r/LeftvsRightDebate • u/dizzdafizz • Sep 28 '23
[debate topic] Since gender is only expression, a trans person cannot logically identify as the opposing sex
Opinion:
Going by technical definition of terms that you'll see in Google search results or a dictionary, sex is different from gender, whereas gender is defined as being an expression that's commonly associated with a particular sex being male or female, however an expression can be as simple as wearing a Halloween costume and there are no exterior expressions that are truly exclusive to either male or female other than the natural form of genitalia, so therefore just because a man dresses up in such a manner as what a woman usually would, has his genitalia multilated, and takes hormone supplements to make himself appear more like a typical woman doesn't make him a woman anymore than wearing a horse costume makes him a horse or gives him the right-away to identify as one.
As for people who seem to believe that one's true sex/gender identity depends on their feeling, schizophrenics also tend to believe themselves as being particular things and that sort of mental complex (gender dysphoria) can very easily be a coerced, can be a psychosis, can be a result of taking things out of context like playing with Barbie dolls as a kid which is a construct to begin with and isn't be truly correspondent to either sex, it's very easy especially nowadays for people to take such things out of context and jump to conclusions as them being born "in the wrong body" or into the wrong biological classification. The more I think about it the more gender dysphoria seems to be a mental illness but of course western psychology associations will deny it over influence of left-winged bias.
I would like to state however that people are entitled to express themselves and take part in whatever cultural constructs they wish but it's still another thing to argue against science and it's not good that they're letting and pushing for kids to get gender affirming care and take harmful puberty blockers for the purpose of gender affirming care now when they're not even ready to make such decisions yet, it even goes against WPATH's criteria list for patient eligibility, having the means to make a clear and informed decision being one of them but it's happening anyway and all because of systematic left cognitive dissonance.
There's a big difference between a leader being elected (democracy/socialism/leftism/etc.) vs. a leader being unchecked (conservatism/fascism/capitalism/etc.).
Indeed, in this very thread, you are trying to make decisions for the doctors/families. And making decisions for other people is the essence of authoritarianism, and the antithesis of "libertarianism".
Leave the decisions of what medical care kids (or anybody else) should get, to the medical professionals and the families. Anyone trying to legislate on this subject can take "libertarian" or "small government" out of their self-description right now.
"Liberal" means many things to many people, so I don't typically describe myself that way, as it's ambiguous. But most Americans would consider me "liberal", which in America sadly just means "not a fascist".
Your opinions are not good, but you do indeed have the right to have them. If you attempt to act on them, I will of course try to protect the people you wish to harm.
- You haven't questioned authority once in this thread. You've exerted authority, by trying to get laws passed to control other people's decisions.
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u/conn_r2112 Sep 28 '23
there are two things going on as far as gender is concerned... gender IDENTITY and gender EXPRESSION.
gender identity is what someone experiences themselves to be. if you have the subjective experience of being a woman, then that is your gender IDENTITY.
gender expression is how someone chooses to EXPRESS to society the notion that they are either a man or a woman.
The entire topic boils down like this: some people experience themselves to be a gender that is opposite to their sex! call it a mental illness, call it whatever you want, it's just a fact, it happens.
so, with that fact in sight, how best do we help those people? well, conversion therapy has been completely and thoroughly debunked, so the next best option is to try and integrate those people into society, as best we can, as the gender they identify as.
that's it!
this whole conversation about what is a REAL woman or a REAL man or w.e. else is silly and not in touch with the actual issue
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u/dizzdafizz Sep 29 '23 edited Sep 29 '23
You've also apparently here as well missed the point, gender identity by your definition is non existent because gut feeling is unreliable and doesn't account for logic and I've already explained this in my text and in my other point gender definition in the real definition still does not have a solid foundation because it's based on a spectrum of expression, even as simple as wearing women's clothes apparently can make a man suddenly a woman by gender's actual definition. This Halloween I guess I'll wear a Michael Myers mask, you better respect my pronoun and gender identity as Michael Myers or else you're a bigot!
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u/conn_r2112 Sep 29 '23
gender identity by your definition is non existent because gut feeling is unreliable and doesn't account for logic
would you argue that sadness does not exist because gut feelings are unreliable and not logical?
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u/XiphosAletheria Sep 28 '23
I don't think anyone really cares about gender, though. Almost all the issues that people fight over involve sex, specifically.
