Trans Rights
So to preface this -- I am 100% supportive of trans people. I know a handful of trans folks who have transitioned (with and without surger) and are much happier now. In fact, I have an openly trans friend working in private equity who is accepted and celebrated by everyone she works with, which is incredible heartwarming in an industry with this reputation. I sincerely wish everyone the best and hope that people can find what makes them happy.
BUT... is the extreme vitriol and anger directed at anyone who remotely questions the trans narrative too far? I think there are valid reasons to question gender-neutral parenting, puberty blockers and surgery assigned to pre-teens, and de-transitioning but if you bring up any one of them, you're accused of "erasing" trans folks and supporting "genocide." This isn't my intention at all, but the way these issues are being presented is that there is a single, unquestionable truth (that's constantly getting more extreme) and any deviation (or just questioning) means you deserve to get canceled.
Maybe I'm missing something, but does this disturb anyone else? To reiterate, I wish all trans people the best, but sometimes drastic measures may not be the most prudent course of action. I hope that's not too extreme of a view.
You're being about 100x more deferential than is warranted. No, like ten years ago everyone in the country agreed that it's incredibly fucked up for parents with Cluster B personality disorders to inject their kid with hormones or to permanently mentally fuck them up. But now being anti-child abuse is evil, or something. Stop being deferential or apologetic. Wokies don't deserve it and they don't reward it. They sense weakness and attack harder.
Injecting kids with hormones is fucked up. Giving 14 year old girls double mastectomies is fucked up. Cutting dicks off of preteen boys is fucked up. The overwhelming majority of kids with feelings of "gender dysphoria" essentially grow out of it. Letting jacked 6ft tall dudes obliterate women in sports, while often hilarious, is fucked up. For a substantial % of these people it's a combination of fetish and a subculture that confers victimization status (victim status, so hot these days).
My position on the issue has never changed. I will take it seriously and consider it comparable to homosexuality when, on a rolling three person basis, I encounter three self-identified trans people who are otherwise mentally well-adjusted, contributing members of society.
Sloppy Steve did not hold back
Calling a spade a spade. Enough said.
Calling a spayed a spayed*
This is the way.
Trans people are overwhelmingly mentally ill and American society is pathetic right now.
I will say though, I hope every single female sport from middle school on up starts getting dominated by dudes who identify as female. The thought of some chick in high school getting dunked on or manhandled (hehe) on the soccer pitch is hilarious. It would also be fitting, as stupid white moms in urban metros will have to watch their biological daughters get destroyed and won’t be able to say anything about it because they’re the ones that tend to support this insanity in the first place.
honestly the number of trans athletes in this country is very small and the female to male trans athletes are at a disadvantage so it balances out. I don't think they should be restricted from playing and I am 100% in favor of girls getting manhandled on the soccer field by trans athletes. Also do you really think that people are going to transition so they can play in the fucking WNBA and get paid less than a first year IB analyst?
Absolutely true. if your kid wants ice cream for dinner and to steal from the neighbors, you gonna just let em do that? The fuck is wrong with these people. This is the absolute definition of "first world problems"
if an adult wants to have ice cream for dinner, they're welcome to do that. In fact, based on appearances, I think most of this country does that.
No, "the extreme vitriol and anger" is not warranted. You're also not missing anything. BUT...the top 10% most vocal people of that community are probably the assholes you're talking about, not the other 90%. Please, no more. If anything, you already know what response you're going to get by posting this on WSO lmao.
Gender dysphoria (which causes people to be transgender) is a severe manifestation of anti-social behavior. Transgender people are more likely to be sexual predators, drug abusers, have difficulty holding down jobs, have difficulty maintaining relationships, and are more likely to use violence to get what they want.
Nobody "hates" this community. Normal people just recognize that they suffer from a lot of problems and are an immediate danger to children. The answer is to try to cure them of their problems, not jam them full of body-altering drugs and start snipping away at appendages.
Do Catholic priests fall under this category as well?
I feel like I recall reading somewhere that statistically speaking, public school teachers are substantially worse (10x?) than Catholic priests when it comes to engaging in pedophilia. Although I wonder if that's more a factor of the teachers just having a larger number of longer interactions with children on a regular basis Mon-Fri vs a priest who mostly is just Sundays or that the public school system is just that much worse than people give it credit for.
No, they'd fall under the category of homosexual child predators. Do you feel better about yourself bringing them up?
We should absolutely be respectful and supportive of everyone who is trans or who has gender dysphoria and use their preferred pronouns, not misgender them etc because that's just basic human decency and respect. The struggles that trans people go through are bad enough by themself, please, just be kind and show respect for people's identity. People treat trans folks terribly and that needs to stop. Your time on this planet is limited, don't spend it getting triggered on people using different bathrooms.
