letter to Whitehouse says, the trans issue is going to harm Democrats going forward. But you are right. If you believe that a man can become a REAL woman, you might as well tell people that the moon is made of green cheese.
In particular, I think it changed the Hispanic support of the Dems. Hispanics are, in many cases, cultural conservatives. Our church has had several Hispanic churches as renters - the religious orientation is Pentacostal/evangelical, the males are paternalistic, it is a strongly male-oriented society. They do not like gays, and they hate trannies. I've heard several interviews from religious leaders and the dislike of trannieness is strongly stated.
I admit I have similar feelings. A woman with a man's face and voice rubs me the wrong way. However, drag is more popular in Hispanic societies. Why do you supposed that is true?
I'll be shocked if that happens. I predict their strategy will be to ignore it and hope it goes away. But will the activist class let them? We have an interesting year or two ahead of us on this issue.
As much as I'm against transgender ideology, I would be happier to see Trump "go away" than anything the Democrats are doing. Trump is an agent of chaos. He cares nothing for the country. He is the political equivalent of Taylor Swift soaking up as much adulation as he is able to.
It will take a very strong and independent politician to do that, and that politician will have to understand the trans issue through and through in order to fend off accusations of being a bigot. In the mean time, my advice to Democratic politicians who don't understand all the nuances of the issue is to simply say, "I don't feel fully comfortable with biological men/boys playing in women's/girls' sports" -- and -- "I don't feel comfortable with the idea that children have the emotional maturity or agency to make medical changes to their bodies. I've read that some children will grow out of their trans feelings if given a chance, and I think they should be given that chance."
(I'm a night owl. I'm going to bed now. If you reply, I'll read it later.)
It's been dismissed as a fringe issue that most don't know or care much about. But I can't help but think it undermined the public’s trust in the Democratic Party. If they can't tell the difference between a man and a woman, what else might they be wrong about? Gender ideology gets less popular the more people learn about it. I find it telling that AOC removed her pronouns from her bio; a tacit admission. She's now again a congresswoman and not a congress…birthing person?
There is no appropriate straddling the line on this one, any more than we might straddle the line on whether some rapes are okay while most are not acceptable, or whether it's okay for some children to starve to death while most should be fed an adequate diet. All rape is bad, all children must be fed, and no children whatsoever should be chemically and/or surgically altered to appear the opposite sex or lied to that they "really" are the opposite sex to that of their body. Similarly, no adult who wants to chemically and/or surgically alter their body to appear the opposite sex should be told that these interventions are medical treatments. They are cosmetic procedures, pure and simple. And we as a society should not be paying for them, for prisoners, immigrants, or otherwise. They don't have to be outlawed, any more than we outlaw other outlandish cosmetic procedures, or risky activities like bungy-jumping. But would we ever use our tax dollars to cover bungy-jumping, or promote it to teenagers in school, or vilify parents who don't want their children doing this? Of course not.
There is no moderating on this issue. The Democratic leaders who promoted lies about the "life-saving" properties of "gender-affirming care" will simply have to admit they were wrong, admit they were misinformed by WPATH, by AAP, by the Endocrine Society, etc., and admit that they should have listened when the WPATH files were released, when the Cass Review was released, when they discovered Rachel Levine's involvement in removing lower age limits to WPATH's guidelines, when they became aware of Finland's and Sweden's turn-about, etc. I personally will be willing to forgive them - if they admit they were wrong, and if they do what must be done to help everyone impacted by their mistakes, most importantly the detransitioners - and if they immediately agree that the changes to Title IX, the policies implemented through the Dept of Education, etc. must be reversed. I will respect that they are taking responsibility for the wrongs they have committed.
This is the only solution. They cannot pretend they had it right all along and that they were saving some children and adults, while others accidentally were harmed due only to overzealousness of the medical community. They must admit that they were WRONG.
I essentially agree with you, but I'm not holding my breath for any of this to happen. Recently, Seth Moulton, a representative from Massachusetts in the House, publicly expressed his discomfort with the idea of having his daughters play against trans girls in sports, and he was immediately shamed by some people. However, the Washington Post, which up to now has been 1000% behind everything trans and drag (they think drag queens are part of diversity!), published an editorial defending Moulton's right to speak his true feelings. As the Number One cheerleader for all things trans among publishers, that editorial by the Post is progress. The problem is that trans people are so damn pitiful that bleeding-heart liberals want to give them whatever they want, even if it is more rights than the rest of us and even if it goes against the fabric of reality.
Woops, I already mentioned Seth Moulton in my original post in these comments. Sorry, I didn't mean to repeat myself.
You are right. This will only stop when people realize that they are not actually being kind to the vulnerable people they seek to help by lying to them and filling their bodies with toxic chemicals and cutting off healthy body parts. That is the other flat out lie being told. First, we lie and say someone who wishes they were the other sex indeed is that sex. Then we say we are helping that person through both the lie and the medical interventions. Until people see that they are doing harm even to those they seek to protect, this will be difficult to eradicate. Just pointing out the harm to women and girls from invasions into their spaces and sports - while also very wrong - won’t be enough to set these “good doers” straight.
So why is talking about the damage to women not enough? Are women not worthy of safety, dignity, privacy, fair sport and political representation? If the trans issue ever gets resolved, this is the next question that people who supported it need to answer. For me, it reveals a profound misogyny that I cannot forgive.
As the right are almost as bad, it means that we have to create a new politics with the basic tenet that women are people who deserve treatment that is fair and appropriate to our needs as women. Take it from there.
Yes. The harm to women should be enough to spark outrage and change hearts and minds. What I was saying is that changing the policies around women and sports - while of course necessary and important - is not enough because it would not eradicate promotion of these “treatments” to vulnerable teens and young adults. We must realize that both things are wrong and stop all of it.
It turns out I was wrong about the Washington Post. I thought that they had loosened up on their pro-trans position. However, just a couple days ago they deleted about a dozen comments that I put on an article about Sarah McBride, so once again I have cancelled my subscription. I keep telling them not to censor me and they keep censoring me -- and the reason, I think, is that my comments are clear and to the point. Everyone else gripes in comments, while I lay out the bad ideas in clear language. I've noticed that the one thing pro-trans people don't want to hear is the truth -- i.e., criticisms that really can't be rebutted.
All this means going forward is that I'll have to turn off javascript to read their site, and I won't be able to comment any more.
Helen Joyce made an apt analogy to “trans women are women” with mathematics. If you begin with the premise that 1=0, then everything that follows will be wrong. You can’t just tinker with your equations and make them come out right. You have to
fix the original error. And then all of your original conclusions will be shown to be wrong.
A further problem is that truth seeking is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it atrophies. It’s not so easy to realize that your original premise was wrong, if you are not in the habit of questioning your premises.
To make it even more complicated, this false premise has been adopted by a large number of people and it has captured many institutions.
I think that Louise Perry was wrong when she said trans ideology would go out of fashion. It’s just not as simple as realizing that your choice of clothes isn’t cool anymore. The trans ideologues have a long and bumpy road ahead of them.
I liken trans ideology to the "facilitated communication" fiasco that happened several decades ago. Retarded people would be assigned a "facilitator" who would hold their hands by the wrist and try to "sense" what letter the retarded person wanted to point to on an alphabet board. The theory seemed to be that these retarded people were perfectly intelligent but lacked the necessary motor or verbal skills to communicate their intelligence. Of course, it turned out that the facilitators were doing all the communicating, and the retarded people had nothing to do with it. Even today, however, there are colleges and universities who are working at "improving" facilitated communication techniques. As long as there are narcissistic trans people in the world, transgender ideology will be with us, but it will eventually fall out of favor. Specifically, the public -- including all those institutions that caved to it -- will come to see it as the overreach and/or power grab that it is.
