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@sadolite
So business as usual and blame capitalism for everything. Good plan
there's tons of capitalism in singapore
you're off-target
Put your unpopular opinions here and someone who disagrees will debate you
Posts
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@Discipulus_Didicit
oh no that is the ONLY acceptable opinion nowadays
The 1984 eugenics program in Singapore was a great idea.
In short, people who graduated college with good marks would be allowed to participate in a government funded cruise trip, in which they will mingle with other high achieving students. The intention is essentially to create a "love island" situation on the cruise in which smart individuals will meet, start a relationship and subsequently have children with good genes.
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@Nyxified
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@thett3
This is like saying we can't say humans have ten fingers because a small minority are born with eleven fingers or because others lost one in an accident. Very few people are anatomically perfect, but we know what human beings look like.
Well, you see, the difference here is that 1 in 50 people are born with chromosomes that don't align with their sex[1]. Many people will have their reproductive organs or breasts removed, or will have their estrogen suppressed, or will have a lot of body hair, etc... If being born with 11 fingers had half the prevalence of cis people who lack multiple of the attributes one would expect of their assigned sex, then yeah, you wouldn't be able to say that. Using this same example, a person is a human being regardless of how many fingers they have because their fingers are irrelevant to their humanity.
With respect to those sex/secondary sex characteristics the relevant consideration is that most cis women have *all* of them while trans women have none, and have to brute force their bodies with chemicals or surgeries into coming anywhere close. That right there should tell you something.
"Have to brute force their bodies with chemicals or surgeries to coming anywhere close." I don't know how to tell you that a trans woman taking estrogen (after having bottom surgery) will get exactly what a cis woman gets from estrogen. This isn't a 'close' situation, it's an identical one in all ways that matter. You say brute force as though it's an exercise in futility when it really isn't.
"Trans women have none" is just wrong. Trans women often share the following with cis women:
- Breasts
- Muscle distribution patterns
- Fat distribution patterns
- Neurological patterns
- Similar hormone levels
- Recurrent periods (excluding the blood and some of the cramps, trans women experience the emotional effects and some of the physical effects of a period the same way a cis woman does due to cyclical hormonal levels[2])
- High pitched voices
- Voices that are spoken in head resonance
- I could go on for a while, but I'm writing this before I go to bed, so I'll leave it at here for now.
Unless you think these things just don't matter for some reason, then I have literally no idea where you got the idea that trans women have 'none' of the characteristics typically assigned to the female sex.
If your statement was factual the highlighted bit is what it would mean. But the statement is incorrect. We can guess with a high degree of accuracy a LOT about a person simply by knowing if they are a woman or a man--ESPECIALLY on the things trans people are concerned about, like breasts or facial hair because we are a sexually dimorphic species. There is a distribution of values on many thousands of characteristics that differ between male and female individuals. I'm sure there is a man out there in the world who is otherwise anatomically typical who for some reason has breast tissue that produces milk but it would be the height of silliness to say that because like 0.0001% of men have something that like 99.99% of women do "man" and "woman" aren't meaningful concepts other than how we choose to define them. If an alien came down and studied humanity they would come up with the same division of sex we did, and would put virtually every individual in the exact same category that we do.
The two examples you give (breasts and facial hair) are literally two of the main things that hormone replacement therapy change and cause trans women to become identical to cis women in this regard. Your entire argument also completely ignores the existence of intersex people in its entirety in spite of the fact they represent between 0.1-2% of the population.
"With a high degree of accuracy" okay, sure, I'm not disagreeing with you there. You can say that a female PROBABLY has all the sex characteristics that most females have and you'll usually be right, but none of the individual characteristics are the switch that determines if someone is a woman or not a woman; it's a gradient from male to female and trans women can land exactly as far towards the female side of the gradient as a cis woman could.
If you want to argue that chromosomes are what determine if someone is a woman or not, then no, aliens wouldn't come up with the same concepts of sex we did, because there'd be half a dozen sexes if not more (people don't only have XX and XY chromosomes). Chromosomes are irrelevant and, in the example I gave with a woman living as a woman for 50 years only to discover she has male chromosomes, it's ridiculous to say she's not a woman on any grounds other than a meaningless technicality.
No, gender affirming care is the equivalent of conversion therapy... The fact that gay men report molestation victimization rates as children around 10x that of straight men pretty much shuts the door on any argument that the environment can't impact ones sexuality, at the very least sexual trauma or first experiences can in many cases. But I would definitely agree that by the time almost anyone is able to express their sexuality it's immutable and can't be meaningfully changed, so conversion therapy is just damaging.
