On average, one is better off not being LGBT
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After 2 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
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- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
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- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
To be LGBT for this debate means to be either:
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or any combination of them.
This is an on average debate.
Better off: In a more desirable or advantageous position
- As per the rules of accepting a debate, the description is binding and our framework has been established.
- To be LGBT for this debate means to be either: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or any combination of them.
- This is an on-average debate.
- Better off: In a more desirable or advantageous position
- According to "Suicidality Among Transgender Youth: Elucidating the Role of Interpersonal Risk Factors," Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth." (1).
- Many trans people have one of the most unfortunate conditions known as Gener Dysphoria which causes an internal conflict between their biology and desired identity.
- According to Mayo Clinic: "If gender dysphoria impairs the ability to function at school or at work, the result may be school dropout or unemployment. Relationship difficulties are common. Anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, substance misuse, and other problems can occur" (3).
- Now one can argue that this is just trans people, so what about other LGBT people, but we can look at average health patterns within them and make an extended case.
- According to the CDC as Healthline reports "In 2019, around 23 percent of LGB youth attempted suicide versus 6 percent of heterosexual youth" (4).
- We can reasonably conclude LGBT individuals are more prone to suicide and suicidal ideation, so on average someone who si not LGBT will live a much better life.
- According to medical news today: "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other self-identified queer (LGBTQ) youth have higher rates of mental health issues than people in the general population" (6).
- Let's agree that we have already established that LGBTQ individuals are more likely to undergo depression and other mental health issues as well as more likely to have suicidal thoughts.
- To solidify this argument we have to see on average how significantly worse the quality of life of an LGBTQ individual will be.
- As Healthline (4) further states:
- "The True Colors Fund states that 4.2 million youth experience homelessness every year and that 40 percent of these homeless youth are LGBTQ. This number is even more astounding considering that LGBT people make up only 7 percent of the youth population (4). Despite being a small 7 percent of the population they make up 40% of the homeless youth.
- LGBT individuals are more likely to be homeless.
- As the UCLA Williams Institute states, "LGBT people are nearly four times more likely than non-LGBT people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. In addition, LGBT people are more likely to experience violence both by someone well-known to the victim and at the hands of a stranger" (7).
- LGBTQ individuals are significantly more likely to be victims of violent crime and assault.
- Finally according to INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY, "People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) have higher rates of poverty compared to cisgender (cis) heterosexual people, about 22% to 16% respectively" (8).
- We concluded that on average, LGBT people are more likely to be impoverished.
- In this debate, we are evaluating the average quality of life to determine on average, whether one is better off if he is not gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
- We can look at this syllogism.
- Significantly more suicidal
- Are more likely to have emotional and psychological suffering in dysphoria and depression
- More likely to be impoverished
- Are more likely to be homeless
- LGBTQ individuals are significantly more likely to be victims of violent crime, and physical and sexual assault.
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/
- https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/symptoms-causes/syc
- https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/gay
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/lgbt-youth-and-mental-health
- https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-lgbt-violence-press-release/
- https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/the-complexity-of-lgbt-poverty-in-the-united-states/
- Fifty-five percent of LGBT youth feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, and 37 percent feel unsafe because of their gender expression.
- Seventy-four percent of LGBT youth were verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation, and 56 percent were verbally harassed because of their gender expression.
- Sixteen percent were physically assaulted — either punched, kicked, or injured with a weapon — because of their sexual orientation, and 11 percent of them experienced this type of assault because of their gender expression.
- CON needs to cite sources for the claims they make, not state a list of random claims and dump a bunch of sources at the end because now we don't know which source is for which claim. This is very poor form by CON and it prevents me from responding properly
- If you mean the definition of better off, we are talking about on average considering all the relevant factors that pertain to one's life and the quality of it. Would one be in a more desirable or advantageous position on average based on all the relevant factors we can consider and propose that impact both groups.
- Overall we are discussing the average quality of life and which is better off.
- No, im not at all.
- While there are many inherent disadvantages to being LGBT, I am simply arguing that on average someone who is not LGBT is better off because of several reasons, whether health-related or societal related, etc.
- Disagree. Conditions such as gender dysphoria are largely suffered by LGBTQ individuals. That's a significant disadvantage suffered by many transgender people.
- Regardless the debate isn't necessarily whether being LGBT is innately worse off (although it has its disadvantages). This debate is about whether one is worse off being LGBT.
