Saying things that are true, not good enough

[Brainwrong]

Just spotted this furore over fuck all. I find it pretty interesting.

'Biology not always destiny', says Ian McEwan after transgender row | Books | The Guardian

In the Q&A after the speech, a woman in the audience asked him to clarify what she called his offensive remarks. “Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to think of people with penises as men,” McEwan said. “But I know they enter a difficult world when they become transsexuals and they tell us they are women, they become women, but it’s interesting when you hear the conflict between feminists now and people in this group.”

“My subject was the literary representation of the self in the work of Montaigne, Shakespeare, Pepys, Boswell and others. In response to a question, I proposed that the possession of a penis or, more fundamentally, the inheritance of the XY chromosome, is inalienably connected to maleness. As a statement, this seems to me biologically unexceptional.”

Stonewall, on the ball as per...

It’s extremely sad to hear such uninformed views from such a respected author. When people express views that are hurtful or dangerous, they should expect to be challenged and we’re pleased someone called him out. What’s confusing is that he admitted in his response that we are complex beings – yes we are. The complexity of gender identity extends beyond genitalia.
Trans people need and deserve acceptance and equality. This sort of commentary doesn’t just denigrate the trans experience, it denies its very existence, and that’s especially hurtful for a group of people who have spent their lives fighting to be heard and understood. It’s a bitter irony that he made these comments on the Trans Day of Visibility. It shows just how much work we have to do before everyone is accepted without exception.

If we agree with Greer in any way here (see below), then that ties in with thinking that the woman who said she was actually black when she seemed pretty obviously not as being a bit bonkers.

In November, feminist campaigner Germaine Greer said she did not accept that post-operative men were women. “I don’t believe a woman is a man without a cock,” Greer told an audience at Cardiff University. “You can beat me over the head with a baseball bat. It still won’t make me change my mind.”

But, that being the case, then we're in a right old tizz because that means that it's all just made up. I'm with Greer on this. And we're in uncomfortable territory because the world isn't ready for this yet.

Omnisex bogs must be the only way to go.

Thoughts?

 

[aggie]

I think McEwan alluded to the following paradox, which interests me too:

1) Trans activists argue that brain identity and biological sex do not necessarily coincide - their claims to be a woman in a biological man's body, or a man in a biological woman's body, require a neurologically distinct male/female brain type to exist. This argument is warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.
2) Male and female brains cannot be distinguished into neurologically distinct types, gender is in fact entirely a social construct. This argument is also warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.

Can anyone kindly reconcile 1) and 2) for me, please?

And for the record, as far as I'm concerned it should be enough to accept that some people to wish to be regarded as a different sex from what they were born into, and for everyone else to quietly respect that. It doesn't need pseudoscience to give it any more weight than that.

 

[Brainwrong]

I think McEwan alluded to the following paradox, which interests me too:

1) Trans activists argue that brain identity and biological sex do not necessarily coincide - their claims to be a woman in a biological man's body, or a man in a biological woman's body, require a neurologically distinct male/female brain type to exist. This argument is warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.
2) Male and female brains cannot be distinguished into neurologically distinct types, gender is in fact entirely a social construct. This argument is also warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.

Can anyone kindly reconcile 1) and 2) for me, please?

And for the record, as far as I'm concerned it should be enough to accept that some people to wish to be regarded as a different sex from what they were born into, and for everyone else to quietly respect that. It doesn't need pseudoscience to give it any more weight than that.

Nicely put. And, I concur on your final paragraph too.

 

[egb_hibs]

We're in a post truth era. Anything is what you want it to be as long as that is politically correct.

This transgenderism thing is the latest step in the war on difference and indeed reality. I've no doubt some people aee physiologically somewhere between male and female norms, probably as a result of incomplete transitioning from female to male while they were a fetus.

However I'm equally sure that looked at with he dispassionate eye of science this is a developmental condition and not a third gender or whatever some PC shamans would have it.