I mean the incredibly high satisfaction rates with gender-affirming care pretty much shuts the door that it's at all comparable to conversion therapy (too lazy to type it all again. Check comment #52 https://www.debateart.com/debates/3104-allowing-transgendered-athletes-mtf-to-compete-in-athletics-against-biological-females-is-unfair and https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/6621-questions-for-transgenders-trans-ideologists?page=1&post_number=19).
Gender is a totally different beast. Sex is immutable from the day you're born.
I would disagree for all of the characteristics a trans women achieves through transition.
Universally. The trans ideology argues that gender and sex are separate but like... My big issue with the trans ideology is that it wants to have it's cake and eat it too. Look closely at what you wrote..."their outward presentation not matching their identity." What's this "outward presentation" based on? The sex characteristics of cis women or men...which come purely from biology.
Yeah. The outward presentation based on sex characteristics (usually. Some don't choose to transition at all even if they do identify as trans). Like all of the sex characteristics a trans person can achieve through hormones and surgeries leading to incredibly high transition satisfaction rates.
So the identity is fundamentally rooted in an immutable biology that is opposite to what the person has, but if they claim the identity they have just as strong a claim to it as anyone else.
While I still don't believe it's 'immutable', yeah. They do. Sex is irrelevant to gender identity. Even if you don't believe trans women can become women in terms of sex, that's not really what I've been talking about.
Instead of futile attempts to change the sex of confused children and teenagers we should focus on providing them with a positive self identity based in reality as it is, and not how they wish it was. If an adult still wants to take opposite sex hormones or do an operation...well I have my thoughts on if that's ethical. I don't think surgically removing healthy organs is medically ethical--but at least it's between consenting adults.
Most adults can't even access transition surgery. It took me 3 years to get access to testosterone blockers. Trans people, especially in the US, will have to visit half a dozen doctors, psychiatrists, experts on transgender care, etc... and spend thousands of dollars to have access to trans care. People who come out as trans once they're older than 14 years old overwhelmingly continue to identify as trans into adulthood, but even still, I know tons of trans people and not a single one has gotten any form of gender affirming care before 16 years of age (except for one guy who got puberty blockers when they were 15, but that's not even gender affirming care).
Trans people are happy when they transition and are not particularly happy when they don't. Even if they can never be the opposite sex, if giving off the illusion of being the opposite sex and having the same appearance as the opposite sex makes a consenting adult happy, I don't see any problem.
What do you make of the huge increase of teens identifying as trans?
We stopped murdering trans people, mostly. And also started giving would-be trans people the knowledge of what it means to be trans and that other people are like them.
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@Dr.Franklin
oh no that is the ONLY acceptable opinion nowadays
Send the debate challenge, hoe.
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@Bones
To copy-paste what I said to thett3:
'Woman' is a gender identity.Any conditions for womanhood beyond identifying as a woman are, at best, pointless technicalities.
The guy in the video arguing that trans activists can't even define the terms they use is complaining that trans activists aren't going to willingly commit a logical fallacy by trying to assign a set of characteristics that, if one has it, they are a woman, and if they don't, they aren't. For all the posts addressing thett3 I've made in this thread, I've shown why there is no characteristic(s) that determine that. Could I give you a general overview of what typically is seen in those who identify as *insert entirely subjective noun/identifier here*? Sure. Doesn't mean everyone who identifies as that has all of those characteristics. Moreover, the only concrete definition of that identity is that it's someone who identifies with that identity and then you can say those with this identity (typically but not necessarily) have/are this this and this.
With stuff like womanhood, the only condition is identifying as a woman. Having a female sex is more complicated, but that's not equivalent to being a woman and, again, it's different for everyone. Read through the posts addressing thett3 I made as to why I believe trans women are females in terms of sex.
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@Nyxified
Well, you see, the difference here is that 1 in 50 people are born with chromosomes that don't align with their sex[1]. Many people will have their reproductive organs or breasts removed, or will have their estrogen suppressed, or will have a lot of body hair, etc... If being born with 11 fingers had half the prevalence of cis people who lack multiple of the attributes one would expect of their assigned sex, then yeah, you wouldn't be able to say that. Using this same example, a person is a human being regardless of how many fingers they have because their fingers are irrelevant to their humanity.
