11 yr/old drag kid worshiped within LGBTQ community (Mod warning op)

klaaaz

sbsquarepants wrote: »

My own daughter is the very same - she's 6, insists she's a boy. Same carry on, she doesn't like traditional girl toys or clothes or anything like that - it's all fine.

I tell her the very same thing as your friend, it's fine to be a girl who likes boy things, I don't mind buying her a pair of blue runners for example, but I draw the line well before hormones or surgery!

If she's still insisting at 16, then maybe there's an issue. Right now she's just a kid, being a kid and that's exactly what she should be.

That's hypocritical. You and others object to a boy playing with or wearing girl things like clothes as it's against "gender norms" but yet you support a girl wearing and playing with boy things. Remove the genderisation from clothes and toys , then we'll have a better society where anyone who dresses differently to the "gender norms" is not penalised and ridiculed by the conservatives.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Wibbs wrote: »

It can be both, though I would strongly suspect biology in the wider sense is by far the bigger influence in this particular case. It doesn't require any changes in definition either. Well so long as we ignore the myriad self declared definitions within some of the more extreme ends of identity politics. That has become a bit of a farce. IE Facebook having a couple of dozen "genders". If someone wants to identify as "two spirit" or "bi queer curious" or whatever, they can go right ahead, but it's not exactly scientific, or basic common sense. It's pandering to a current gra for self identification along individualistic lines.

You can break it down to this: Three genders; male, female, intersex. Three sexualities; Gay, Straight, Bisexual(Asexuality a possible fourth, though Asexual folks will tend to identify more strongly with one of the previous three). Every one of the self identity politics "definitions" will comfortably fit within those above six categories.

Yes but we can't just break it down the way things are. Princess C was talking earlier in the thread about 'peoples reality'. How can we deny someone is 'neutrois' (these people identify as being genderless) without denying their reality, and how do you then thus prove someone is neutrois?

I get what your saying that narrowing what one can actually be will help solve the problem some-what, but I doubt it will wash with certain (fringe) elements.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

DanDan6592 wrote: »

My point about Critical feminist theory was the moving of the goalposts was done by these people, creating a difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological whereas gender is seemingly influenced by culture and society as opposed to biology.

... which science researched and found evidence in.

Your research doesn't show how you prove how one identifies is actually how they identify though.

It wasn't asked to. It was asked to prove the scientific reality and I did so. If you disagree with the science, that's fine - but then your initial point about relying on reality is moot.

And it is an important question in regard to the way certain aspects of (American society, really) is going.

It's an important influence, granted but: can YOU categoricly PROVE that feminist theory HAS influienced the research I SPECIFICLY quoted? In BOTH links?

My theory is no - you can't - because you haven't read it.

Wibbs

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Yes but we can't just break it down the way things are. Princess C was talking earlier in the thread about 'peoples reality'. How can we deny someone is 'neutrois' (these people identify as being genderless) without denying their reality, and how do you then thus prove someone is neutrois?

I get what your saying that narrowing what one can actually be will help solve the problem some-what, but I doubt it will wash with certain (fringe) elements.

Fringe elements are just that fringe and should only become mainstream if there is solid scientifically based proof to back something up. In this case there isn't. Like I said someone can identify as "genderless" all they want. Free world and all that, but this should not influence science and certainly not medical or political policies. Which is happening to some degree in some areas. EG that previous example of the HSE claiming something that could be disproven by a simple blood test(among a myriad of other checks) in a matter of minutes.

klaaaz

Those pesky scientists disagreeing yet again with the experts on boards about the biological basis of transgender people.

Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/104/2/390/5104458

Understanding the Genetic Basis of Transgender Identity
http://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4592/presentation/578abstract

Wibbs

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... which science researched and found evidence in.

