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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30389 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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You don’t need any exposure to the modern trans gender discourse to develop gender dysphoria, simply existing in a society with different genders is enough.

This is rather misleading. While it's true in the sense that even without exposure to the discourse, there will still be individuals exhibiting dysphoria (as proven by their documented existence prior to them being exposed in mass media), it's also true that exposure to the discourse absolutely dwarfs whatever factors make someone transgender absent the exposure, as shown by the massive increase in referrals to gender clinics, and the flip in age/gender ratios of people being referred there. The fact that we can observe something similar with other disorders like anorexia, multiple personality / DID, TikTok Tourette's, or outright delusions like recovered memories or alien abductions, would also indicate that this isn't merely a case of more people coming out due to increased acceptance.

But hormones are not purely aesthetic and feminisation/masculinisation of the brain is actually scientifically observable - not only on MRI scans but also on test scores, e.g. post HRT, visuo spatial ability is enhanced in FtMs, while verbal working memory is enhanced in MtFs (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453020301402).

If anything, I’d say trans people experience distress at their internal experience not aligning with their desired gender and post HRT it does - many anecdotal reports of how your mental state changes on estrogen or testosterone, not only from trans people but cis people who also undergo HRT (e.g. men with low T who report increased energy, confidence, etc).

That sounds plausible, and even detransitioners talk about it, but it's an open question what it all sums up to in the grand scheme of things. For example, how come it inevitably turns out that 90% of women in communities like this turn out to be trans? How come trans bros hardly ever show up?

That sounds plausible, and even detransitioners talk about it, but it's an open question what it all sums up to in the grand scheme of things. For example, how come it inevitably turns out that 90% of women in communities like this turn out to be trans? How come trans bros hardly ever show up?

Hormones aren’t magic and while they will nudge you some percentage towards the neurochemistry of the opposite sex depending on age, they can’t undo years of male/female socialisation or drastically change an existing personality. If I had transitioned as a minor, I probably would have ended up with more of a “typical” female personality and I’d be on tumblr/TikTok instead.

they can’t undo years of male/female socialisation or drastically change an existing personality

Socialization is kind of TERFy argument, and I simply don't buy it's much of a factor. Years of "more women in STEM!" initiatives have yielded basically no results. As for personality, I thought the whole point is that trans people fit better with the personality of the opposite sex. We simply shouldn't be seeing the kind of patterns I pointed out if that was the case.

Some trans people do fit in better with the personality of the opposite sex, but some don’t; there is indeed a cluster of trans women that are attracted to women, into STEM, have interests typical of male nerds and are generally not very feminine. But AFAIK they tend to be high IQ contributing members of society and if transition improves their life and mental health, what’s the harm? The dysphoria can manifest differently but be just as real, and it’s better that they transition early than later in life when they are married and have kids, which was the average situation for female attracted trans women back in the 80s and 90s (see Blanchard’s research).

To the extent there's harm being done, I actually think it's mostly being done to trans people, rather than by them. In my tinfoilier moments I think the whole thing is an active eugenics program to get rid of the autists.

But my point is that I just don't buy the "woman trapped in a man's body thing". I do believe in dysphoria, and I am in favor of accommodating people who suffer from it, but if this is just about helping people with a disorder to alleviate their suffering, it's also fair to set boundaries, like in spas, sports, prisons, locker rooms, etc. If there was no harm in having these things be mixed sex, we wouldn't have segregated them to begin with.

Would you have those boundaries be purely based on biological sex? If so, would you then have a 6’2 hairy muscular trans man like Mitch Harrison go into the women’s locker room?

Conservatives and TERFs often state that allowing trans women into women’s spaces allows any male sexual predator to access them by identifying as a woman, but if you go the other way and say trans people should go where there biological sex says, what’s to prevent a man from going into the women’s bathroom and saying he’s actually a trans man?

I think the middle ground of having people go where they pass as makes the most sense. A passing trans woman with fully developed breasts and SRS shouldn’t change in the men’s locker room - she’d attract very confused stares at the very least. But someone who’s only been on HRT for a few weeks should probably stick to the spaces of their birth sex regardless of what they identify as.

Getting rid of the autists would be a disaster for humanity tho, who would be crazy enough to obsess over computing or electromagnetism or breeding if it weren’t for autistic people? I don’t know what share of modern inventions we can credit to autistic obsession but it’s probably quite high :)

Conservatives and TERFs often state that allowing trans women into women’s spaces allows any male sexual predator to access them by identifying as a woman, but if you go the other way and say trans people should go where there biological sex says, what’s to prevent a man from going into the women’s bathroom and saying he’s actually a trans man?

Well, it doesn't quite work the same way, right off the bat for prisons "hey I'm actually a trans man, send me to a female prison" is not going to work. Neither is it going to work sports. They might let someone through initially, but if they see them blow everyone else out of the water, the organizers can ask for proof they're female, or else have the person disqualified after the fact. Even in more informal spaces like locker rooms you at least have a way of resolving the dispute, even if the whole conflict will be awkward for everyone involved.

I think the middle ground of having people go where they pass as makes the most sense.

It might work, but doesn't that grant women in locker rooms the right to say "sorry, you don't pass well enough, try harder next time"? I don't know that this would go down well with the current batch of activists. And anyway, I don't think that will work for prisons and sports.

I'm tempted to say there might not be a good solution here one way or the other.

Getting rid of the autists would be a disaster for humanity tho, who would be crazy enough to obsess over computing or electromagnetism or breeding if it weren’t for autistic people? I don’t know what share of modern inventions we can credit to autistic obsession but it’s probably quite high :)

Yes, I think it will be a disaster. Half of our tech stack runs on trans women and furries.

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