This is missing the forest for the trees. Not only is that statistic likely wrong (just a quick Google search yielded estimates of 1 in 400 to 1 in 1000 people) we don't base our understanding of human anatomy on anomalies. For example, I am missing a joint in one of my toes. It can tilt downward but not upward, unlike all of the others. Very very few people, if any, don't have some anomalous about their bodies, but if we were drawing a complete human anatomy we would include a joint in all toes, even though some people like me are missing some. Similarly we know what men and women are. Like I said, an alien studying humanity would come up with the same categorizations we do because we are a sexually dimorphic species. The denial of this extremely basic concept is very telling. How do you expect to convince someone who is skeptical of your ideology that you’re right when you can’t even define “man” and “woman” quite literally the most basic distinction between humans, in a way that carries any meaningful information?
While I still don't believe it's 'immutable', yeah. They do. Sex is irrelevant to gender identity. Even if you don't believe trans women can become women in terms of sex, that's not really what I've been talking about.
This is what I see as the fundamental contradiction behind the progressive position on this. You say sex is irrelevant to gender identity, and yet the way one expresses their "gender identity" is to try and conform with the secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex. So sex and gender ARE linked...except when they aren't. Like I said earlier, the entire concept presupposes meaningful definitions of man and woman--there must be, or a mind couldn't possibly be in the "wrong" body.
We stopped murdering trans people, mostly. And also started giving would-be trans people the knowledge of what it means to be trans and that other people are like them.
So then where are all the 50+ people coming out as trans? And why does it cluster in friend groups, especially with FtM teenage girls? I hope I can make it clear that the arguments I've been making come from a philosophical viewpoint. I am opposed to transgenderism because my position is that the ideal circumstance for a person with gender dysphoria is that they come to terms with reality as it is (ie, their body in its natural state, how they were created) and foster a positive self identity based on that, instead of chasing something they can never reach. But for adults who want to make that decision well it's not my place to stop them, and if it weren't for this being pushed onto kids I wouldn't even bother to make these posts.
It's okay to be trans...but very few people are. Children are very impressionable and can easily be led astray--the gigantic increase in children identifying as trans has all the hallmarks of a social contagion, and not an actual identity. We should not permit the use of medicines and surgeries with life altering consequences, and we should not confuse children into thinking they're something that they aren't. You say that most children don’t have access to “gender affirming care” but the amount that do is obviously increasing, and the horror stories are already trickling in
2.1% of Gen Z says they are trans along with gigantic increases in other LGBT identification, mostly bisexual (15%!). Anyone telling you that there isn’t an element of social contagion to this is a liar and the motivations of anyone who wants to transition children when we know this information are highly suspect
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@Nyxified
Do you not think that if mere feeling is required for legal identification, that could lead to a slippery slope? People can truly feel that they are not guilty, or that they are deserving of better income.
Also, what is your thought on archeologists sound ability to identify the sex/gender of a given corpse? Doesn't this suggest that there is a plethora of factors which constitute manhood and womanhood? Even though there isn't a single factor which all wo/man posses, there is still an ability to mostly identify the gender/sex of a given individual.
Also also, what is your definition of human. What criteria do you have which all beings must posses in order to be a human?
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@3RU7AL
OK...So you are a non-voting, anarchic hermit.
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@Nyxified
Also, I hate using the "check out my sources" card but I highly recommended Dr Debra Soh's The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society. She's a liberal sexologist who received her Ph.D in sexual neuroscience from York University. Her publication has received praise from Ben Shapiro, Richard Dawkins, Bret Weinstein and Steven Pinker. A great read.
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@sadolite
Do you even have a point to make?
Actually the point was to see if you do. You love to rail against democracy while offering no alternative, except the very thing people are talking about when they use the term democracy.
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@3RU7AL
you seemed to suggest that competency selection is ill served by democracy
My comments had nothing to do with competency. You’re just making stuff up.
would you be in favor of screening political (and or managerial) candidates with some sort of standardized intelligence exams ?
The exam is the campaign. It’s up to the voters to decide what their criteria is for selecting those who represent them, and it’s up to the candidates to meet that criteria. That’s how democracy works and it’s how it’s supposed to work.
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@Double_R
I did offer an alternative, It called a Republic. Like I said earlier, Democracies are mob rule 51% shit on the 49%. Laws mean nothing in a Democracy if 51% decide they don't. The law is what ever 51% of the people say it is at any given point in a democracy. Mob Rule by emotion.