- It actually implies a significant drawback to being trans on average, because conditions like gender dysphoria lead to increased rates of emotional distress that lead to depression and/or suicidal ideation.
- This is an argument in favor of my position. You admit that trans people probably have lingering psychological issues across their lives. That would contribute to them being worse off, no?
- Sure. Thanks for providing this statistic. Therefore on average, one is better off not being LGBT because they are significantly more likely to be bullied. This is an argument in favor of the resolution.
- You have now made two points for me.
- Yeah, I agree that bullying plays at least some role in this. I never claimed otherwise so it appears as if you are refuting the air here. You are essentially making my point for me. Trans people are more likely to experience the severe bullying which increases these rates
- While this is the case, we can't look past the rates that aren't caused by bullying and are caused more so by internal psychological distress.
- For example according to a UCLA Williams Institue study: "The prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts was lowest (31%) among respondents who felt that being transgender or gender non-conforming had not markedly affected the quality of their lives (see Table 22) (Williams Institute)
- So Trans people who believe being Trans has not affected them still attempted suicide at a 31% rate. There is evidence that this persists without bullying.
- I agree. I dont believe there is data to show that ALL LGBT individuals will be homeless for their whole lives, but I have certainly shown you that on average they are more likely to be homeless. I don't think your objection means anything.
- I don't know the exact reason why they would be homeless. It could be several factors including discrimination.
- Your argument here is in support of the resolution, however. We can even fill at the end of the resolution with it and it. On average, one is better off not being LGBT because they suffer poor treatment from other people.
- Sure. All these are arguments for me.
- On average, one is better off not being LGBT because as you just claimed:
- They lack social support
- They are abused at home
- They lack social connections
- Let me address you conclusion directly. You say:
- I'm sorry to say but none of this matters to the quality of one's life unless you can show how it has benefitted them. You can be the kindest person in the world and if you are homeless and constantly bullied, emotionally distressed, or dysphoric you won't have the opportunity for these traits to benefit you.
- I will address your argument about poverty in round three because I want to dedicate a lot of statistical analysis to it
- CON's case stands on this line of reasoning
- LGBT individuals are bullied and therefore...they are not worse off?
- I'm confused. Most of your case was directly arguing from my side
- I have successfully turned most of CON's arguments around on them
- Sourcing: As pointed out in round two, CON uses very poor form to source their claims and it makes them harder to attack. They make a series of random or connected points and they drop a list of sources, but we don't necessarily know which source is for which claim. I mentioned this in the previous round but CON went right back to doing the exact same thing without any heed. It makes it hard to go through the information and it's a dishonest method.
- I stated in round two that "If you mean the definition of better off, we are talking about on average considering all the relevant factors that pertain to one's life and the quality of it. Would one be in a more desirable or advantageous position on average based on all the relevant factors we can consider and propose that impact both groups"
- CON does not dispute or object to the point of quality of life or factors that pertain to one's life so their either accept the framework of the debate or seemingly drop the argument.
- Overall we are discussing the quality of life and which group is likely to be better off. Furthermore, I want to specifically note that this is an on-average debate. I believe that when we consider aggregates, one is better off not being LGBTQ on average.
- First as promised in round 2 "I will address your argument about poverty in round three because I want to dedicate a lot of statistical analysis to it"
- According to CAP: "Gay men are sometimes poorer and sometimes less poor than heterosexual men, but stunning findings show that lesbian women across data sets are consistently poorer than their heterosexual counterparts. The National Survey of Family Growth found that, 24 percent of lesbian and bisexual women between the ages of 18-44 are living in poverty in contrast to only 19 percent of heterosexual women. Yet NSFG data shows that gay and heterosexual men have relatively equal poverty rates: fifteen and 13 percent, respectively" [1].
- 22% of LGBTQ people live in poverty in the US while only 16% of cisgender straight people live in poverty [2].
- I believe CON agrees that LGBT people are more likely to be poor.
- CON dropped that LGBT people are more likely to be homeless. As a reminder, according to survivors against sesta: "For homeless and housing unstable youth, the disparities are even more pronounced, with some cities reporting that 40-50% of homeless young people reporting to be LGBTQ-identified" [5].
- According to the Williams Institute, "LGBT people are more likely than non-LGBT people to face housing instability" [6].
- Great, so you are making an argument that LGBTQ people are treated worse and therefore on average one is better off not being treated worse, therefore one is better off not being LGBTQ.
- I don't believe you understand this yet. Starting from the first round you have been making arguments that support my side of the debate.
