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  • #16
    Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
    I knew it! I'm really a cute kitten trapped in a cute human!!!

    Except on puppy days, of course.
    So when Elvis sang "You ain't nothing but a hound dog" he meant it literally?

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
      Human beings have no idea of what it’s like to be a cat or any other species apart from their own. At best, a human can imitate a cat. Some people become obsessed by the imitation and will change their appearance. They are never a cat.
      Couldn't it be likewise argued that they have no idea what it's like to be a different sex apart from their own? At best someone can imitate the opposite sex?

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
        Couldn't it be likewise argued that they have no idea what it's like to be a different sex apart from their own? At best someone can imitate the opposite sex?
        I expect that some people do imitate. It is also feasible that female brains inhabit male bodies, and vice versa. Only the individual, knows what they are.
        “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
        “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
        “not all there” - you know who you are

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
          I know. They fail to accept that while a man might think like a woman, or a woman might think like a man, they are men and women because of what they are physically, not how they think. Male and Female are physical attributes that in most cultures are also closely linked to a set of behaviors. But the behaviors don't define the biological sex of a living entity. And the imagination does not magically change physical reality and make a women have an XY chromosome, and imagination does not give a man XX chromosomes. And while there can be some physical ambiguity, that is not the case they are talking about.
          I used to have a similarly unsympathetic view toward trans people, but over the last several years as I have learned more relevant facts, my view has shifted to being more sympathetic toward them.

          Firstly, as you mention, there can be physical ambiguity. And as scientists have learned more and more about how biology and chromosomes and hormones work, they've discovered more and more types of physical ambiguities there can be. Here's a chart of the scientific possibilities:



          At either end, the dotted columns represent the standard 'male' and 'female' physical development, with everything in between being the various possible physical variations which lead to something different to a standard physical male/female body. As you can see there is a lot of variation.

          I tend to assume (though I might be wrong to do so) that most conservatives here would 100% agree that it's reasonable / loving / Christian / kind / just / fair / the-right-thing-to-do to treat anyone who falls into the middle areas of that chart with compassion, decency, understanding, politeness, generosity, both in our own treatment of them as individuals and with regard to the way we would want society as a whole to treat them. We could have a discussion about exactly what that means in practice, but perhaps we can simply agree to something like: "Everyone agrees that there are people in our society who objectively physically and scientifically do not fit well into binary and exclusive male vs female categories. Though those male/female categories are founded in biology, that same biology means there are sometimes exceptions. We should treat such people with decency and respect, and make allowances for them when necessary, and the incompleteness of those categories may be worth bearing in mind when we use them."

          Secondly, perhaps for the above reason, perhaps for other reasons, the majority of human cultures in history appear to have made allowances for people to opt-out of the male/female gender dichotomy. This appears to have been more present in cultures that adhered tightly to gender-defined behavioral roles, giving people who did not feel those roles fit them the ability to opt out and label themselves within their community of being of a 3rd, 4th, or 5th gender (depending on the culture and its norms), while cultures that placed less emphasis on gender distinctions appear to have made less allowance for voluntarily opting out of the binary gender labels. (The common patterns seem to be that for societies with 3 genders it was "male/female/other", with 4 it was "male/female/trans-male/trans-female" or "male/female/other-born-male/other-born-female", and with 5 it was "male/female/trans-male/trans-female/none")

          Since a lot of these cultures were historical and such practices were stamped out by European or Islamic colonization, we are limited to historical documents in many instances to try to piece together how a given culture understood these gender roles, though some persist into the present day. In most of these cultures, from what I can understand, the person was not placed in the 3rd through 5th gender at birth due to their parents/society determining they had physical abnormalities that were outside of typical male/female, but rather most or all of the time the person would make a decision as a teenager or adult to opt out of the male/female norms and into the 3rd through 5th gender (depending of which of those options were available to them in their culture and which they wanted to be). Typically in cultures with more than 2 genders, a person was eligible to marry anyone not of the same gender as themselves, hence this cultural construct seems to have been commonly used by people in these societies who wished to have same-sex marriages. Many of these cultures viewed people of the 3rd through 5th genders as magical (they were often the tribe's shaman), spiritual (they were sometimes considered to have both a male and female spirit residing within them, hence they had double the spirit-ness of a normal person), or special, and marriage with them was often considered lucky. This pattern was regularly observed by early European explorers in cultures across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the pacific.

