TDT 4: What the $#@! is a "womxn", anyways?

[Punished UMN]

People don't disagree in the same way as they do about money. No one questions what counts as legal tender and what doesn't.

different countries accept different currencies...

Within the same country, obviously.

[Riviere Renard]

No, you dispute the notion.

Most Trans people I know are well aware that gender is psychological/neurological. (But considering you also think sex isn't real...)

If I may slide into the convo....

There are trans people who tend to think that gender is mostly a sociological phenomenon, but curiously assert their gender identity is inate. I would personally question the idea that most trans and lbgt/lbgt "allies" seriously consider biology in their arguments beyond "debunking" detractors in debates. Otherwise they seem to completely ignore science, leaning on identity as their primary method of choice for determining if someone's gender is actual or not.

I'm not saying that I don't view transgender people to be "fake" or that I don't think someone can be transgender, but that the methods for affirmation of it is incredibly inconsistent. But I do, disagree with the notion of "nonbinary" and "gender fluidity", those I don't consider humanly possible.

Welcome to the "convo". This entire discussion about non-binary people started in relation to a study that said that binary trans people have brains that correlate more closely with the gender they identify as than their gender assigned at birth. While certainly people talk about identity a lot, science and biology are almost never absent from discussions about binary trans people. When it comes to non-binary people, there simply isn't enough research to determine the validity of a gender based on biology alone. Here, psychology is my favourite approach, as you would know if you've read my posts.


Now, when encountering someone new, I prefer the Canadian approach to debate.
Hello, I am Riviére Renarde, I am genderfluid, and I would like to address why you don't believe I am humanly possible. Which brings me to the question; why don't you consider being non-binary or genderfluid humanly possible?

I don't want to seem rude, but if case you haven't read them, I will include my previews posts about this topic in spoilers below. You don't have to read them, but you can.

I'm seeing some debate over non-binary people so I think I'll say something.

1: from all the testimony I've heard, the vast, vast majority of non-binary people do experience gender dysphoria. I know I do.
2: they do transition, in the aspect as a lot of trans people, from one gender to another, just the second gender being non-binary.
3: femininity and femaleness are two different things. Non-binary people recognize this. Being less feminine, but still feminine does not warrant an identity of demigirl, it is literally a combination of neutrality and femaleness. I am genderfluid, and I can testify the innate difference between genders that I have felt. I have dysphoria, and it manifests itself differently on different days. When I am female the dysphoria is different than being demifemale, though not necessarily less.
4: there is not yet enough research on non-binary people to make conclusions on their relationship to binary trans people. At the moment, all we have is testimony, just like way back in the 80s when judging trans people was based almost exclusively on testimony.
5: exuding enby people from the binary transgenders is stupid because almost all non-binary people face the same issues as trans people, including HRT, SRS, discrimination, etc.
6: on genderfluidity, on my female days (I'm AMAB, btw), I have dysphoria. On my male days, I still sometimes have dysphoria, but more importantly I feel comfortable expressing myself as male. Based on any trans related discussion I could get my hands on, my female days correlate with the tranfemme experience exactly. I am as female on my female days to the same extent by all measurable bases as a trans woman. I am not on my male or enby days.

You have no point of comparison to your own experiences, you cannot differentiate between being gender fluid and having mood swings or manic episodes or even just being a plain old neurotypical cisgender person.

Mood swings? Manic episodes? What are you talking about? None of that would even remotely explain being different genders at different times. I don't even know where to begin.

1: not mood swings: my mood remains pretty constant. I have the same level of happiness and whatnot on my female days as I do on my male ones. Gender is not a mood.
2: not manic episodes: I think if I were clinically insane the mental health professionals who have been studying me for more than a decade would have known. I have been diagnosed with OCD & ADHD, but never bipolar disorder or DID or anything else like that. This is absurd. This is bigoted, quite frankly.
3: I am not cisgender: when I am female, I cannot live as male comfortably. It gives me dysphoria. Being mispronouned gives me dysphoria, leg hair gives me dysphoria, a lot of things give me dysphoria. When I am female, presenting as female is the only thing that is comfortable. It is severe. And it is the opposite, usually, when I am male. When I am male, I am uncomfortable being called female. And when I'm enby, I am not comfortable being called either male or female.
4: "You have no point of comparison to your own experiences": I have been interacting with trans people on transgender spaces for about a year now, and everything I have ever heard about being a trans woman in the early stages of transition apply to me as I hear them. According to the DSM-5's method of diagnosis, I would have gender identity disorder (of course, I am not a medical professional). Since I was, like, 12, I knew I wasn't always a boy. When I came out this February, I felt free for the first time and began socially transitioning. Other than sometimes being not female, I am as trans as anyone else according to every method of analysis I have. And when I am male, I simply am not. So instead of calling me a pretender or an invader or mentally ill, why not explore gender fluidity logically?