Actually the hard evidence is wooly to say the least. The claim is more based in social sciences and psychology, both areas of science that can and have changed tack with the slightest breeze. Solid repeatable and testable evidence is emerging that sexuality has a very strong biological component. That people are "born not made" one sexuality or the other(s), that social factors have some influence but it's minor. You can't turn someone Straight into Gay and you can't turn someone Gay into Straight(something extremists of all kinds thought you could do both).

Yet another branch of the softer sciences claims something even more defining as gender is more cultural and societal? Does not compute. Not when there's also hard evidence of the there being a gender based duality in the physical brains of men and women. For a start if it did compute you could "cure" people of being Transexuals with environmental changes and therapy. Secondly and just like Homosexuality in a heterosexual culture, Transexuals would be even rarer than they are, because the cultural and societal influences would nip that in the bud.

I could potentially see where society and culture could influence how someone on the sliding scale of gender and sexuality regards and defines themselves. EG if someone grows up in a god bothering Bible Belt area where being Gay is a major sin and grounds for social excommunication, even physical threat, I could see how an individual might then identify as Transexual, because that's a medical and physical condition that is out of their hands, rather than the "choice of sin" homosexuality might be seen in such a culture. The same kid in another liberal and open culture might just say "I'm Gay" and that would be that. One might also argue that with the more recent focus in the wider mainstream of Transsexuality that could also influence some to put themselves in that box, whereas twenty years ago they'd define themselves as Gay. It would be my opinion that "Transexual" is a label that casts a wider net than just Transexual, yes/no and that there are a few different roads to that conclusion.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... which science researched and found evidence in.

You're research doesn't show this. It just shows that these messages are "conveyed" during treatment/help being given. The scientific basis for doing so is not given.
Even if it did, this being the social science, there is precedence for this "science" to no longer be accepted and to even do a full 360.

"In a Gender Affirmative Care, the following messages are conveyed:

transgender identities and diverse gender expressions do not constitute a mental disorder;

variations in gender identity and expression are normal aspects of human diversity, and binary definitions of gender do not always reflect emerging gender identities;

gender identity evolves as an interplay of biology, development, socialization, and culture; and...."

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

It wasn't asked to. It was asked to prove the scientific reality and I did so. If you disagree with the science, that's fine - but then your initial point about relying on reality is moot.

Correct it didn't. Though I'm asking now is it possible?


It's an important influence, granted but: can YOU categoricly PROVE that feminist theory HAS influienced the research I SPECIFICLY quoted? In BOTH links?

My theory is no - you can't - because you haven't read it.[/QUOTE]

No I can't (and I don't believe it directly does either tbh). Regardless, it didn't actually answer what you thought it did.

Wibbs

klaaaz wrote: »

Those pesky scientists disagreeing yet again with the experts on boards about the biological basis of transgender people.

Not me anyway. As I've said above I'd believe that Transsexuality could be included within Intersex on the physiological level, particularly in the neurological. That you could have a fully biological male or female with an Intersex brain. Indeed with a fair few Intersex folks in the past, before it was more understood, many were assigned a gender after postnatal surgery and later hormones that didn't agree with the gender they felt themselves to be, again likely at the neurological level.

p1akuw47h5r3it

klaaaz wrote: »

Those pesky scientists disagreeing yet again with the experts on boards about the biological basis of transgender people.

Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/104/2/390/5104458

Understanding the Genetic Basis of Transgender Identity
http://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4592/presentation/578abstract

From conclusion of 2nd link: "We identified genetic variants in 20 genes that may play a role in transgender identity"

i.e. they don't know yet. Correlation doesn't equal causation and all that.

From 1st link:

"Gender dysphoria may have an oligogenic component, with several genes involved in sex hormone–signaling contributing."

i.e. they don't know yet. Correlation doesn't equal causaution.

Maybe I should clarify. I believe Trans-sexualism is a real thing but is still not proven scientifically; and the idea that it's influenced by society and culture is nonsense to me.

klaaaz

DanDan6592 wrote: »

From conclusion of 2nd link: "We identified genetic variants in 20 genes that may play a role in transgender identity"

i.e. they don't know yet. Correlation doesn't equal causation and all that.