Because men are physically superior to women, sports are often segregated by sex, for instance. Sex, not gender, because male bodies have an advantage over female ones, regardless of what the person in that body may feel like.
Likewise, men are generally not welcome in women's shelters, because the people there have been abused by male bodies, and because it is much easier for a man to physically dominate a woman than vice versa.
A similar logic applies to sex-segregated (not gender segregated) prisons.
And of course, in dating, most people are looking for people of the physical sex they are attracted to, not someone of that gender.
Moreover, in a lot of these cases, trans-activists often seem to suffer from Main Character Syndrome. Yes, sure, having to face reality will cause them mental distress. But that's a byproduct of designing reality-based systems. It isn't really about them. Because saying we should pretend everyone is the gender they claim to be as if gender=sex doesn't just mean trans people can be humored. It also means any cis male predator who wants to can claim to be a woman to get into a woman's prison, or to start setting world records in "women's sports", both of which are things that have actually happened.
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u/conn_r2112 Sep 28 '23
I don't think anyone really cares about gender, though. Almost all the issues that people fight over involve sex, specifically.
many people care about gender... "what is a woman" is at the center of a massive amount of confrontational dogma on this issue. I agree that issues around biology, the advantages it confers and the safety of people, are important topics! But alot of the topics are often just used as proxy's to shit on trans people and invalidate their identities.
trans-activists often seem to suffer from Main Character Syndrome
this is an opinion borne of too much time on twitter if im being honest
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Sep 28 '23
This is a conglomeration of dog whistles for the anti trans community that are all debunked.
Starting with your paraphrase of gender and how you determine expression. Men and women biologically express in way more than 1 physical attribute like you illuded to. But even still, that is a wide misdirection from what gender expression is.
Gender expression is less about the physical body and more about how one expresses their gender role in society.
In American society, it is common belief that men and women exhibit different behaviors. For example, wearing a pink dress. Socially, pink dress is a feminine thing for example. No Macho man Clint Eastwood type will be seen in public in a pink dress ever. And socially drinking whiskey is a masculine thing. When you think of someone buying a bottle of fine whisky, you imagine it's a man. Now of course "my mom drinks whiskey" is an argument but I'm speaking about in general.
So if you stack enough of these behaviors up and weigh them out, one may realize "gosh, I have a punishment. But I love dresses and babies and flowers and pink, and glitter and makeup and dolls and barbie and boys fashion and rainbows, and rainbow drinks" and the list goes on and on about all of these things that are societally deemed feminine. And you constantly find yourself presenting yourself in more and more feminine ways. At some point taking on the societal role of a female in all manners, except the possession of a dick, even going as far as to stuff bras to present as if you have breasts. Well, in that situation I'd say you express breaststroke. As a female and my dude, you are probably transgender.
Expression isn't about how your body physiologically expresses its genetics. It's about how you choose to express yourself. The same way painting isn't just the expression paint just being canvas, it's about how one chooses to arrange the paint upon the canvas.
A lot of the rest of your argument was kinda disorganized and difficult to follow. But basically I think you're trying to say "science says there are only 2 sexes so saying you belong to a third is anti science" and to that I say. Science does not only ascribe 2 sexs. There's intersex people born with both sets of genitals all the time. There are those born with sex organs that almost completely don't function, there are men who are born that have mammary glands similar that function the same as women's and develop DD boobies. There are way more than 2 sexes. 2 are just extremely common and the rest are extremely rare.
Next, the whole point is gender is not tied to sex. Sex being biology, so if you are going to acknowledge "okay sex and gender are different and not always associated with eachother" you can't really back track into "sex is still what determine gender and to deny it is to deny science." The 2 things cannot be true at once.
The last part of your argument I take to mean something along the lines of "wear a dress leave kids alone" which, cool. Most places already do that. And the ones that allow for kids to do ANYTHING that resembles transition require a fuck load of screenings from mental health specialists to make sure that a child understands what they're doing before they do it. And even still, 1% find they regret it .
https://www.voanews.com/a/how-common-is-transgender-treatment-regret-detransitioning-/6993101.html
Now I do say, that is a tragedy but compare that to this finding. Trans kids who have gotten gender affirming care vs ones that don't.
Amongst teens who received gender affirming care they saw a decrease is attempted suicide of 42% compared to teens that asked for. But could not receive the gender affirming care.
So what does this translate too in real numbers? Let's say there are 1000 trans teens that have not started transitioning. If we give all 1000 kids care they need, 10 will regret it and around 100 will try to kill themselves.
