Transgender Rights

almostinsane

Well-known member




The views on transgenderism vary. The crux of the divide centers on the protection of vulnerable people from what I've seen. The side that promotes transgenderism sees it as a natural gender identity and wants greater acceptance of it in order to lessen harm and promote equality, citing hate crimes and suicide rates.

The side that opposes transgenderism believes that it is a mental illness that kids will often grow out of, does harm to the ones undergoing sex change, and an attempt to subvert traditional gender even as they promote gender stereotypes (e.g. tomboys are transgender).

Both want to protect people who are vulnerable, but they disagree on what is harmful.

What are your opinions of the issue? How would you address the concerns of people who want to live as transgenders and fear hate crimes as they undergo very real depression versus those who fear the impact of transgenderism on children, particularly if the state is involved when, say, a child claims to be the opposite biological gender at school?
 
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D

Deleted member 1

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I believe that the rights of diagnosed transsexuals should be respected and that delineations on privacy and access should be drawn based on diagnosis and state of medical care. Personally I think transsexuals are, for lack of a better term, "soulwomen" who have the spiritual qualities of women, but they will manifest that by actively physically transitioning through hormones and surgery. I do believe it's a question of medical rigour, not of age of the patient. Certainly, though, there are some people who simply claim to be women, thanks to the prevailing culture of the time, and then enter women's restrooms without a medical diagnosis or hormone therapy -- and I think I have a right to insist that not be the case. I also think people worry about what is a very trivial issue far too much, and that healthy compromise in this area might be virtuous. It oftentimes seems like the concerns of women are taking a back-seat to the interests of a very small group of people who want access to female spaces without actually fitting into them.
 

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
As someone who has worked in the medical profession, has a degree in the subject, and only got out of the field because I got injured and could no longer do the job, I see transgender people to be in deep need of counseling.

When people claimed that their arm was not a part of their body, and demanded that we cut it off, we kept them safe, got them on antipsychotics, and then got them counseling. Somatoparaphrenia, BDD, whatever. We don't go for surgical correction. The standard treatment is counseling. People with Gender Dysphoria need counseling as well.

They have a biological gender. Wishing that it was different isn't going to help them, and 'Gender Reassignment Surgery' isn't. It is mutilation, and it doesn't solve or treat the underlying problems the patient has. In fact, it frequently makes them worse. This is observable based on the increased rate of suicide following such surgery. People don't get what they were promised.

Does this mean I somehow hate transgender people?

Nope. It is, however, a struggle not to hate the doctors that perform such surgeries, knowing what they're doing to their patients.

Another problem I have with current action involves the situation with transgender bathrooms. Letting men into a womens' restroom because they claim to be transgender or vice versa is a problem. There have already been sexual assaults as a result of this. Don't remember if the man in question actually managed to commit rape as well or not. If people want to spend money building a third, single bathroom for the gender-confused like they sometimes do for baby changing, they have that right, but I'm against mixing genders in the same bathroom at the same time.

I've also got strong opinions about transgendered people in women's sports, but I'll step down off my soapbox now.
 

Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
Exceedingly simple solution.

If someone is willing to go to the length of surgicially altering their body to change gender, let them.

From that point just treat them as normal. There, I solved the transgender rights issue.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
Children should not ever be reassigned, as their personality and identity is not yet formed, they could flip to cis in a few years and ironically end up with gender dysphoria because of reassignment.

As for adults, they are adults, I do not believe we should be "protecting them from themselves" (there's nothing to protect against, in any case).

If gender reassignment works to solve the gender dysphoria issue, and a consenting adult decides to go through with it, then as far as I'm concerned there's not much left to talk about.

Regarding the way society should behave toward and around them, that's a more complex issue. We simply can't and shouldn't treat trans people exactly like their new gender, at the very least in sports for certain (since they are still genetically their old gender their aptitude and ability will reflect that, male-to-female trans will gain a very unfair physical advantage in women's sports).

Maybe the solution is to just treat them as nonbinary and shove them into their own category of gender, but it's very possible that they'll be unwilling to go along with that of course. It should be worked out with the cooperation of the LGBT community, but on issues like sports society shouldn't budge period.
 