From 1st link:

"Gender dysphoria may have an oligogenic component, with several genes involved in sex hormone–signaling contributing."

i.e. they don't know yet. Correlation doesn't equal causaution.

Maybe I should clarify. I believe Trans-sexualism is a real thing but is still not proven scientifically; and the idea that it's influenced by society and culture is nonsense to me.

The scientists know something for the basis of gender dysphoria.

Tear this one apart of you wish
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17563-z#Tab1

Two studies have evaluated functional connectivity in transgender people and found (i) a pattern of neural connectivity that inferred suffering due to incongruity between sex assigned at birth and gender identity41, and (ii) that the connectivity between the right insula and the somatosensory cortex was negatively related to ratings on a well-being scale in regard to gender dysphoria42. Another study examined brain structural connectivity and observed unique differences in regional network efficiency in the insular area in trans people43. These observations, together with our findings of reduced GMVs in the insula in both hemispheres in two independent TW groups, suggest that such regional GMV differences could be characteristics associated with TW.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually the hard evidence is wooly to say the least. The claim is more based in social sciences and psychology, both areas of science that can and have changed tack with the slightest breeze. Solid repeatable and testable evidence is emerging that sexuality has a very strong biological component. That people are "born not made" one sexuality or the other(s), that social factors have some influence but it's minor. You can't turn someone Straight into Gay and you can't turn someone Gay into Straight(something extremists of all kinds thought you could do both).

Yet another branch of the softer sciences claims something even more defining as gender is more cultural and societal? Does not compute. Not when there's also hard evidence of the there being a gender based duality in the physical brains of men and women. For a start if it did compute you could "cure" people of being Transexuals with environmental changes and therapy. Secondly and just like Homosexuality in a heterosexual culture, Transexuals would be even rarer than they are, because the cultural and societal influences would nip that in the bud.

I could potentially see where society and culture could influence how someone on the sliding scale of gender and sexuality regards and defines themselves. EG if someone grows up in a god bothering Bible Belt area where being Gay is a major sin and grounds for social excommunication, even physical threat, I could see how an individual might then identify as Transexual, because that's a medical and physical condition that is out of their hands, rather than the "choice of sin" homosexuality might be seen in such a culture. The same kid in another liberal and open culture might just say "I'm Gay" and that would be that. One might also argue that with the more recent focus in the wider mainstream of Transsexuality that could also influence some to put themselves in that box, whereas twenty years ago they'd define themselves as Gay. It would be my opinion that "Transexual" is a label that casts a wider net than just Transexual, yes/no and that there are a few different roads to that conclusion.

Bear in mind the evidence I presented wasn't asked to define gender or investigate cultural or societal influences - it was just asked to prove the "sceintific reality", and I've done so.

I'll assume you mean transgenner, not transexual. Someone only becomes transexual after an operation.

DanDan6592 wrote: »

You're research doesn't show this. It just shows that these messages are "conveyed" during treatment/help being given. The scientific basis for doing so is not given.
Even if it did, this being the social science, there is precedence for this "science" to no longer be accepted and to even do a full 360.







Correct it didn't. Though I'm asking now is it possible?


No I can't (and I don't believe it directly does either tbh). Regardless, it didn't actually answer what you thought it did.

No - you didn't say what you thought you did. Your exact words where "the only reality that should matter should be that of scientific reality" (as opposed to a person's individual take on reality, in context of the quote) - which I've posted ages ago. You then decided it was heavily influenced because it didn't match your pre-set definition, but couldn't back it up or clarify your definition.

Wibbs

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Bear in mind the evidence I presented wasn't asked to define gender or investigate cultural or societal influences - it was just asked to prove the "sceintific reality", and I've done so..