There's a symmetry between those on the right who derive valor from their concerns about the unborn and those on the left who do the same for transgendered folk. It is difficult for people to see this issue clearly when their self-regard is enhanced by the positions they take.
Now, where abortion is concerned, fetuses are certainly helpless. That whole issue hinges on whether aborting a fetus is taking a life. If the Christian model is true, that we live one life and then go to heaven or hell, then aborting a fetus would seem to be murder. The problem for Christians is that there is increasing evidence (coming mostly from studies of near-death experiences) that we reincarnate. If reincarnation is a reality, then the fetus, in the early stages, is just an appendage of the mother's body.
A belief in reincarnation is going to grow over time. It explains everything, from transgenderism to bad things happening to good people. A significant percentage of people having near-death experiences remember having past lives while they are on the "other side".
Ah yes, Erin (born Anthony) Reed. The heterosexual father of one who was court ordered to not wear any of his ex-wife’s clothes as a condition of their marital settlement. He has just happened to commit his life to trying to enable men to violate all women’s physical and social and legal boundaries. It’s not motivated by inappropriate sexual and social behavior towards women, though. The fact that a man who steals and wears women’s clothes also has chosen to make his life’s work forcing women to have to change in front of men, risking sexual assault, and forcing women to play sports against men, risking bodily injury and social humiliation, totally doesn’t have anything to do with a pathological interest in violating or disrespecting women. It’s all just a giant coincidence and misunderstanding. 🫢
While I don't think there is any doubt that many AGP men are purposefully trying to invade women's spaces, there are also well meaning people who have not considered how gender ideology impacts women. Professor Robert Wintemute, an author of the Yogyakarta Principles (YP), a widely cited document, has admitted that no one who authored the YP foresaw that men with penises would try to use gender identity to invade female only spaces.
This is not a new problem. Lesbians have acknowledged that even back in the 1980s, there were men trying to enter female only lesbian clubs by adopting a trans identity. Men have been doing drag as females for as long as I can remember. Often, men in drag as females trivialize and mock women. Many of these men are straight. So it doesn't surprise me that the people that drew up the Yogyakarta Principles back in 2006 and 2007, did not foresee that men would try to cross identify into female only spaces and activities.
What I am trying to say is that it is not just Erin Reed, and not just other AGP men, who are the problem. Broadly across the culture, regardless of politics, we grossly underestimate the extent to which some men will try to undermine and marginalize female only spaces and events.
For several years now I have been arguing against, not just transgender ideology, but drag queens too. You are right that they mock women, portraying them as over-sexed prostitutes. I'm liberal, but not "woke". Some liberals include drag queens as part of "diversity", but they aren't. It took me a while to figure this out, but it is the fact that most of them portray women as ridiculous-looking sexualized prostitutes that made me realize that drag queens have a sexual fetish. Drag queens represent "diversity" no more than white people in blackface represent "diversity". Same difference: White people put on blackface and stage minstrel shows to mock blacks, whom they are contemptuous of, while men put on "bitchface" and stage drag shows to mock women, whom they are contemptuous of. (I don't like to use the word "bitch", but that is how a lot of drag queens portray women.) Ironically, some drag queens imagine that they are portraying "strong, independent" women. If so, why do they dress up as women with three feet of teased hair, heavy clownish makeup, and wearing tight cocktail dresses? If they really wanted to portray strong women, they would dress up like Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I live in San Francisco. Before I lived in San Francisco, I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like San Francisco, Vancouver has a longstanding and vibrant LGB scene and a trans scene going back to the 1970s.
Twenty years or so ago, when I was still going out to bars and clubs, it was very common to go to drag clubs to see the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I am straight, but many people would go to see these performances, gay and straight. In 2000 in San Francisco, the Sisters were a little more tame, and not so overtly mocking and stereotyping of women. The performances I saw twenty years ago were OK. I didn't find the Sisters particularly entertaining, but I didn't see anything that was exceptionally offensive either. I figured that if the Sisters wanted to do this in a late night bar, then OK. The audiences were quite small and the Sisters would sometimes socialize with the audience. I remember noticing that, while socializing, members of the Sisters seemed very uncomfortable taking to me or any of the other female members of the audience. It was like we weren't supposed to be there. So that stuck in my mind.
San Francisco has a longstanding Catholic history and is, of course, named for Saint Francis. After the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, Patrick Riordan, a Catholic Archbishop, preached a famous sermon "San Francisco is no Mean City" which was a rallying call for people to pull together to rebuild the city and help those most affected by the earthquake. San Francisco still has a sizeable number of Catholics. It also has various communities of Orthodox Christians including Greek, Russian and Coptic Christians. Note: I am not Catholic, but many of my family are long standing liberally minded, anti slavery Protestants.
Fast forward to the last five years. The Sisters are out in public parks such as Dolores Park during daytime. They are at public city events. They are overtly and aggressively mocking nuns. Our state senator, Scott Wiener, my district supervisor, fully backs (on Twitter, X and BlueSky) the Sisters in their mocking nun garb, and anyone who says that it is disrespectful of nuns and women in general is a transphobic ultra religious conservative nutjob.
So, in my opinion, sometime between 2000, and now, the Sisters and other drag queens in the city, have gone from being questionable, but in their space, to overtly misogynistic and acting in a way that is intimidating to women, religious minorities and to families.
I don't know how much longer this is going to go on. In light of San Francisco's political takeover by this single minded focus on drag queens and trans ideology as the only minority that matters, I feel there is an abandonment of women and other values that were long held as important for most of San Francisco's history. It's hard to think of San Francisco as a tolerant, liberally minded city anymore.
@Marnie - thanks for this historical perspective. You draw important distinctions between drag queens of the past and present. I find it helpful to be reminded that drag queens were much more limited in their reach a generation ago, whereas today they exert an omnipresent influence. What was earlier understood (correctly) as a lowbrow form of adult entertainment in which men sexually satirize women has been rebranded as good, clean G-rated entertainment for the whole family with the singular noble goal of promoting social justice and teaching children “diversity.” What a crock.
When the young people ideating an opposite sex persona modify their internet use, withdrawing from pornography viewing habits, and spend time outside, spend time using a sensible workout program such as Primal Fitness and reflect on early experiences of trauma, grief or abuse influencing the mind/body connection, the belief in a "trans identity" typically diminishes. Seeing Tyrebyter and Perry James go back and forth here, is the typical back and forth between, respectively, a biological realist viewpoint and the gay contingent defending something they admit same sex attracted people can't understand. Trans delusions dissipate and a healthy mind/body sense of self reclaiming well thinking when the above steps are taken. Unfortunately, a cult-like environment evolved in medicine. In the end, it will be up to the doctors to return to honesty and stop channeling patients towards risky treatments with iatrogenic harm at the core.
While I entirely agree that internet pornography, as well as outright online grooming, are factors that are influencing adolescents to adopt a trans identity, even without exposure to pornography, there will still be a small contingent of people that choose to adopt a trans identity.
Apart from the influence of pornography, some reasons a person might adopt a trans identity: autogynephilia, internalized homophobia, autism, neurodivergent factors such as schizophrenia, past trauma, depression, and external social pressure such as wanting to fit in to a social group at school.
There are even people such as Ben Barres, the Stanford neurobiologist, who didn't seem to be suffering from any kind of dysphoria, yet, likely chose to adopt a male identity in order to advance professionally. In history, there are quite a few women who have done this.
Being trans is not one thing. Yes, there is "biological realism". But, to coin a term, there is also "neurological realism".
