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They’re chemically castrated and physically mutilated. Yeah that’s not death but “we’ve only castrated and mutilated your kids. C’mon they survived the surgery! Relax!” is not offering much in the way of comfort.
In terms of severity, it’s somewhere in the ballpark of simultaneously being lobotomized and becoming a jihadist.
It’s not just the potential sterilization & being unable to achieve an orgasm for life, it’s also being a lifelong patient, and thusly a financial supporter, for “big pharma”, an industrial complex that is very politically powerful and I find have proven themselves to be extremely dangerous.
They are also often a supporter for a memeplex that is fundamentally hateful towards what I and many others would consider to be healthy, normal behavior and social dynamics.
So not only is a transitioned person deeply alienated towards their own physical body, they are often radicalized against their friends and neighbors who knew them beforehand.
I had a close friend who transitioned during university, in the early 2000s before trans issues became more mainstream. We are both of an age & class where we were some of the earliest people to be “extremely online”. I spent a lot of time lurking in trans friendly spaces, and honestly the right-wing outrage machine might be even underselling how intensely hateful the rhetoric is in those places towards their “enemies”, real or perceived.
At the time I was a supporter but I felt myself being so turned off by the whole “trans communist” schtick that I unconsciously distanced myself from them and I’m likely to never speak to this person again. At the time I didn’t think much of it but with the benefit of hindsight a lot of things sort of fell into place for me.
I have children in public school in a mega blue area, so I have real skin in the game. I can confirm even in elementary school they are already being exposed to this stuff, if I wasn’t so poor I’d put them in private school.
I don't think it is quite as bad as being lobotomized. The upthread comparison - sterility plus type 1 diabetes - is more in the ballpark.
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Yes that sort of thing, and real world interactions, pretty much convinced me that these people are really not well at all and are dangerous, jihadi extremist level dangerous, back in 2013 or so.
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I'm not saying I don't see the concern. I'm saying that it's disingenuous to compare it to death.
Also only somewhere around 5-15% of trans women get bottom surgery. So you can cut that risk factor for another 10x for them. Chemical castration is known to be reversible in trans women.
As someone pointed out in another thread it is stunning how much we need to be concerned, change our entire society for, less than 1% of the population, yet within that population - the irreversible infertility of an entire group of people (males who don't go through natal puberty) is not even worth mentioning.
Also, what are stats on women who don't go through their puberty having their fertility return-seems like egg preservation is recommended for women as well as men on gender clinic sites- though that could just be because it's an additional revenue stream I suppose...
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I wish I could show these statements to people even a few years ago. “Don’t worry, the chemical castration we will do to your children is probably reversible, and we only physical mutilate some of them!”
It’s just incomprehensible. How did we get here?
Don't worry the brainwashing into religion is probably reversible and we'll only intellectually and culturally ruin some of them. And mutilate a fair number (depending on religion).
It's just incomprehensible. How did we get here?
Its easy. If you believe in the fundamental axioms its not crazy and if you don't its a cult of God-flesh eating, God-blood drinking psychically mutilated Manchurian candidates who infest the planet.
Trans ideology is no crazier than pretty much every religion. So if religions can demand crazy things and religions are just ideologies with a supernatural skin, why is it surprising ideologies look crazy from the outside?
Magic cannibalism, magic underpants, magic apples, magic hammers, magic hats, magic babies. Magic loaves and fishes.
If you can convince people of that, to the extent some religions practiced literal human sacrifice, why are you surprised by getting here?
We got here the way we always did, someone came up with something to believe (palpable nonsense or otherwise), convinced other people to believe it and everything cascades from there.
This isn't some new development, this is how we (humanity as a whole)operate.
Might as well be taking communion when told this is the literal blood of Christ despite not changing in any detectable way and thinking "how did we get here, its incomprehensible".
Why? A religion is just an ideology with a supernatural skin. Can compare it to the terrible things people have done for Communism or nazism or some other not religious ideology if you prefer, it doesn't change the point.
Sure, but the point I was countering is that its rise was incomprehensible. If people will believe everything from God-cannibalism, to equality of the masses, to child sacrifice, trans ideology is far from the most extreme thing to be believed. It's rise is entirely comprehensible. Doesn't mean it's good or positive of course, but it's entirely within the kind of belief sets that humanity previously and currently holds.
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As an atheist, I will say that, while there are a lot of aspects of traditional religions I do not like, I find many new-age ideologies (e.g. Scientology, Heaven's Gate, Rajneeshi Neo-Sannyasins, Synanon, NXIVM) to be even worse, even if only slightly, for reasons such as these:
New age religions come off as extra "Fake and Gay" in comparison to Christianity or Buddhism, in no small part because of their lack of age and much smaller tradition to draw upon. Traditional religions are Lindy because they've managed to persist in spite of the erosion of the ages; their new age rivals, on the other hand, are plainly from a much less mystical and much more informationally-aware time, and as such their beliefs are built on much sandier foundations (e.g. the entire founding mythology of Scientology literally being a sci-fi story told by Hubbard).
New age religions are at least slightly more likely to lead to cult-like behavior (likely due to the aforementioned weakness of the religion as a young and new belief system that tends to be created practically from whole-cloth), which often tends to have pretty negative outcomes for their members; such people may end up psychologically-broken, physically-disfigured, or even dead. Yes, I'm aware that some traditional religions can lead to similar harms (e.g. refusing medical treatments in favor of prayer), but I think cults have a much worse track record on net.
"I love ancient trees, they are so majestic!"
"I hate little seedlings, they are so ugly! Stomp out these dirty weeds!"
Just have patience, it does not need more than century for delusionary doomsday cult to transform into respected ancient religion with magnificent art and architecture.
I guess what I'm saying is that certain religions have a sort of grandfather clause. Meanwhile, I'm less charitable to any blood spilt to build Flag Buildings.
Too plain work of architecture for your taste? When future Flag Houses will be magnificent marble buildings full of frescoes and golden icons of Ron Hubbard, would it change your mind?
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Do you believe your ideology is crazy?
No, thats the point i am making. Firmamento is i believe a devout Catholic, so i am asking him to take a step outside and realize that just as he thinks the beliefs in question being acted upon is incomprehensible, from an outside perspective many of his beliefs seem similarly or even more so incomprehensible when it comes to how millions of people end up believing and acting upon eating the body and blood of the son of a God and this is some entirely normal thing to do.
I got that, but doesn't that mean that you do think your ideology is crazy? Or rather, you know your ideology is crazy, but you don't think about it? I guess what I'm asking is how do you square this understanding with your belief in your ideology? The religious can at least gesture in the direction of history and say 'ok the supernatural stuff sounds crazy I guess but our results speak for themselves'.
My lizard brain decision tree for this sees ideology as religion minus the supernatural and so minus the crazy - it's not a perfect heuristic, but it used to serve me well (and is also probably part of why, like firmamenti, I too scream "how the fuck could this happen?" at the sky roughly once a quarter).
No it means i think that my ideology might LOOK crazy but if true is not.
Just like Catholicism looks crazy but if transubstantiation is true (and God is real et al) it is not actually crazy.
I am not talking about outcomes, Catholicism might give good outcomes for some believers while also being entirely insane. Those are orthogonal issues.
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What is the difference between supernatural and natural. Given some phenomenon X how do you classify it as natural or supernatural, under the assumption that you believe X to be truly occuring?
IMO when you talk about certain things being supernatural you are already at least halfway to the position of the non-believer. In many formulations gender is a metaphysical object.
The supernatural is that which humans are incapable of explaining with reason and science. What do you think is the difference between ideology and religion?
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Too much charity.
Early and often, that’s the real solution.
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