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ShariaHeap


				

				

				

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joined 2023 March 07 08:09:31 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 2241


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
ShariaHeap


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2023 March 07 08:09:31 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 2241


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh well, I defer to the better attuned mod. I think I probably tend to skip those posts and so don't notice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I guess I don't have the visibility of the pattern to judge. The post itself looks quite normal to the untrained eye...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You might replicate a number of hormonal processes but it's hard to believe a developmental process could be so malleable, especially brain development. We actually don't even know very well what changes puberty induces in the brain.


If you have had a child you will see that evolution gives us a development cycle that is as rapid as possible factoring in the complexity to get us to adulthood as physically developed, socially competent adults. This involves various critical periods that it seems unlikely allow for years long pausing. Not to mention becoming out of sync with our peer group, which is how our identity is shaped.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is not a ban worthy post whatever patterns you're seeing. I personally think moderation should be uber-light. It is the overall community we need to trust in maintaining standards, not moderation. There should be a ban line at explicitly inciting hate, but not at allusions, dog whistles etc. I may be naive but I just don't see how a broad base community like this will get swept up in a descent to all out racism or whatever. People will counter till they will get bored and then disengage. A small minority will feed off each other's posts potentially but I think it's worth being radically open here given what is happening internet wide with censorship.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's a suberb example of the equivocation that comes up!


And yes, cool or progressive or transgressive are great motivators. Particularly for young people.


The obvious ones that I missed above as well are the 'go along to get along' or the 'follow the tribe' people. Ie "What do I think about it? Hang on, I'll just go get my blue tribe manual and find out".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, yes actually - these ideas appear all the time together.


Take these two paragraphs from a youth website (https://headspace.org.au/explore-topics/for-young-people/gender-identity/)




Gender identity is your sense of whether you are a man, woman, nonbinary, gender fluid or a combination of one or more of these identities. It’s part of your sense of self. It’s how you understand who you are and how you interact with others.






For many people their understanding of who they are, their gender identity, will match their sex. This is called being cisgender (pronounced sis-gender).






For some people, their gender identity might not match the sex they were assigned at birth and these individuals might choose to identify as transgender (e.g., being assigned female at birth, but identifying as a man).




The first paragraph includes gender-fluid and non-binary. These are ideas from queer theory, that we can choose our gender or that it's a changeable construct. No-one is arguing that there is an internal brain construct which corresponds to them.


Then the next paragraphs are the born in the wrong body narrative.


These ideas of gender identity are internally inconsistent and often individuals, especially youth, will quote from both belief systems. You might say that youth often can get complex ideas wrong and I'd agree, therein lies a glaring ethical issue around consent.


But it's not just youth, even adults betray this confusion. They don't notice the narrative shifts.


As to your latter point, yes agreed more so anti-natalism or population control. I put this in as a provocation, but it is something I've thought about. When you consider that many people who transition are autistic it does have a eugenics edge to it.


Where do you stand on this issue out of interest?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was the existing accommodation and understanding of trans-sexuals. But the progressive social engineers, legal activists (out of a job after successful gay marriage laws) and the queer activists (a golem of post-modernism and a broken academia) took over (over-reached) and now 'the machine' has taken over. Now we've got social media disembodiment and cult dynamics, an acquiescent media, rogue pharma and surgeons and a cultural fashion that morphed into winning the culture war through hegemony. Self-ID now let's weird criminal males transfer to women's prisons.


The level of philosophy is just to satisfy oneself that one is not a bigot and that gender ideology is actually incoherent. Of course no one on the peak-trans side really cares about these ideas, it's about cultural power.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree, though I think the word is useful as the interaction between biology and culture, but it's been taken over and has to die. Ironically the use of gender as a direct synonym of sex as used in forms (originally because sex was thought to be too affronting) has aided the simple-minded adoption of the new gender (identity) as being a fixed essence. In one version of the game, gender becomes the stable category and sex the arbitrary one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes and why people can't see this strange to me. One day about 'born in the wrong body', another day queer theory transgression. But the reality model doesn't allow both, either gender identity is an essential attribute or it's something that you can choose, that changes, you can't have both.  So many contradictions, sex and gender norms need to be thrown off, yet it's sex appearance and gender stereotypes that define the desire for, and results of, transition. You can't pathologise it, yet you treat it with powerful medical interventions. Trans people are unsafe while violence towards woman occurs at womans rights events. And of course, the persistent motte and bailey. It's about all this other stuff except when people point out the flaws and then it's just extreme gender dysphoria (with no other possible solution).


But why don't more people voice their distaste with this incoherent babble? I can think of the following groups:


**General apathy.


I appreciate this stance, it's where I sit on a number of other important issues such as the environment.


**Both sides


It's too complicated to understand and is just another culture war issue so the truth is somewhere halfway between but I can't be bothered finding out where it sits.


**Progress junkies


I must have socially liberal progress, even if I have push it out to some trans-human utopia. I don't care about the details. Trans woman are woman!


**Resigned


Yes it's nonsense but it's just the way the world is moving. Nothing stands still.