That is not to say that I don't agree with you about getting kids off the internet and away from pornography and other unhealthy topics.
They can’t and they won’t. It will be like asking if evangelicals could tone it down on the “son of G-d” bit. [insert caveats about Christian denominations that have done this. Point is it’s still a sacred value]
Yes indeed it is like a religious definition/declaration of faith . Eg I am not Christian so would never declare "Jesus was the Son of God" . However I would say Jesus of Nazareth was a very great Prophet of God - the last before Mohamed (pbuh) .
I'm tempted to share all of my views on Christianity here, but it would be too off topic and my comment would go very long. What I am seeing is that Christianity has become a cult, just like being trans is now a cult.
There are a few, hens-teeth few, trans-identified men who accept that they are still male despite whatever surface changes they've made, and therefore don't belong in women's sports. My feeling is, they are thought of as traitors to the trans movement because if all trans ppl were honest about their sex, and put an asterisk on the foundational mantra a Trans Woman Is a Woman, except in sports, Reed is right. The whole ideology crumbles. Well what about prisons? And rape crisis centers? And it turns out trans women are men in quite a few instances. Which is absurd, right? For this ideology to make any sense (which is a constant struggle), there can be no compromise, no caveats, no exceptions. Also, if you don't accept it 100% of the time, you're not just disagreeing, you're hating, and want trans people to not exist
One data point does not a trend make, but I was encouraged by something that happened today. The Washington Post ran a story titled "FBI investigating post-election text threats sent to Latino, LGBTQ people." As usual, I addressed the story from the sex realist perspective in my comment:
Trans activists and their allies have set people who identify as trans or nonbinary up for panic by falsely portraying every single critic of gender identity as a hateful “transphobe.” We are not.
Furthermore, by censoring, berating and shaming all critics, trans activists have created an information embargo. This means that many people who are trans or are thinking they might be are unaware of the very real and legitimate debates that are taking place around them about gender identity ideology and its social manifestations.
None of the sex realists and gender critical people whose works I have read or who I follow harbor ill will towards trans people.
In addition, they care about the sissy boy or tomboy who may mistakenly come to think they are trans when in fact they will resolve their gender issues during adolescence and come to find, as I did, that they are same-sex attracted.
In the same vein, researchers are finding that many of the girls and young women who think they are trans are also suffering from depression, anxiety or other co-morbidity. It is possible that for some of these people, the belief that they are trans is a maladaptive response to other difficulties in their lives, such as the bodily changes that come during puberty and the changes in how males respond to them.
Whoever is sending those hateful messages is doing great harm. That should not prevent society from continuing to challenge gender identity ideology in a peaceful and respectful manner.
It has been over four hours and the comment is still there. This is a remarkable change from even earlier this year, when one had to pick one's words and arguments carefully to avoid deletion by the Post's pro-trans moderators.
Better yet, the comment received five "likes." Now for the replies:
"I fear and criticize those who identify as Christian."
Quoting my comment: "None of the sex realists and gender critical people whose works I have read or who I follow harbor ill will towards trans people."
"Trans activists and their allies have set people who identify as trans or nonbinary up for panic by falsely portraying..."
"You can stop there, because you know damned well that any talk about trans people during this election was from the far right, and that you're repeating their lies. It's YOU who are obsessed with trans people, and it's clear that you're terrified of them, but not of violent fascists and Christian nationalists. Why aren't you more afraid of the actual threats, instead of people who mean you no harm and just want to live their lives in peace?"
As usual, the commenters seem to know me better than I know myself. I am surprised there were not more comments, though.
Also, the New York Times recently published an op-ed piece urging tolerance of sex realist positions that indicates the young hot-headed and deeply censorious trans and trans allies in the newsroom have had their wings clipped. This frank and charitable treatment of gender critical talking points is nothing short of remarkable.
"On Transgender Issues, Voters Want Common Sense." Pamela Paul. 14 November 2024. Here's an excerpt:
But as those of us who opposed Trump lick our wounds and take stock, it’s worth considering why [Trump's gender critical] ads and rally cries resonated.
It is not because most Americans are bigots or haters or anti-L.G.B.T.Q. people. But many voters, including liberals and Democrats, disagree with positions Harris and the Democratic Party have taken on transgender issues. Polls show that most voters, while largely supportive of existing legal rights and protections for transgender people, have complicated views on other policies that fall under the umbrella of what’s commonly referred to as trans rights.
Trump’s charge that children are undergoing gender transition surgeries in school is obviously absurd. But his words may have struck a chord with those who disagree with school districts that have teachers and administrators hide from parents that their children have adopted new gender identities. As The Times reported last year, one mother of a 15-year-old only accidentally discovered her child’s public school had been covering up the fact that for six months, her child had been going by a new name and using the boys’ bathroom.
In recent years, the concepts of gender identity and the possibility of being born in the wrong body have been introduced as early as elementary school. But a Washington Post poll found that 77 percent of Americans do not want teachers discussing these ideas in kindergarten through third grade and more than half oppose trans identity being talked about even in middle school.
The Democratic Party’s platform includes a pledge to defend gender-affirming care for minors. For people who are not well versed in the issue, this may sound like therapy to make children feel comfortable in their bodies; what it usually means in practice is allowing children to adopt a new name and pronouns, and in many cases, enabling them to change their bodies to resemble that of the opposite sex. This process can include puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, surgery. More than 14,000 American children had gender-related medical interventions between 2019 and 2023.
While much of Europe has been pulling back from the gender-affirmation model, evidence has emerged that in the United States, proponents of this approach have let politics color science.
To cite two recent examples, one prominent advocate of gender-affirming care suppressed her own government-funded research because she feared it might be “weaponized” against her agenda, The Times reported. Meanwhile, Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and human services chosen by President Biden, worked to get a transgender organization to remove age limits from its proposed guidelines for surgeries, including mastectomies and hysterectomies for minors, because she said they would give fuel to political foes, according to recently released court documents. After this disclosure, the Biden administration released a statement saying it opposed such surgeries for minors.
Yet the Department of Health and Human Services continues to say that gender-affirming care is “crucial” for young people and “has been shown to increase positive outcomes for transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents” — even though the most comprehensive overview of research, which assessed all major American and global studies on the subject, found scant evidence of this. Even so, all the leading American medical associations continue to back gender-affirming care.
In my reporting, I’ve spoken with many parents of gender-dysphoric kids, overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat, who told me they felt betrayed by Democrats and by the Biden administration on this issue. They resent being labeled “anti-trans” for questioning whether it’s right to simply accept what their children say about their gender, especially since those children often suffer from other mental health issues.
Ollie, I've been blipping over your comment here because it is so long, but finally I read [most of] it.
I too leave a lot of comments on Post articles, and my comments are constantly being deleted, but recently they are deleting them less often. I can see them deleting vulgar or abusive comments, but my comments are like yours -- intelligent and to the point, but not "pro-trans". Yes, I think the Post is beginning to change. Their recent editorial defending Seth Moulton's trans-skeptical comments was something they would not have posted in the last five years. I was both shocked and relieved by it.
As always, this is one hundred percent spot on. And — prison onset gender dysphoria. I hadn’t seen that yet. POGD. Indeed.
The key issue in "gender dysphoria" is "what is the diagnostic process which yields a diagnosis of gender dysphoria"? Well, with gender dysphoria, the diagnostic test is "I have gender dysphoria". There is not objective test, no sign available to a neutral observer, that GD is present. Recently, a prominent physician in trans, Jack Turban, has said that the entire question of "diagnosis" was transphobic, and that a self-declaration was all that is needed.
