Thanks for your replay. I do like to challenge my own belief and I really do appreciate the way we can discuss our differences of opinion. Yes it was "consistent" You have me a lot to think about and some interesting points I'll reply when I have a little more time to do so. Thanks. Regarding you comparison between gender and religion where do you stand on forcing others to agree with your ideology? Just like religion should somebody be forced to identify with someone else's ideology even though it's not that persons own belief. Should say an Muslim be forced become a Christian and openly express Christian beliefs? My point is why is the acceptable with gender. I recognise and respect other people's thought process. By in my reality is it doesn't exist and why should I be forced to express a narrative I don't believe in?
As long as people are respectful I think it's wrong to force your ideology on others and force them to express something they don't believe in. Being forced or shamed not using pronouns you don't believe in is wrong. I refuse to lie and express something I don't believe in. That doesn't mean I won't respect the other person. I will simply use the person's name and avoid pronouns. I think this is perfectly acceptable and respect both ways. Regarding if God exists or not. Who knows?
You're investing too much emotion into this discussion and it feels like you're shouting at me rather than trying to discuss. So you believe behaviour and beliefs are down to genetics?
I would point out that just because something can't always be neatly categorized does not mean categories do not exist. There are indeed some rare cases when a human being does not fit into one or the other gender category, but those cases are extremely exceedingly rare. And even in most of those cases, the person usually identifies with the gender they mostly appear to be from the outside, so the social implications of what you are talking about is not really an issue. The vast majority of those "having trouble" with gender categorization were not born with any physical or biological abnormalities.
Thank you for establishing that you do NOT have sufficient subject matter knowledge regarding the topic of GENDER to engage in a meaningful discussion given the facile question above. Have a nice day!
The latest available data places the LBGTQ population at 4.5% of the population. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/visualization/lgbt-stats/?topic=LGBT#demographic However since women are OVERREPRESENTED (58%) and men are UNDERREPRESENTED (42%) that indicates that there is probably a significant number or men still in the closet for fear of what will happen if they were to come out. The actual percentage is probably somewhere between 5% and 10% in my estimation. So no, even at just 4.5% is it FAR from being RARE! That is the EQUIVALENT of 1 out of every 20 people so the odds are that you work with, are friends with and/or have relatives who are LBGTQ. As we LEARN more about it and as it becomes more ACCEPTABLE in society for individuals to EXPRESS their gender identity OPENLY it will no longer be an issue because people will REALISE that it is NORMAL for anyone to be LBGTQ.
Some people will lie about their gender to take advantage of others if we do not assign an objective definition to it. And if we objectively define gender, it will end up coincidentally oppressing others who genuinely do not fit the definition. Either way, some ppl get screwed. So which way screws the least amount of people the least severely? Im thinking whichever one doesnt let men lie their way into women's restrooms, women's sports and women's affirmative action jobs is probably the least damaging when all's said and done. There isn't much incentive these days for a woman to pretend to be man...
WHY are you egregiously accusing Trans people of being LIARS without any shred of evidence to support your bovine excrement allegation?
I'm not talking about trans people. I'm talking about people who pretend to be trans, lie, to take advantage of the ambiguity.
You realize that by this logic, that I can believe that a person who is a cismale is not actually male and start calling them "she/her", right?
You're making a false comparison here. To make the comparison parallel, using the bold, then a transgender (Christian) would be trying to make a cisgender (Muslim) into a transgender (Christian). But that is not what is happening. What is happening with transgenders is that they are saying they are Christian (to maintain the parallel) and the Muslims are saying that there cannot be any other religion and that they refuse to call them by their denomination or even recognize Christain as real.
You still have NOT provided any SHRED of EVIDENCE that there is actually occurring even ANECDOTALLY let alone in SIGNIFICANT numbers. What you are doing falls under the term fearmongering which in turn DISPARAGES all Trans people NEEDLESSLY. That is IRRESPONSIBLE and causes HARM to the LBGTQ community.
Litrerally all religions believe that their religion is right. This doesn't mean they cannot be respectful of different religions and this doesn't mean that they have to believe the other religion is right! A Muslim can be respectful of Christianity without being made to say Christianity is the one true religion and Islam is wrong. My point is you cannot force someone to agree with something they don't believe in. I don't believe in gender and there isn't evidence to prove my point of view is wrong. So why should someone force me disregard my own personal beliefs and make align with something I don't believe in?