          So we can certainly say that human society is perfectly capable of functioning with an idea of gender that is more expansive than a strict male/female dichotomy. In fact, it appears that having more than 2 genders has been the norm in human history, and that it is Europe of the last 1000 years that is unusual in having 2 and only 2 genders. Most other continents, people groups, and societies, have had a more diverse approach to gender identities.


          If we can agree on the above (can we?), then we can consider the question of what, if anything, should be done about those people in our society who are physically and biological male / female but who want to change / opt-out of the applicable male/female gender label and either use the other one instead or some other label (trans-male, trans-female, none / agender), and often change their bodies to conform with the typical looks of the gender they wish to change to? I don't see any obvious reason why we shouldn't be kind and generous to these people and give them the option of opting-out of their birth gender the way most people have had in most human cultures for the past several millennia. I don't really see any reason to oppose them doing this if they wish. In your post you simply stated that they have bodies of a certain biological sex. I agree, they do. Your view seemed to be that it started and ended there. But that misses the point: The question is whether or not it's useful / practical / kind / helpful / loving for our culture to adopt the common cultural behavioral pattern where people can opt out of their birth gender, take a different gender role and make changes to their bodies. Saying their birth gender comes from their biological sex is certainly true, but doesn't address the question.
          Last edited by Starlight; 11-21-2019, 03:56 AM.
          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by QuantaFille View Post
            People are their brains (or minds) not their body, although a body can be male or female.
            A serious question for you. What do you think of human beings who believe they are animals? A cat for instance.
            I tend to agree with FF on this one, that people's identity is linked to their minds not their bodies.

            Consider, for example, of the experiments with head-transplants where scientists have managed to transfer the head of one animal onto the body of another one. If my head was to be grafted onto a body of a different sex, I would not be very happy about the situation, because part of how I view myself is as a male, and I wouldn't be particularly thrilled to be in a female's body.

            I think, from what we know of brain development, that the brain indeed has masculine/feminine features just as the body does. So presumably I have a brain that is physically male just as I have a body that is physically male, and if my brain were to be put in a scanner in front of a doctor who knew what they were looking for, they could say "that's a male". So in that sense, a statement that "my brain has a sense that it is male" might totally validly reflect a physical observable scientific truth about the brain itself - that the brain indeed had gone through a normal male developmental process and had masculine physical features. It is probably evolutionarily advantageous for an animal to have an understanding of its own sex, and so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the brain has built into it an understanding of its own sex, based on its own developmental process. e.g. the cells if they are exposed to testosterone during development might start growing masculine parts of the brain, and imprinting in the neurons "you are male".

            Because biology is complicated and what happens inside the womb is complicated, it can happen that some parts of any person might have different DNA to their other parts. This is called mosaicism. So it can happen that some parts of a person's body are male in the sense that the cells in them have the XY chromosomes, and some parts of that same person's body are female in the sense that the cells in them have the XX chromosomes. (Also, quite a number of hormonal and developmental disorders can derail the normal development process and mean parts of a person's body don't develop in a way that would usually be consistent with their chromosomes.) So it is perfectly scientifically possible that a person's brain be female in a scientific biological sense of XX chromosomes in the cells etc, while the rest of the body that the brain is in be scientifically biologically male in the sense of XY chromosomes in the cells. (Leaving aside whatever hormonal complexities might result) So it is possible to get a brain that is scientifically male inside a body that is scientifically female, or vice versa. And if the brain has hard-coded a self-identity during development, that self-identity in the brain won't match to the physical gender of the rest of the body. This makes sense to me as a possible explanation for why some people feel like their body's sex doesn't match what their brain is telling them their sex ought to be.

            I am, however, not aware of any scientifically possible way a brain of a cat can develop inside a human body.

            So if someone says their brain has a strong identity to a biological sex different to the rest of their body, it may well be possible that their brain is in some true and meaningful scientific sense a different sex to that of their body, and that their sense of identity is accurate. (That said, even if their brain's sense of self-identity is inaccurate, I don't really see any inherent problem with a person simply wanting to switch to a different gender's dress-code / behaviors / looks, if they feel it's important for them to do that.) If someone says their brain has a strong identity to a different species to the rest of their body, then I don't see any scientific truth that could link to. It can't be true or accurate. So the one is different to the other in the sense of possible vs impossible.
            Last edited by Starlight; 11-21-2019, 03:53 AM.
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
              I knew it! I'm really a cute kitten trapped in a cute human!!!