Let's say I go to a physician and say "I am in pain, and need opioids. Can you give me a 3-month supply?" In most cases, you will not get that supply. Not only are physicians reluctant to prescribe opioids, but there are increasing pharmacy triggers for excessive opioid use. We know that "self-declaration" of "need for opioids" is not appropriate. Society has decided that opioids cannot be obtained in this manner and recreational use is bad for the individual.
Why shouldn't a person be allowed to self-prescribe opioids? There are many reasons: 1) they impair judgement 2) they lead to the use of other drugs 3) they impair medical treatment in other ways (when a person is an opioid addict, use of opioids for anasthesia is compromised - you can't sedate them for surgery) 4) opioids CAUSE pain (opioid-induced hyperalgesia). We don't allow "doctor-shopping" or self-prescription.
Why is self-diagnosis allowed in gender dysphoria? The answer is simple - gender dysphoria is a false condition and is a delusion.
Gender dysphoria is a real condition for both some children and some adults. That doesn't mean that there aren't other treatments besides "transitioning". Debbie Hayton, a trans woman in England (who is against transgender ideology), recently published his/her book "Transsexual Apostate". He describes wanting to be a girl as a child, and he describes keeping those feelings under control during his life as "holding a beach ball under water". Finally, in middle-age, he succumbed to the feelings and got the surgery (to the chagrin of his wife).
My point is, pretending that gender dysphoria isn't real isn't a solution to these issues. The fact remains, however, that it is fairly rare, and that many of the people who believe they are dysphoric actually have other problems.
If I'm coming down on you a little hard, it's because I am gay, and I imagine someone saying that my homosexuality is a delusion -- and believe me, it isn't. At a certain point in life you know how you feel and what you are.
The issue with children is that they have a chance of outgrowing those feelings if they don't act, and, additionally, they don't have the emotional maturity to make that decision as children. "Transitioning" (to whatever extent it is even possible) must be for adults only.
Now, as for self-prescription, the issue there is different than it is with gays. A gay man can self-prescribe all he wants, and it does him no harm because there is no medical treatment. It is because self-prescription in the trans world invites medical intervention that doctors must agree with the self-prescription -- and to that end, we need to bring back the gate-keepers that trans activists have managed to get rid of.
There is no evidence that "gender dsyphoria" is anything other than another form of delusion. Yes, psychotic delusions exist. But they are not real. If I am deluded into believing that "I am Napoleon", that is not a real situation, but just a delusion. Gender dysphoria is no different than any other form of delusion.
Why is it treated differently? In the writing of DSM V, gender activists got into the process and controlled the diagnostic designation process. No science was involved. It was all politics.
You are always wrong, and you always have to argue.
It is not for you to judge how other people feel. For a man to say that he feels like a woman is a different thing from saying he is Napoleon. If there is evidence that he doesn't have actual dysphoria, but rather has other psychological problems, then we can question it. But how many trans women do you actually know so well that you can question their motives like that?
A delusion is a belief which is not grounded in reality. Trans is a delusion. There is no evidence in genetics, physiology, or otherwise objective reality that "trans" is other than a delusion. You believe that it is real. Show me the evidence. And, no, the statement "I am a woman in a man's body" is not evidence. It's just the delusion talking.
The bullshit that "you need to know trans people" is just another version of "my reality is just as real as your reality". In other words, it is the reification of delusion. I don't need to know trans people. I need to know if there is an objective test for this condition. There is not. It's a delusion.
I'm not going to show you anything. By your definition, all emotions are delusions because they can't be proven.
Okay, let's get specific: You are talking about beliefs, and I am talking about feelings. We ALL can doubt a man who BELIEVES he is an actual woman. What we can't question is how he feels.
But what the trannies want to say is that trans is NOT a delusion. A delusion is a feeling which is not grounded in reality. The trans delusion is that a person with XY chromosomes can be a woman.
We all have emotions. Many emotions are based in reality. If your dog dies, you are sad, and any other person can understand and sympathize. The emotion has a real basis. If you fall in love, this is due to the existence and proximity of another person. Others can understand that. Emotions are widely shared, and we can all relate to them. In addition, emotions are based on hormones, and the existence of the emotion can be tied to the existence of the hormone level. So your notion that "emotions are delusions" is false.
Beliefs and feelings should not be addressed with surgery
But that “woman feeling” somehow can’t be described except in the most stereotypical, shallow, autistic way. There is no actual way to “feel like a woman.” Sorry, but this whole thing makes no sense from top to bottom.
And anyway, what kind of trans-identifying male are we even picturing here? An effeminate gay man, who finds it easier to t try to present as a woman? Or are we talking about the heterosexual fetishistic transvestites and autogynephiles, whose “woman feelings” are usually *quite* different from those of the homosexual trans-identifying male?
You are like a lot of gay folks were 30 years ago - trans is the new gay. It is not. The two conditions are completely different. So reciting "gays know they are gay" does not improve your understanding of trans, which is simply another cult belief.
"Another cult belief"? Are you saying that believing I am gay is a cult belief?
And by the way, as an anti-trans activist going back a decade or more, I have NEVER believed that "trans is the new gay". I have been arguing against that for ages now.
He was quite obviously not calling homosexuality simply another cult belief. His whole point was how trans and gay are two different things. Trans as “another cult belief” is like belief in demonic possession, voodoo, homeopathy, etc.
Homosexuality is demonstrably not a delusion though. If one was so inclined, one could strap an instrument to your penis and show you erotic images of men and erotic images of women, and you would have a measurable vascular response to the former and not to the latter. This is just a false equivalence, like saying we can’t say trans identification is a delusion because then someone might say that diabetes is a delusion. It’s not. We can prove that.
Furthermore, woman and man are not feelings. It’s true that if a person says he is sad, we have no way to prove or disprove that. He could lie and say he is sad when he is actually happy, but sadness is by definition an interior emotional state. It makes no more sense to say you feel like a woman than to say you feel like a dentist. These aren’t feelings, these are categories of things in the world. If you are not a graduate of dental school, currently or formerly licensed to practice dentistry, you’re simply not a dentist, and it doesn’t make any sense to claim to feel like one or to claim that whatever internal experience you’re referring to somehow makes you a dentist. Similarly, if you’re not an adult human female, you’re simply not a woman. These are words have an external meaning in the world.
'It makes no more sense to say you feel like a woman than to say you feel like a dentist.' Period! Wish I'd thought of that. :)
Sorry I didn't respond sooner. All I'm saying is this: There ARE trans people who seem to have true gender dysphoria. Debbie Hayton, in England, who transitioned in middle age and recently wrote the book Transsexual Apostate, has written about how, as a child, he was obsessed with women's clothing and would wear it when he didn't think he would be caught. He described his feelings of wanting to be a woman as a beach ball that he was trying to keep under water. Finally, he couldn't repress the feelings any more, and he transitioned. He considers himself to have autogynephilia (did I spell it right?). The point is, people who are truly trans and not just part of the fad are feeling SOMETHING that drives their behavior. To pretend that they don't have the feelings they have is just disrespectful.
As an anti-trans activist, I argue against the bad ideas in transgender ideology, I don't argue against anyone's feelings.
On the other hand, Eliza's excellent research indicates that there are more trans people who have conflicted feelings than people like Debbie Hayton had. Eliza does a good job of unmasking their true motives.
I understand everything you're saying. I keep going back to the experience of Debbie Hayton, who lives in England. As a boy, he was fascinated by girls' and women's clothing, and sometimes wore them. He had feelings of wanting to be a girl. In his book, he talked about trying to repress the feelings as holding a beach ball under water. He didn't "transition", however, until middle-age. Now, whether that is gender dysphoria or autogynephilia, I don't know.