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
If someone is willing to go to the length of surgicially altering their body to change gender, let them.
If we could actually change someone's gender? I would agree with you. But that isn't what we're doing.

We don't have the ability to turn someone who is a male into a female or vice versa, what we're doing is telling them that's what we're doing, then mutilating them so that they aren't really either gender anymore. People who take a bunch of pills for the rest of their lives can look like they're the other gender, but that isn't what people actually want in most cases. And the suicide rates reflect that.
 

Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
If we could actually change someone's gender? I would agree with you. But that isn't what we're doing.

We don't have the ability to turn someone who is a male into a female or vice versa, what we're doing is telling them that's what we're doing, then mutilating them so that they aren't really either gender anymore. People who take a bunch of pills for the rest of their lives can look like they're the other gender, but that isn't what people actually want in most cases. And the suicide rates reflect that.

Do they have the parts?

If answer is yes - they are now X gender/sex/whatever.

Can it be awkward? Yes. But beyond that I don't see the issue.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
If we could actually change someone's gender? I would agree with you. But that isn't what we're doing.

We don't have the ability to turn someone who is a male into a female or vice versa, what we're doing is telling them that's what we're doing, then mutilating them so that they aren't really either gender anymore. People who take a bunch of pills for the rest of their lives can look like they're the other gender, but that isn't what people actually want in most cases. And the suicide rates reflect that.

I'm not very medically literate, so maybe you can answer this: is there any prospective or even speculative technology or technique that could make "real" sex change possible in the future (aside from completely out there soft scifi stuff like transferring consciousness into a cloned body)? Like, maybe gene therapy or whatever?
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
Do they have the parts?

If answer is yes - they are now X gender/sex/whatever.

Can it be awkward? Yes. But beyond that I don't see the issue.
Some of the issues were touched upon in this thread, such as unfair advantages/disadvantages in sports and potential bathroom shenanigans.
 

Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
Some of the issues were touched upon in this thread, such as unfair advantages/disadvantages in sports and potential bathroom shenanigans.

I swear the fearmongering about Bathrooms is ridiculous.

If they have, the parts, then they are now X. Consequently them using the bathrooms isn't that big a deal.

If someone actually goes to all the trouble of changing their body to perve in some bathroom (lots of $) then they have problems.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
I swear the fearmongering about Bathrooms is ridiculous.

If they have, the parts, then they are now X. Consequently them using the bathrooms isn't that big a deal.

If someone actually goes to all the trouble of changing their body to perve in some bathroom (lots of $) then they have problems.

What if some people actually do have problems and so exactly what you suggest? Also, can you always tell at a glance who is trans and who is cis? Often you can, but some don't really dress like their new gender.

IMO the bathrooms is the lesser issue though, you didn't touch the sports problem.
 

Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
What if some people actually do have problems and so exactly what you suggest? Also, can you always tell at a glance who is trans and who is cis? Often you can, but some don't really dress like their new gender.

IMO the bathrooms is the lesser issue though, you didn't touch the sports problem.

Eh, for sports I guess its something for the people who run it to decide. I don't know enough sciency shit to judge whether it gives an unfair advantage or not (for instance, i'd imagine chess or ping pong are distinctly less affected)
 

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
Do they have the parts?
That's just it. The answer is no. They appear to have the parts, but they can't have children, they're stuck on a regimen of drugs for the rest of their lives, and when they find out it isn't what they want, there's no going back. They're stuck.

I'm not very medically literate, so maybe you can answer this: is there any prospective or even speculative technology or technique that could make "real" sex change possible in the future (aside from completely out there soft scifi stuff like transferring consciousness into a cloned body)? Like, maybe gene therapy or whatever?
Wasn't my area, but I haven't heard about anything that even comes close. It's not even as simple as swapping out half the body's genetic material and changing it without accidentally giving someone cancer or a genetic disease in the process. You'd basically have to liquefy them and rebuild them. Even the structure of the brain is different between men and women, which you'd need to fix because of hormone regulation.