I also think that for every one such individual there are probably several psychologically troubled people who risk permanently disabling themselves encouraged by the latest fashionable cause of the moment (note how differently gender dysphoria is treated as compared to other body dysphorias - we don't even pretend to coherence these days)

I have also heard that the kind of kids previously disposed to such things as emo or goth in their high school years are now wont to describe themselves as transgender - an example of the dangerous influence of PC mentalism.

In short we have an example of a theme - a small number of people have an identity deserving of understanding, compassion but also scientific scrutinity and a considered social response. Instead we get another crazed ideological campaign against reality, which further weakens the dilapidated moorings our society depends upon, dangerously deludes the vulnerable and the young, and throws people into drastic surgical procedures from which there is a very high level of bad outcome.

 

[Brainwrong]

We're in a post truth era. Anything is what you want it to be as long as that is politically correct.

This transgenderism thing is the latest step in the war on difference and indeed reality. I've no doubt some people aee physiologically somewhere between male and female norms, probably as a result of incomplete transitioning from female to male while they were a fetus.

However I'm equally sure that looked at with he dispassionate eye of science this is a developmental condition and not a third gender or whatever some PC shamans would have it.

I also think that for every one such individual there are probably several psychologically troubled people who risk permanently disabling themselves encouraged by the latest fashionable cause of the moment (note how differently gender dysphoria is treated as compared to other body dysphorias - we don't even pretend to coherence these days)

I have also heard that the kind of kids previously disposed to such things as emo or goth in their high school years are now wont to describe themselves as transgender - an example of the dangerous influence of PC mentalism.

In short we have an example of a theme - a small number of people have an identity deserving of understanding, compassion but also scientific scrutinity and a considered social response. Instead we get another crazed ideological campaign against reality, which further weakens the dilapidated moorings our society depends upon, dangerously deludes the vulnerable and the young, and throws people into drastic surgical procedures from which there is a very high level of bad outcome.

On the 'dysphoria' point. Initially, I thought that was a great example. But then, at the risk of getting bogged down in semantics, body dysphoria is not a thing, although gender dysphoria is. When it's the body, it's dysmorphia and is quite a distinct thing in psychological terms. I think you may not be comparing boabies with boabies.


Fair amount of turbulence.

 

[Jack]

I'll let Crocodile Dundee decide.

 

[egb_hibs]

On the 'dysphoria' point. Initially, I thought that was a great example. But then, at the risk of getting bogged down in semantics, body dysphoria is not a thing, although gender dysphoria is. When it's the body, it's dysmorphia and is quite a distinct thing in psychological terms. I think you may not be comparing boabies with boabies.


Fair amount of turbulence.

That's the point though K - they are viewed differently for political reasons, not scientific ones.

Someone who has a psychological condition which makes body parts feel alien, has a problem whether those parts are genitals or limbs. Psycho sexual disorders are almost more obvious than other variants. As per my original post I think this is distinct from those physiologically 'between genders' with the psychological ramifications that proceed from that. I fear the clunking fist of PC obscures proper distinction and consideration of these different things.

Like any subject that touches the doctrines of the new creed, science goes out the window or is perverted. Just as sexuality is fluid or fixed and innate depending on requirements of the argument, gender was once a social construct invented by the patriarchy and is now something so real and vital that it justifies people mutiliating their bodies and disabling core body functions.

Think through the tangled implications for a moment; rare is the male to female transgender, who feels compelled to be one of the millions of women who dress plainly, don't use make up and have hobbies and tastes that may even be considered masculine. Both that last designation and indeed the more popular transgender choice of the exaggerated female sexuality (of male fantasy) are, we have long been assured, fictions created by the ruling powers in our society.

And now those (rather backward) fictions turn out to be the 'person Susan has always been' before Bert got his old man lopped off. Not just the post truth era, the post rational era.

- - - Updated - - -

Ps you can see why the feminists are so twitchy; if gender is not only physiologically real and innate, but so vitally so that it can override ones outward biology, then it renders half of feminist theory obsolete. If on the other hand it is an artificial construct as much of feminism requires, then most cases of transgenderism are identification with a fiction, which is no justification for self mutiliating and would leabe such an inclination as manifestly a psychological problem.