But as someone who is LGBTQ+, I find the false equivocation between trans rights and gay rights in the 1970s and 1980s to be appalling. We should not let ten year olds decide that they want to be on puberty blockers and let kids get surgeries until they are old enough to make their own conscious decision. There's a real shortage of common sense on both sides here.
I do think that trans athletes should be allowed to compete as well.
This^... the amount of Ben Shapiro/Jordan Peterson fanboys that think it's funny or "right" to misgender someone on purpose is pretty pathetic. I agree with you. I don't think young teens (or their parents) are mature enough to make a decision like that but I can't help but feel that people use that argument as a way to justify transphobia.
If you knew anything about either Shapiro or Peterson you'd know their stated position--1,000 times--is that if a person, with sincerity, had asked for certain pronouns to be used they would use them in a one-on-one personal chat. Peterson said that most of the time people would come at him in bad faith and demand that he use their pronouns. Shapiro has said he won't use misleading pronouns in public debate/discussion.
Personally, I am a conservative person, both politically and socially, and I come from Italian and Irish Catholic families. I have friends who are gay, and I have a close friend who identifies as a man. The fact that we're such close friends has always confused people, but I respect them and their choices. However, if my son were to tell me he was gay or that he was a transexual, I would never be happy. I don't think I could overcome that.
Bottom line: the Holy Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and the Pope himself has condemned negative actions against gays. However, as much as "we are who we are" has its place, so does the understanding of where to draw the line. If we go so far off the deep end, we are practically asking for problems. As mentioned above, injecting kids with hormones and cutting the genitalia off of young children not old enough to know better -- it's not right. It isn't moral. And as far as I'm concerned, because God made us all in his image, it's like slapping Him in the face and rejecting the lives he gave us.
I'm sorry if this offends anyone -- I do not mean to do so -- but this is how I feel.
You don't have to apologize for your beliefs
Thank you, Monty. How's Smithers doing?
How do you reconcile being "unhappy" if you had a gay child, with the fact that God made everyone in his image (and thus made your hypothetical son gay?)
Not saying I agree with it, but I believe the premise would be that you can accept that the former, but you don't have to be happy about it.
I’ll preface this by saying i’m not particularly religious at all.
Most of Christian theology doesn’t stigmatize homosexual sentiment, it stigmatizes homosexual behavior. And it’s critical of the vast majority of heterosexual sexual behavior too. Your question is basically the same as asking “why would you be unhappy if your child had [a tendency towards any activity considered immoral] if they are made in the image of God”.
It’s essentially the philosophical question of theodicy, repackaged. Fine, can be interesting. But far from a “gotcha” for a crowd that isn’t full of dumbs on reddit.
Wouldn't your son being gay or trans be God's plan predestined from the start if it happened?
Abrahamitic religions reconcile that like having an illness or deformation. Easy answer.
I am sure the kid would be thrilled to know that his dad could not be happy if his son were gay. I wonder if he knows that the bible was written by humans.
I don't know if I can say it, but...
"Excellent!"
blah blah blah blah
At the end of the day there is a disconnect between mind and body and it is an illness. I often wonder if transitioning is really an effective solution. For some it is, but there are plenty of people who it seems to hurt.
When it comes to language like ‘genocide’ it is purely done to dominate the conversation. Frankly, comparing someone questioning whether their child should transition to genocide is very insulting to victims and survivors of actual genocide. People wanting what they think is best for children, even if it is as ‘horrible’ as normal development, is the polar opposite of genocide or hate. Frankly, making it seem mandatory is a form of force and people limiting the rights of parents to raise their child how they deem fit which tyrannical as fuck. Also, by limiting people’s ability to express their opinion on the matter is trampling their rights. It also prevents a reasonable discussion which could provide other methods that could help someone whose mind doesn’t line up with their genitalia to cope and realize whether transitioning is truly right for them or not.
My wife has pointed out that there are no anorexic girls at her school, however, there is a massive increase in female to male trans people and zero male to female. She thinks that there is a connection and thinks that the social pressure has changed, essentially it is semi-fashionable to be trans as a cry for help.
To put it into perspective the fact that your friend is ‘celebrated’ is in and of itself weird. You celebrate promotions, birthdays, weddings and such. The need to be celebrate someone for being who they are is fucking weird. Also, it is like the company is happy they can check a box. This in turn appears to be almost more for purposes of marketing rather than actually giving a shit about the person - which corporations are all about.