As an Educated Wild Assed Guess? Not less than eighty years. Probably more like a hundred and eighty.

If someone actually goes to all the trouble of changing their body to perve in some bathroom (lots of $) then they have problems.
That's not the issue we were discussing about bathrooms. Agree about the thing with the parts, because sending someone that looks like a man into a women's restroom is asking for an incident.

What we've been discussing is the at least one(I read about one. There may be more that I haven't read about) sexual assault a man that claimed to be Trans perpetrated on a woman when he wandered into a womens' bathroom.

Eh, for sports I guess its something for the people who run it to decide. I don't know enough sciency shit to judge whether it gives an unfair advantage or not (for instance, i'd imagine chess or ping pong are distinctly less affected)
There's actually a recent journal article that was published in ... Australia, I think, about this issue. Don't remember where I read it now, but the short version is that even after hormone therapy, Trans people that used to be male have an advantage over cis-women. A big one. Because they went through puberty as a male and thus have the physiological changes that brings about.

Edit: Found it. Also, it was Kiwis, not Aussies. Plz don't kill me.
 
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GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
That's just it. The answer is no. They appear to have the parts, but they can't have children, they're stuck on a regimen of drugs for the rest of their lives, and when they find out it isn't what they want, there's no going back. They're stuck.


Wasn't my area, but I haven't heard about anything that even comes close. It's not even as simple as swapping out half the body's genetic material and changing it without accidentally giving someone cancer or a genetic disease in the process. You'd basically have to liquefy them and rebuild them. Even the structure of the brain is different between men and women, which you'd need to fix because of hormone regulation.

As an Educated Wild Assed Guess? Not less than eighty years. Probably more like a hundred and eighty.

I was wondering if it's possible at all, frankly even if it's in 500 years that would still be a net positive.
 

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
I was wondering if it's possible at all, frankly even if it's in 500 years that would still be a net positive.
I'd still think it was weird, but when you come right down to it, people are allowed to be weird. 'Normal' is just a setting on your dryer, and most of them don't even have it anymore.

Edit: Also, I categorically refuse to underestimate scientists. For all that there are a lot of unoriginal quacks out there, there are also a bunch of people who are coming up with amazing things. Especially with America pushing a trip to Mars. Shit like that really drives the frontiers of science forward.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
I'd still think it was weird, but when you come right down to it, people are allowed to be weird. 'Normal' is just a setting on your dryer, and most of them don't even have it anymore.

Edit: Also, I categorically refuse to underestimate scientists. For all that there are a lot of unoriginal quacks out there, there are also a bunch of people who are coming up with amazing things. Especially with America pushing a trip to Mars. Shit like that really drives the frontiers of science forward.

What is weird? Gender reassignment? Well, it's comparatively new from a historical viewpoint, so I guess it can be said to be "weird". They are also a small minority so an average person doesn't meet a lot, so they might be unused to a person that appears as one gender and self-identifies as another.

In the end it's their right to do with their bodies as they wish (even if, from a pure cold medical perspective, it amounts to nothing more than mutilation), and I see no reason to lose respect for them over this.
 

The Original Sixth

Well-known member
Founder
What I say will be deeply unpopular. A lot of people here and elsewhere won't like it.

No, I don't think they're women.

I think there is something wrong in their head and we need to figure out what it is. I don't think a part of that is making those who are truly suffering from some sort of problem feel like freaks. On the other hand, I suspect there are those who do it for attention or because they're really fucked in the head. I offer them little to no respect.

My position is that we try and solve the problem while being as humane as possible.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
What I say will be deeply unpopular. A lot of people here and elsewhere won't like it.

No, I don't think they're women.

I think there is something wrong in their head and we need to figure out what it is. I don't think a part of that is making those who are truly suffering from some sort of problem feel like freaks. On the other hand, I suspect there are those who do it for attention or because they're really fucked in the head. I offer them little to no respect.

My position is that we try and solve the problem while being as humane as possible.

It's not impossible that some people do it as a "fad" or from some sort of deluded ideology, but I have no reason to doubt the majority are sincere with their gender dysphoria.
 

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