Some medical decisions are easy. If you have hypothyroidism, take levothyroxine for the rest of your life. If you are going blind, get cataract surgery. Some medical decisions are more difficult, but we do have treatment histories. If you need a kidney transplant, go ahead if you can get a kidney with the understanding that you will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life and, therefore, immunocompromised. If you have stage 4 cancer, consider treatment versus quality of the rest of your life. Some medical decisions should be made only after careful consideration of at least all known risks and benefits. I suspect gender affirming therapy for children should be one of those decisions.
However, all medical decisions are made more difficult because the public does not understand that there are risks and benefits to taking any medication and/or having any medical procedure.
I think a basic problem is that there are four underlying polarities. Biologic sex, which is quite binary with only a few exceptions that basically prove the rule (XXY in mammals for example). Sexual preference (who you want to have sex with) which as Kinsey showed is much less binary. Social functioning on a "stereotypical" masculine / feminine scale, a concept that we do not have a decent word for but basically means that we posit that male and female behavior admits to a binary polarity. But clearly individuals do not. For most mammals this polarity has considerable truth. Humans are very atypical mammals and no one fits the extreme, in fact one who did would seem quite pathological. The most "masculine" man will nurture children and the most "feminine" woman run marathons. Lastly there is the desire to fit into a gender "role". The vast majority of humans have no issue here, partly I think because social functioning (and sexual preference) are not binary. A lesbian weightlifter can "identify" as a woman and a stay at home dad can "identify' as a man with out any deep "gender dysphoria". All these distinctions have some biological input, women with high testosterone levels are more likely to be athletic,"masculine" and lesbian. but all except biological sex have social input too. Trans is different. Why trans individuals are not comfortable fitting into one of these flexible roles is not clear.
This is such an example of a good conversation. Yasha, who I suspect shares a lot of perspective with Byrne, methodically and genuinely poses the counter arguments so that Byrne can make his view clear and we can see the contrast. What a refreshing break from the usual siloed "can you believe those idiots?" discourse among even the most intelligent thinkers.
Great conversation between Yascha and Alex and excellent comment stream.
Who decided that children as young as..... I don’t know .....6 or 7 or 5 are now taught that ‘gender’ is a real thing and they might not be the ‘gender’ that they think they are and then they come home and tell their parents at age 7 that they want to use they/them pronouns.
Who decided that it was good to confuse the children?
Just tell the children that some boys play with trucks and some boys like pink and sparkles and the same for the girls… Some girls like to play with dolls and some girls like trucks and mechanical things. We contain multitudes.
Although I am profoundly frustrated that we need this level of complex conversation on topics that should otherwise be quite simple to define and understand, I appreciate what I just read.
"So the first line of treatment should really be to encourage people to be comfortable living in their own sex bodies."
Bravo. Isn't this the key? Instead of throwing a big empathetic shroud of acceptance over confused hormonal kids, maybe they just need some guidance and time to develop their sexual orientation. Hell, I was confused when puberty hit. I remember being alarmed being aroused seeing my best same-sex friend naked during and sleep-over. But later I realized in my out of control flood of hormones I would get aroused over many things.
Lately I have been addicted to fantasy fiction novels written primarily by female writers with a female perspective. The better of these books do a fantastic job with the female and male characters; juxtaposing traditional male-female sexual tension and passion, but also challenging the typical warrior-hero vs saving-victim gender stereotypes.
It seems to me that this is the correct orientation that has been corrupted and lost by current gender ideology narrative from the 3rd wave postmodernist feminist hive. Somehow we have allowed that power to convolute the simple sweetness of male-female sexual behavior into a conflict of gender identity. The correct orientation, I think, should be to promote and value that sweet simplicity while also promoting progressive deconstruction of unhealthy bias in traditional societal gender roles.
Sex is sex... biologically functioning for species reproduction, but for humans also serving some of our deeper sweet emotional and psychological needs. Made too complex, we lose that sweetness and miss out on our related needs fulfillment. Gender bias seems a completely different topic and one that more people could get behind accepting progressive concepts if sex wasn't woven into it.
2 + 2 = 5, and everyone knows it. The Earth is flat, and everyone knows it. The Sun orbits the Earth and everyone knows it. Sex is a spectrum and everyone knows it.
