But instead you demand of other folk that they must conform to your inadequate notions of sex, sexuality and gender. — Banno

Trans rhetoric makes disputable claims which are open for public scrutiny. I can't control what people think but I can assess the truth value of what they say.
Nevertheless what has happened is to try and redefine sex and identity and the truth of biology and psychology for everyone, so you damn well better think I am going to be concerned.

Affirming gender nonsense is harmful it is not just about the content of one persons mind but how society must be structured so as not to upset this person. You can convince a vulnerable person that they have a gender identity they don't such as claiming there is such things as a hundred genders and they might have been born in the worn body.

More debate and scrutiny is desperately needed so people undergoing gender affirmation are truly well informed on what is entailed.

We are being told mixed messages. First that trans identities are not a mental health issue but then that surgeries and hormones are urgently needed or said person will kill themselves.

This seems to be one of almost the only instances I can think of where someone's belief has to be affirmed by others. It is the equivalent of religious compulsion. You have to act as if you truly think a biological male is a female and if you read posts on this you know that even trans people can sense when you are just pretending to believe they are the opposite sex.

Limitations are what allows for reality to even exist — Garrett Travers

This might not be true.

"In the metaphysics of identity, the Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Reality could be forever fluctuating. For example you can have a pet dog, a drawing of your dog, a computer graphic of your dog and a photo of your dog and you still recognise the dog in different mediums. What is what we experience doesn't necessarily have to be consistent just present the same identity.

Before the radio, television, airplanes, internet etc these would have seemed impossible to exist and did to some including Lord Kelvin physicist who said “heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”.

Obviously human creativity and innovation has yet to hit a brick wall.

Solipsism is nonsense, you can tell because I'm typing to you. No shit. — Garrett Travers

How do I know you are not a creation of my imagination? A dream? It takes more effort than that to refute it.

No evidence to suggest there will be an afterlife, and why would anybody desire one? — Garrett Travers

There are actually lots of anecdotal accounts of near death experience.

There obvious reasons why people would want an afterlife. I don't see why you would struggle to think of any.

There are versions of reality that would allow for an afterlife for example other dimensions, idealism and solipsism, the notion of consciousness as separate from but interacting with the brain.

I was interested in what facts would make something impossible not whether evidence exists for something.

Still overly concerned as to the contents of other folk's underwear, I see.

Odd. — Banno

This is deliberate nonsense. Thousands of young women have had there breasts chopped off a male swimmer has beaten women's records and there are male rapists in female prisons.

Why do they call this a philosophy forum?

There is lots of evidence trans ideology is harmful to peoples minds and bodies. I have posted links on here including a video by a young man who has penis removed because he thought he could be a woman who now regrets it. So Please stop lying by your glib dismissals.

Female genital mutilation is considered a a horror when it happens in Africa but in the west it is now seen as gender reaffirming surgery and the version in the west causes a woman to be come infertile, have an increased of dementia and heartache, lead to complications such as fistulas, adhesions, arterial bleeds. I think people like you in history will be see on the wrong side and accomplices to grievous harm for reasons only you can fathom.

Chromosomal sex is not the entirety of sex. There’s also hormonal sex and anatomical sex. If anything, anatomical sex is the original referent of the word, from before we knew anything about hormones or chromosomes. And there are some people naturally born with a chromosomal sex that differs from their hormonal or anatomical sex (women AFAB but with XY chromosomes), and everyone has always referred to them by their anatomical sex (as we usually don’t know anything but anatomical sex about anyone).

Hormonal and genital sex can be changed already, and it’s only a matter of time before chromosomal sex can be changed too (hello CRISPR). — Pfhorrest

I think this picture of changing sex is insidious. A woman who has her breasts removed because of cancer is not becoming more male. A man with long hair is not becoming more female. There are two distinct sex categories male and female which are need for reproduction one produces sperm, the other eggs and the capacity to grow a baby inside themselves. (We all once lived inside our mothers) This is the sex binary and how we identify males and females. It is not capable being a spectrum.
An inverted penis is not analogous to a vagina or a functional part of a reproductive system. A phalloplasty or metoidioplasty are useless for reproduction and not anything like a functioning penis.