This is where the PC game is really hotting up - the faith has passed the point of simply laying waste to the infidel - we now have denominational feuding as various doctrinal cornerstones come into conflict with one another.

 

[Smurf]

Eddie izzard not happy on the telly on Monday night re this...

 

[Doc Shrink]

Eddie izzard not happy on the telly on Monday night re this...

He's a funny guy.

 

[Brainwrong]

I think McEwan alluded to the following paradox, which interests me too:

1) Trans activists argue that brain identity and biological sex do not necessarily coincide - their claims to be a woman in a biological man's body, or a man in a biological woman's body, require a neurologically distinct male/female brain type to exist. This argument is warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.
2) Male and female brains cannot be distinguished into neurologically distinct types, gender is in fact entirely a social construct. This argument is also warmly embraced by intersectional feminists.

Can anyone kindly reconcile 1) and 2) for me, please?

And for the record, as far as I'm concerned it should be enough to accept that some people to wish to be regarded as a different sex from what they were born into, and for everyone else to quietly respect that. It doesn't need pseudoscience to give it any more weight than that.

OK, I'm going to have a go.

I think there might be a few more distinctions to be made in (1).
And, and I'm not sure that sophisticated feminists would buy into (2) - i.e. they are not all completely deconstructivist about gender, although they may say - as I would - that we aren't so much as born with a gender but we are gendered through conditioning. And they might be more inclined to say that gender is performative, rather than purely socially constructed.

In (1) What is the distinction between brain identity and biological sex? They might be the same thing and we need to add in gender or mind-identity, or maybe they are separate and we need at least 3 categories?

You're right, though, that a lot of people paint themselves into something of a paradox along those lines. But, as good objectivists, we don't believe in true paradoxes.

In (1) we should be talking about mind and body, with body including sex organs and your brain, and add the caveat that there's a way to go before we can characterise the neural correlates of gender differences, whatever they'll turn out to be.

Not really a reconciliation, I suppose but, an attempt at breaking the points down a little further and perhaps challenging what you/mcewan suggest.


Fair amount of turbulence.

 

[Brainwrong]

But, also, if I'm right, right that there is no paradox, that it's a false one then how the feck can we be expected to battle a mindset beset with such apparent paradoxes when someone as cerebral as Ian McEwan suggests them?


Fair amount of turbulence.

 

[egb_hibs]

OK, I'm going to have a go.

I think there might be a few more distinctions to be made in (1).
And, and I'm not sure that sophisticated feminists would buy into (2) - i.e. they are not all completely deconstructivist about gender, although they may say - as I would - that we aren't so much as born with a gender but we are gendered through conditioning. And they might be more inclined to say that gender is performative, rather than purely socially constructed.

In (1) What is the distinction between brain identity and biological sex? They might be the same thing and we need to add in gender or mind-identity, or maybe they are separate and we need at least 3 categories?

You're right, though, that a lot of people paint themselves into something of a paradox along those lines. But, as good objectivists, we don't believe in true paradoxes.

In (1) we should be talking about mind and body, with body including sex organs and your brain, and add the caveat that there's a way to go before we can characterise the neural correlates of gender differences, whatever they'll turn out to be.

Not really a reconciliation, I suppose but, an attempt at breaking the points down a little further and perhaps challenging what you/mcewan suggest.


Fair amount of turbulence.

K, I'm often on the wrong end of the big word police, but I have to say that this does read like an excerpt from some intersectional studies manifesto, and it's tempting to feel that all the syllables are there to create the impression of a scientific 'weight' that isn't there. I don't suggest this is intentional on your part but I think you might be working with a vocabulary and tools that have developed for this purpose.

Anyway, as far as I can see you are:

- assuming that gender is distinct from biological sex
- suggesting that gender may be learned through social conditioning
- suggesting that mind and or / brain may be distinct from biological sex

It's not clear to me that this in any way reconciles or elaborates on the conflicting viewpoints Aggie sets out, never mind resolves a paradox thus making Ian Mcewan ... Well actually I'm not sure what the sentence referencing him means at all.