Some medical decisions are easy. If you have hypothyroidism, take levothyroxine for the rest of your life. If you are going blind, get cataract surgery. Some medical decisions are more difficult, but we do have treatment histories. If you need a kidney transplant, go ahead if you can get a kidney with the understanding that you will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life and, therefore, immunocompromised. If you have stage 4 cancer, consider treatment versus quality of the rest of your life. Some medical decisions should be made only after careful consideration of at least all known risks and benefits. I suspect gender affirming therapy for children should be one of those decisions.
However, all medical decisions are made more difficult because the public does not understand that there are risks and benefits to taking any medication and/or having any medical procedure.
I think a basic problem is that there are four underlying polarities. Biologic sex, which is quite binary with only a few exceptions that basically prove the rule (XXY in mammals for example). Sexual preference (who you want to have sex with) which as Kinsey showed is much less binary. Social functioning on a "stereotypical" masculine / feminine scale, a concept that we do not have a decent word for but basically means that we posit that male and female behavior admits to a binary polarity. But clearly individuals do not. For most mammals this polarity has considerable truth. Humans are very atypical mammals and no one fits the extreme, in fact one who did would seem quite pathological. The most "masculine" man will nurture children and the most "feminine" woman run marathons. Lastly there is the desire to fit into a gender "role". The vast majority of humans have no issue here, partly I think because social functioning (and sexual preference) are not binary. A lesbian weightlifter can "identify" as a woman and a stay at home dad can "identify' as a man with out any deep "gender dysphoria". All these distinctions have some biological input, women with high testosterone levels are more likely to be athletic,"masculine" and lesbian. but all except biological sex have social input too. Trans is different. Why trans individuals are not comfortable fitting into one of these flexible roles is not clear.
This is such an example of a good conversation. Yasha, who I suspect shares a lot of perspective with Byrne, methodically and genuinely poses the counter arguments so that Byrne can make his view clear and we can see the contrast. What a refreshing break from the usual siloed "can you believe those idiots?" discourse among even the most intelligent thinkers.
Great conversation between Yascha and Alex and excellent comment stream.
Who decided that children as young as..... I don’t know .....6 or 7 or 5 are now taught that ‘gender’ is a real thing and they might not be the ‘gender’ that they think they are and then they come home and tell their parents at age 7 that they want to use they/them pronouns.
Who decided that it was good to confuse the children?
Just tell the children that some boys play with trucks and some boys like pink and sparkles and the same for the girls… Some girls like to play with dolls and some girls like trucks and mechanical things. We contain multitudes.
Although I am profoundly frustrated that we need this level of complex conversation on topics that should otherwise be quite simple to define and understand, I appreciate what I just read.
"So the first line of treatment should really be to encourage people to be comfortable living in their own sex bodies."
Bravo. Isn't this the key? Instead of throwing a big empathetic shroud of acceptance over confused hormonal kids, maybe they just need some guidance and time to develop their sexual orientation. Hell, I was confused when puberty hit. I remember being alarmed being aroused seeing my best same-sex friend naked during and sleep-over. But later I realized in my out of control flood of hormones I would get aroused over many things.
Lately I have been addicted to fantasy fiction novels written primarily by female writers with a female perspective. The better of these books do a fantastic job with the female and male characters; juxtaposing traditional male-female sexual tension and passion, but also challenging the typical warrior-hero vs saving-victim gender stereotypes.
It seems to me that this is the correct orientation that has been corrupted and lost by current gender ideology narrative from the 3rd wave postmodernist feminist hive. Somehow we have allowed that power to convolute the simple sweetness of male-female sexual behavior into a conflict of gender identity. The correct orientation, I think, should be to promote and value that sweet simplicity while also promoting progressive deconstruction of unhealthy bias in traditional societal gender roles.
Sex is sex... biologically functioning for species reproduction, but for humans also serving some of our deeper sweet emotional and psychological needs. Made too complex, we lose that sweetness and miss out on our related needs fulfillment. Gender bias seems a completely different topic and one that more people could get behind accepting progressive concepts if sex wasn't woven into it.
2 + 2 = 5, and everyone knows it. The Earth is flat, and everyone knows it. The Sun orbits the Earth and everyone knows it. Sex is a spectrum and everyone knows it.
How I see it:
Traditional Values: if you're a gender non-conforming man you're not really a man, if you're a gender non-conforming woman you're not really a woman.
Feminism and gay liberation: if you're GNC, you're as much of a man or a woman as anyone else.
Trans ideology: if you're GNC, you're not really the sex you were "assigned at birth".
We're going backwards.