It is a bizarre maybe utopian fantasy that you can gradually change someone into the opposite sex. It seems the ultimate goal is to have some kind of machine where someone can enter and change sex instantaneously if they have the desire to live as the opposite sex and change back if they get tired of doing so.
But pandering to the different stages of this ideal, compromises peoples bodies and women's rights among other things. Sex stereotypes are attached to biological sex. It seems strange to be aspire to be treated like a biological woman whilst never having the biological reality that lead to said stereotypes.

On top of this there is not a unified trans ideology and a complete lack of coherent definition of gender and distinction between it and sex so that some people take on the moniker of woman with no intention of trying to biologically transition but seeing sex/gender id as apparently purely mental.

I think that if something is actually wrong then opinions don't matter.

The conviction something is wrong backed up by arguments and evidence means that someone's moral position is strongest.

So in this sense I am not a moral relativist. Either nothing is right or wrong or there is a moral fact.

As I mentioned about harm previously I think harm is objective and even without morality a calculation of harms can be made. My idea of harm is based on my own ability to experiences pain and the belief other humans have similar experiences.

I am currently a moral nihilist. I don't think moral claims can have a truth value.

But nihilism doesn't favour anyone because it means all value statements have no truth value.

I think that you can talk meaningfully about harm and prove that creating life creates harm. I don't think you can deny that harms are caused by creating life, that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Creating a child is creating someone else who can form their own opinion about having been created so I don't think someone can be told that their parents did them no wrong because they are the person who is having the requisite experiences.

It may come down to a battle of moral intuitions that can't be resolved.

Personally I think the level of harm humans have and do experience like genocide, war, famine and disease etc outweighs any of life's pleasures.

According to Richard Dawkins:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

http://www.austroindonesianartsprogram.org/blog/most-polluted-river-world-citarum-river-indonesia

Here's an example. Who is the person you know the most about?

The answer is you. It is self knowledge. Among the things you know is your thoughts, dreams feelings, how hot you feel, how cold you feel, your pains etc. The idea you have equal knowledge of someone else is implausible.

Harold Shipman was one of histories most prolific serial killers. His wife slept next to him in the bed for years without knowing his murderous secrets. He was apparently the only person who knew about his rampage. This private knowledge doesn't make sense without a self.

If something is truly unconscious no one knows about it and it is unavailable to consciousness and nothing can be said about. Unconscious knowledge doesn't make sense.

Any sort of self concept must arise as a product of understanding, — Pop

Self is not a concept though.

The concept of self is a concept but that goes for everything. Everything can be described in conceptual terms.

We have experiences and try and conceptualise them but the experience require a self. We can reach this conclusion after starting to experience and seeing its necessity.

Phrases like "Self concept" and "Sense of self" beg the question. they already assume what they claim. I describe self as an experience.

However my argument was about how to have a coherent unified perception which must be had in front of an observer. That is not an intuition it is a logical necessity. If 5 people saw different parts of an object they may not be able to identify that object without communicating with each other. Information is integrated in front of the perceiver/thinker. Self is like pain though it is entirely first person and direct knowledge of it is had.

Many things are reliant upon self including language, perception, dreams, illusions and music.

A unified perception is a cluster of different things like shapes, molecules and colours that become united to the perceiver as an object.

Reality would be just confused mess of random incoherent experiences or unperceived interactions without united perception.

An illusion requires a self to be subject to the illusion. Consciousness and and self denying positions just hold back the study of phenomena usually for ideological reasons. Other than the claims that consciousness and self are illusory there are the tactics of mischaracterising the phenomena and semantic games to also stunt the progress of investigation.

If there were no selves no one would know a reality exists. Knowing only happens because we are selves.

"Objectivity is the view from nowhere" Thomas Nagel.

What is the obsession over feeling like we NEED to distinguish human sex? — GTTRPNK

Human sex is distinguished by observation. Women and girls have uteruses and vaginas. Men don't. It is not a creation or construct it is an observation of biological reality.

