The transgenderism debate

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2023/06/06/increasing-number-of-european-nations-adopt-a-more-cautious-approach-to-gender-affirming-care-among-minors/?sh=7d32d0617efb

just a society in transition,

There are about three different levels of carrying out this very basic, 3rd grade level principal. You can respect others wishes...

A) Because you know what they are since they have explicitly told you so

B) By looking at the evidence and applying Occam's razor

C) By assuming based on basic human nature

If choice A is not an option because the individual you are interacting with hasn't made their wishes explicitly clear, then you use clues to figure it out and apply until informed otherwise. Like for example when a trans women walks into a room with a wig and a dress on.If you have any common sense within you then you can very easily figure out their preferred pronoun is "she".

Choice C is the most basic and what all human beings do in any situation where we don't have specific clues... We assume. Based on our own life experiences it's not difficult to tell what people tend to want. If someone is struggling to carry a bunch on things and is walking up to a door you can use your common sense to tell you that person would like for you to get the door for them.

Therefore, (1) respect isn't solely about wishes (despite you previously arguing it), and thus (2) it's possible to respect someone without adhering to their wishes (as shown by the "or" for my definition of respect).

1) I never argued it was "solely" about respecting others wishes. I literally just broke down for you what "the most" means according to the English language.

2) Yes, as I already explained, it's possible to respect someone without adhering to their wishes, because respect can come in other forms. But it's not possible to respect someone while you're disrespecting them.

You don't get to pretend one aspect of respect wipes out disrespect. That's like saying a man who brought home flowers to his wife is "treating her good" while ignoring that he gave her a black eye the night before.

Rights? No, you don't believe they should have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies

Feelings? No, you're calling them mentally ill because of how they feel

Wishes? No, you think anyone who regards them is evil

Your position here couldn't be any more opposite of the position you claim to hold.

If a terrorist wished to blow up a shopping center, would it be disrespectful to call the police or bomb squad to thwart that wish of his/hers? 

Yes. But disrespect comes with a negative connotation that doesn't apply here. Disrespect is to act towards someone without regard for their wishes, feelings or rights. So if you are not regarding them, you are not respecting them.

Would you respect terrorist's plot to blow up a shopping center? No - Then you would disrespect them.

Therefore, it's probably not a good idea to perform irreversible, costly surgeries on people that don't help them.

It wasn't your idea, you didn't perform the diagnosis, and it's not your body. What's at issue here isn't the success rate of the surgery, it's about who has the right to make that decision. Not only are you injecting yourself into something that has absolutely nothing to do with you, but then you have the nerve to pretend you're respecting them by doing so.

It's a combination of me understanding those points that makes me more respectful of transgender people than you.

Transgender people don't have uniquely transgender brains (they're basically homosexual brains with mental disorders). Transgender people don't have their very high suicide rates lower *AFTER* transgender surgery. Most transgender teens simply grow out of their 'transgenderism' by the time they are adults Transgenderism: It's time to state the obvious - Washington Times Clearly, their body isn't the cause of their malaise.

It's objective that transgender people's feelings about being in the wrong body aren't based on reality, much like someone claiming to fly, because he/she did so in a dream, isn't based on reality either (even if he/she feels it was real, which he/she would have). Therefore, we should reject the wishes that extend from transgender people's feelings that are based on non-reality, and thereby label them as objectively wrong.

It's the false conception of reality that needs to be fixed; appeasing feelings, that are the product of a false reality, doesn't fix transgender people.

[Dropped by Double_R]

Again, I'm using the science as a premise to reach my conclusions.

Gender reassignment surgery doesn't lower the suicide rates to any meaningful degree. Therefore, it's probably not a good idea to perform irreversible, costly surgeries on people that don't help them.

The conclusions you are reaching have nothing to do with science, so your whole argument is invalid at the outset

You claimed that my argument was "bigotry".

No, I claimed your argument is apparently fueled by bigotry, because only a negative emotional reaction to these people can explain the absurdities you are engaging in.

[This is Kaitlyn speaking] Don't start with this virtue-signaling nonsense.

You're quite a toxic person for enabling mentally ill people to harm themselves with irreversible gender reassignment surgery and self-described gender identities that don't fit reality at all.

You're the type of person to hand a suicidal person a gun as you say, 'I respect your wish for you to kill yourself', without even considering if they're mentally ill, if they've thought it through, if they're having a panic attack etc.

This stance you have on enabling mental illness doesn't make you a good person at all.

[This is Double_R speaking] How amusing it is to watch someone repackage their bigotry as selfless virtue, while pretending everyone else is terrible.

Explain to us how preventing a suicidal person from getting hold a gun to blow themselves away is "bigotry".

You can't.

Nor would I try to because I've never said anything remotely resembling this. But it was a nice strawman.

Merely stating 'strawman' isn't an effective argument. You need to explain how it was a strawman (which you can't because it wasn't).

You claimed that my argument was "bigotry". That was in response to me arguing that enabling mentally unstable people to do harmful things (i.e. giving a suicidal person a gun) was bad. Thus, it follows that you thought me arguing that we should prevent a suicidal person from getting of a gun was "bigotry".

Should transgender teenagers, who often simply grow out of transgenderism, have the "freedom" to perform basically irreversible transgender reassignment surgery, drastically altering their puberty and making it super hard to ever somewhat resemble their biological sex ever again? 

Your answer to this is currently yes.

No, it's not, because your portrayal of what actually happens (which I broadly support) is cartoonishly silly.