I agree that you can't force someone to agree with something they don't believe it. Look at how many flat earthers we have among us, or young earthers. But that is different that your false comparison argument. But what about self naming? Is the Muslim being disrespectful if he insists on calling the Christian "infidel" instead of Christian or even Methodist, if so asked? That's no different than a trans man asking to be called by he/him or even they/them instead of she/her. The level of respect here is the same in the two situations. And yes there is plenty of evidence of gender in the context we are using it. It has been presented on these threads repeatedly. You no more have to accept that evidence as true any more than a flat earther has to accept the evidence of the earth being a sphere as true.
I think you need to bring up these studies to support this claim because there are plenty of cis women who are aggressive and plenty of cis men who are maternal. You are applying stereotyping here just as much as any anti-trans has applied stereotyping. Again, that is not exactly how that works. Please bring up any evidence to they contrary. I am not disagreeing that the SRY gene is a prime factor, although not necessarily the only factor. Now I am assuming/guessing that by the SRY gene aligning with the DNA, you mean that it is either present on the Y chromosome or absent on the X chromosome, and not aligning means the opposite; present on X absent on Y. But the gene could be present on the Y chromosome and not be activated. That is pretty much the one thing that we don't know. As far as I am aware of there are no studies that actually look at transgender DNA and chromosomes. Furthermore, there are none that account for the possibility of chimeriaism. While genetics may be a factor in transgenderism, we honestly don't know, nor if so, how it is so. And yes I do tend to argue about the possible genetic factors that may lead to transgenderism. It's why I make the point that a chimera could easily have female DNA that created the genitals, but male DNA that created the head. These question suppose a genetic influence that is not actually proven. Even if they turn out to be, there is no evidence that these are strictly chromosome or SRY based instincts. For that matter, they may well be learned behaviors, reinforced by generations of stereotypes. It's also stereotype based because every type of clothing worn by women today has at some point in history been men's fashion, and everything that is worn by men today, has been at some point in history been a woman's fashion. The only possible exception is the skort, because I do not recall anything like that in history. YOUR disingenuous OP simply REINFORCES that ridiculous stereotype since it based upon an ABSENCE of KNOWLEDGE rather than any reasoned or logical basis. The concept of GENDER is based upon the KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING that our DNA is way more COMPLEX than the SIMPLISTIC BINARY assumption that is so PREVALENT among those who have NEVER encountered what is a REALITY to between TWO and THREE percent of the POPULATION. Why MUST they be FORCED into a CLOSET just because it makes a smallminded and uneducated group of people UNCOMFORTABLE with the concept that some men are NOT aggressive?[/QUOTE] I find this ironic because your opening statement on what happens with the SRY gene was simplistic binary assumption, even in the idea or whether or not it "aligned with the DNA". And yes your emphasis does make it seem like you are yelling and aggressive. Try more bold and italics. They serve better for emphasis, which is what I think you were trying for.
This is false representation. We are discussing transgenders here, not the whole of the LBGT community. The numbers you gave include those who are not transgender. You are throwing bias into the equation there. First off, the link does nothing to indicate the difference between cis and trans gender. Nor does it indicate whether it is basing orientation off of sex or gender. A transwoman attracted to men is homosexual based off of sex, but heterosexual based off of gender. Which is one of the reasons why I despise the current set of labels, but that is another thread. Furthermore, why are you assuming that men are underrepresented? and in which way? Throwing out the fact that you are including cis genders with transgenders in your numbers. Why are we not also assuming that there is also a significant number of women still in the closet, as you put it? Even at 1%, the population of the world is so large that this is still millions of people. In the US where your data comes from, that's still hundreds of thousands. Not insignificant numbers. I'm with you in this aspect. But presenting skewed information is as damaging to transgender acceptance as false information from the anti-transgender side.
Wait a minute... If gender doesn't really exist, then recognizing the whole Trans thing is silly and unnecessary. Anyone else seeing the inconsistencies here?
