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These transgender discussions have revealed that many people have little understanding of the subject, not recognizing the difference between sex and gender, believing that being transgender is the same as being a transvestite, or that we have complete control over and "choose" who we are attracted to physically or emotionally.

Some claim to want to live by the Golden Rule and suggest that "they" should just go away and leave "us" alone, believing that one day very soon they will walk into a public restroom and find someone washing her genitals in the sink.

Plain and simple, this kind of hatred or misunderstanding of the transgender and the broader LGBTQ+ community is the result of (mostly) Republican fear mongering.

Statistically, there are very few transgender athletes, perhaps a few hundred out of hundreds of thousands in high schools and colleges across the country. And while most of them are not successful in competition, a few are dominant in their district or conference. As a result, Republican legislators have rushed to ban all transgender athletes from competition, in their minds solving a problem that statistically does not exist.

The suggestion that some men are transitioning in order to compete in women's sports is laughably absurd. For one thing, they are increasingly banned from competition if they've gone through puberty so for most men, it's no longer even a viable path. For another thing, in the places where they still can compete, their testosterone levels must be suppressed for two years, hardly a step that most men would want to take in order to gain an unfair advantage in women's sports.

The suggestion that transgender athletes should have their own competitions is also unworkable. In individual sports, there simply would not be enough competitors. In team sports, fielding an entire team of transgender athletes would be even more difficult, let alone assembling several teams to compete in their own leagues.

I have to say I have no transgender men or women in my personal orbit and never have I ever met someone transgender.

To the best of my knowledge, I have never even seen a transgender man or woman in a public bathroom but since I live near Chicago and am often in the city I assume that's only because I wouldn't recognize if someone was transgender just by their clothing or mannerisms.

Will competitive sports need to address the issue at some point in time? Sure, and they are right now, mostly by banning transgender athletes from competition. But that's not really a solution.

Will some men pretend to be transgender to get into women's bathrooms to "get their jollies"? I suspect most heterosexual men would rather die than wear women's clothing, make up, and a wig to then get into a women's bathroom.

Bottom line: Republicans simply love to further marginalize the already marginalized.

Transgender individuals don't commit mass shootings, don't want to groom your children, and for the most part actually do want to live by the Golden Rule.

But hey, the marginalized often are easy targets.

Same as it ever was.

I work with two trans gender women (who went as men for years before coming out, if that's the word, in 2021 and 2022). Most of what you say is true in that they (and I would like to believe most trans women) genuinely believe they are women and would like to be treated as such.
That's their wish. I can't honor it because it's not reality. They are not women. Their physiology is male. (I assume for one, the other I know is undergoing hormone treatment but hasn't transitioned. So speaking generally).

You are dismissing millions of people like me as hateful, ignorant, manipulated by GOP etc. We are not. We are reacting to treating wishful thinking as reality and being persecuted by DEI powers when we don't.

That's their wish. I can't honor it because it's not reality. They are not women. Their physiology is male.

Return to my far-fetched thought experiment for a moment. If someone kidnapped you and surgically altered your body so that your physiology was now female, would you be really be a woman? Would you think of yourself as a woman, or as a man who had been surgically altered?

Return to my far-fetched thought experiment for a moment. If someone kidnapped you and surgically altered your body so that your physiology was now female, would you be really be a woman? Would you think of yourself as a woman, or as a man who had been surgically altered?

I get what you're saying and I agree that I will always think of myself as a man till I die, no matter what Mengele did to me :)

But I would also adhere to the social convention of using the Ladies' room if I have a vagina. Because I know (or think anyway) that the alternative is chaos and confusion.

Also, practically, my anatomy will dictate my actions. If the Mens' room was only a stand-up urinal, I couldn't use it, no matter what I feel inside.

Trans women are insisting that part of the truth is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's bordering on a cultic dogma.