              Except on puppy days, of course.
              Cute?
              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by seer View Post
                Cute?
                I would post her picture, but I prefer to wake up tomorrow.

                Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                sigpic
                I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  I’m a box of rocks
                  Good to see you back Sparko.
                  “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                  “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                  “not all there” - you know who you are

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    I used to have a similarly unsympathetic view toward trans people, but over the last several years as I have learned more relevant facts, my view has shifted to being more sympathetic toward them.

                    Firstly, as you mention, there can be physical ambiguity. And as scientists have learned more and more about how biology and chromosomes and hormones work, they've discovered more and more types of physical ambiguities there can be. Here's a chart of the scientific possibilities:



                    At either end, the dotted columns represent the standard 'male' and 'female' physical development, with everything in between being the various possible physical variations which lead to something different to a standard physical male/female body. As you can see there is a lot of variation.

                    I tend to assume (though I might be wrong to do so) that most conservatives here would 100% agree that it's reasonable / loving / Christian / kind / just / fair / the-right-thing-to-do to treat anyone who falls into the middle areas of that chart with compassion, decency, understanding, politeness, generosity, both in our own treatment of them as individuals and with regard to the way we would want society as a whole to treat them. We could have a discussion about exactly what that means in practice, but perhaps we can simply agree to something like: "Everyone agrees that there are people in our society who objectively physically and scientifically do not fit well into binary and exclusive male vs female categories. Though those male/female categories are founded in biology, that same biology means there are sometimes exceptions. We should treat such people with decency and respect, and make allowances for them when necessary, and the incompleteness of those categories may be worth bearing in mind when we use them."

                    Secondly, perhaps for the above reason, perhaps for other reasons, the majority of human cultures in history appear to have made allowances for people to opt-out of the male/female gender dichotomy. This appears to have been more present in cultures that adhered tightly to gender-defined behavioral roles, giving people who did not feel those roles fit them the ability to opt out and label themselves within their community of being of a 3rd, 4th, or 5th gender (depending on the culture and its norms), while cultures that placed less emphasis on gender distinctions appear to have made less allowance for voluntarily opting out of the binary gender labels. (The common patterns seem to be that for societies with 3 genders it was "male/female/other", with 4 it was "male/female/trans-male/trans-female" or "male/female/other-born-male/other-born-female", and with 5 it was "male/female/trans-male/trans-female/none")

                    Since a lot of these cultures were historical and such practices were stamped out by European or Islamic colonization, we are limited to historical documents in many instances to try to piece together how a given culture understood these gender roles, though some persist into the present day. In most of these cultures, from what I can understand, the person was not placed in the 3rd through 5th gender at birth due to their parents/society determining they had physical abnormalities that were outside of typical male/female, but rather most or all of the time the person would make a decision as a teenager or adult to opt out of the male/female norms and into the 3rd through 5th gender (depending of which of those options were available to them in their culture and which they wanted to be). Typically in cultures with more than 2 genders, a person was eligible to marry anyone not of the same gender as themselves, hence this cultural construct seems to have been commonly used by people in these societies who wished to have same-sex marriages. Many of these cultures viewed people of the 3rd through 5th genders as magical (they were often the tribe's shaman), spiritual (they were sometimes considered to have both a male and female spirit residing within them, hence they had double the spirit-ness of a normal person), or special, and marriage with them was often considered lucky. This pattern was regularly observed by early European explorers in cultures across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the pacific.

                    So we can certainly say that human society is perfectly capable of functioning with an idea of gender that is more expansive than a strict male/female dichotomy. In fact, it appears that having more than 2 genders has been the norm in human history, and that it is Europe of the last 1000 years that is unusual in having 2 and only 2 genders. Most other continents, people groups, and societies, have had a more diverse approach to gender identities.