Des-Bal:
Person A says "I experience a thing". A scientist says "research shows their experience makes sense and should be accommodated for". You say "okay, I respect them and will fight for their rights, because they are valid".

Person B says "I experience the same thing, but in a slightly different way". A scientist says "we haven't had enough time or resources to conclude anything about their experience. Please hold on for more research." You say "well clearly their lying, or self deceiving, or invading other peoples spaces, or just plane not valid. We need to tell them their experiences don't exist."

Why? Why are you like this?


Also note: the "Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People" by the American Psychological Association mentions

Guideline 1. Psychologists understand that gender is a nonbinary construct that allows for a range of gender identities and that a person’s gender identity may not align with sex assigned at birth.

https://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/transgender.pdf


An identity need not be proved without a doubt valid before accepting it. Were you anti-trans before 1995 when the oldest study on the trans brain from the "TERF argument rebuttal master doc" was published?

Because despite you ceding otherwise being transgender is an actual thing with a solid base of scientific evidence despite it apparently being impossible to prove anything and it has serious implications. When it's viewed as the same thing as thinking you're a cartoon character every couple minutes it undercuts that legitimacy. If it's all just sex hipsterism then there's no cause to ask any questionsor extend any special protections. Regardless its immaterial. This is the same "well who are they hurting" shit that avoids the question.

"Because despite you ceding otherwise, being non-binary is an actual thing with a solid base of testimony from thousands of unrelated people from across the world and the backing of many professional physiologists, including the American Psychiatric Association*. When it's viewed as the same thing as thinking you're a cartoon character every couple minutes it undercuts that legitimacy."

*See my previous post.

...Here's the thing. Many people, including me, have described and documented dysphoria that matches the textbook definition of gender dysphoria to a tee, and yet many haven't
a connection to the opposite gender at all. These non-binary people have all the same evidence backing their claims as binary trans people, sans the brain studies. Why don't brain studies validate non-binary people? Because no one has tried. Name one study that shows that enby people are making it up. One.

Are they not the same? Because someone just signed off on them, you're beyond the Poe barrier. Nothing is so stupid it won't see at least some approval in trans circles.

You have no right to doubt otherkin or plurals, they are substantiated by the exact same amount of evidence as nonbinary people.

Really? Because non-binary and genderfluid people like myself have a history of documented, psychologist approved, DSM-5 adhering gender dysphoria* and otherkin do not.

*again, see my previous post.

Evidence and it's absence says their identity is fake I'm saying "why is it evidence doesn't matter in this specific area?"

1: what "evidence... says their identity is fake"?
2: We do have evidence. Along side the support of psychologists, we also have testimony, which is evidence believe it or not. And yet you haven't even tried combating or disputing our testimony.

Because someone presented arguments against TERFs that double as arguments against gender as a social construct and genderfluidity as possible.

Genderfluidity is real, as shown by the fact that I am a different gender than I was the day this argument started. And psychologists believe me. Why? Because psychologists don't need brain scans to understand that gender is complicated, and instead use deductive reasoning, which has determined that there is no logical reason to believe the dysphoria I experience is false, deceptive, or inherently different from binary trans people.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

You're making it out as if being non-binary and wanting to be referred to as "they/them" where applicable, is a kin to being a hyper otherkin headmatee or something.

Are they not the same? Because someone just signed off on them, you're beyond the Poe barrier. Nothing is so stupid it won't see at least some approval in trans circles.

You have no right to doubt otherkin or plurals, they are substantiated by the exact same amount of evidence as nonbinary people.

How so? The way I see it, psychology and neurology heavily indicates that the tendency of gender can be found in the brain as not necessarily dependent on one's sex chromosomes. And that this is likely what causes gender dysphoria. It makes sense to me that if you could have someone who's psychological or neurological gender is female but whose chromosomal and genital sex is male, or vice versa, then you could have a person who is psychologically or neurologically neither gender. And that would be non-binary. I believe there is evidence (though I'm not sure) that removing a certain part of someone's cerebellum effectively removes all feelings of gender. So there are known neurological phenomena which give humans a non-binary disposition.

The same absolutely cannot be said for otherkin or plurals.