Personally, I’ve only met two noticeably trans people in my life. They were nice, but just acquaintances through mutual friends. I’m sure I’ve met more and not realized it, but it is something I’m generally not too concerned about when it comes to meeting people. If someone looks like a guy and goes by Brett I call them Brett. I don’t give a shit whether they transitioned or not.
Abigail Shrier's book is entirely about the phenomenon your wife notices. Historically, nearly all trans persons were biological males. In the last decade or so there has been an explosion of biological females--mostly teenage girls--who identify as trans, and what has been found is that there are friend groups at schools of girls who all identify as trans, which in normal circumstances would be almost statistically impossible. The book posits that this is a cultural phenomenon where teenage girls, in search of an identity, attention, and friends, are grabbing on to this trend. The book also points out that when girls take testosterone, it acts like a drug--it makes them feel like a million bucks. That drug-induced euphoria acts as confirmation to these girls that they are, in fact, trans.
I started a thread on that a few months ago, great book. It's terrifying what social media has done to amplify the trans phenomenon into a social contagion amongst young girls. I went to a top prep school in my home state (a red state) and something like 5%-10% of the graduating girls in the class and as much as 15% in some of the lower grades are starting in on this stuff. I've kept in touch with a few professors who were cool and the school's been under tons of pressure to create additional gender neutral spaces and add all these extra things to the budget just to make these people feel better about their own irrational decisions. I have a younger cousin who lives in VA who says there are a couple girls at his HS who have already had mastectomies (they got them together like bffs). We're going to have an entire generation of women who have permanently disfigured themselves, some to the point of never being able to have children, all because it's fucking gotten trendy in the last 10 years to praise victim mentality rather than try to resolve it. And what's worse is that concerned parents are villainized for trying to look out for their own kids and dare to question whether or not their child is genuinely trans or just getting sucked into the far-left's cultural tsunami of mentally depraved lunacy.
Jesus here I am over here not knowing a single trans person while there are girls getting their tits chopped off with each other like it’s an ear piercing at the mall
Dear God! How on Earth is it legal to perform mastectomies on physically healthy CHILDREN?! And what kind of a surgeon would agree to perform such a vile operation??!? Good God! We live in a sick, vile, repugnant society that would both allow and celebrate this depravity.
I don’t care.
At all.
If you have voices in your head that tell you that there are invisible zebras attacking you (when they’re not), you get medication. If the voices tell you you’re a female (when you’re not), you get an internship at KKR.
But that’s not my problem. I’ll call my colleagues “he” when she’s a “she.” They can mutilate mentally ill teenagers. And they can ruin women’s sports — no one cares to begin with.
Good luck, America.
Ultimately none of this matters - gender, race, trans, gay, straight - we're all just specks of dust in the universe. Live your life how you see fit and don't cause pain and suffering to other people including trans. We're all going to die - why the fuck should you care if someone who's male wants to identify as female? It's their life. If everyone here did pyschadelic mushrooms, I don't think that they would ultimately give a shit about any of this.
TWIST: You get canceled for publicly stating that Arkansas is correct for stopping the mutilation and/or destruction of literal children.
It’s like arguing that 16th century Christians should have just argued reasonably that “sola scriptura” was correct. Yeah the church would have burned them as heretics, but at least they made their point, right?
I don't think we care what adults do. But speaking for myself, I find it bizarre that everyone in the room speaks about trans people as if they are, say, really a woman when 100% of US know that is a lie. Our society is putting on an act, a big lie. No one actually believes a biological male literally has the soul or essence or consciousness of a female placed into the wrong body on the cosmic assembly line. No one really believes that. I find it insulting that I have to pretend a mental illness is really a mismatched soul. If a Jew had to acknowledge the divinity of Jesus under cultural or even legal force they would rightly find it offensive.
Fuck off with this low-tier libertarian nonsense. Id prefer to live in a society where the mentally ill are helped rather than celebrated for chopping their dicks off and putting on wigs before committing suicide, but I guess we’re past that point. Now I just want to shield this shit from my kids before Americas inevitable collapse.
America's collapse is inevitable, not sure why you'd want to bring kids into the world in this country unless you've built up a huge cushion of capital for them
Cultural marxism.
Feminists went out of their way to emasculate and humiliate men starting from childhood. The emotional battering young males are inflicted from educators, media and society in general is overwhelming. The outcome? You wanted ''men'' to be ''more in touch with their feelings and their feminine side''? You wanted ''equality''? Men will become women and beat the crap out of women in those fields women used to dominate.
You get what you f. deserve.jpg
I’m starting to think that China already won.
That’s been pretty obvious to me for years and COVID was the inflection point where it became inevitable. But not because of trans people, because of the collapse of the entire system and decades of moronic governance.
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