                    If we can agree on the above (can we?), then we can consider the question of what, if anything, should be done about those people in our society who are physically and biological male / female but who want to change / opt-out of the applicable male/female gender label and either use the other one instead or some other label (trans-male, trans-female, none / agender), and often change their bodies to conform with the typical looks of the gender they wish to change to? I don't see any obvious reason why we shouldn't be kind and generous to these people and give them the option of opting-out of their birth gender the way most people have had in most human cultures for the past several millennia. I don't really see any reason to oppose them doing this if they wish. In your post you simply stated that they have bodies of a certain biological sex. I agree, they do. Your view seemed to be that it started and ended there. But that misses the point: The question is whether or not it's useful / practical / kind / helpful / loving for our culture to adopt the common cultural behavioral pattern where people can opt out of their birth gender, take a different gender role and make changes to their bodies. Saying their birth gender comes from their biological sex is certainly true, but doesn't address the question.
                    Thanks for the serious reply. I can't address this quickly and do it justice. But I'll try to get to it later today.

                    Jim
                    My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                    If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                    This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                      I expect that some people do imitate. It is also feasible that female brains inhabit male bodies, and vice versa. Only the individual, knows what they are.
                      Or maybe what we label male behavior and female behavior overlap to varying degrees

                      I'm always still in trouble again

                      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                        I would post her picture, but I prefer to wake up tomorrow.


                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          I tend to assume (though I might be wrong to do so) that most conservatives here would 100% agree that it's reasonable / loving / Christian / kind / just / fair / the-right-thing-to-do to treat anyone who falls into the middle areas of that chart with compassion, decency, understanding, politeness, generosity, both in our own treatment of them as individuals and with regard to the way we would want society as a whole to treat them. We could have a discussion about exactly what that means in practice, but perhaps we can simply agree to something like: "Everyone agrees that there are people in our society who objectively physically and scientifically do not fit well into binary and exclusive male vs female categories. Though those male/female categories are founded in biology, that same biology means there are sometimes exceptions. We should treat such people with decency and respect, and make allowances for them when necessary, and the incompleteness of those categories may be worth bearing in mind when we use them."
                          Except it is not that simple. I don't think trans were even on our radar until there was a push to allow biological males in girls showers, bathrooms and dressing rooms. Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports, insuring that women will never win again, etc...
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            Except it is not that simple. I don't think trans were even on our radar until there was a push to allow biological males in girls showers, bathrooms and dressing rooms. Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports, insuring that women will never win again, etc...
                            Sounds like an actual, real war on wimmenfolk.

                            I'm always still in trouble again

                            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              I don't think trans were even on our radar until...
                              Just to be clear, the quoted part of my post you are replying to was referring specifically to intersex people - i.e. people who are scientifically not entirely male or female due to some chromosomal / hormonal / developmental disorder, and whose bodies are thus biologically not fully in accordance with either sex. That part of my post you quoted was not talking about trans people in general. I was saying that I think everyone can agree we should have kindness and love to those who find themselves in a situation where their bodies have developed unusually, and who don't fit perfectly into the male/female biological sex dichotomy. Your response, however, appears to be about trans people rather than intersex people.

                              until there was a push to allow biological males in girls showers, bathrooms and dressing rooms.
                              It's worth being clear that before any modern pushes by liberals on the subject, trans people would probably have been using whatever showers/bathrooms/dressing rooms that caused the least amount of upset to those around them. And that means that any trans people who looked more female than male, would have been using girls showers / bathrooms / dressing rooms.

                              And that seems sensible to me, so I think conservatives are crazy for trying to force a person who looks physically male to be in the girls showers just because their birth certificate seems female - that's going to upset girls. Do you seriously want the law to legally force people who look male to be in women's bathrooms???

                              Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports, insuring that women will never win again, etc...
                              Are you a big women's-sports fan, or is this just a made-up gripe? I'm not sports fan at all, but I don't see a problem with sports having appropriate rules so that the women's sports aren't full of transgender people at the highest levels.
                              Last edited by Starlight; 11-21-2019, 01:42 PM.
                              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                                Human beings have no idea of what it’s like to be a cat or any other species apart from their own. At best, a human can imitate a cat. Some people become obsessed by the imitation and will change their appearance. They are never a cat.
                                And you think you know what it's like to be a woman? So tell me, which was first for you, pumps or stilettos?
                                "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                                "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                                My Personal Blog

                                My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                                Quill Sword

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