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@Bones
Also, what is your thought on archeologists sound ability to identify the sex/gender of a given corpse? Doesn't this suggest that there is a plethora of factors which constitute manhood and womanhood? Even though there isn't a single factor which all wo/man posses, there is still an ability to mostly identify the gender/sex of a given individual.
It’s such an absurd standard to set that unless 100% of women possess all of the traits we ascribe to women there’s no meaningful definition of woman. It’s not how anatomy works. Humans have full sets of joints in all of their toes, but I am missing one that doesn’t allow that toe to tilt upward. It doesn’t mean I’m not a human and it doesn’t mean we can’t describe humans as having the joint I’m missing, there’s just something slightly off about my body. A woman who has a deep voice or something isn’t not a woman just because she lands more on the “man” side of one of the thousands of traits where men and women differ
There may in fact be people who have so many anomalous things about them that they can’t easily fit into the categories of man or woman but that’s going to be incredibly, incredibly, incredibly rare…WAY WAY WAY below the 2.1% of the youth that now claims to have a gender identity not in concordance with their bodies. Like I said if an adult says they are trans they’re free to do so but let’s dispense with the idea that this means “man” and “woman” aren’t real things and for the love of God leave the kiddos alone
The gender debate is just a debate about changing the definition of gender to fit a narrative and a made up concept.
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@thett3
@3RU7AL
@zedvictor4
@Nyxified
[thett3] Instead of futile attempts to change the sex of confused children and teenagers we should focus on providing them with a positive self identity based in reality as it is, and not how they wish it was. If an adult still wants to take opposite sex hormones or do an operation...well I have my thoughts on if that's ethical. I don't think surgically removing healthy organs is medically ethical--but at least it's between consenting adults.[3RU7AL]The claim is unsubstantiated. Professional organizations such as the Endocrine Society recommend against puberty blockers for children who have not reached puberty, and recommend that patients be at least 16 years old before beginning hormone treatments for feminization or masculinization of the body. The last step in transitioning to another gender, gender reassignment surgery, is only available to those 18 and older in the United States.[ADOL] This is permanent mutilation before the age of maturity.[3RU7AL]this claim is demonstrably false
I've recreated the context above. You may have been talking only of HRT from 16+, but I was also referencing what thett3 was talking about. Even if it isn't being done right this very moment that is where things are headed fast.
I also would need to see the demonstration that HRT for 16-24 year olds does not represent a permanent mutilation. There is still a lot of growing and sexual dimorphism yet to develop at 16. The only reason to start young is because once that growth happens it won't reverse. The inverse is almost certainly true. Once the growth is prevented, it will never restart.
[ADOL]Legal standing is whatever a judge says it is.[3RU7AL]not exactly"legal standing" is required for one party to bring a case against anotherthe plaintiff must make some attempt to demonstrate how the activity of the accused has harmed them in some material wayfor examplechris rock has legal standing to press charges against will smithyou do NOT have legal standing to press charges against will smith (unless you have also been assaulted by will smith)
I'm sure you have noticed that the plaintiff in all criminal cases is some gigantic collective like "The city of Chicago", the "State of Texas", the "United States of America" often shortened to "the people".
That implies that everyone in a society has "standing" to attack potential criminals, and that every crime including child abuse is harm to society. Chris Rock has standing to pursue a civil case. He has none in a criminal case. Everyone in that room through some abstraction and prosecutor representing that abstraction have the standing to go after Smith. They don't need Rock's permission.
I do not endorse this formulation, it is incomplete; it's certainly not all wrong though. People do have a right to defend each other just as surely as they have a right to defend themselves.
[ADOL] If children always knew when they were being harmed and reported it, they wouldn't need so much protection. They don't.[3RU7AL] this isn't even close to being truei personally know individuals who were quite brutally abused, and reported it to the proper authorities who promptly told them to "shut-up" and after being sexually assaulted by the police, then forcibly returned to their abusive parents
Look at what I wrote. That does not imply that children never know when they are being harmed. An example of a child knowing they were being harmed and reporting it does not then disprove my statement.
[zedvictor4] What is "The State"?A lot of people around here often refer to "The State" as if it's something that they are completely separate from.
In this abstract case it refers to any mercenary organization people may hire/command to enforce their code of social morality. I know I participate in the state involuntarily through taxation and voluntarily through voting and referendums.