I have long wondered if the “transwomen” in sports question would be the issue that breaks the spell in the belief that trans rights are civil rights.
More and more parents, more and more sports fans, and more and more girls and women athletes are confronting the reality and can see the blatant unfairness.
Sports aren’t about sexuality or wearing dresses or other sexual issues—issues that progressives can insist on supporting because letting one’s freak fly is the greatest good. They can call objections to public displays of paraphilia bigotry.
Sports are about discipline, sportsmanship, competition, skill. Boys and men competing in girls and women’s sports is on its face unfair. And the results are visible!
It doesn’t take deep knowledge of gender ideology to see this, and I think this is peaking people like no other gender issue.
“Be kind” and “live and let live” has been the position nice liberal people are supposed to uphold. Easy enough to say when it’s about what people do in the privacy of bedrooms.
But a different proposition when it comes to sports!
The Democrats pissed off the jocks. What did they think was going happen? Did any of these people even go to High School?
Yeah 😂
# female athletes > # of women needing an abortion
I’d guess it’s the “all or nothing” strategy, as TRA Erin Reed helpfully notes. We’ve got to take it all. But this is the hill they will likely die on and lose.
Gender is a proxy for the even wider question: does objective reality exist, or is reality formed by a political process? When the Berlin Wall was smashed down by ordinary people wielding hammers, those emblematic Soviet tools, academia retreated from this disappointing reality and hasn't yet emerged. Common sense isn't the sense we all have in common, or even the sense that is commonplace; it is the sense of the commoners who are forced by circumstance to live in reality, not by theory.
The Professor of Parody
https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody
Thanks for the link, not much has changed in 25 years!
Long read, I know, but this article definitely captures many of my longstanding concerns about Judith Butler and her version of feminism.
Perhaps a good place to start would be differentiating between gender dysphoria and fetish identities like autogynephelia, or at the very least having common sense discussion about it. The very nature of where affirmation stems from is largely born from the adult fetishization of gender-bending. There is a huge contingent of adult males who desire the unassailable right to be validated by everyone and every situation they encounter so that they can feed their fetish based lifestyle of cosplaying women. This should not inform policy. This should not inform healthcare. As the author points out, any relinquishment on the death grip of validation leads immediately to the slippery slope of, well, reality. And fetishization is a distinct goal that depends on a total departure from reality. We cannot have both, and we should start having the righteous concessions that there must indeed be some form of gate-keeping in this discourse to protect minors. For the same reasons some cultures do not accept alcohol consumption, body modification or plain old voting rights. I feel like I was more comfortable decades ago with the idea of transgenderism when my community, livelihood and safety wasn’t on offer to be co-opted based on whether or not I agreed to refute the evidence of my eyes, ears and experience as a natal female.
I was taken aback several weeks ago when I saw an obvious cross-dressing autogynephile storming across the wide concrete floors of the local Costco with a defiant look on his face. I lack the vocabulary to describe women's fashion adequately, so I will just say that he was a fireplug of a stereotypical Italian cop type all dolled up like his New Jersey grandma on an outing to Manhattan with her girlfriends.
His wig was an inverted jet-black bowl with white tips. With his fake eyelashes and makeup he looked like a parody of a hooker.
When I say he was "storming" across the room, I mean he was moving at an extremely fast defensive pace that kept others from getting a good look at him for very long. The last I saw of him was from behind, when I watched him speed towards the exit, bow-legged and in black stockings.
I could not help feeling he was getting a sexual charge from the experience.
His right to make a spectacle of himself ends when other people are compelled to treat him as if he were a real woman and when he attempts to insert himself into women's spaces where he is not wanted.
absolutely on the nail! my sentiments are, be whoever you want to be but don't force me to acknowledge and comply with type madness
Democrats seem determined to die on this hill.
Except for Democrats like me, who are dead set against it. We aren't ALL nuts. And I might add that your average rank-and-file Democrat doesn't support this nonsense either. The Dems who support the "woke" nonsense are the ultra-liberals.
" might add that your average rank-and-file Democrat doesn't support this nonsense either." Either it's wishful thinking or an average Democrat is a coward or an average Dem doesn't care . Can you name 5, or even 3 , Dem politicians who are openly against trans nonsense? Or do "normal" Dems elect only non-normal politicians who DO believe in this nonsense? If MOST of you are against it, then how come pretty much NONE of the Democrats are speaking out publicly?
I'm on my way to bed, and I'm tired, so I don't have a lot of energy to answer. But let me ask you, why do I have to explain politics to you?
Yes, most Democratic voters (at least, the ones who understand the issue) are against trans women in women's sports, and also the medicalization of children. But when Democratic politicians agree with them on 80% to 90% of the issues, they vote Democratic. I don't vote Republican because I agree with Republicans on only 10% to 20% of the issues. Does that make it clear enough for you?
As for why most Democratic politicians are "all in" on trans rights, it's because they don't want to lose the one-issue trans voters. Frankly, I think they have calculated that most Democratic voters don't care that much about the issue, so they have fallen in line with trans activists so that the activists won't fight them publicly. Let's not forget that the trans issue is a complicated issue. It is not that easy to understand all the ramifications of it, so there are still a lot of Democrats who don't vote on this issue -- especially since a lot of them have never met a trans person.
I have to turn off my computer now.
So, in short, they don't care enough. Got it. Thanks.
I don't think you've "got" anything. People are concerned about some issues and not concerned about other issues. That's normal. If they don't know any trans people, why should they be concerned about the issue? And by the way, Republican politicians are just as stupid and biased as Democratic politicians. How many of them despise Donald Trump but still endorsed him to please their voter base?
Please try to think before you post. One would think you were born yesterday. Goodnight.
Good thread and glad it seems that you had the last word. I was thinking the same thing, about the silence on both sides of the aisle on many issues, political expediency, hedging bets to get votes, etc. But you got it! And I hope you had a good night too.
I'd love to know how much a factor it was in Trump's victory.
I believe it was a significant factor. Trump put a lot of money into advertising against the "woke" stuff. If you go to my Substack, read my open letter to my Senator Whitehouse.
There seems to be an effort to marginalize it as a factor. A niche issue inflated by cynical right wing operatives. But I can't help but think trans undermined the Democrats’ overall credibility. If they're on the wrong side of a basic and obvious reality like human sexual dimorphism, what else might they be wrong about? It's telling that the Harris campaign evidently didn't respond to Trump's ads on this subject.
Allegedly the Harris camp did shoot some counter ads, but chose not to run them. I wonder why! What were they going to say? That Harris didn’t really say what she clearly said? That, okay, maybe she did say that, but realized it was insane and changed her mind? Or double down on her proposal that “trans” inmates (i.e. mentally ill and/or predatory men) should receive “sex change” operations at tax payer expense, and that you’d have to be a reactionary bigot to disagree? There is no good reply, because her position was indefensible.
I’d love to see those ads though. I hope someone leaks them.
I don't disagree with you. The only reason the trans issue hasn't been hurting the Democrats until now is that the greater public was only marginally aware of it. Also, Democratic support for abortion overshadowed it. That has all changed. As my letter to Whitehouse says, the trans issue is going to harm Democrats going forward. But you are right. If you believe that a man can become a REAL woman, you might as well tell people that the moon is made of green cheese.
In particular, I think it changed the Hispanic support of the Dems. Hispanics are, in many cases, cultural conservatives. Our church has had several Hispanic churches as renters - the religious orientation is Pentacostal/evangelical, the males are paternalistic, it is a strongly male-oriented society. They do not like gays, and they hate trannies. I've heard several interviews from religious leaders and the dislike of trannieness is strongly stated.