Actually you haven't. You couldn't have as the scientific reality is very much up in the air at the moment. The conclusions drawn by some makes them out to be based in science but it isn't as yet. Those conclusions are very much based on current cultural, political and philosophical influences. Such influences contend that gender is a social/cultural construct, yet what science is increasingly demonstrating is that the biological component is extremely strong. You can't have it both ways.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually you haven't. You couldn't have as the scientific reality is very much up in the air at the moment. The conclusions drawn by some makes them out to be based in science but it isn't as yet. Those conclusions are very much based on current cultural, political and philosophical influences. Such influences contend that gender is a social/cultural construct, yet what science is increasingly demonstrating is that the biological component is extremely strong. You can't have it both ways.

Disagree with you here. Can you point to the parts of the evidence I presented that are based on said influences?

sbsquarepants

Wibbs wrote: »

You can't have it both ways.

Is this some sort of new regulation:D

Zorya

People from the LGB arena would want to be very wary about getting too excited about the (very) soft findings in science that seek to attribute gender to the brain workings.
A homosexual brain thesis that shows similarities to the opposite sex can be used to pathologise homosexuality in children/youth and propose what is essentially medicalised conversion therapy ie that the person is diagnosed transgender.
(On a side note I have yet to understand the supposed relationship between sexual orientation and gender identity. How have they become conflated? They are completely different things.)

Also, scientific research is most definitely being suppressed in the area. Ask James Caspian of Bath University. Ask Lisa Littman of Brown's University. These just off the top of my head and I am certain there are many more.

Studies of post hormonal and surgical treatment regularly show that there is poor alleviation of symptoms - depression, anxiety and dysphoria often persist. And more worryingly follow up studies show that medical authorities very often lose track of the participants.

A further big concern is that by depathologising an area that is obviously a huge source of mental anguish and ongoing physical suffering then external causations are not being adequately studied, because it is politically sensitive and supposedly not a problem. So, for example, we know little at present of the possible effect of exogenous chemicals (especially estrogenic) from the environment on what is - objectively - a maladaptive phenomenon. (The same could be said for drastic sperm count decreases, which may also have exogenous causes related to environmental chemicals.)

It is maladaptive in the sense that it engenders neurosis of various kinds, which is obvious from accounts of those suffering and their comorbidities. It is maladapative because the subject is being forced to become wholly dependent on pharmaceuticals and/or surgical intervention, there may also be removal of healthy tissue and organs and replacement with neo-organs that can never function as well. With physical treatment of the condition fertility and sexual response are often irreversibly hobbled - this is also maladaptive. Evolutionarily speaking. (Drastically falling sperm counts are also maladaptive.)

This pharmaceutical and surgical management has also only lately become possible in historical terms. It is far too short a time span to determine that it has been a suitable response. It is largely if not wholly experimentation at this stage.

suicide_circus

This will all come out in the wash in the years to come Zorya.

Zorya

suicide_circus wrote: »

This will all come out in the wash in the years to come Zorya.

Yes. It's the toll of human suffering that will have been caused in the meantime that bothers me. Really bothers me.

Jmsg

After embracing gay marriage the worm can is opened. There is a genuine imperative to seek better integration in society for homosexuals but there is a difference between this and changing marriage to suit them which was a statement of a deeply misled ideology which fails to acknowledge that being reproductively inviable as homosexuals inherently are will inevitably put them at odds with society. We can only mitigate these effects, not dispel them by changing the society fundamentally. We were asleep intellectually during the referendum, and now the floodgates are opened and the same error in collective thinking is being ever more broadly applied to where we're being legally compelled to recognise anyone as any gender despite how they appear. That's not how being a civil being works, you mitigate your identity with other people. If you want to be viewed a certain way it can only be through others' free choice that you're accommodated.

Wibbs

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Disagree with you here. Can you point to the parts of the evidence I presented that are based on said influences?