[thett3] What do you make of the huge increase of teens identifying as trans?[Nyxified] We stopped murdering trans people, mostly. And also started giving would-be trans people the knowledge of what it means to be trans and that other people are like them.[thett3] So then where are all the 50+ people coming out as trans?
That is a highly relevant question thett.
I have to disagree with that statement about murdering trans people reflecting reality, I am not aware of any exception in murder statutes or state sanction executions based around gender claims. At least not in the USA or modern Europe.
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@sadolite
The gender debate is just a debate about changing the definition of gender to fit a narrative and a made up concept.
You should take a trap test to see how well you score.
Gender =/= biological sex.
Gender is the physical expression only of biological sex. There are two and only two genders. There are two and only two biological sexes.
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@coal
Gender is the physical expression only of biological sex. There are two and only two genders. There are two and only two biological sexes.
social* expression
Sex is the physical.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Everyone participates in a collective, no matter how remote one places oneself.
And I would suggest that you "involuntarily participate" when it doesn't suit you, and actively participate when it does suit you.
And taxation probably suits no one, but we all reap and expect the rewards of taxation.
Or are you another anarchic, hunter gathering hermit?
The State is a collection of people of which you are one.
Whether or not you choose to actively participate in the management of the State, is up to you.
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@coal
Gender is the physical expression only of biological sex. There are two and only two genders. There are two and only two biological sexes.
When it comes to biological sex there’s like 2% of the population that are intersex. Meaning they have traits of both sexes.
Knowledge is power.
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@Reece101
Yep as I continually state.
Apart from the rare physiological anomalies, everyone else falls into one of two categories.....Egg producer or sperm producer.
Modern definitions of gender have arisen from the human relationship and recreational sex culture.
Though 2% means that approximately 158.000.000 humans are intersex, which I would suggest is perhaps not accurate.
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@zedvictor4
Apart from the rare physiological anomalies, everyone else falls into one of two categories.....Egg producer or sperm producer.
Biological sex is more complicated than producing eggs and sperm. Just do some skim reading about chromosomes, genetic variants, etc.
Modern definitions of gender have arisen from the human relationship and recreational sex culture.
Which specific sex culture is leading to transgenderism? Do you even understand what you’re saying? Transgenderism has a historical precedent irrespective of sex culture. It isn’t about intercourse. Transgenderism is not a sexual orientation. It’s about self, not the person you want to sleep with.
Though 2% means that approximately 158.000.000 humans are intersex, which I would suggest is perhaps not accurate.
I was rounding it. From a quick search it’s more like 1.7%. Which you would probably still consider too many.
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@AceDebatesStuff
Humanity has to voluntarily{ spiritually }, or by force{ violence }, unify to a position of balancing our energy needs to a human population amount hat does not require energy sources that kill off the humans in short or long run, and provides enough energy for our their basic needs, one of which is to find happiness.
This latter part, regarding happiness, cannot be taken lightly, and those who do take it lightly, are part of the problem in humanities future survival on Earth.
Humanity is a long way from the balancing of happiness with ecologically sustain-ability on Earth. Those who believe nuclear energy is the only practical way forward, is short term thinking only.
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@zedvictor4
And I would suggest that you "involuntarily participate" when it doesn't suit you, and actively participate when it does suit you.
I thought that is what I said.
And taxation probably suits no one, but we all reap and expect the rewards of taxation.
Can't have your cake and eat it too. If the benefit is greater than the expense it would suit many. The only reason force is required is because many people would decide the benefit does not warrant the expense in many instances.
A slave on a slave plantation in the old american south is fed, clothed, and housed using the money made by his involuntary labour. He may reap and expect the rewards of slavery, but that does not mean it is not slavery, and it does not mean slavery is the only way to get food, clothes, and housing.
Or are you another anarchic, hunter gathering hermit?
I am someone who rejects the dichotomy. Liberty and civilization aren't opposites, liberty and slavery are. Slavery is and always has been a cancer on civilization, impairing it, impoverishing it, corrupting it.
I am not against law, I am against unjust law. I don't have to go live in the woods, the people who feel entitled to extort their peers do.
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@zedvictor4
regarding 3RU.....OK...So you are a non-voting, anarchic hermit.Regarding Dreami of liberty....Or are you another anarchic, hunter gathering hermit?
Zed, do I see a pattern emerging here? Are you onto deeper truth regarding some or all of our DArts members?
https://www.debateart.com/debates/3387-gun-control-is-bad my new debate on gun control, I am waiting for a contender.
I am anti gun control