- Expanding on this, the Guardian reports that "Gay relationships are still criminalized in 72 countries." You admit yourself that LGBTQ people are treated badly. Now imagine their mere relationships being outlawed, persecuted, and criminalized in almost 1/3 of countries globally. Surely it is much better to not be LGBT on average.
- First of all, I don't think CON has mentioned this. Give me a specific example of an industry?
- Secondly, it's really irrelevant. What does this have to do with one being better or worse off on average being LGBTQ? It seems like a really weak point because that doesn't speak to the quality of life they may have, their experiences, their mental health, etc.
- This is actually pretty irrelevant on the front that this debate is not about whether the children of LGBT parents are more likely to be X, but whether one is better or worse off being LGBT.
- And how are any of these necessarily good or better?
- I can give an example to illustrate my counterargument. According to Psychology Today article titled Why Extraversion May Not Matter:
- "In a very recent study, we found, consistent with previous research, that extraversion was related to both the attainment of leadership positions and a self-rated measure of leader effectiveness. But rather than using leaders, we used a longitudinal sample of everyday adults. However, we also measured key social skills. In our analysis we found that social skills also predicted leadership. However, when we found that when social skills were put into the equation, extraversion no longer predicted leadership. In short, only extraverts who possessed high levels of social skills were more likely to be leaders (and effective leaders)"
- So as this study found, extraversion doesn't matter without proper social skills, and because of the significant mental health issues and conditions we have established that LGBT people suffer from, including emotional distress and anxiety, disproportionately, we can only conclude that they have less developed or adequate social skills.
- As I stated in round one none of this matters to the quality of one's life unless you can show how it has benefitted them. You can be the kindest person in the world and if you are homeless and constantly bullied, emotionally distressed, or dysphoric you won't have the opportunity for these traits to benefit you.
- You have mostly dropped or admitted yourself to many of these factors so I don't see why someone being suicidal and creative is any better than being just suicidal for example.
- It actually doesn't matter if they are exclusive to LGBT people. I would agree many people can face these issues, but they are most significant among LGBT people and therefore one is better off on average not being one.
- While some are a result of society, some are inherent/illnesses such as the suicide rate. CON argued that this was only a result of people bullying trans individuals, but as I pointed out in ROUND 2, trans people for which being trans has never affected the quality of their life still had a 31% attempt rate.
- "The prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts was lowest (31%) among respondents who felt that being transgender or gender non-conforming had not markedly affected the quality of their lives (see Table 22) (Williams Institute)
- Even if they are close cis gender stright women still have a slight advantage
- The issue isn't the sources. It's your horrible organization of them which makes it difficult to see where you got certain pieces of information from etc. More of dishonest practice.
- "LGBT students can be around twice as likely to have reported incidents of bullying, with some stats showing around 50% of LGBT students have reported incidents of bullying, and Transgender students have even higher rates of bullying, with up to 61% of Trans students reporting bullying" (round 1)
- "It sucks to be Trans in high school, which probably has some lingering psychological issues across a person’s life" (round 1)
- "These same factors are prevalent in the causes of mental health issues in LGBT youth. Lack of social support, abuse at home, and likely abuse at school, or a lack of the same social connections non-LGBT people or children at risk of homelessness would likely face at school" (round 1)
- Remember we are debating whether one is better off not being LGBT on average. CON mostly admits to most of the large disadvantages and adds some themself.
- Around 72 countries (about 1/3 of them criminalize homosexual relationships.
- LGBTQ are significantly more affected by mental health issues such as depression and suicidal ideation
- They suffer from homelessness and housing instability more often
- As CON said, they have a lack of social support, are abused at home, and are likely abused at school
- My opening syllogism was this.
- Both premises are true and therefore my conclusion is true.
- Most of CON's case is directly arguing for my side of the debate.
- https://www.americanprogress.org/article/poverty-in-the-lgbt-community/
- https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-poverty-us/
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201110/why-extraversion-may-not-matter
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/gay-relationships-still-criminalised-countries-report
- https://survivorsagainstsesta.org/lgbtq/
- https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgbt-housing-press-release/
Conduct - forfeit Round 3 by Con
Arguments to Pro
Economics - Con literally concedes that LGBT people on balance are worse off economically, the only exception being gay men who seem to have less of a disadvantage there.