The parts that state that gender is cultural and societal rather than biological, nurture rather than nature. In the wider scientific realm the two are seen as complimentary, whereas in some areas, sociology and some areas of psychology the nurture side have kept the faith. A faith largely born out of some Left wing philosophies of the 1960's and 70's(though behaviourist ideology has deeper roots). It's very evident in areas like sexuality and gender and the political philosophies of American university campuses and the like. Just as the "alt Right" types tend strongly towards biological determinism, evolutionary psychology and nature, the "Social Justice" types tend strongly towards blank slatism, culture and nurture. This is reflected in the statements you've made and the statements of those you linked. Contrary to the science that is out there on the matter of both sexuality and gender, which is showing more and more that while cultural influences may shape the expression of some gender norms, gender and sexuality are much more innate and "nature" than nurture.

Zorya wrote:

People from the LGB arena would want to be very wary about getting too excited about the (very) soft findings in science that seek to attribute gender to the brain workings.
A homosexual brain thesis that shows similarities to the opposite sex can be used to pathologise homosexuality in children/youth and propose what is essentially medicalised conversion therapy ie that the person is diagnosed transgender.

While I 100% agree Z that care should be taken and more rigorous science and research should be pursued for a few reasons, I can't see how findings that show gender and sexuality can be found in the brain(in fairness, where else might they be?) is in itself a negative. If anything it's a positive. For a start it blasts the notion among some that being Gay is somehow a choice, or the result of an overbearing mother(a long held notion that one), or that exposure to the Gay™ will "turn someone Gay". And it doesn't exactly pathologise homosexuality. If it did it might be argued to pathologise heterosexuality to some degree. They're both a range of the sexual responses in humans, albeit one being the minority response.

I would like you be extremely wary of it being applied to children. Like I said even in this thread we've had once tomboys that totally reversed in that with puberty and adulthood. I would suspect that while the sexualities and adult end gender are innate, the brains of kids are more fluid until after puberty has set things in stone in either direction. I recall reading somewhere that children brains, both boys and girls are very similar on the surface* anyway until they start to diverge in puberty. Which makes sense.

This is one of the biggest reasons other than the various moral questions around it, why I would be dead set against any medical intervention on non adults. If a 20 year old wants hormone blockers and the like then OK, their mind/brain is "set", a 12 year old's isn't.




*I say on the surface because boys and girls show behavioural differences from very young, even as babies(baby boys being more interested in things rather than people and vice versa for girls, boys being more engaging with the environment and things rather than people and so on).

Zorya

Wibbs wrote: »

I can't see how findings that show gender and sexuality can be found in the brain(in fairness, where else might they be?) is in itself a negative. If anything it's a positive. For a start it blasts the notion among some that being Gay is somehow a choice, or the result of an overbearing mother(a long held notion that one), or that exposure to the Gay™ will "turn someone Gay". And it doesn't exactly pathologise homosexuality. If it did it might be argued to pathologise heterosexuality to some degree. They're both a range of the sexual responses in humans, albeit one being the minority response.

What I mean is that if brain studies show that homosexual boys have brains more akin to female, and that boys who identify as girls have brains more akin to female, then that is the same thing, and could be used to say homosexual boys are in fact girls. Thus potentially making the broader case for transitioning people's gender, with all the inherent difficulties that entails health-wise, when it is simply the person's sexual orientation which is naturally at play. I think homosexuality is completely natural.

Zorya

Zorya wrote: »

Yes. It's the toll of human suffering that will have been caused in the meantime that bothers me. Really bothers me.

I can already “hear” some future callers to Liveline, or its future incarnation, who were teenagers who had “transitioned” with the newly turned green light of 2010s, only to end up with irreversible consequences in their senior years and subsequently learning that their predicament is largely a result of the ignorance of the effects of hormones used in food production, which may ny then be banned. There is clearly some reason for what appears to be the rather extraordinary growth of people who seem to be genuinely afflicted by gender dysphoria. Some will argue that the growth is entirely because of society’s changing attitude allowing more to admit to their dysphoria, and I personally don’t even have a certificate in this area let alone a PhD, but it is clear that the world is at the bottom of the learning curve here.