I get what you're saying and I agree that I will always think of myself as a man till I die, no matter what Mengele did to me :)

But I would also adhere to the social convention of using the Ladies' room if I have a vagina. Because I know (or think anyway) that the alternative is chaos and confusion.

Okay, good - and thanks, BTW, for being a good sport and playing along with the thought experiment.

So let's go to the next step. After speaking to your therapist (understandable after this trauma), they tell you that you have options to ease the discrepancy that now exists between your thinking of yourself as a man and your physical state.

They can't restore your penis. But you can take hormones that will lower your vocal register, let you grow facial and body hair again, and reduce your surgically altered breasts. You can reduce them further using a binder. If you continue going by your name (which is male) you'll be able to live as a man again. While you won't have a penis, no one would otherwise be able to tell you were assaulted by this Mengele.

For your mental health, you do this - you live as a man again, rather than forcing yourself to live as a woman. But now, the chaos and confusion will result if you use the Ladies' room. You appear by all outward signs to be a man. You have a beard, you have the body shape of a man, you have a masculine voice and all the secondary sex attributes of a man.

Now what do you do?

Not surprisingly, OP is simultaneously

1) Demonizing people he doesn't like
2) Feeding the same lazy narrative of "Republicans = racists who hate everybody"
3) Demonstrating an utter lack of comprehension of the issue and what the other side thinks.

Allow me.

This issue has nothing to do with Do Unto Others. It has nothing to do with "You do you, and I'll do me". Conservatives are already BY FAR more tolerant of different things that liberals are. Sorry if that triggers you, but just look at the reaction of this board when you had to contend with thinking that didn't match your own: Freak out city, it was. And still is.

Anyway. What's the issue at hand here?

This issue is about what gets taught in schools and how/when people's kids are exposed to a myriad of issues: Gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex education. What's going on in schools today doesn't resemble what was taught or learned back in the day when it was all about The Birds and the Bees. It's also progressed far beyond Johnny has Two Mommies. By and large both are widely accepted in 95% of American society today.

So what's the issue? Part of the misunderstanding may be found in point 3) when the OP says I have to say I have no transgender men or women in my personal orbit and never have I ever met someone transgender. It's fair to say that the OP by extension has essentially zero contact with the larger LBGTQAI+ community in any kind of numbers - and no, libs: 1-offs don't count. Neither does the nice gay couple who might live in your condo building.

What's at issue here is actually very simple and very basic. So simple and so basic that it's not surprising to me that it gets completely misrepresented at all levels. That issue boils down to 1 question:

Where do you draw the line?

LBGTQAI+ culture has always featured a lot of public promiscuity, much of it extending from the days when gays were forced to keep their lifestyles private and hidden. Underneath there has always been a lot more openness in terms of exploring one's sexuality, far more so than in normal Western Cultures and also at a level FAR beyond what's considered racy in more "open" places like Western Europe. Well, as gender identity is making its way into the schools are core portions of the curriculum so is a lot of the tendency to encourage exploration and questions around what one's sexual identity and preferences are.

And with all that, come the instruction manuals.

The disconnect is obvious. For traditional parents raised in a far more conservative western educational structure, they don't want their kids exposed to what an LBGTQAI+ educator considers as a normal and healthy part of discovering one's sexual identity. Hence the conflict, and the return to the question:

Where do you draw the line?

It's hilarious to note that The White House itself was forced by circumstance to weigh in on where the line is just this week:

WARNING: potentially NSFW https://twitter.com/KarliBonnita/status/1668408239...

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2023...

WASHINGTON (AP) ' Transgender advocate Rose Montoya is no longer welcome at White House events after posting on social media a video of herself and two others going topless for a time at Saturday's Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn.

'The behavior was simply unacceptable,' White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. 'It was unfair to the hundreds of attendees who were there to celebrate their families.'

Huh. You mean to say that this Family Friendly Event turned out to have elements that weren't so family friendly?

Who knew?