Anyway, we are still left with the following problems:

- gender is either physiologically rooted, including brain - which is as much a part of biological sex as anything else. If so, gender is (at least in very large part) the same thing as sex and whole towers of identity politics collapse.
- 'mind' is not anchored in brain and body and is thus capable of being a source of gender identity separate from biology - which is a ghost in the machine argument, rather at odds with objectivism (didn't realise you were a follower of Ayn Rand!)
- if the elusive 'mind' is shaped by learned behaviour into a gender identity distinct from biology, it's not at all clear:

a) why surgery (mutilation to align with a fiction) should be a response versus reconditioning or 101 other possibilities
b) how some of those claiming to be transgender were shaped by learned behaviour - even amongst celebrity examples it's not obvious how some of these people conditioned into a fictional 'female' gender role
c) why alignment to a social invention should trump biological reality as the basis for assignation of male / female identity, on anything other than a courtesy basis...which would leave Mcewan guilty of no more than failure to defer to a polite fiction
d) why, if gender is a social construct, we need to perpetuate it's alignment to biological sex through being complicit with a - c. For example, why not instead encourage the view that the - really rather stereotyped in most publicised cases - female 'gender' identity that people proclaim, can happily coexist without devastating surgery to a male body we are saying gender is distinct from?

In short, it seems to me to remain the case that either;
- gender is rooted in biology in which case whole acres of identity politics verbiage is null and void
- gender is rooted in a 'mind' which is in fact a brain that is aligned to a subjective and fictional construct through conditioning - in which it is not at all clear the biological reality should be carved up to follow the conditioning
- gender is rooted in some supernatural mind separate from biology - which is not answerable on the terms we have been using and which would finally place identity politics into the realm of religious ideas (as much of it clearly is)

We are also left with the huge question of what is 'female identity' if not anchored in biology? The same applies in the other direction but the canon of feminism makes it easier to illustrate the problem this way around.

A male to female transgender is not identifying with a female biology with which they have not, do not, and even after cosmetic surgery, cannot have experience of. At least in publicised examples they do not seem to identify with gender roles identified by feminists as oppressive - no one seems to want their boaby chopped off so that they can devote themselves to the ironing. That is a stark example, but a whole thrust of feminism is that gender doesn't determine roles or skills, so what is the 'female' thing being identified with? Along the same lines, sexuality is not a determinant as some transgender loudly proclaim themselves as heterosexual male and thus presumably lesbian in their 'true identity'. Transgender also seem more frequently inclined towards appearances that are caricatures of male fantasy than do biological women - if this is an attribute of female identity, how authenticate can it be?

In summary - when a heterosexual biological male, disinterested in traditional female gender roles, unable to access the physical experience of womanhood, and apparently reaching for imagery borne of the male rather than female imagination, claims to have always been a 'woman' - wtf does he mean?


I don't see what you have done to reconcile these tensions.

 

[Brainwrong]

K, I'm often on the wrong end of the big word police, but I have to say that this does read like an excerpt from some intersectional studies manifesto, and it's tempting to feel that all the syllables are there to create the impression of a scientific 'weight' that isn't there. I don't suggest this is intentional on your part but I think you might be working with a vocabulary and tools that have developed for this purpose.

Anyway, as far as I can see you are:

- assuming that gender is distinct from biological sex
- suggesting that gender may be learned through social conditioning
- suggesting that mind and or / brain may be distinct from biological sex

It's not clear to me that this in any way reconciles or elaborates on the conflicting viewpoints Aggie sets out, never mind resolves a paradox thus making Ian Mcewan ... Well actually I'm not sure what the sentence referencing him means at all.