I admit I have similar feelings. A woman with a man's face and voice rubs me the wrong way. However, drag is more popular in Hispanic societies. Why do you supposed that is true?
A big one.
Democrats need to just abandon it entirely and beg forgiveness for being such cowards.
I'll be shocked if that happens. I predict their strategy will be to ignore it and hope it goes away. But will the activist class let them? We have an interesting year or two ahead of us on this issue.
As much as I'm against transgender ideology, I would be happier to see Trump "go away" than anything the Democrats are doing. Trump is an agent of chaos. He cares nothing for the country. He is the political equivalent of Taylor Swift soaking up as much adulation as he is able to.
What do you think of the chances any time soon of a prominent Democratic politician who openly and explicitly opposes gender ideology?
It will take a very strong and independent politician to do that, and that politician will have to understand the trans issue through and through in order to fend off accusations of being a bigot. In the mean time, my advice to Democratic politicians who don't understand all the nuances of the issue is to simply say, "I don't feel fully comfortable with biological men/boys playing in women's/girls' sports" -- and -- "I don't feel comfortable with the idea that children have the emotional maturity or agency to make medical changes to their bodies. I've read that some children will grow out of their trans feelings if given a chance, and I think they should be given that chance."
(I'm a night owl. I'm going to bed now. If you reply, I'll read it later.)
lm not,American so obviously no flesh in the game but in my opinion the Democrats sealed their own doom backing the gender nonsense.
It's been dismissed as a fringe issue that most don't know or care much about. But I can't help but think it undermined the public’s trust in the Democratic Party. If they can't tell the difference between a man and a woman, what else might they be wrong about? Gender ideology gets less popular the more people learn about it. I find it telling that AOC removed her pronouns from her bio; a tacit admission. She's now again a congresswoman and not a congress…birthing person?
Nothing moderate about trans issues or anything to do with identity.
There is no appropriate straddling the line on this one, any more than we might straddle the line on whether some rapes are okay while most are not acceptable, or whether it's okay for some children to starve to death while most should be fed an adequate diet. All rape is bad, all children must be fed, and no children whatsoever should be chemically and/or surgically altered to appear the opposite sex or lied to that they "really" are the opposite sex to that of their body. Similarly, no adult who wants to chemically and/or surgically alter their body to appear the opposite sex should be told that these interventions are medical treatments. They are cosmetic procedures, pure and simple. And we as a society should not be paying for them, for prisoners, immigrants, or otherwise. They don't have to be outlawed, any more than we outlaw other outlandish cosmetic procedures, or risky activities like bungy-jumping. But would we ever use our tax dollars to cover bungy-jumping, or promote it to teenagers in school, or vilify parents who don't want their children doing this? Of course not.
There is no moderating on this issue. The Democratic leaders who promoted lies about the "life-saving" properties of "gender-affirming care" will simply have to admit they were wrong, admit they were misinformed by WPATH, by AAP, by the Endocrine Society, etc., and admit that they should have listened when the WPATH files were released, when the Cass Review was released, when they discovered Rachel Levine's involvement in removing lower age limits to WPATH's guidelines, when they became aware of Finland's and Sweden's turn-about, etc. I personally will be willing to forgive them - if they admit they were wrong, and if they do what must be done to help everyone impacted by their mistakes, most importantly the detransitioners - and if they immediately agree that the changes to Title IX, the policies implemented through the Dept of Education, etc. must be reversed. I will respect that they are taking responsibility for the wrongs they have committed.
This is the only solution. They cannot pretend they had it right all along and that they were saving some children and adults, while others accidentally were harmed due only to overzealousness of the medical community. They must admit that they were WRONG.
I essentially agree with you, but I'm not holding my breath for any of this to happen. Recently, Seth Moulton, a representative from Massachusetts in the House, publicly expressed his discomfort with the idea of having his daughters play against trans girls in sports, and he was immediately shamed by some people. However, the Washington Post, which up to now has been 1000% behind everything trans and drag (they think drag queens are part of diversity!), published an editorial defending Moulton's right to speak his true feelings. As the Number One cheerleader for all things trans among publishers, that editorial by the Post is progress. The problem is that trans people are so damn pitiful that bleeding-heart liberals want to give them whatever they want, even if it is more rights than the rest of us and even if it goes against the fabric of reality.
Woops, I already mentioned Seth Moulton in my original post in these comments. Sorry, I didn't mean to repeat myself.
You are right. This will only stop when people realize that they are not actually being kind to the vulnerable people they seek to help by lying to them and filling their bodies with toxic chemicals and cutting off healthy body parts. That is the other flat out lie being told. First, we lie and say someone who wishes they were the other sex indeed is that sex. Then we say we are helping that person through both the lie and the medical interventions. Until people see that they are doing harm even to those they seek to protect, this will be difficult to eradicate. Just pointing out the harm to women and girls from invasions into their spaces and sports - while also very wrong - won’t be enough to set these “good doers” straight.
So why is talking about the damage to women not enough? Are women not worthy of safety, dignity, privacy, fair sport and political representation? If the trans issue ever gets resolved, this is the next question that people who supported it need to answer. For me, it reveals a profound misogyny that I cannot forgive.
As the right are almost as bad, it means that we have to create a new politics with the basic tenet that women are people who deserve treatment that is fair and appropriate to our needs as women. Take it from there.
Revolution indeed!
Yes. The harm to women should be enough to spark outrage and change hearts and minds. What I was saying is that changing the policies around women and sports - while of course necessary and important - is not enough because it would not eradicate promotion of these “treatments” to vulnerable teens and young adults. We must realize that both things are wrong and stop all of it.
Any good news where your daughter is concerned?
Status quo.
It turns out I was wrong about the Washington Post. I thought that they had loosened up on their pro-trans position. However, just a couple days ago they deleted about a dozen comments that I put on an article about Sarah McBride, so once again I have cancelled my subscription. I keep telling them not to censor me and they keep censoring me -- and the reason, I think, is that my comments are clear and to the point. Everyone else gripes in comments, while I lay out the bad ideas in clear language. I've noticed that the one thing pro-trans people don't want to hear is the truth -- i.e., criticisms that really can't be rebutted.
All this means going forward is that I'll have to turn off javascript to read their site, and I won't be able to comment any more.
What a bunch of a**holes they are.
Helen Joyce made an apt analogy to “trans women are women” with mathematics. If you begin with the premise that 1=0, then everything that follows will be wrong. You can’t just tinker with your equations and make them come out right. You have to
fix the original error. And then all of your original conclusions will be shown to be wrong.
A further problem is that truth seeking is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it atrophies. It’s not so easy to realize that your original premise was wrong, if you are not in the habit of questioning your premises.
To make it even more complicated, this false premise has been adopted by a large number of people and it has captured many institutions.
I think that Louise Perry was wrong when she said trans ideology would go out of fashion. It’s just not as simple as realizing that your choice of clothes isn’t cool anymore. The trans ideologues have a long and bumpy road ahead of them.
As do the young people whose bodies and minds were damaged by various professions who’ve lost interest in truthful premises.
I liken trans ideology to the "facilitated communication" fiasco that happened several decades ago. Retarded people would be assigned a "facilitator" who would hold their hands by the wrist and try to "sense" what letter the retarded person wanted to point to on an alphabet board. The theory seemed to be that these retarded people were perfectly intelligent but lacked the necessary motor or verbal skills to communicate their intelligence. Of course, it turned out that the facilitators were doing all the communicating, and the retarded people had nothing to do with it. Even today, however, there are colleges and universities who are working at "improving" facilitated communication techniques. As long as there are narcissistic trans people in the world, transgender ideology will be with us, but it will eventually fall out of favor. Specifically, the public -- including all those institutions that caved to it -- will come to see it as the overreach and/or power grab that it is.