Usually, from what I've seen and heard, the person changes their name. So, is it respectful to call them by the name they were born with or their preferred (associated with their new gender) name? It is my understanding that is called "deadnaming" and is considered disrespectful. Also, what do you mean "something I do not believe in"? Are you saying that you don't believe that transexual people exist? Or, do you not believe that a person can change their gender? Neither, both or something else?
When same sex couples can produce a child without artificial insemination, surrogacy or whatever fantastic surgery/genetic manipulation the medical world can come up with, then your screed might have some validity. Gender denotes behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits associated with one's sex. Mind you, there are those who have the opposite traits of the aformentioned classifications, but they are the exception and not the rule. Like it or not, that's the way it is. Efforts to re-classify or eliminated such are purely to make those "exceptions" not feel odd or excluded.
@Maquiscat I am NOT interested in QUIBBLING with you about what is and is not "proven" by science which is still way behind when it comes to obtaining the requisite KNOWLEDGE pertaining to the LBGTQ community. Suffice to say that there IS scientific evidence that establishes beyond any doubt that GENDER exists and that it is a SPECTRUM rather than a BINARY result. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/ Which GENES are TURNED on or off in whatever SEQUENCE of the TIMELINE of a pregnancy is still very much a matter of RESEARCH rather than established KNOWLEDGE. More on that in the link provided above. What I posted was in the form of a simplified EXPLANATION for those who appear to not have any clue so as to provide some CONCEPT of HOW small genetic changes can result in the LBGTQ community as it EXISTS in REALITY. Let me REITERATE that I am NOT going to DEBATE the SCIENCE because this is NOT that forum, this is the LBGTQ RIGHTS forum. Moving on to the STATISTICS what we have is INCOMPLETE and if you bother to check the Gallup figures you will see a GROWTH in the ESTIMATES of the size of the LBGTQ community as it EMERGES from the closet. My original number of 4.5% comes from the 2018 Gallup poll. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx Interestingly enough Gallup has UPDATED their polling and it has now RISEN to 5.6%. https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx Women are more OPEN and ACCEPTING than men when it comes to these issues which is why the DATA that I quoted showed that men are LAGGING when it comes to being identified as LBGTQ. They face far more HARSH societal disapproval and far LESS acceptance by their PEERS and even loved ones which EXPLAINS what the DATA reveals. I am anticipating that this difference will resolve itself as Boomers die off and Millennials and Gen X take over given that they are more open and ACCEPTING. This is SUPPORTED by the Gallup DATA. As far as my posting STYLE goes there is NOT a BOLD or ITALICS key on my keyboard whereas there are THREE keys that ENABLE the use of CAPS. When they REDESIGN keyboards I will change my posting style but until then this WORKS for me as far as EMPHASIS is concerned. Have a nice day!
Gender doesn't exist and of course transexuals exist. They are simply dissociated from their biological sex and have the urge to change their appearance and mannerisms to align with the sex stereotype they believe they should be part of. A persons sex is very real, but the concept of labeling something as complex as a persons identity is wrong. There is biological sex and beyond that just a complex individual free thinking mind. The notion of gender is a lie and it's just there as an attempt to classify what cannot be classified. The false notion of gender is perverse and restricting. You are simply you and your complex mind cannot and should not be labeled with something like gender. It's too simplistic and the notion goes against my belief that we complex unique individuals that are far beyond labels.
All gender does is stereotype people and inforce the idea that you must act a certain way. You act this way therefore you should be this stereotype, or you're biologicaly this and you must behaved in accordance with your sex stereotype. My belief is sex isn't a limiting factor on how a person should act. I will not conform. We are our biological makeup (whatever it is) and beyond that we are our unique mind. Ask yourself this, do you really understand exactly who you are? I know I don't and I believe it's an impossible task for anyone to fully understand their own identity. So how is it possible to slap on a label in an attempt to convey to others our complex identify (something even we don't even understand about ourselves)? To believe in gender you must believe in stereotyping, which I don't.
I uphold your right to your uninformed OPINION on this matter but the FACTS establish that you are WRONG when it comes to GENDER.
Being rude doesn't make you right. It seems you're struggling to grasp the concept of this discussion.