Anyway, we are still left with the following problems:

- gender is either physiologically rooted, including brain - which is as much a part of biological sex as anything else. If so, gender is (at least in very large part) the same thing as sex and whole towers of identity politics collapse.
- 'mind' is not anchored in brain and body and is thus capable of being a source of gender identity separate from biology - which is a ghost in the machine argument, rather at odds with objectivism (didn't realise you were a follower of Ayn Rand!)
- if the elusive 'mind' is shaped by learned behaviour into a gender identity distinct from biology, it's not at all clear:

a) why surgery (mutilation to align with a fiction) should be a response versus reconditioning or 101 other possibilities
b) how some of those claiming to be transgender were shaped by learned behaviour - even amongst celebrity examples it's not obvious how some of these people conditioned into a fictional 'female' gender role
c) why alignment to a social invention should trump biological reality as the basis for assignation of male / female identity, on anything other than a courtesy basis...which would leave Mcewan guilty of no more than failure to defer to a polite fiction
d) why, if gender is a social construct, we need to perpetuate it's alignment to biological sex through being complicit with a - c. For example, why not instead encourage the view that the - really rather stereotyped in most publicised cases - female 'gender' identity that people proclaim, can happily coexist without devastating surgery to a male body we are saying gender is distinct from?

In short, it seems to me to remain the case that either;
- gender is rooted in biology in which case whole acres of identity politics verbiage is null and void
- gender is rooted in a 'mind' which is in fact a brain that is aligned to a subjective and fictional construct through conditioning - in which it is not at all clear the biological reality should be carved up to follow the conditioning
- gender is rooted in some supernatural mind separate from biology - which is not answerable on the terms we have been using and which would finally place identity politics into the realm of religious ideas (as much of it clearly is)

We are also left with the huge question of what is 'female identity' if not anchored in biology? The same applies in the other direction but the canon of feminism makes it easier to illustrate the problem this way around.

A male to female transgender is not identifying with a female biology with which they have not, do not, and even after cosmetic surgery, cannot have experience of. At least in publicised examples they do not seem to identify with gender roles identified by feminists as oppressive - no one seems to want their boaby chopped off so that they can devote themselves to the ironing. That is a stark example, but a whole thrust of feminism is that gender doesn't determine roles or skills, so what is the 'female' thing being identified with? Along the same lines, sexuality is not a determinant as some transgender loudly proclaim themselves as heterosexual male and thus presumably lesbian in their 'true identity'. Transgender also seem more frequently inclined towards appearances that are caricatures of male fantasy than do biological women - if this is an attribute of female identity, how authenticate can it be?

In summary - when a heterosexual biological male, disinterested in traditional female gender roles, unable to access the physical experience of womanhood, and apparently reaching for imagery borne of the male rather than female imagination, claims to have always been a 'woman' - wtf does he mean?


I don't see what you have done to reconcile these tensions.

Ha ha, you've a cheek giving me a jockular hard time for wordy/turdy posts and then proceeding to do exactly the same but about 3 times the length!

Anyway, I'll get back to you. Don't have the time right now. Suffice to say though, there's not a massive amount I don't agree with in your response to me.

One thing though; the fact we think we have paradoxes would previously have made me frustrated and possibly disheartened. But, these days, they make me happy because it makes me feel like we're getting to the nub. We're inching closer and closer to the answers. All of us, not just the Bounce. Although, I'm sure the Bounce will be at the vanguard of the publics understanding. Which means more in real world terms than academia coming up with the answers and then dribbling it down the side of ivory towers.

Jesus, morning cwawfee, I must shut up and get on with work!...


Fair amount of turbulence.

 

[egb_hibs]

Ha ha, you've a cheek giving me a jockular hard time for wordy/turdy posts and then proceeding to do exactly the same but about 3 times the length!

Anyway, I'll get back to you. Don't have the time right now. Suffice to say though, there's not a massive amount I don't agree with in your response to me.

One thing though; the fact we think we have paradoxes would previously have made me frustrated and possibly disheartened. But, these days, they make me happy because it makes me feel like we're getting to the nub. We're inching closer and closer to the answers. All of us, not just the Bounce. Although, I'm sure the Bounce will be at the vanguard of the publics understanding. Which means more in real world terms than academia coming up with the answers and then dribbling it down the side of ivory towers.

Jesus, morning cwawfee, I must shut up and get on with work!...


Fair amount of turbulence.

Lol - fair cop, but I wasn't referring to your length (missus!) so much as the jargon.