This is the disconnect. I'm not going to post examples of what's being taught in schools; all that information is out there to be digested if desired.

So let's go to the next step. After speaking to your therapist (understandable after this trauma), they tell you that you have options to ease the discrepancy that now exists between your thinking of yourself as a man and your physical state.

They can't restore your penis. But you can take hormones that will lower your vocal register, let you grow facial and body hair again, and reduce your surgically altered breasts. You can reduce them further using a binder. If you continue going by your name (which is male) you'll be able to live as a man again. While you won't have a penis, no one would otherwise be able to tell you were assaulted by this Mengele.


As an aside.....testosterone, the primary male hormone, is made in the testicles, not the penis. So amputating the penis won't feminize the victim.

In addition, there is now penile transplant surgery. Not exactly at every community hospital....but it exists.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/transplant/program...

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/firs...

https://ro.co/health-guide/penis-transplant/

Define "family-friendly".

A lot will hinge on that. I suspect everyone will have slightly different definitions, ranging from "no public copulation" to "LGBTQ persons shouldn't be allowed in public venues". My personal line is somewhere between those two points.

A lot will hinge on that. I suspect everyone will have slightly different definitions, ranging from "no public copulation" to "LGBTQ persons shouldn't be allowed in public venues". My personal line is somewhere between those two points.

I've never heard of "LBGTQ persons shouldn't be allowed in public venues" and I don't think that stance is going to fly.

However, teaching 4 year olds to twerk probably *should be* off limits. Wouldn't you agree to that?

However, teaching 4 year olds to twerk probably *should be* off limits. Wouldn't you agree to that?

I think it would depend on context. It could be cute/amusing, or it could be sexualizing. I don't think they should allow parents to put 4-yr-olds in beauty pageants, nor twerking in such a setting. That is sexualizing. In the privacy of your home, maybe your family sings and dances together, in which case it could be fun and cute.

My associations of "twerking" involve singers who try to be provocative to make up for a lack of talent, so I'm a bit jaded there.

Dope1: Not surprisingly, OP is simultaneously

1) Demonizing people he doesn't like
2) Feeding the same lazy narrative of "Republicans = racists who hate everybody"
3) Demonstrating an utter lack of comprehension of the issue and what the other side thinks.


Wow, look at all those straw men.

Tell me, please, which political party is rushing to pass anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ and "Don't Say Gay" legislation? HINT: it ain't the democrats. And BTW, it's easy to see what "the other side thinks" here -- the disgust and dismissal of the transgender community is expressed plainly throughout these threads.


Dope1: Part of the misunderstanding may be found in point 3) when the OP says I have to say I have no transgender men or women in my personal orbit and never have I ever met someone transgender. It's fair to say that the OP by extension has essentially zero contact with the larger LBGTQAI+ community in any kind of numbers...

You love to make stuff up, dontcha?

No, you cannot, "by extension," make that assumption... although you do it all the time.


Dope1: WASHINGTON (AP) ' Transgender advocate Rose Montoya is no longer welcome at White House events after posting on social media a video of herself and two others going topless for a time at Saturday's Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn.

'The behavior was simply unacceptable,' White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. 'It was unfair to the hundreds of attendees who were there to celebrate their families.'

Huh. You mean to say that this Family Friendly Event turned out to have elements that weren't so family friendly?

Who knew?

That's like complaining that speed laws are bogus and it's shocking that someone was caught driving 100 mph in a 25 mph speed zone. People do stupid things. People break the law (like that Trump fella') which is why Montoya is prohibited from participating in other Pride Month celebrations at the White House.

Wow, look at all those straw men.

I don't think you quite get what Straw Men arguments are. You said Bottom line: Republicans simply love to further marginalize the already marginalized.

...which translates nicely into Points 1) and 2).

You did it, don't claim you didn't.

Tell me, please, which political party is rushing to pass anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ and "Don't Say Gay" legislation?