**Eugenicists


Well less people can't hurt the environment really. If some people want to opt-out of reproduction all the power to them.


**Third wave feminists


Social engineering is coming for you, ah ha ha....


**Religious fanatics


All kneel for the sacred caste


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You supported the op in your comments, even seemed to be enjoying the process, then turned around right at the end following the other comments. This is inconsistent behavior and reads strangely.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You seem to be trolling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is all strange internet stuff, you've contradicted your own stance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I actually said the same thing when I first arrived. I've come to appreciate there's a variety of styles that suit the long form and I've been doing longer posts on average. I still think there could be more succinct posts though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I look at this as dialectic. For instance, by itself as an ideology libertarianism hasn't really appealed. While a lot of the ideas are quite beautiful I find it all a bit simplistic, a bit look over here, not over there and at it's worst just a rote-learned thought system, or catechism.


But as part of a dialectic to work against other prevailing ideas I think it has great merit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think both the true believers and the cynical operators of WPATH are at play. There were people who were very conscious of the need to thread the needle of, for example, taking a human rights-framing vs the need to describe it as "medically necessary" for insurance purposes, or the need to cover off liability risks against opening up the gates (removing age limits etc) It's a mix of calculated and true believers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my country at least polls show most people disagree with the ideas of gender ideology, self-ID. But it is the cultural hegemony that matters, that sense of which way the wind blows that actually influences how people behave.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, lazy of me not to notice the original question, apologies. As you were. Yes civil issue not criminal, though great harms can come of it regardless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The issue of what proportion of people who are innocently convicted is the issue at question, and I'd prefer some stats or research to guide my opinion. Also having 'something to do' with a crime is a low bar.


What about the unknown unknowns, where you don't hear about it but it happened. Looking to the past shows definitively that quite a number of innocent people were put to death essentially by corruption - you think that corruption has now been fixed aside from a few outliers, who you are 'fine with' them dying.


You may not really be arguing for it and more of an aside but utilitarianism is such an ugly morality isn't it, a moral system where you are fine with innocent people dying seems to lack something. In this case I think it's because it claims a morality but is often argued from a shit happens view, which is just fatalism. I may be weak-manning it though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You don't see the cultural element of trans different from getting a knee arthroscopy? Which by the way were overdone for a period, perhaps still are, leading to increased risk of osteo-arthritis, showing the flaws of medical science. There's a long list of procedures that probably don't pass muster that are still routinely done. It takes time for standard wisdom to be overturned, think of the generations subjected to unnecessary tonsillectomies.


In fact in my experience GPs, while very good at studying aren't always particularly smart, and because of the nature of their role, high status with expectations to 'know' and 'heal', lose touch with the limits of their knowledge. They are not scientists and even medical researchers often have pretty low levels of stats knowledge relative to the state of the art. Medical specialists are generally better, but in this new phenomenon of trans, the self declared specialists are actually part of an activist intent, the science and research hasn't sufficiently developed and their isn't sufficient curiosity for an evidence-based system to develop. WPATH had a chapter on eunuchs as a gender identity, which speaks to this reality.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What do you do if a male sexual predator wants to use the same restroom, bathroom as your daughter.


If you don't believe weird and dangerous men are taking advantage of gender self-ID, check out Grahem Linehan's (father Ted) Glinner Update where he details a steady stream of them (under the banner "This Never Happens", which points to the naive assumptions of a lot of progressives).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think we're honing in to the right space, which is good.  To start with the finish, re categories, there's a sense of course where you're right, categories are partly socially decided through language, culture.  But there's a sense in which it's deeply lacking -- are the set of square numbers a human category? if socially constructed how do we decide the truth of a category, if we have no external reference beyond ourselves? I guess you might say, by its 'social justice' value, but this just raises another set of questions. If its only human, how would we resolve differences about category definitions -- it could only be consensus or power. Now many social categories are indeed resolved through our language and culture in a process through consensus and power but we also have science, or rationality, to bring to bear. The categorisation of chemicals post Mendeleev was much better than prior, it is even better now. Is it chance that all human societies recognize the categories men and women?


What is man and woman, you asked. Well, I could point to all your descendants, the people that heterosexual and homosexuals are attracted to, the people we most fear on a dark night. The people that suffer mood swings during menopause, bear children, endure pregnancy, suffer childbirth, those with prostate problems and morning glories.


Now of course formally because of the many variations then assigning sex to some individuals does give rise to difficult to resolve edge cases, but a fuzzy boundary does not dissolve the category. We know there are men and women because we were born. The definition is based on this basis, it is the phenotype that gives rise to this successful reproduction, which rather than an arbitrary set of characteristics is a coherent and coordinated set, which we share, with some variation in specific genetics, with the members of our sex. I can articulate a family resemblance, or polythetic, category which would include people with most of the machinery but perhaps lacking a key gene, which keeps them in their sex category even if they can not reproduce. But this boundary doesn't extend to intersex because they do not set up enough of these characteristics to belong to a single sex and they often have (non-functional) elements of both. I appreciate this is messy, but think of a bucket with a hole in it, is it a bucket? What about when it lacks the handle and the entire bottom?