[Des-Bal]

How so? The way I see it, psychology and neurology heavily indicates that the tendency of gender can be found in the brain as not necessarily dependent on one's sex chromosomes. And that this is likely what causes gender dysphoria. It makes sense to me that if you could have someone who's psychological or neurological gender is female but whose chromosomal and genital sex is male, or vice versa, then you could have a person who is psychologically or neurologically neither gender. And that would be non-binary. I believe there is evidence (though I'm not sure) that removing a certain part of someone's cerebellum effectively removes all feelings of gender. So there are known neurological phenomena which give humans a non-binary disposition.

The same absolutely cannot be said for otherkin or plurals.

That makes sense as a framework for people who are simply nonbinary and it would be interesting to see if evidence supports it. If there's been a study on the effects of damage to the cerebellum on gender I haven't seen it. What the evidence really stands against is the idea that gender is social or that genderfluidity is possible because gender does appear to be hardwired and it appears to be fixed quite early.

[Des-Bal]

Non-binary genders are like watching the sun rise, it is something that I observe everyday, and yet we have people who say "Well, how do we know the sun will rise tomorrow?" choking on their own radical skepticism and tricking their brains to play 3D chess when they can just simply go outside.

They're more like Morgellons or psychic powers, people claim very passionately to have them and doing anything less than accepting them as both fundamentally honest and unequivocally correct is treated as an act of hostility by the little groups that form around them.

"Ah but can your science explain rainbows" this is the basic trajectory of a conversation with a anybody who peddles bunk.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

How so? The way I see it, psychology and neurology heavily indicates that the tendency of gender can be found in the brain as not necessarily dependent on one's sex chromosomes. And that this is likely what causes gender dysphoria. It makes sense to me that if you could have someone who's psychological or neurological gender is female but whose chromosomal and genital sex is male, or vice versa, then you could have a person who is psychologically or neurologically neither gender. And that would be non-binary. I believe there is evidence (though I'm not sure) that removing a certain part of someone's cerebellum effectively removes all feelings of gender. So there are known neurological phenomena which give humans a non-binary disposition.

The same absolutely cannot be said for otherkin or plurals.

That makes sense as a framework for people who are simply nonbinary and it would be interesting to see if evidence supports it. If there's been a study on the effects of damage to the cerebellum on gender I haven't seen it. What the evidence really stands against is the idea that gender is social or that genderfluidity is possible because gender does appear to be hardwired and it appears to be fixed quite early.

Gender isn't a social construct. Gender is a psychological or neurological construct. Gender roles are a social construct.

I don't know about genderfluidity.

[Neutraligon]

That makes sense as a framework for people who are simply nonbinary and it would be interesting to see if evidence supports it. If there's been a study on the effects of damage to the cerebellum on gender I haven't seen it. What the evidence really stands against is the idea that gender is social or that genderfluidity is possible because gender does appear to be hardwired and it appears to be fixed quite early.

Gender isn't a social construct. Gender is a psychological or neurological construct. Gender roles are a social construct.

I don't know about genderfluidity.

I mean, the brain learns things as it goes, so gender might be a mix of psychological/neurological and social constructs. It is not entirely one or the other. There are those for whom "dressing the part" is enough to overcome their dysphoria, but how specific genders dress is societal in nature.

[Suriyanakhon]

That makes sense as a framework for people who are simply nonbinary and it would be interesting to see if evidence supports it. If there's been a study on the effects of damage to the cerebellum on gender I haven't seen it. What the evidence really stands against is the idea that gender is social or that genderfluidity is possible because gender does appear to be hardwired and it appears to be fixed quite early.

Gender isn't a social construct. Gender is a psychological or neurological construct. Gender roles are a social construct.

I don't know about genderfluidity.

You realize psychology is innately social, right?

[Philjia]

Non-binary genders are like watching the sun rise, it is something that I observe everyday, and yet we have people who say "Well, how do we know the sun will rise tomorrow?" choking on their own radical skepticism and tricking their brains to play 3D chess when they can just simply go outside.

They're more like Morgellons or psychic powers, people claim very passionately to have them and doing anything less than accepting them as both fundamentally honest and unequivocally correct is treated as an act of hostility by the little groups that form around them.

"Ah but can your science explain rainbows" this is the basic trajectory of a conversation with a anybody who peddles bunk.

It is an unprovable concept, the question is whether you consider it more moral to reduce harm or disregard anything that doesn't constitute a provable fact.

[Kowani]

different countries accept different currencies...

Within the same country, obviously.

well
they occasionally do
but these are usually countries whose state isn't strong enough to establish a monopoly on currency

[Punished UMN]

Within the same country, obviously.

well
they occasionally do
but these are usually countries whose state isn't strong enough to establish a monopoly on currency

I mean yeah, but as I think your point shows, social constructs typically have enforcement in some way.