Zorya

Deleted User wrote: »

I can already “hear” some future callers to Liveline, or its future incarnation, who were teenagers who had “transitioned” with the newly turned green light of 2010s, only to end up with irreversible consequences in their senior years and subsequently learning that their predicament is largely a result of the ignorance of the effects of hormones used in food production, which may ny then be banned. There is clearly some reason for what appears to be the rather extraordinary growth of people who seem to be genuinely afflicted by gender dysphoria. Some will argue that the growth is entirely because of society’s changing attitude allowing more to admit to their dysphoria, and I personally don’t even have a certificate in this area let alone a PhD, but it is clear that the world is at the bottom of the learning curve here.

Transgenderism exists. This is doubtless. But not anywhere like it is being -literally - promoted.
There may be genetic elements. But there are other issues, that are under-investigated.
Xeno-hormones in food, water, environment. Phtalates as endocrine disruptors are being looked at by some. Social or psychic contagion. Ideological indoctrination from gender theorists. Narcissistic parents (such as Desmond's) or those with Munchausens by Proxy. Religious parents who don't want gay children. Autogynophelia (many wives surveyed of men who transition later report this factor). Violence in childhood is a common factor, sex abuse has not been adequately researched but is there too. Autism (this is huge). Anxiety and depressive disorders.

Detransition rates are already growing enormously. People are already showing up with irreversible effects they now have to live with - deeper voice, male pattern baldness, breast tissue.

Anyways.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Disagree with you here. Can you point to the parts of the evidence I presented that are based on said influences?

In your post (#2009). You literally highlighted the word culture yourself!

When I said based in scientific reality I meant in the sense that there is a scientific consensus a la climate change, and there isn't with regards to culture and society having an influence on gender. Thus I believe the modern definition to not be based on one of science, but one of feminist critical studies (which is where from the modern definition became seemingly more common-place).
It's like with racism, where a small element are trying to redefine racism as being based more on power structures as opposed to simply discriminating against someone based on their race, which is what it has meant thus far.

The study you linked to is dealing with helping (supposed) transgender children cope with how they feel and thus proves nothing.

Klaaz has linked two studys that show there is potentially a biological reason, which I tend agree with. But more study has to be done as there is not a scientific consensus.

p1akuw47h5r3it

klaaaz wrote: »

The scientists know something for the basis of gender dysphoria.

Tear this one apart of you wish
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17563-z#Tab1

Paper is a lot more technical. I can't see anything in it that I could argue against.

Although I'd question why Gender dysphoria is labelled as TW!

Zorya

Zorya wrote: »

Transgenderism exists. This is doubtless. But not anywhere like it is being -literally - promoted.
There may be genetic elements. But there are other issues, that are under-investigated.
Xeno-hormones in food, water, environment. Phtalates as endocrine disruptors are being looked at by some. Social or psychic contagion. Ideological indoctrination from gender theorists. Narcissistic parents (such as Desmond's) or those with Munchausens by Proxy. Religious parents who don't want gay children. Autogynophelia (many wives surveyed of men who transition later report this factor). Violence in childhood is a common factor, sex abuse has not been adequately researched but is there too. Autism (this is huge). Anxiety and depressive disorders.

Detransition rates are already growing enormously. People are already showing up with irreversible effects they now have to live with - deeper voice, male pattern baldness, breast tissue.

Anyways.

I have seen several documentaries which have linked gender dysphoria in females to autism. I know of a case myself in an family where there is a dominant pattern of high-functioning autism and also gay males and females. Undoubtedly genes play a major role in certain families and the individuals are now largely freed by society to live their lives as in their own identities. However I see the accompanying aspergers has caused quite a lot of personal grief with anxieties etc.

In some ways it’s not unlike body dysmorphia (or is that what it’s called!) where individuals want to change their body to a perceived ideal, which I would do myself if it just involved a quick magic wand and little expense!

Anorexia Nervosa is another issue where the person wants to pursue an altered body, but in this case seems to be fueled by a false perception of body size/prominence.