Now this is biological sex, there is also a social category of sex, the way of living in that sex. Intersex live in one of these, whether by their choice, parental choice, or cultural convenience. That doesn't make them that biological sex. Could we then extend the social category to include trans. I think some accomodations were already made in that space, but now we can see a conflict between women's rights, based on sex, and rights of men, say, to self-ID as women. This is a different kind of accomodation- intersex have no choice but trans can be based on as little as the idea in someone's head. This needs to be resolved by negotiation- ironically self-ID has made it harder. Unlikely as it may seem, progressive politics has placed Muslim women at the bottom of the heirarchy of concern.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This starts so well- indeed I commend you on the points you draw attention to, but it fades in the later stages.


You initially point out that sex is binary, though the development and expression of this sex binary leads to different possibilities for individual organisms, male, female and intersex. This makes three sex categories but not a sex ternary, it is natures attempts to attain male or female with different developmental issues arising but there is no third sex capable of procreation.


We know that the body attempts to create male and female because of our scientific understanding of biology and evolution - the telos is inscribed by the actual history of the universe, whereby humans evolved to reproduce sexually, ie we all descend from mothers and fathers, eggs and sperm.


The essential aspect of how we assign sex is indeed not straightforward because of the genetic variation that is possible at each stage. But often categorisation is difficult, the complexity and philosophical difficulties don't undermine some essential reality just because it's hard to determine how to explicitly assign edge cases. To start the exploration, in humans it's the phenotype that leads to the development of functional elements that allow for reproduction, chiefly eggs and sperm, whether as potential future, current present, or prior capability. For most people this means a host of associated functional developments that are required and for most of us these line up nicely and we are functional males and females. For some, genetic anomolies occur such as failure for the placenta to develop or sperm that don't sperm. So functionally these people can not reproduce but it seems wrong to assign them as no-sex. But categories are not only formed based on a single rule, they can be based on family resemblances, or polythetic categories where not all members need to share every attribute. A single gene should not remove you from the sex category and the change certainly doesn't make you more like the other sex.


For intersex the change is more fundamental, earlier in the ontogeny and more prior in the phylogeny. The variation does lead to some change in the direction of the other sex and so for this group of people their sex is indeterminate, biologically speaking.


This doesn't exclude some people living as if they were a woman but finding out they were not in fact that sex, eg swyer syndrome.


So far so good. Im not a biologist but I think not only do we have knowledge of male and female sex from evolution as our basis for understanding it's reality, we could also construct a reasonable categorisation for individuals.


But you agree with this. The rest as far as I can tell is spurious thinking related to sex appearance and whether we can detect it. I don't know how to parse this as it doesn't seem at all confusing to me. Yes there are masculine woman and feminine men, but there is still the reality of whether they can reproduce or whether the similarity is just cosmetic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is some equivocation in a lot of the discussion I think we can bring clarity to. It's apparent there is biological sex and depending on who you talk to trans woman aren't claiming this category, they are a different kind of woman, but still a woman in this other sense, let's call it a social category. Social categories can obviously be determined by social consensus.  But what is it that gives trans woman to think they are part of this category. Well common narratives suggest it's because they 'feel like a woman' - but what is the woman property they are feeling like. There needs to be some content provided by something else to give woman meaning in the first place, and that meaning content is biological sex. Identifying as a woman, is definitionally dependent on sex itself. It is actually parasitic on sex, because it tries to undermine the sex category at the same time as depending on it.


Put another way, imagine biological sex is meaningless. I declare my sex to be that of a Novan- what does that mean? Well of course I can socially agree that it means someone who likes pottery and playing bridge but then we are then truly just constructing and believing in the sense of how we treat money. Sex is a different kind is category - there is a reality to it beyond assigning an arbitrary set of properties.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not discounting your experience, it sounds like it is working out for you.


I am describing my private mental experience of finding out that someone who I thought was a woman, was not. Im not at all convinced that I wouldn't suspect it in any case.


Perhaps the man 'pretending to be' is overdoing it, 'identifying as' is kinder. And I'm not necessarily talking about public life, but private spaces. I don't know why someone would hide that info and I find it condescending, or even infantilising for people to agree that trans identified are that sex, and self-denying of the person to deny their actual situation.


More broadly on the topic, i think that society should change to be more accepting generally of difference. It feels like a regression from social liberal goals to accept that hiding as a woman is the best path. We also don't know enough about the effectiveness of transition to push it as a culture. Its not ubiquitous that people experience relief, some people suffer regret, ongoing medical problems and persistent dysphoria post-transition. I'm worried about the child safe-guarding implications of pushing transition to younger ages so boys can look more girlish and pass better and I think we should run solid research that tests other approaches and gives us a more robust evidence base. We should seek to understand body-identity issues better and investigate why the rates are increasing.


None of this happens if we adopt a trans-human stance and push trans as a solution as a culture. We are not even currently measuring the desistors well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I'd adjust my usage to just Bob as well in time, who wouldn't, but I don't want to be told off for telling a new person who doesn't know Bob that he's that fat guy with the long hair.