[Kowani]

well
they occasionally do
but these are usually countries whose state isn't strong enough to establish a monopoly on currency

I mean yeah, but as I think your point shows, social constructs typically have enforcement in some way.

Well, yes. They definitely don't exist in a vacuum.
The phrase "social construct", I think is often misunderstood by many people.

[Nea Chora]

I mean yeah, but as I think your point shows, social constructs typically have enforcement in some way.

Well, yes. They definitely don't exist in a vacuum.
The phrase "social construct", I think is often misunderstood by many people.

what do you mean a social construct isn't when a group makes a building

[Kowani]

Well, yes. They definitely don't exist in a vacuum.
The phrase "social construct", I think is often misunderstood by many people.

what do you mean a social construct isn't when a group makes a building

if its brutalism, that's an asocial construct

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

Gender isn't a social construct. Gender is a psychological or neurological construct. Gender roles are a social construct.

I don't know about genderfluidity.

You realize psychology is innately social, right?

Psychology is influenced by the social for sure, but it is not the social itself.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

what do you mean a social construct isn't when a group makes a building

if its brutalism, that's an asocial construct

Square-based and concretepilled, how aesthetically unpleasing.

[An-Tanwir]

unless you have a really good architect at some point brutalism gets boring

eco-brutalism on the other hand....

[Philjia]

The high court has ruled that children in England under 16 cannot give informed consent on the use of puberty blockers.
The ruling is complete legal codswallop which hinges upon the insane argument that it is somehow necessary for the patient to know whether or not they want HRT and SRS at the time they begin to take the blockers.

[Auzkhia]

Canadian Actor and Producer Elliot Page comes out as trans on his twitter and instagram, he uses he/him or they/them.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

The high court has ruled that children in England under 16 cannot give informed consent on the use of puberty blockers.
The ruling is complete legal codswallop which hinges upon the insane argument that it is somehow necessary for the patient to know whether or not they want HRT and SRS at the time they begin to take the blockers.

teens should be allowed to take puberty blockers if they want to, and shouldn't have to decide about srs at the same time.

[Fahran]

The high court has ruled that children in England under 16 cannot give informed consent on the use of puberty blockers.
The ruling is complete legal codswallop which hinges upon the insane argument that it is somehow necessary for the patient to know whether or not they want HRT and SRS at the time they begin to take the blockers.

I mean, the ruling is in keeping with the broader laws and logic underpinning informed consent for medical procedures from minors - at least in the UK. If a parent witholds consent for a medical procedure, courts can overrule it in the event that medical professionals determine that the procedure is medically necessary. Essentially, puberty blockers, HRT, and SRS would still be available to minors whose parents consented or whose physicians believed them to be medically necessary due to gender dysphoria - at least in theory.

And I hardly need point out that achieving euphoria is not a medical consideration. Severe dysphoria beyond a particular threshhold, on the other hand, is a medical consideration and provides theoretical grounds for complete coverage of puberty blockers, HRT, and SRS as medically necessary procedures.

Source.

[Fahran]

teens should be allowed to take puberty blockers if they want to, and shouldn't have to decide about srs at the same time.

You do not just give minors drugs. That's tantamount to medical malpractice if you're not treating a medical condition or they cannot give informed consent for an elective procedure.

[Fahran]

Canadian Actor and Producer Elliot Page comes out as trans on his twitter and instagram, he uses he/him or they/them.

I'm glad he managed to be true to himself. I loved his performance in more than a couple shows.

[Nea Chora]

teens should be allowed to take puberty blockers if they want to, and shouldn't have to decide about srs at the same time.

You do not just give minors drugs. That's tantamount to medical malpractice if you're not treating a medical condition or they cannot give informed consent for an elective procedure.

minors get (medical) drugs all the time? it's not medical malpractice to prescribe blockers to a teen with dysphoria.

[Auzkhia]

The high court has ruled that children in England under 16 cannot give informed consent on the use of puberty blockers.
The ruling is complete legal codswallop which hinges upon the insane argument that it is somehow necessary for the patient to know whether or not they want HRT and SRS at the time they begin to take the blockers.

teens should be allowed to take puberty blockers if they want to, and shouldn't have to decide about srs at the same time.

Hotter take put everyone on puberty blockers unless they can confirm that they are genuinely cisgender.

You do not just give minors drugs. That's tantamount to medical malpractice if you're not treating a medical condition or they cannot give informed consent for an elective procedure.

minors get (medical) drugs all the time? it's not medical malpractice to prescribe blockers to a teen with dysphoria.

It is. And I got medication as a minor all the time for ADHD and other things.