Here's some real-world stuff to contemplate. — Banno

ok

Nevertheless, the internet is a goldmine of information but the catch/drawback is extremely low signal-to-noise ratio i.e. getting one's hands on a valuable piece of data would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. — TheMadFool

It isn't that complex in my opinion.
In my previous thread I noted that more people to Trans porn threads than Trans issue threads.
I don't know why but it is a noticeable easily discovered stat.
Porn is alleged to dominate the internet. I don't why but it is an easily explored phenomena.
I think a lot of the jargon in studies is formal and covers a lack of substance and clarity.


I think that Anything is evidence. Something is evidence of something. This is like the question "Why is there something rather than nothing"

I think only nothing would be a lack of evidence.

It's a reliable strategy. It cuts down on people having their humors adjusted by leeches. — Cheshire

That type of things was the foundation of science.

Scientists came up with crazy theories, tried crazy things and some of them worked.

But I am not talking about theories but about evidence. We negotiate reality using the evidence of your senses.

For example if you drop a glass and it breaks you don't need to know any physics to assume dropping the glass caused it to break and that there were no occult forces at work. From these generalisations we can seek theories which may succeed or may be open ended.

Another important thing which I have probably mentioned elsewhere in the past is that you cannot always prove personal experience this is endemic in sexual assault/consent cases. It is considered that most sexual assaults do not lead to criminal convictions because it is one persons word against another.

One of them is telling the truth and one is lying.

. For a study to be scientific, it would need to follow accepted scientific methodology which would include peer review and duplication — Hanover

The study cited in the aforementioned thread had not been replicated but was published academically . I also mentioned the replication crisis in science in that thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

Isolated anecdotes are distinguished from trends in that the latter are associated with higher frequency of occurrence and predictability. . A study of trends is scientific if it follows established statistical methodology. — Hanover

I am not claiming that either anecdotes or data on Reddit are scientific but that they are valid and in some cases dispute the science or present valid untapped data sources.

I am just attacking the notion that only science is a reliable source of evidence or that evidence has to be couched in scientific jargon citing p-values etc.

The value of personal accounts sometimes deemed anecdotes and their use in qualitative studies is that they go into more depth and context than stats. None of this is infallible however.

There's no evidence that it didn't happen either. There's also very little evidence of them since the little that is known about transgender people before modern times showed that they were most often killed and forced to comply with society — Christoffer

The point I made is you could not be trans in to days sense of having cross sex hormones and plastic surgery etc because it wasn't technically possible not because of prejudice. There could only be gender non conforming people.

Nevertheless you can't just claim there was a wave of trans suicides and murders in history without
citations or evidence.

Contrapoints. (..) Philosophy Tube with Olly who just transitioned to Abigail — Christoffer

I have watched both their videos. Is there something they have said you would like to share. They are both cases of adult men who didn't commit suicide due to dysphoria and "transitioned later in life"

Contra actually outed herself as an Autogynephilic which is an unpopular but most supported theory of male to female transsexuality. Contra also debated with Blaire White before Contra transitioned where Blaire described a neo vagina as a wound that you need to dilate regularly to stop it healing and said that gender dysphoria was a mental health problem not something to be celebrated.

You're equating sex with gender and that results in a lot of confusion for you apparently. — Benkei

Gender is a grammatical term. English does not apply gender this way. Sex is a biological reality.

Calling a ship "she" is not a biological claim.

Throughout my entire childhood no one mentioned the term gender apart from possibly when I studied German and French at school.

Now the Gender fairy is everywhere blessing us with new identities. Just make one up and accuse someone of a hate crime for not affirming you.

One of the cases I linked to is Penny Cunningham

Age 11 "I'm trans"
Age 13 Puberty Blockers
Age 14 Testosterone
Age 15 Double Mastectomy
Age16 Crowd funding for breast reconstruction.

just another anecdote...

Thanks.

I also note that the Swedish study you referenced showed female likelihood of sexual violence if proper psychological care was provided to trans women — me

If you gave every man oestrogen I am sure it would reduce crime rates.

Chop a mans arms off it will reduce crime rates.