One thing to bear in mind; why would 'paradoxes' dishearten unless you were setting out to confirm things to a belief structure?

What if there are no paradoxes, but rather we are attempting to conform reality to our preferred beliefs when it does not, in fact, thus conform? I mean just dwell for a moment on the absurdity that we are supposed to simultaneously believe that sexual orientation is hard wired but gender identity is fluid. As a society we are manifestly engaged in bending reality to fit a preferred set of beliefs - and that exercise goes pretty much unchallenged because of the climate inside universities described by Aggie, and the enforcement of similar doctrines in the wider world.

As I have noted before, the U.K. is at its most theocratic since the age of Cromwell.

 

[Brainwrong]

And, don't confuse philosophical objectivity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(philosophy) with Rand's objectivism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)


Fair amount of turbulence.

 

[egb_hibs]

And, don't confuse philosophical objectivity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(philosophy) with Rand's objectivism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)


Fair amount of turbulence.

An objectivist wouldn't be disheartened as above, or at least would not set out with the goal of reconciling 'paradoxes' towards a subjective ideological position (the context in which said 'paradoxes' are paradoxical) :coffee:

Anyhow - I've stuff to dae as well, pick this up later - happy Friday

 

[Brainwrong]

I heard a great quote that I'm about to paraphrase and perhaps ruin, cannae mind who said it, it was an author, and it was Jim Harrison who quoted them...

"...What happens to our female twin at birth?..."

Referring of course that all of us men (and women) start out female. Where does that facet go? And, how is it studiously discarded so. Embarrassed out of us as little boys who must become men.

Anyhoo, seemed like a nice way to start this response.

I think what we need is a rejection all this illogic until we find out the facts. By way of explaining, there is plenty stuff throughout history that seemed unknowable that is now accepted fact, through the sciences etc. So, instead of making things up because we don't actually know, we should have a moratorium on trans-logic & pan-race-logic until we can truly figure out that what we have proven (we haven't yet, of course) as scientific fact is sound and as watertight as 'the earth isnae flat' concept.

And, in the meantime, do exactly as Aggie suggests and respect people and their dysphoria / dysmorphia.

Yes, I think gender is distinct from biological sex.
Yes, I think a fair amount of gender norms are learned behaviours.
Yes, I was 'suggesting' that mind/brain may be considered separate from biological sex as a part of the solution to understanding the differences between the sexes i.e. those bits are the same in both sexes.

I'm not entirely convinced sex-changes or intense tanning are really the answer to 'being in the wrong body'. I think they're choices that folk can make if they want, it's their body. (I would 100% not extend the same lackadaisical liberal approach to kids though). But, it'd be inclined to think that there's a psychological misfiring going on rather than folk not having the body they imagine is the correct one for them.

I'm aware that previous paragraph will appeal to some but be anathema to others, and I'd like to state that I'm not blindly making that statement. I reckon there are people that are truly horrified by the bodies their in. But, the way I think it should really go, the only way it [it meaning society and culture and attitudes] truly can go to ever have a remote chance of working is if we discard the needless gender norms and get to a stage where the following two things are true:

1. Being feminine in any way is not a weakness
2. Being gay isn't a weakness

With those two tenants, I reckon everything would be prettttay, prettttay, prettttay good (that's a curb your enthusiasm reference). It would basically mean that everyone would be equal and noone would hide or feel terrible or trapped about who they are in a societal and psycho-sexual sense.

Regarding your summary, I don't think people are born in the wrong body. I think they just, to use their own terminology, identify with facets of the opposite sex or another race or whatever. Your point about the 'type' of woman a transgender man 'feels they always have been' is an extremely key point to the whole thing and one that's just totally whitewashed over cause you cannae question someone's identity. Don't get me wrong though, I don't think we have any business questioning people, let them get on with it. But, we're yet to get to the point where we all understand so, unfortunately questioning is utterly valid at this stage in our societies development.

Man, that feels like a total brain dump. Just back from the gym and buzzing a little. Excuse any bawbaggery.