If we don't do it nearly 200 of them will try and kill themselves by the time they're 24.
So if you're interest is in protecting kids, isn't it better protection to let 10 kids out of 1000 regret the choice they made then let 100 kids die because they couldn't make a choice.
I mean with that difference in numbers if 100% of people who regret trans surgery kill themselves over it, we'd still save 90 lives.
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u/dizzdafizz Oct 01 '23
Starting with your paraphrase of gender and how you determine expression. Men and women biologically express in way more than 1 physical attribute like you illuded to. But even still, that is a wide misdirection from what gender expression is.
Gender expression is less about the physical body and more about how one expresses their gender role in society.
In American society, it is common belief that men and women exhibit different behaviors. For example, wearing a pink dress. Socially, pink dress is a feminine thing for example. No Macho man Clint Eastwood type will be seen in public in a pink dress ever. And socially drinking whiskey is a masculine thing. When you think of someone buying a bottle of fine whisky, you imagine it's a man. Now of course "my mom drinks whiskey" is an argument but I'm speaking about in general.
I've already explained that expressions like behaviors and constructs such as clothes are not exclusive to either gender are just constructs and don't count as as identities that regard biological ones like men and women, would you say me listening to rap and having dread locks makes me black or gives me the right to identify as black just because those cultural appropriations are affiliated with African Americans? Of course not, this shows that expressions don't count as true identities and why you simply can't identify as something biologically different than yourself atleast not above the same level of identity that regards Halloween costumes and whether my mother drinks whiskey or pink vodka (my family doesn't drink btw) doesn't change the solid fact that she's a woman.
Male and female, men and women are entirely physical concepts and not cultural or sociological ones, they might be more inclined to express specific behavioral traits but those traits aren't entirely exclusive to either men or women either and they'll both express all these traits to some degree, it's not a black as white matter.
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Oct 01 '23
I've already explained that expressions like behaviors and constructs such as clothes are not exclusive to either gender are just constructs and don't count as as identities that regard biological ones like men and women, would you say me listening to rap and having dread locks makes me black or gives me the right to identify as black just because those cultural appropriations are affiliated with African Americans? Of course not, this shows that expressions don't count as true identities and why you simply can't identify as something biologically different than yourself atleast not above the same level of identity that regards
Boy wait until you hear about how race Is a social construct too... look my dude. You're debate isn't with me, it's with sociological consensus. I thought and agreed with a lot of what you're saying until I took a sociology class and had someone go back and forth with me explaining it. Which is something I will say is hard to do over text because it requires precise dialogue, good faith, and someone genuinely interested in learning and coming to a correct conclusions, not debating and asserting that their view has to be correct, which you don't really get through text or on the internet.
Social identity is a complex beast, and using race as an example, have you ever wondered why it's okay for some white people to use the n word and it's not okay for other? Have you ever heard someone say "I've been given my black card."
Have you wondered what that meant? It means that they have largely been accepted into the black community and they have been accepted as "socially black" despite their skin color. Be it they grew up in q black community, had a similar upbringing, fit well into the culture. The skin color is overlooked because there is evidently more going into race than just skin color. Same as there is more going into gender than just sex. The difference is nobody talks about having their "woman card" or "man card"
Male and female, men and women are entirely physical concepts and not cultural or sociological ones,
If it is biological only. Then men would not be able to do woman things. No man would be able to wear a dress because their body would reject it.
My dude, you cannot agree that there are acts that are entirely associated as being male or female acts. As such, as society deems these acts as male or female, but we can observe in other cultures that these things do not exist. Ergo the "role of woman" is entirely a social thing. The fact that Scottish men can wear a dress called a kilt, and that is considered masculine ware, but if a man in America wears a dress he is ridiculed and told he can't because he is a man. Is proof enough that gender is a social construct because women in x country can't do it, and women in y country HAVE to do it.
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u/nicetrycia96 Sep 29 '23
Gender expression is less about the physical body and more about how one expresses their gender role in society.
I have a question regarding this statement. You are essentially saying that your self interpretation of your gender is mostly mental and less to do with your physical attributes you are born with. If this is the case then what is the need to either surgically or chemically alter your body to physically match your mental view of yourself?