Aaaaaaand here's Point 3). You *are* aware that there is no such thing as "Don't say gay" legislation? Perhaps you aren't:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-p...
(A lib bubble friendly source, no less)
or starters, criticism that the 'Don't Say Gay' bill does not in fact say 'gay' anywhere in its text is true.

So much for that.
And before you play you normal game this part But later, the actual bill states that 'classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur.' leaves out some critical context. As in, the point of the bill is to prohibit this stuff below a certain grade level.

See the cultural comments I made in my post. Now, feel free to do you in your response.

You love to make stuff up, dontcha?

Again, you said it. I suppose by quoting you back to you that IS a form of making stuff up since we all know where your posts come from: the ether.

That's like complaining that speed laws are bogus and it's shocking that someone was caught driving 100 mph in a 25 mph speed zone. People do stupid things. People break the law (like that Trump fella') which is why Montoya is prohibited from participating in other Pride Month celebrations at the White House.

And here's you getting all Stampy Foot and ignoring the prime question, thus once again validating Point 3).

So where should the line be drawn? Bear in mind even the White House has a line.

You love to make stuff up, dontcha? - commonone


-----------------------

Speaking of making stuff up, when you refer to ""Don't Say Gay" legislation"", those words are not in the actual legislation. Also, "Hands up, don't shoot" was also made up.


Pot, meet kettle.....

If someone kidnapped you and surgically altered your body so that your physiology was now female, would you be really be a woman? Would you think of yourself as a woman, or as a man who had been surgically altered?

Again, this assumes gender is biological, not social and cultural. The idea that any human behavior is genetically programmed is poorly supported by evidence. The field of epigenetics is demonstrating how genes are themselves altered by the social and natural environment, and even where behaviors are clearly genetically influenced, as with schizophrenia, it is the social environment that determines the behavioral manifestations of the condition. In cultures with shamanistic traditions, schizophrenics are highly valued.

Again, this assumes gender is biological, not social and cultural.

Not at all. I just asked Ko3 whether he felt that, if his body was involuntarily surgically altered to that of a woman, whether he would then think of himself as a woman or as a man who had been surgically altered.

The question doesn't assume anything about the root causes of why Ko3 thinks of himself as a man today. Just to imagine, as a thought experiment, what it would feel like to have his current brain but be in the body of a woman. Whether having the physiology of a female would change his internal conception of himself as male....or not.

Ron DeSantis just covered my post at a high level:

DeSantis responds to a reporter's question about Biden's Pride party: 'This transgender flashing people nude'I think even the White House had to acknowledge it was inappropriate.

'But I would ask them: If it's inappropriate to do that at the White House ' which I certainly think it is ' why do you want to have that curriculum jammed into a second-grader's classroom?'

https://twitter.com/DeSantisWarRoom/status/1669348...

'But I would ask them: If it's inappropriate to do that at the White House ' which I certainly think it is ' why do you want to have that curriculum jammed into a second-grader's classroom?'

I don't get it. Was anyone showing pictures of topless adults to second-graders as part of a school curriculum?

Surely he's not saying that because a trans person behaved badly, that means that second-grade curriculum should be devoid of any mention of trans people. After all, Bill Clinton is a cisgender heterosexual person, and he indulged in sexually inappropriate behavior - and we know that doesn't mean we should stop letting second graders read books that feature, you know, dads. Knowing, of course, that quite a lot of sexually inappropriate behavior has been committed by mom and dads in other contexts doesn't mean we would now go out and remove any children's books that feature moms and dads - right?

Not at all. I just asked Ko3 whether he felt that, if his body was involuntarily surgically altered to that of a woman, whether he would then think of himself as a woman or as a man who had been surgically altered.

Except that your 'question' is a rhetorical illustration of gender dysphoria, which assumes that gender is natural and some how inconsistent with one's natural sex. How can both sex and gender be rooted in one's nature and yet stand opposed to each other?

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