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Genuine empathy cannot be compelled. And to the extent that it could be, it would have no value. We should encourage understanding; that is, a rational understanding of the physical and social causes that make people think as they think and do as they do. But such understanding is distinct from empathy and compassion as emotional affects.
What I find most obnoxious about the contemporary transsexual "movement" is that they have legislated, by social fiat, a prescribed position on a philosophical question that rightly should be a matter of free inquiry and debate: namely, the metaphysics and ontology of gender. This really grinds my gears like nothing else. Possibly more than anything having to do with bathrooms or puberty blockers. The right to open inquiry is one of the closest things I have to a sacred value. When you are forced to refer to an MTF transsexual as "she", you are being compelled, under social duress, to assert as an ontological truth that this person just is a woman (and all parties are aware that that's plainly what's going on here - otherwise it wouldn't be such a heated topic of disagreement in the first place). I can't accept being compelled to assent to such a contentious position.
For my part, the two positions on the ontology of gender that I take seriously are the conservative position - that there are such things as men and women, and the way we usually sorted people into those buckets up until ~40 years ago is basically correct - or the eliminativist position - that no person is either a man or a woman, and thus "X is a woman" is vacuously false for all X. On either position, to say that an MTF transsexual "is a woman" is to utter a falsehood, and thus I do not believe that such a statement should be socially compulsory. There have been serious attempts to develop an ontology that would support the transsexual position, and I treat them with the same respect that I give by default to all positions that I disagree with, but I don't personally consider any such view to be a live possibility.
Compassion isn't a social affect: it's an act of the will.
When I suggested to you that compassion is better than understanding, my point was not that you need to get all teary-eyed and emotional about everyone's problems, though I won't knock that. My point is that it's far greater and more important to earnestly will and desire the best for everyone. That doesn't mean being emotional about it, and it certainly doesn't mean affirming the desires of every single person, especially when they go against their best interests. It can often mean telling people to their face that the path they're on ends up in disaster and they need to stop, now. "Admonishing the sinner" is considered a work of mercy very much for that reason.
But it certainly means caring about what happens to people, even if only abstractly. It means seeing the bad places and needless suffering that people end up in, and earnestly wishing that it were not so. It even includes taking steps to prevent bad outcomes, if only in a very small way.
Understanding can help, insofar as it can help you see where people have ended up with the needs that they have. But it's more important simply to wish for the best, even if you don't fully understand what that looks like, even if the only thing you can muster is the earnest desire that all should end well.
If I understand @dovetailing and @SubstantialFrivolity correctly when they talk about empathy and compassion, I think this is what they're saying. The antonym isn't emotional impassivity, but malice. Dovetailing is arguing that what people often feel towards trans people is malice: "the cruelty is the point."
This makes it sound like something you can arbitrarily turn on or off "at will", which can't be right. But it also can't be right to say that it's entirely outside of your control either.
I suppose I would say it's something like an "unchosen choice".
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When I said I try to treat trans people with compassion, I meant the more pedestrian sense. I know that for such a person some things are going to be upsetting (for example, if I insist on bringing up that he is really a man and not a woman as he claims). Since I would have neither the desire to upset him nor the belief that it would profit either of us to have the discussion, I'm going to defer it as much as possible.
I have been pondering over the past few months how I, a Christian, should act towards transgender people I encounter (not that I do so that often). Mainly because the answer a lot of people give is some variation of "speak the truth in love", but I have noticed for many that is really more of a post hoc rationalization to justify what they wanted to do anyway (to tell the trans people off). I don't want to fall into that same trap, and I know my human nature makes me prone to it as well, so I have tried to think of how to address the situation. If these people are sinning (which many would argue they are), I have a duty to gently point it out. It also seems to me that I have a duty to stick to the truth and not affirm falsehoods just to be polite. But at the same time, I also have a duty to show kindness towards them (even more so because they often are people who already feel like social outcasts and who have serious emotional and mental health difficulties).
My attempt to square this circle is more or less what I said in my other post - I'm not going to preemptively bring up the topic, but if forced I won't lie either. And, if I think that the time is right (i.e. it won't push them even further away), I might even gently point out that their path isn't what God wants for them.
This is basically similar to the approach I take with gay people I encounter in life. I don't (generally) tell them that their lifestyle is sinful, because in American society it's almost impossible for them to not know that. If I were to make that the point I emphasize, most likely I'm just going to push them further away from the church and from God. So instead, I hang out with them like I would any other person. Comfort them when they are down, celebrate when they are up, etc. And I pray for the wisdom to recognize if there ever is a right moment to say "hey man, I just don't think it's a good idea to live this lifestyle that the Bible is very clear is sinful", that I'll recognize it when it comes. Maybe that's a coward's way, IDK. But it's the best I can do for right now, anyways.
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Since my first exposure to it via /tumblrinaction more than a decade ago it's been TRA's persistence in presenting contradictory, circular and otherwise faulty reasoning as their basis for justification that frustrates me more than any idea of a man in a dress winning a sports match against women and then using the same changing room after the contest, or similar object level conflicts.
I'd be just as vexed if people made serious arguments that magic is real and that if you ruminate on it long enough your wish to learn magic can come true by forcing everyone to call your school Hogwarts, changing your name to Harry Potter and cutting a lightning scar into your head. Legislating for Hogwarts accreditation and arguing whether Griffindors are allowed in Hufflepuff dormitories is redundant.
What's crazy is that rather than getting laughed off the internet the tumblrites successfully coerced the real world into entertaining their fantasy by little more than using the threat of being shamed for intolerance on social media.
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This is the crux of my objection as well. I have issues with the idea of taking a healthy human and mutilating their body to make them a crude facsimile of the other sex, but at the end of the day I think adults have the right to choose self-mutilation if that's what they want. But what I will not play ball with is the attempt to try to get me to affirm a lie (that a trans person really is the sex they claim to be) as the truth.
I try to treat trans people I encounter with respect and compassion; they are my brothers and sisters just like everyone else. And Lord knows that they have enough on their plates without me disrespecting them. But "respect and compassion" does not include telling bold faced lies just because that is what they want to hear. I'll avoid the topic of gender as much as possible for their sake, but if it's unavoidable then I'm not going to lie about it.
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