Gender pronoun entitlement vs religious entitlement

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Gender pronoun entitlement vs religious entitlement

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

blowfish posted:

At the end of the day, if that's not objectively verifiable, why should anyone need to care.

It's actually objectively verifiable that transgender people's brains function differently from cisgender people's, and in a manner that can't be written off as a mental illness.

the trump tutelage posted:

What if I believe that society as a whole would be happier if there was less celebration of individuality and less weight placed on individual experience and subjective truth?

Then I kind of think you might be in the wrong country. A big part of the American ethos is that the individual matters, that the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority, etc.

Majorian fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Mar 30, 2016

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 03:52

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:49

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Generally, no general statement can be objectively verified with empirics, and specifically, there is nothing objective in brains that says that some complex, common trait is or is not to be classified as a mental illness.

No, but the consensus among people whose business it is to diagnose mental illnesses is pretty much that being transgender doesn't meet the criteria. This only becomes more underlined when the opposing argument can be neatly summed up as, "It's...it's just WRONG, okay?! Men don't wear women's clothes or vice-versa! Argh!!!"

quote:

That transgender people's brains function differently from cis people is not a meaningful observation

Indeed it isn't! Thank God I posted an article that has considerably more content than just that.

e: Here, let me help you out:

quote:

They found significant differences between male and female brains in four regions of white matter � and the female-to-male transsexual people had white matter in these regions that resembled a male brain (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006). �It�s the first time it has been shown that the brains of female-to-male transsexual people are masculinised,� Guillamon says.

In a separate study, the team used the same technique to compare white matter in 18 male-to-female transsexual people with that in 19 males and 19 females. Surprisingly, in each transsexual person�s brain the structure of the white matter in the four regions was halfway between that of the males and females (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007). �Their brains are not completely masculinised and not completely feminised, but they still feel female,� says Guillamon.

quote:

For now, we're not even remotely sure what the, if any, substantial differences between sexes are

This is a joke, right?

Majorian fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Mar 30, 2016

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 09:06

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Okay I can do that, but as a preface, I want to ask you for your own intuition about two other recent findings.

The Atlantic did an excellent summary of the first study to which you're referring:

quote:

Scientists have long known that male and female brains are distinct, but the degree of these differences, and whether they impact behavior, is still somewhat of a mystery. The field has repeatedly unearthed seemingly solid clues that turned out to be red herrings. In August, for example, a study in the journal PLoS One challenged the long-held idea that male and female brains exhibit differences in �lateralization,� or strengths in one half of the brain or another. And past books on the �male� and �female� styles of thinking have been criticized for only including studies that reinforce well-known gender stereotypes.

At the same time, there�s plenty of evidence that male brains are from Mars and female brains are, well, from a different neighborhood on Mars. Researchers already know, for example, that men�s brains are slightly bigger than women�s (because men�s bodies also tend to be bigger). Male and female rats navigate space differently. Women taking birth control pills, which alter estrogen and progesterone levels, have been shown to remember emotionally charged events more like men do in small studies. Migraines not only strike women more frequently, but they impact different parts of their brains, too.

My feeling on the study's findings is that they underline what everyone here already knows, ie: innate biology plays a role in the differences between genders, and social conditioning also plays a role. When you read the study that I cited earlier, however, you'll note that the researchers controlled for the variable of gender social conditioning.

Regarding the second study you cite, I'm assuming you mean "New MRI Studies Support the Blanchard Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism." If so, take note of the following paragraph in the NIH's summary:

quote:

Also meriting emphasis is that�although these data disconfirm that the heterosexual type has a feminized brain pattern�the data nonetheless confirm that heterosexual transsexuals have a brain structure distinct from that of typical (nontranssexual) persons. Their gender identity is not a transient or ephemeral characteristic, but a likely innate and immutable characteristic, emerging from their particular brain structure.

This confirms the findings of the previous study I cited.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 17:18

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Do you want to change your statement if I tell you that that's not what I'm referring to?

it would depend on the study! Why don't you post it and we'll see?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 19:16

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Because this is mostly about intuitions.

It is absolutely not about intuitions. It's about evidence and data. Please post yours.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 19:20

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

No - there is some misunderstanding here. I am not going to make a point like, here is a study showing brains of group x are like this, therefore blah.

Then you're just wasting people's time here.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 19:29

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

OwlFancier posted:

I don't think many people would argue that gender is an innate thing, merely that it's a thing beyond the control of an individual.

Like sexuality, it doesn't really matter how it forms whether it's genetic or whatever, the point is that 1. We have no way to control it in most people and 2. There's no harm in letting people be whatever sexuality they want other than social harm.

The same is true of gender.

Plus at this point it's pretty much incontrovertibly true that not letting LGBTQ people be themselves does quite a bit of harm to them.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 19:38

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Okay, I think it's helpful to discuss preliminaries first. But okay.

Here are my preliminaries: I believe empirical evidence, particularly when there is a broad consensus among scientists who work on this issue. Post your evidence if you want to convince me. This should not be that difficult.

In your next post, you need to provide the name of the study that you cited earlier to substantiate your argument. If you do not, and you keep wasting my time, I will ignore you, and this discussion will be over. Understood?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 00:10

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:49

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Cingulate posted:

Evidence for what? You're not paying attention. I have not actually made a substantive claim that could be positively demonstrated; I have said, we lack a clear understanding of what, if any, differences there are.

And that argument is one of the most bizarrely incorrect ones I've seen made in this thread - which is saying something. We lack a lot of information about the human brain, but we have quite a bit of knowledge on the difference between cisgender male and female brains, as well as structural differences in transsexual brains that would seem to put them in a different category altogether.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 00:50

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