There's a symmetry between those on the right who derive valor from their concerns about the unborn and those on the left who do the same for transgendered folk. It is difficult for people to see this issue clearly when their self-regard is enhanced by the positions they take.
Good point. The valor, I guess, is in "protecting the helpless".
It’s a way to self-confer status.
Now, where abortion is concerned, fetuses are certainly helpless. That whole issue hinges on whether aborting a fetus is taking a life. If the Christian model is true, that we live one life and then go to heaven or hell, then aborting a fetus would seem to be murder. The problem for Christians is that there is increasing evidence (coming mostly from studies of near-death experiences) that we reincarnate. If reincarnation is a reality, then the fetus, in the early stages, is just an appendage of the mother's body.
I’ll have to ponder that, Perry.
A belief in reincarnation is going to grow over time. It explains everything, from transgenderism to bad things happening to good people. A significant percentage of people having near-death experiences remember having past lives while they are on the "other side".
Ah yes, Erin (born Anthony) Reed. The heterosexual father of one who was court ordered to not wear any of his ex-wife’s clothes as a condition of their marital settlement. He has just happened to commit his life to trying to enable men to violate all women’s physical and social and legal boundaries. It’s not motivated by inappropriate sexual and social behavior towards women, though. The fact that a man who steals and wears women’s clothes also has chosen to make his life’s work forcing women to have to change in front of men, risking sexual assault, and forcing women to play sports against men, risking bodily injury and social humiliation, totally doesn’t have anything to do with a pathological interest in violating or disrespecting women. It’s all just a giant coincidence and misunderstanding. 🫢
While I don't think there is any doubt that many AGP men are purposefully trying to invade women's spaces, there are also well meaning people who have not considered how gender ideology impacts women. Professor Robert Wintemute, an author of the Yogyakarta Principles (YP), a widely cited document, has admitted that no one who authored the YP foresaw that men with penises would try to use gender identity to invade female only spaces.
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/yogyakarta-principles/
This is not a new problem. Lesbians have acknowledged that even back in the 1980s, there were men trying to enter female only lesbian clubs by adopting a trans identity. Men have been doing drag as females for as long as I can remember. Often, men in drag as females trivialize and mock women. Many of these men are straight. So it doesn't surprise me that the people that drew up the Yogyakarta Principles back in 2006 and 2007, did not foresee that men would try to cross identify into female only spaces and activities.
What I am trying to say is that it is not just Erin Reed, and not just other AGP men, who are the problem. Broadly across the culture, regardless of politics, we grossly underestimate the extent to which some men will try to undermine and marginalize female only spaces and events.
For several years now I have been arguing against, not just transgender ideology, but drag queens too. You are right that they mock women, portraying them as over-sexed prostitutes. I'm liberal, but not "woke". Some liberals include drag queens as part of "diversity", but they aren't. It took me a while to figure this out, but it is the fact that most of them portray women as ridiculous-looking sexualized prostitutes that made me realize that drag queens have a sexual fetish. Drag queens represent "diversity" no more than white people in blackface represent "diversity". Same difference: White people put on blackface and stage minstrel shows to mock blacks, whom they are contemptuous of, while men put on "bitchface" and stage drag shows to mock women, whom they are contemptuous of. (I don't like to use the word "bitch", but that is how a lot of drag queens portray women.) Ironically, some drag queens imagine that they are portraying "strong, independent" women. If so, why do they dress up as women with three feet of teased hair, heavy clownish makeup, and wearing tight cocktail dresses? If they really wanted to portray strong women, they would dress up like Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I live in San Francisco. Before I lived in San Francisco, I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like San Francisco, Vancouver has a longstanding and vibrant LGB scene and a trans scene going back to the 1970s.
Twenty years or so ago, when I was still going out to bars and clubs, it was very common to go to drag clubs to see the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I am straight, but many people would go to see these performances, gay and straight. In 2000 in San Francisco, the Sisters were a little more tame, and not so overtly mocking and stereotyping of women. The performances I saw twenty years ago were OK. I didn't find the Sisters particularly entertaining, but I didn't see anything that was exceptionally offensive either. I figured that if the Sisters wanted to do this in a late night bar, then OK. The audiences were quite small and the Sisters would sometimes socialize with the audience. I remember noticing that, while socializing, members of the Sisters seemed very uncomfortable taking to me or any of the other female members of the audience. It was like we weren't supposed to be there. So that stuck in my mind.
San Francisco has a longstanding Catholic history and is, of course, named for Saint Francis. After the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, Patrick Riordan, a Catholic Archbishop, preached a famous sermon "San Francisco is no Mean City" which was a rallying call for people to pull together to rebuild the city and help those most affected by the earthquake. San Francisco still has a sizeable number of Catholics. It also has various communities of Orthodox Christians including Greek, Russian and Coptic Christians. Note: I am not Catholic, but many of my family are long standing liberally minded, anti slavery Protestants.
Fast forward to the last five years. The Sisters are out in public parks such as Dolores Park during daytime. They are at public city events. They are overtly and aggressively mocking nuns. Our state senator, Scott Wiener, my district supervisor, fully backs (on Twitter, X and BlueSky) the Sisters in their mocking nun garb, and anyone who says that it is disrespectful of nuns and women in general is a transphobic ultra religious conservative nutjob.
So, in my opinion, sometime between 2000, and now, the Sisters and other drag queens in the city, have gone from being questionable, but in their space, to overtly misogynistic and acting in a way that is intimidating to women, religious minorities and to families.
I don't know how much longer this is going to go on. In light of San Francisco's political takeover by this single minded focus on drag queens and trans ideology as the only minority that matters, I feel there is an abandonment of women and other values that were long held as important for most of San Francisco's history. It's hard to think of San Francisco as a tolerant, liberally minded city anymore.
@Marnie - thanks for this historical perspective. You draw important distinctions between drag queens of the past and present. I find it helpful to be reminded that drag queens were much more limited in their reach a generation ago, whereas today they exert an omnipresent influence. What was earlier understood (correctly) as a lowbrow form of adult entertainment in which men sexually satirize women has been rebranded as good, clean G-rated entertainment for the whole family with the singular noble goal of promoting social justice and teaching children “diversity.” What a crock.
When the young people ideating an opposite sex persona modify their internet use, withdrawing from pornography viewing habits, and spend time outside, spend time using a sensible workout program such as Primal Fitness and reflect on early experiences of trauma, grief or abuse influencing the mind/body connection, the belief in a "trans identity" typically diminishes. Seeing Tyrebyter and Perry James go back and forth here, is the typical back and forth between, respectively, a biological realist viewpoint and the gay contingent defending something they admit same sex attracted people can't understand. Trans delusions dissipate and a healthy mind/body sense of self reclaiming well thinking when the above steps are taken. Unfortunately, a cult-like environment evolved in medicine. In the end, it will be up to the doctors to return to honesty and stop channeling patients towards risky treatments with iatrogenic harm at the core.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz0Zy-J5OYc&t=13s
While I entirely agree that internet pornography, as well as outright online grooming, are factors that are influencing adolescents to adopt a trans identity, even without exposure to pornography, there will still be a small contingent of people that choose to adopt a trans identity.
Apart from the influence of pornography, some reasons a person might adopt a trans identity: autogynephilia, internalized homophobia, autism, neurodivergent factors such as schizophrenia, past trauma, depression, and external social pressure such as wanting to fit in to a social group at school.