 

[egb_hibs]

[MENTION=1429]Brainwrong[/MENTION] - sorry for the delay.

Bit confused tbh, as you say that we should have a moratorium from basing things on pseudo science and then launch into a long and enthusiastic advocacy of positions based on it!

I also think you blur a lot of things. Gender roles as not the same gender for instance. Some are related - men's role in military, women's in child rearing is related for instance, but lumping housework on women is nothing to do with masculinity or femininity per se. It will have its roots in division of labour deriving from things that were gender related, or simple assertion of male physical power.

However the identity politics concept of gender is a bit magical. If you are going to tell me that a biological man can have a female gender identity distinct from female biology, female sexuality, female gender roles and at least superficially conforms to stereotypes of femininity that owe more to the male imagination than to femal experience.... Well you're going to have to do some work to persuade me you're not just making stuff up to support a vision of the world as you'd like it to be (I don't mean you specifically, I means advocates of this sort of thing).

I think the rest reaches all over the shop - I don't know what considering femininity or gayness as weakness have to do with anything, or who feels that way, or what you mean by weakness - much of the 'history of homosexuality'. is aggressively militaristic for instance. In any case I find it really bizarre the inference that sorting this out is integral to society working (if I have understood you correctly). For better or worse the assault on traditional ideas of gender has so far been deeply damaging to society - and if it ever comes to the sharp end of things against less muddled cultures, that will only become more pronounced.

We're in the grip of deep madnesses and you are right that we need to get a grip on it - humans can seldom have come up with a more suicidal idea than rejecting the realities at the heart of reproduction and evolution. For sure there are women who have characteristics and interests predominantly found in men and vice versa. This is a great thing with I am sure considerable evolutionary benefit - but it's madness to deny relative distributions and their alignment with male and female sexual organs.

In my opinion it is also almost certain that there are 'hard wired' gay people, and very likely that there are physiological rooted cases of identity transgenderism as well as physical examples in intersex people. The obvious avenue for enquiry in all this is the female / male transitional process during foetal development. In any case there is either a physiological root or we are bringing ghosts in the machine into play.

However, in addition to all this there will be a whole series of neuroses and psycholgical conditions as surround any fundamental drive or aspect of the human condition from eating to death.

The politicised recasting of psychological or physiological states is a dubious enterprise scientifically though pretences may arguably have other merits. Meanwhile the whole layered edifices of constructed realities that have sprung from identity politics - including gender as they define it - need a thorough and intellectually rigorous Spring clean if they are to be in any way credible IMHO. Even then it will be important for users to remember that they are invented abstractions which serve a useful descriptive purpose but aren't 'real' objective sense.

This isn't simply to curb the irritation of people like me who are dismayed at the accelerating descent of society and intellectual life into an anti enlightenment soup of fantasy and superstition, but is necessary if these ideas are to survive what will come. In coming decades gene science is going to be ripping news ones left, right and centre - liberal fantasies are going to get absolutely served. There's a big knock on risk that progressive ideology as a result returns to its pre ww2 biologically rooted obsessions (eugenics is clearly reemerging already). If progressive Ideas need rooted in their own fictions to keep themselves away from their even darker tendencies, then the work needs done now to shore them up intellectually.

Like you I have now wondered a bit, and some of this doesn't really warrant much further consideration in the context of the topic at hand. The key point on which I agree with you is that loads of this is absolute hokum and needs reexamined before people are encouraged into life changing surgery or adolescents are pumped full of hormones with ill understood consequences because no one dares raise psycholgical issues.

 

[MixuDave]

This is all getting a tad silly noo imo! If you were born with a penis yer a guy, if ye were born with a vagina yer a gal, no hard really!

 

[Doc Shrink]

This is all getting a tad silly noo imo! If you were born with a penis yer a guy, if ye were born with a vagina yer a gal, no hard really!

Bit of a Freudian slip there Dave.

 

[Brainwrong]

Bit of a Freudian slip there Dave.

Saw that one coming...

- - - Updated - - -

@Brainwrong - sorry for the delay.

