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This entire debate is more radioactive than Godzilla because it's not just about Bill says he is a Real Woman. If Bill tries cutting off his own arms and therefore surgically removing his arms and giving him prostheses is the best thing for Bill, it doesn't affect my life. But what we have is the equivalent of Bill not alone demanding you cut off his arms and give him prostheses, then everyone has to at least pretend they believe prostheses are the exact same thing as having arms. It's Bill barging into events and claiming that if he can't compete in snooker matches (insert sport of your choice that needs good motor control) against professional players, then it is discrimination and the rules must be changed. By the bye, didn't we go through this already with Oscar Pistorius? Rather an unfortunate example, I agree, but the same debates over "does he have an unfair advantage?" took place.
It's Bill saying that unless we all agree that chopping off your arms is a sane, normal, healthy activity, we are ableists and amputationphobes and that a law to protect him and those like him must be passed. It's amputee activists creating cute cartoons to kids that hey, maybe they too might be like Bill and this is how you get the doctors to agree.
Right that is why we are keeping the discussion contained to specific areas. Just to be clear, just because I don't think that saying not doing x is not abusive does not mean I think we have to actually do x. There might be a lot of other reasons not to.
If it were true that chopping off someones arms was the best option for them but it cost a billion dollars I'd still be saying sorry Bill, even with the risk of you killing yourself by self-surgery the cost/benefit ratio just doesn't work out.
My point is simply that if you are observing an impact of doing or not doing x that isn't on its own abusive behavior. You aren't yourself threatening to commit suicide. I think if it were, "If we discontinue all treatment for depressed people it is likely suicides will increase" that is most likely an uncontroversial statement, even if it were being said by an anti-depression activist.
Likewise a trans person saying if you don't accept us/allow transition/whatever could mean additional trans people killing themselves is if true something to take into account. It might still not be worth it, depending on the costs (both financial and social) but it isn't in and of itself abusive. It's not a threat because they can't actually control what all other trans people do.
I think the same argument can apply to the people that the activist is talking about: If they're responsible for their own actions, we aren't obliged to accommodate them. If they're not responsible for their own actions, we are obliged to accommodate them, but they should be treated as mentally ill.
Also, this situation can be described as the activist enabling people who make abusive demands and passing on abusive demands, even if he is not being directly abusive himself.
Sure, but remember that suicidal ideation usually comes and goes, it can be possible that people who commit suicide "while the balance of their mind was disturbed" were fine the previous three days. The question is whether the treatment helps or not and the costs of the treatment compared to the benefits. Those things are independent of whether there are some people making abusive demands.
If you measure it and the suicide rate does increase when denied treatment, then whether some people are threatening it abusively doesn't really matter, because the ones that actually did kill themselves were not, they really were disturbed. Those that use the threat to coerce people either don't go through with it or if they do were again actually disturbed.
Which again still doesn't mean you MUST provide that treatment, we make trade offs all the time and that is ok. In the UK we limit funding to various NHS treatments knowing that will mean some people will likely die as a result. Insurance companies do the same. If it is too expensive either financially or socially we can still say no.
This reasoning implies that if you have some abusive people who can flawlessly hide among the legitimate ones, you have to treat them all as if they are legitimate.
I think that we have no choice to say "yes, it does matter". Saying that it doesn't matter how many abusive people hide among the legitimate ones creates very bad incentives, and it's a pattern that can be seen in other areas. Believing apparently suicidal people unconditionally is like believing #believewomen unconditionally.
Remember this is at a population level, if the population is indeed commiting suicide at a greater rate then that is happening regardless of what percentage of liars there are.
You don't have to believe any particular individuals claims, you are looking at the actuality. You are specifically NOT believing A suicidal persons claims because as you point out they can be lying, you believe the numbers of people who actually commit suicide.
You are cutting out the need to believe or disbelieve any individual. That's why its more useful.
Just like if you try to guage how fat your populace is you can't trust any individual to accurately report their calorie intake but you can still measure it by weight of patients and numbers of diseases associated with obesity and so on.
If they are all lying you will find that out, when despite everyone saying they eat healthily and exercise, half your population needs lap bands and keeps getting diabetes.
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