There is so very much to be discovered about the human brain. I’m donating my own to the Dublin Brain Bank for research as I’ve problems with Afib which has caused some atrophy, but not yet enough atrophy to stop me joining at some level in conversations on boards!

Jmsg

Wibbs wrote: »

The parts that state that gender is cultural and societal rather than biological, nurture rather than nature. In the wider scientific realm the two are seen as complimentary, whereas in some areas, sociology and some areas of psychology the nurture side have kept the faith. A faith largely born out of some Left wing philosophies of the 1960's and 70's(though behaviourist ideology has deeper roots). It's very evident in areas like sexuality and gender and the political philosophies of American university campuses and the like. Just as the "alt Right" types tend strongly towards biological determinism, evolutionary psychology and nature, the "Social Justice" types tend strongly towards blank slatism, culture and nurture. This is reflected in the statements you've made and the statements of those you linked. Contrary to the science that is out there on the matter of both sexuality and gender, which is showing more and more that while cultural influences may shape the expression of some gender norms, gender and sexuality are much more innate and "nature" than nurture.

Social justice types are best understood as ultra-progressives. Generally speaking for the vast majority of history if you'd asked anyone how the general scheme of history works, they'd tell you that things started off great and got worse and worse until the present days which are the worst of all. Starting with the enlightenment there was a complete reversal of this leading to the view so prevalent today; that things always get better and better. Yet without any coherent and consistent reasoning as to how this is so it's explanation is usually power politics. First expounded in detail by Marx but an inevitable follow on from modernity and the implementation of liberal democracy where there was such a drastic 180 degree move away from the idea of legitimate authority and towards that of maximal autonomy. The idea that it's the lifting of oppression that characterises the progression of history. You have two groups, oppressors and oppressed, the latter pushing for the rights and resources from the former is the achievement of equality the goal of history.

As for the "alt right", this is another very interesting peculiarity of the culture wars. Starting in the 16th-17th centuries you had the creation of liberalism which became the dominant viewpoint as opposed to conservatism. From the mid 20th century onwards we've witnessed something very odd happening. The liberals became the ultra-progressives the nature of which I detailed above, and the conservatives became the liberals (or "neo-cons"). The "alt-right" represents the filling of the void left by the the traditional conservatives after their transition to neo-cons or liberals, only it takes a pathological form without it's christian backing and espounging ultra ethnocentric ideals of a foregone cultural context.

Anorexia is an interesting comparison..

AllForIt

Zorya wrote: »

(On a side note I have yet to understand the supposed relationship between sexual orientation and gender identity. How have they become conflated? They are completely different things.)

None whatsoever. It seems to me trans rights activism teamed up with gay rights activism somewhere along the line. I think that was a big mistake for gay rights movement because of all these contentious trans issues are seen as the consequence of gay acceptance including marriage and leaves the door open for ppl to say it's all a slippery slope leading to a 'anything goes' kinda attitude and I think this has set the gay rights movement back a bit.

As a gay man I knew no more about transgenderism than any heterosexual ordinarily would and that is because there is absolutely no connection between the two per se. It is only because of all the recent controversy's that I have gotten up to speed on the issues. I socialized on the gay scene for years in a number of cities and I don't ever recall meeting a single transgender person. It's just a myth that the 2 communities mix and socialize together. Some transgender ppl go to gay bars, that's it.

One thing that really annoys me is the assumption that gay folk are fully behind the more contentious transgender causes. They most certainly are not. It's only the T activists that would promote that idea and in fact from what I see in the LGBT forum those that don't will be treated like a traitor. When you see Martian Navratilova being kicked out of an equality advocacy group it's plain to see something has gone badly wrong.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Came up on my youtube, maybe of interest to some. Pity about the Video title.

The Rape of Lucretia

Zorya wrote: »

Transgenderism exists. This is doubtless.

Yes, but in the sense that scientology exists. It doubtless does. But is doesnt mean we are all immortal thetans trillions of year old or whatever.