Most trans criminals identify as such after the crime which is rather late.

"Beate Schmidt (born Wolfgang Schmidt October 5, 1966) is a German serial killer. From October 1989 to April 1991, Schmidt murdered five women and an infant. Schmidt is a trans woman."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Schmidt

So the reason Beate killed six people is because she wasn't offered puberty blockers and gender reassignment.

"In 2010, Schmidt was investigated for raping and causing another transgender inmate to attempt suicide"

Why would it be delusional if I thought I was a cat but not if I thought I was a woman?

It is ridiculous that people think that you can be a man trapped in a woman's body and vice versa with no coherent explanation (unless you think 21 dysphoric women and brain imaging in mental rotation test decides gender over having a womb or penis)

Apparently chopping your penis and testicles or breasts off triumphs over sexual dimorphism.

The only science involved in this is the science of plastic surgery. Not the science of biology, reproduction or psychology. It is not psychologist creating pseudo vaginas.

So when people are diagnosed with gender dysphoria you nevertheless maintain both the psychologist and the patient have a false belief based on what? — Benkei

Gender dysphoria does not mean that you were born in the wrong body. Just like a diagnosis of anorexia does not mean you are fat.

Try impregnating a trans woman and see how far that gets.

I am not questioning the existence of people dissatisfied with their sex. I am dissatisfied with humanity as everyone should be but that does not entail spending thousands of pounds/dollars/euros on bogus reassignment surgeries that shorten your life span.

Oh right, so when you use the word "delusional" it doesn't have a psychological meaning — Benkei

I never claimed it was an academic term.

It is a fact that men cannot become women and vice versa. Why do you believe otherwise?

How does surgery and hormones turn a man into a woman. Can that woman have periods, give birth, have uterus, menopause etc.

That is what I mean by delusional.

Most of my evidence has not been anecdotal. Trans "women" exhibit male patterned criminal behaviour. Trans "Men" are not assaulting people and winning athletic trophies from men and trying to enter male prisons and sexually assaulting men.

I pointed out that studies (very few) claiming reassignment surgery produces benefits have mainly been retracted. That is not anecdotal that is a fact I provided evidence for.

You are symptomatic of all my opponents here who clearly haven't read anything I have posted.

I said that I know 4 trans people and someone who refused to read most of my posts asked me if I knew any trans people.

Just get an eye test and read and respond to my actual posts or continue to be a burden on humanity.

That makes you unqualified as a psychologist — Benkei

I am not a psychologist and I didn't diagnose anyone as delusional. Anyhow anyone who thinks a man can become a woman and vice versa is delusional from a non psychiatric perspective but from a perspective of understanding the restraints of reality.

I can't tell on both counts. — Benkei

I'm not surprised.

However is this the best you can do to resort ad hominem after the tonnes of evidence I have provided on this thread?

I have a degree in psychology and philosophy.

How did that happen?

There is good evidence of the fetishistic element of transgenderism on Reddit.

R/Trans has 181k members

R/Transporn has 284k members. It consists of images of Trans women who like the majority still have their penis intact.

R/TransGone Wild is similar with 78k members

Likewise R/Traps which has 553k members.

Why has Gender dysphoria not led to penis removal/inversion & castration ?

Propaganda — Moliere

You haven't justified the claim it is propaganda. There are lots of trans people reporting how reassignment surgery damaged their health. I mentioned the case of Jazz Jennings earlier.

She was put on puberty blockers that meant her penis was not big enough to turn into a neo/pseudo vagina. Puberty blockers make gender reassignment surgery even more harmful.

I can cite numerous cases of botched surgery and detransition but people will still claim "It's only a tiny minority"

In comparison affirming someone as gay requires no surgery, no lifelong medication, no stunted puberty, no infringement on women's rights, no possibility of turning someone else gay.
Interestingly Scott Newgent is still living as a man. That may be because a lot of reassignment procedures are irreversible and reconstruction surgeries would cost another pile of cash.

Jess Bradley Claimed "There is no such thing as a "Real woman""

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jess-bradley/trans-women_b_15486434.html

Biology would beg to differ and real women would.