There are even people such as Ben Barres, the Stanford neurobiologist, who didn't seem to be suffering from any kind of dysphoria, yet, likely chose to adopt a male identity in order to advance professionally. In history, there are quite a few women who have done this.
Being trans is not one thing. Yes, there is "biological realism". But, to coin a term, there is also "neurological realism".
That is not to say that I don't agree with you about getting kids off the internet and away from pornography and other unhealthy topics.
They can’t and they won’t. It will be like asking if evangelicals could tone it down on the “son of G-d” bit. [insert caveats about Christian denominations that have done this. Point is it’s still a sacred value]
Yes indeed it is like a religious definition/declaration of faith . Eg I am not Christian so would never declare "Jesus was the Son of God" . However I would say Jesus of Nazareth was a very great Prophet of God - the last before Mohamed (pbuh) .
I'm tempted to share all of my views on Christianity here, but it would be too off topic and my comment would go very long. What I am seeing is that Christianity has become a cult, just like being trans is now a cult.
There are a few, hens-teeth few, trans-identified men who accept that they are still male despite whatever surface changes they've made, and therefore don't belong in women's sports. My feeling is, they are thought of as traitors to the trans movement because if all trans ppl were honest about their sex, and put an asterisk on the foundational mantra a Trans Woman Is a Woman, except in sports, Reed is right. The whole ideology crumbles. Well what about prisons? And rape crisis centers? And it turns out trans women are men in quite a few instances. Which is absurd, right? For this ideology to make any sense (which is a constant struggle), there can be no compromise, no caveats, no exceptions. Also, if you don't accept it 100% of the time, you're not just disagreeing, you're hating, and want trans people to not exist
Can Democrats moderate on trans issues?
One data point does not a trend make, but I was encouraged by something that happened today. The Washington Post ran a story titled "FBI investigating post-election text threats sent to Latino, LGBTQ people." As usual, I addressed the story from the sex realist perspective in my comment:
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Trans activists and their allies have set people who identify as trans or nonbinary up for panic by falsely portraying every single critic of gender identity as a hateful “transphobe.” We are not.
Furthermore, by censoring, berating and shaming all critics, trans activists have created an information embargo. This means that many people who are trans or are thinking they might be are unaware of the very real and legitimate debates that are taking place around them about gender identity ideology and its social manifestations.
None of the sex realists and gender critical people whose works I have read or who I follow harbor ill will towards trans people.
In addition, they care about the sissy boy or tomboy who may mistakenly come to think they are trans when in fact they will resolve their gender issues during adolescence and come to find, as I did, that they are same-sex attracted.
In the same vein, researchers are finding that many of the girls and young women who think they are trans are also suffering from depression, anxiety or other co-morbidity. It is possible that for some of these people, the belief that they are trans is a maladaptive response to other difficulties in their lives, such as the bodily changes that come during puberty and the changes in how males respond to them.
Whoever is sending those hateful messages is doing great harm. That should not prevent society from continuing to challenge gender identity ideology in a peaceful and respectful manner.
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It has been over four hours and the comment is still there. This is a remarkable change from even earlier this year, when one had to pick one's words and arguments carefully to avoid deletion by the Post's pro-trans moderators.
Better yet, the comment received five "likes." Now for the replies:
"I fear and criticize those who identify as Christian."
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Quoting my comment: "None of the sex realists and gender critical people whose works I have read or who I follow harbor ill will towards trans people."
"You cannot possibly know that."
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"Trans activists and their allies have set people who identify as trans or nonbinary up for panic by falsely portraying..."
"You can stop there, because you know damned well that any talk about trans people during this election was from the far right, and that you're repeating their lies. It's YOU who are obsessed with trans people, and it's clear that you're terrified of them, but not of violent fascists and Christian nationalists. Why aren't you more afraid of the actual threats, instead of people who mean you no harm and just want to live their lives in peace?"
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As usual, the commenters seem to know me better than I know myself. I am surprised there were not more comments, though.
Also, the New York Times recently published an op-ed piece urging tolerance of sex realist positions that indicates the young hot-headed and deeply censorious trans and trans allies in the newsroom have had their wings clipped. This frank and charitable treatment of gender critical talking points is nothing short of remarkable.
"On Transgender Issues, Voters Want Common Sense." Pamela Paul. 14 November 2024. Here's an excerpt:
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But as those of us who opposed Trump lick our wounds and take stock, it’s worth considering why [Trump's gender critical] ads and rally cries resonated.
It is not because most Americans are bigots or haters or anti-L.G.B.T.Q. people. But many voters, including liberals and Democrats, disagree with positions Harris and the Democratic Party have taken on transgender issues. Polls show that most voters, while largely supportive of existing legal rights and protections for transgender people, have complicated views on other policies that fall under the umbrella of what’s commonly referred to as trans rights.
Trump’s charge that children are undergoing gender transition surgeries in school is obviously absurd. But his words may have struck a chord with those who disagree with school districts that have teachers and administrators hide from parents that their children have adopted new gender identities. As The Times reported last year, one mother of a 15-year-old only accidentally discovered her child’s public school had been covering up the fact that for six months, her child had been going by a new name and using the boys’ bathroom.
In recent years, the concepts of gender identity and the possibility of being born in the wrong body have been introduced as early as elementary school. But a Washington Post poll found that 77 percent of Americans do not want teachers discussing these ideas in kindergarten through third grade and more than half oppose trans identity being talked about even in middle school.
The Democratic Party’s platform includes a pledge to defend gender-affirming care for minors. For people who are not well versed in the issue, this may sound like therapy to make children feel comfortable in their bodies; what it usually means in practice is allowing children to adopt a new name and pronouns, and in many cases, enabling them to change their bodies to resemble that of the opposite sex. This process can include puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, surgery. More than 14,000 American children had gender-related medical interventions between 2019 and 2023.
While much of Europe has been pulling back from the gender-affirmation model, evidence has emerged that in the United States, proponents of this approach have let politics color science.
To cite two recent examples, one prominent advocate of gender-affirming care suppressed her own government-funded research because she feared it might be “weaponized” against her agenda, The Times reported. Meanwhile, Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and human services chosen by President Biden, worked to get a transgender organization to remove age limits from its proposed guidelines for surgeries, including mastectomies and hysterectomies for minors, because she said they would give fuel to political foes, according to recently released court documents. After this disclosure, the Biden administration released a statement saying it opposed such surgeries for minors.
Yet the Department of Health and Human Services continues to say that gender-affirming care is “crucial” for young people and “has been shown to increase positive outcomes for transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents” — even though the most comprehensive overview of research, which assessed all major American and global studies on the subject, found scant evidence of this. Even so, all the leading American medical associations continue to back gender-affirming care.
In my reporting, I’ve spoken with many parents of gender-dysphoric kids, overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat, who told me they felt betrayed by Democrats and by the Biden administration on this issue. They resent being labeled “anti-trans” for questioning whether it’s right to simply accept what their children say about their gender, especially since those children often suffer from other mental health issues.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/opinion/trump-democrats-transgender.html?searchResultPosition=3
Ollie, I've been blipping over your comment here because it is so long, but finally I read [most of] it.
I too leave a lot of comments on Post articles, and my comments are constantly being deleted, but recently they are deleting them less often. I can see them deleting vulgar or abusive comments, but my comments are like yours -- intelligent and to the point, but not "pro-trans". Yes, I think the Post is beginning to change. Their recent editorial defending Seth Moulton's trans-skeptical comments was something they would not have posted in the last five years. I was both shocked and relieved by it.
Essentially, "one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens".
https://gwern.net/modus