Bit confused tbh, as you say that we should have a moratorium from basing things on pseudo science and then launch into a long and enthusiastic advocacy of positions based on it!

I also think you blur a lot of things. Gender roles as not the same gender for instance. Some are related - men's role in military, women's in child rearing is related for instance, but lumping housework on women is nothing to do with masculinity or femininity per se. It will have its roots in division of labour deriving from things that were gender related, or simple assertion of male physical power.

However the identity politics concept of gender is a bit magical. If you are going to tell me that a biological man can have a female gender identity distinct from female biology, female sexuality, female gender roles and at least superficially conforms to stereotypes of femininity that owe more to the male imagination than to femal experience.... Well you're going to have to do some work to persuade me you're not just making stuff up to support a vision of the world as you'd like it to be (I don't mean you specifically, I means advocates of this sort of thing).

I think the rest reaches all over the shop - I don't know what considering femininity or gayness as weakness have to do with anything, or who feels that way, or what you mean by weakness - much of the 'history of homosexuality'. is aggressively militaristic for instance. In any case I find it really bizarre the inference that sorting this out is integral to society working (if I have understood you correctly). For better or worse the assault on traditional ideas of gender has so far been deeply damaging to society - and if it ever comes to the sharp end of things against less muddled cultures, that will only become more pronounced.

We're in the grip of deep madnesses and you are right that we need to get a grip on it - humans can seldom have come up with a more suicidal idea than rejecting the realities at the heart of reproduction and evolution. For sure there are women who have characteristics and interests predominantly found in men and vice versa. This is a great thing with I am sure considerable evolutionary benefit - but it's madness to deny relative distributions and their alignment with male and female sexual organs.

In my opinion it is also almost certain that there are 'hard wired' gay people, and very likely that there are physiological rooted cases of identity transgenderism as well as physical examples in intersex people. The obvious avenue for enquiry in all this is the female / male transitional process during foetal development. In any case there is either a physiological root or we are bringing ghosts in the machine into play.

However, in addition to all this there will be a whole series of neuroses and psycholgical conditions as surround any fundamental drive or aspect of the human condition from eating to death.

The politicised recasting of psychological or physiological states is a dubious enterprise scientifically though pretences may arguably have other merits. Meanwhile the whole layered edifices of constructed realities that have sprung from identity politics - including gender as they define it - need a thorough and intellectually rigorous Spring clean if they are to be in any way credible IMHO. Even then it will be important for users to remember that they are invented abstractions which serve a useful descriptive purpose but aren't 'real' objective sense.

This isn't simply to curb the irritation of people like me who are dismayed at the accelerating descent of society and intellectual life into an anti enlightenment soup of fantasy and superstition, but is necessary if these ideas are to survive what will come. In coming decades gene science is going to be ripping news ones left, right and centre - liberal fantasies are going to get absolutely served. There's a big knock on risk that progressive ideology as a result returns to its pre ww2 biologically rooted obsessions (eugenics is clearly reemerging already). If progressive Ideas need rooted in their own fictions to keep themselves away from their even darker tendencies, then the work needs done now to shore them up intellectually.

Like you I have now wondered a bit, and some of this doesn't really warrant much further consideration in the context of the topic at hand. The key point on which I agree with you is that loads of this is absolute hokum and needs reexamined before people are encouraged into life changing surgery or adolescents are pumped full of hormones with ill understood consequences because no one dares raise psycholgical issues.

Well, that I think we should have a moratorium on it doesn't stop me from having an opinion on it!

Re weakness; I think many people have issues with their own identity because of outside pressures. They may, deep down, have an inkling as to what/who they are but suppress it out of fear in some countries and embarrassment in others, perhaps both in yet other countries.

If we no longer viewed female/gay as weaknesses or, in some places even; evil, bad, wrong or just plain sub-human then these deep rooted neuroses would, should, could? be eliminated. Which, would circumvent personal/individual identity crisis and, in turn, subvert identity politics etc. That was the general jist I was going for.

 

[MixuDave]

Bit of a Freudian slip there Dave.

Whatever could you mean doc??????