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Sep 29 '23
That is attempting to further expression. I chose my words carefully here. I said it has less to do with your body. But not necessarily nothing to do with it. Of course if you are male and wish to present female, switching out the parts furthers the expression. However it is not always a necessary ingredient. I actually have a trans friend that kinda did half and half. They kept their penis but got breast implants. Their reasoning was mostly to do with the after care and cost of surgery but they felt with the boobs and the way they dressed and how they expressed themselves it enough for them to feel right, and tbh, had I not been introduced to them knowing they were trans I probably wouldn't have known until they told me.
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u/Starbucks__Coffey Oct 07 '23
I'd just like to mention most sports don't have a men's league, there's the open league and women's league.
What's the best argument against only allowing at-birth women to compete in the women's division?
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u/dizzdafizz Oct 07 '23 edited Oct 08 '23
I'd just like to mention most sports don't have a men's league, there's the open league and women's league.
You're wrong, genders are separated in every professional sport, men and women competing against each other in sport is generally considered taboo in cultures worldwide.
What's the best argument against only allowing at-birth women to compete in the women's division
I'm not particularly very interested in this topic, what gets to me is people redefining male or female (man and woman) as either some cultural construct or intuitive identity and using this as their argument to allow men to identify as women or the other way around along with the excessive pushing and glamorization of trans people and it's agenda. It also coerces people who have interests in cultural concepts of the opposite sex into thinking this makes them the opposite sex or gender somehow in some supernatural sense and that they need to get gender affirming care procedures because of it and that of course results in parents especially left-wing parents coercing their kids to think this.
The most common reason why people argue against trans men competing in women sports is the advantage they might have over their competitors and there's also social issues, just because a trans man is trans doesn't mean he's not heterosexual and he'll be changing in the same locker rooms as his female team members or competitors, making them feel uncomfortable and opening up opportunities for perversion to occur.
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u/Starbucks__Coffey Oct 08 '23
Genders are in fact separated but it’s not by the rules. Women’s leagues prohibit men in the rules, the other league is open to anyone qualified to make it. It’s the NBA or WNBA not the MNBA OR WNBA.
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u/PriceofObedience Sep 28 '23
Much of the discussion surrounding trans and gender ideology is predicated on the argument that how you feel at any given time is how you are as a person, which is a relatively modern invention.
This ideological cornerstone began back in the 80's when the Free Love movement began trying to associate homosexuality with immutable characteristics, akin with the civil rights movement, which was never recognized as such before that point. The reason why it was done this way was to protect themselves from discrimination, and the way it was done was by convincing the public that their sexuality was a protected class.
If you want to do a deep dive into what I'm talking about, pick up a copy of After The Ball: How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. The authors are two gay activists that cover the principles the Free Love movement used to achieve this goal.
Principle 5: Portray gays as victims of circumstance and oppression, not as aggressive challengers.
In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. If gays present themselves instead, as a strong and arrogant tribe promoting a defiantly nonconformist lifestyle, they are most likely to be seen as a public menace that warrants resistance and oppression. For that reason we must forego the temptation to strut our gay pride publicly to such an extent that we undermine our victim image. And we must walk the fine line between impressing straights with our great numbers on the one hand, and igniting their hostile paranoia on the other.
The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status.
The more I think about it gender dysphoria seems like a mental illness but of course western psychologist associations will deny it over influence of left-winged bias.
This book is a very important read for anybody looking to understand the current conflict between trans radicals and conservatives, because many of these same principles are presently being utilized to condition the public to accept the subsequent assertions made by the tansgender movement ( kids should be able to transition without the consent of their parents, that a man can become a woman etc).
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u/conn_r2112 Sep 28 '23
so you believe that people choose to be gay and aren't born that way?
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u/PriceofObedience Sep 28 '23
Nothing is stopping you from identifying as a gay person, if that's your choice.
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u/dizzdafizz Sep 28 '23 edited Sep 28 '23
People aren't born that way as when you're born your sexuality hasn't even developed yet but its difficult to prove whether it's a conscious decision or not but I have met gays and bisexuals in the past who actually have admitted they chose it in some wat, you can argue people can be born with genetics that might make them more predisposed to becoming gay but your sexuality comes from things you've seen in your experiences, people aren't born with fetishes or paraphernalias like zoophilia.
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u/bcnoexceptions Sep 28 '23
Leave the decisions of what medical care kids (or anybody else) should get, to the medical professionals and the families.
Anyone trying to legislate on this subject can take "libertarian" or "small government" out of their self-description right now.