"UK — Manchester, England. In July 2018, Jess (né Josh) Bradley, the first person to be elected Britain’s ‘transgender students’ officer’ by the National Union of Students (NUS), was suspended for allegedly posting explicit photographs on an online blog. Images on the website include an individual flashing while sitting in a train carriage, in a public park and at a bus stop. Additionally, a photograph shows male genitals being exposed in an office close to a curved wooden desk that appears identical to a picture of a work desk posted on Bradley’s Facebook page. The blog was exposed by the Twitter account @xNoMoreSilencex, which tweeted numerous examples of alarming posts attributed to Bradley.


https://www.womenarehuman.com/transgender-students-officer-suspended-for-allegedly-publishing-pictures-of-male-genitalia-faces-no-additional-sanctions-jess-bradley/

I mean, when I read it, it just reads like propaganda to me. This part especially: — Moliere

The person has a YouTube channel, and twitter account.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQQWyq7PjhQ&t=30s

https://twitter.com/ScottNewgent

This is an interesting case:

https://antiplondon.tumblr.com/post/643086189186908160/we-need-balance-when-it-comes-to-gender-dysphoric

"I am a 48-year-old transgender man. I was thrilled when the medical community told me six years ago that I could change from a woman to a man. I was informed about all the wonderful things that would happen due to medical transition, but all the negatives were glossed over. Since then, I have suffered tremendously, including seven surgeries, a pulmonary embolism, an induced stress heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, arm reconstructive surgery,lung, heart and bladder damage, insomnia, hallucinations, PTSD, $1 million in medical expenses, and loss of home, car, career and marriage. All this, and yet I cannot sue the surgeon responsible—in part because there is no structured, tested or widely accepted baseline for transgender health care."

"During my post-operation 17 months of sheer survival, I discovered that transgender health care is experimental and that large swaths of the medical industry encourage minors to transition due, at least in part, to fat profit margins."

"The truth was that I didn’t fit in as a dominant, aggressive, assertive lesbian. "

https://antiplondon.tumblr.com/post/643086189186908160/we-need-balance-when-it-comes-to-gender-dysphoric

↪Andrew4Handel You know that's in one person nearly 30 years ago? — Cheshire

Yes but we don't know how effective this treatment would be in general because it is not being tried.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20209883/

"From time to time in scientific literature there are descriptions of a diagnosis of psychotic disorders in persons previously diagnosed and treated as transsexuals, in whom the transsexual thinking disappears after using antipsychotic agents. Coexistence of transsexualism and schizophrenia causes a lot of doubt--it is observed in scientists opinions but also in the diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV and ICD-10. Moreover, delusions of sex change are probably more frequent than it is thought. It causes, that in some cases the differential diagnosis of psychosis and gender identity disorders may be very difficult. Transsexuals treatment is on one hand connected with expected effects but on the other hand with many serious, often irreversible health consequences (e.g. cardiovascular disease, risk of neoplasma development, infertility, consequences of surgical sex reassignment). That is why the differential diagnosis of transsexualism and schizophrenia should be made carefully and thoughtfully."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20209883/

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/schizort/2014/463757/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimozide

"Pimozide is used in its oral preparation in schizophrenia and chronic psychosis (on-label indications in Europe only), Tourette syndrome,[1] and resistant tics (Europe, United States and Canada).

It was also shown to alleviate gender dysphoria.[7]"

https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201800232

Recent case series, however, suggest that gender dysphoria is separate from psychosis and often predates the onset of psychotic symptoms (11, 12). — Michael

That is conflating delusion and psychosis. There are many deluded people without psychosis.

Do anorexics suffer from psychosis? Should we affirm Anorexics in their belief that they are fat?

Have you ever spoken with or known anyone that's transgender? — Cheshire

If you read the thread you would know the answer to that. I have known four trans people they all had mental health problems.

Two of them are autistic like myself and the other two presented as autistic.

None of them passed as the opposite sex. I mentioned a conversation I had with one of them which was incoherent saying gender was a social construct but trying to transition into something they described as invented.