Bullying, Trauma and mental health - Con again literally concedes that LGBT people are worse off in these ways but blames the bullying as being unrelated to their LGBT status... Really? Con admits extremely statistical discrepancies for the LGBT demographics and then says their being LGBT was not what was to blame because the bullying is to blame... Seems like a real red herring strawman to me.
Pro says this:
"Sure. Thanks for providing this statistic. Therefore on average, one is better off not being LGBT because they are significantly more likely to be bullied. This is an argument in favor of the resolution."
and this:
"Yeah, I agree that bullying plays at least some role in this. I never claimed otherwise so it appears as if you are refuting the air here. You are essentially making my point for me. Trans people are more likely to experience the severe bullying which increases these rates"
That alone handles the entire Kritik red herring that Con brings up. I don't even understand what was brought up. It is as if being more likely to be bullied as a result of being LGBT is somehow taken as an illusion to Con, who blames the bullies for making the biased decision to bully LGBT more... What is the actual argument there? Is it a disadvantage, advantage or neutral? How did Con prove it neutral?
I mean honestly I don't follow Con's case at all, the case tells us that it's not a disadvantage to be LGBT, the only disadvantages are the treatments and drawbacks that come along with it... I wonder what those treatment tendencies and drawbacks are... DISADVANTAGES!
The outcome is relatively straightforward largely because only one side is really framing their case based on the resolution, and that would be Pro. Pro is arguing that the life of a person who is LGBTQ is, on average, harder than the life of someone who is not. He explains what he means in expressing said difficulties, most clearly in his syllogism, but at several other points as well. He supports those points with numerous sources about how LGBTQ individuals generally have worse quality of life and are more often subject to pressures that lead to their suicides. While not all of this goes through perfectly, a majority of it stands largely uncontested.
Con's response is to engage in two different points of attack. He starts by arguing that we cannot know what "better off" means on an objective level, which functions largely as a Kritik of the phrasing of the resolution. It's fine if you want to argue that, but a) you have to be directly responsive to your opponent's points about what "better off" means in this context (I don't see much in the way of direct responses to that point), b) it has to be clear what I should do with that knowledge (though Con seems to be driving at a "voters should treat any improvement as equally beneficial since they can all exhibit different benefits in different contexts," a point that would have been nice to see directly instead of being vaguely hinted at), and c) absent a means for voters to do something with b), you need to give me an alternative interpretation (I'll get to this on the next point, though it's not framed as an alternative). The second point is potentially consequential, since Con largely dismisses Pro's case on the basis that his impacts are consequences of others discriminating against LGBTQ people rather than consequences of a person being LGBTQ. The trouble is that I don't get this framed as a distinct and preferable interpretation of the resolution. If you want me to think of "being LGBTQ" as those benefits/harms that exist in a vacuum absent other members of society, then you need to tell me why. It's fine if you think that the goal should be to focus on those aspects of LGBTQ people that are inherent to themselves, but you need to give me a reason to prefer them. Pro keeps telling me that the world imposing harms on LGBTQ persons indicates support for the resolution not opposition to it because that is how he framed the resolution. You have to either reframe the resolution or find some way to elevate your impacts over his. Unfortunately, I see neither. I see an independent case being made without addressing why I should prefer either your view of the resolution (which I never clearly see) or your alternative regarding what "better off" should mean in this context, and without either and with most of Pro's case (particularly suicides and mental problems - arguing that comparing them to depressed individuals makes them look good isn't exactly a point in your favor) standing, my vote goes to Pro.
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Please vote if you can. I tagged whiteflame just because, and I tagged you because you commented in the debate
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Take your time, it was a long response. I wanted to make sure you not only had fun, but that you had fun for a long time.
I will have fun in this debate.
I agree
Okay? Have fun debating a truism lmao
Gays and Bisexual men are more likely to get HIV from their promiscuous sex. This would be akin to saying that "On average, one is better off not being promiscuous" which is accurate.
Transgenders often have to pay for a surgery that's expensive. But this is akin to saying, "On average, one is better off not needing glasses" because glasses are also an expense.
The description is quite clear.
One is better off if they are not lesbian gay bisexual or trans.
This debate needs clarification. One cannot choose to not be LGBTQ. If the resolution is that cishet people are better off on average, that's a truism (they're identical in all-but not having to face discrimination, which is a gigantic positive). If the resolution is that a person shouldn't come out as LGBTQ and should live their live as though they were cishet regardless of what they know themselves to be, then we have a debate on our hands.
I want to debate someone who is relatively high on the rankings, but anyone is fine.