Teenagers don't just walk into a medical clinic, ask for surgery, and walk out that afternoon with a new set of genitals. This decision involves the teenager and their parents consulting with a team of doctors who have to go through a barrage of beurocratic processes to determine what type of care is recommended and approved. I can in theory be swayed to still be against it, but honestly, I just don't care because no matter the result what you're advocating for is to remove the individual, their parents, and their doctors all from the equation so you can make that decision for them. I am just not deluded enough and narcissistic enough to think I'm going to sit here in Google and teach myself this issue so well that I will be able to decide what's best for the individual than the individual and the team around them.

BTW I'm curious, do you consider yourself a freedom loving conservative patriot?

The fact is that haven't provided the studies to make your points

Because my point is that you haven't met your burden of proof.

Whether you think I've failed to meet my BoP is totally irrelevant to your failure to provide studies for your arguments.

You're making arguments as well. You're saying things like 'the research on transgender reassignment surgery is mixed'. You NEED to provide studies to make the points you're making. If you can't/won't, then your arguments don't have the necessary premises to make any of the arguments you're making.

[Dropped by Double_R]

You're reframing your laziness and ineptitude as a virtue

You can call an unwillingness to sit here and go study by study, line by line with you for hours and hours on end laziness of that makes you feel better. Fact still remains that you haven't even connected the most basic dots your entire argument is sitting upon. This reminds me of arguing with theists trying to use the bible to prove that god exists and then calling me lazy because I'm unwilling to go passage by passage with them.

You need to provide studies for the points you make.

It's that simple.

Respect is the default position. Your position violates the default position, therefore the onus is on you to prove why everyone else should move from the default position. You've failed to do so.

I don't need a study to prove that. Your studies do not address the conclusion you're trying to prove. 100 invalid connections do not amount to one valid one.

 It's the same as we wouldn't appease someone who had a dream and now feels they can fly irl: the feelings in the dream were real, but that doesn't make it a good idea to appease feelings with gay abandon.

 It's the same as we wouldn't appease someone who had a dream and now feels they can fly irl: the feelings in the dream were real, but that doesn't make it a good idea to appease feelings with gay abandon.

I see what you did there.

It's funny because that person might actually prefer ze/zir, they/them, he/him or any other host of non-binary or binary pronouns, so you could actually be wrong

What's worse is that you've claimed to know what the "trans community" wants, and thus are assuming gender (potentially incorrectly) for large swathes of people.

You're arguing (and have argued) that "respect" has the mandatory component of appeasing people's wishes. Again, your words: "...Just ignore their wishes, that's literally all you got. That's by definition, the opposite of respect."

Is it disrespectful to deny a child ice-cream that he/she wished for?

A wife's wish to have a violent free home is reasonable. A mentally ill person thinking they're born in the wrong body is not.

Do you honestly think every wish must be appeased?

On what grounds have you decided that a "negative connotation" doesn't apply here?

Again, how do you deal with the fact that most teens outgrow their transgenderism?

Your response to me suggesting you would enable a suicidal person to kill themselves was that I was repackaging my bigotry as selfless virtue. Hence, you've implied that not enabling people to self-harm is "bigotry".

I never said or implied it was that easy to transition -- that's a total strawman.

However, gender, because it isn't underpinned by biological reality, can't as easily be determined. You can glance at someone and have a guess, but you don't know for sure. There's a whole host of angry "non-binary" people teeing off on others for "assuming gender", and now you're suggesting that it's "common sense" to assume it?

What's worse is that you've claimed to know what the "trans community" wants, and thus are assuming gender (potentially incorrectly) for large swathes of people.

Irony, anyone?

What the trans community wants is for their preferred pronouns to be respected, which again, does not require 100% accuracy. All you have to do is try. It's not that hard.

Therefore, (1) respect isn't solely about wishes (despite you previously arguing it), and thus (2) it's possible to respect someone without adhering to their wishes (as shown by the "or" for my definition of respect).

1) I never argued it was "solely" about respecting others wishes. I literally just broke down for you what "the most" means according to the English language.

I know you said "the most", but we need to contextualize it with your words surrounding it, rather than myopically analyzing it in isolation.

You're arguing (and have argued) that "respect" has the mandatory component of appeasing people's wishes. Again, your words: "...Just ignore their wishes, that's literally all you got. That's by definition, the opposite of respect."

Your words state that the opposite of respect is ignoring transgender people's wishes.

Hence, when you say "the most", you mean "the most [mandatory]" form of respect.

In other words, if we don't respect transgender people's wishes (in regards to their gender identity), then we cannot respect them (and you even go further and assert later that it's "disrespectful").

There is absolutely nothing about my words here that place the appeasement of another's wishes as mandatory to respect. Let me educate you on basic English. Again.

According to your own definition, respect can come in 3 different forms, and by the use of the word "or", they are not all required at once to qualify.

Disrespect is the opposite of respect, therefore the opposite of any of these 3 different forms definitionally qualifies as the opposite of respect.

Disregarding someone's wishes, therefore, by definition, qualifies as disrespect

Disregarding someone's feelings, therefore, by definition, qualifies as disrespect

Disregarding someone's rights, therefore, by definition, qualifies as disrespect

2) Yes, as I already explained, it's possible to respect someone without adhering to their wishes, because respect can come in other forms. But it's not possible to respect someone while you're disrespecting them.

Is it disrespectful to deny a child ice-cream that he/she wished for?

Disrespecting? No. But depending on the circumstances it could be said that you are not respecting their wishes either.

We generally don't talk about respect when it comes to children because that's not what we give them. Children are in a different category because they aren't yet deemed capable of deciding what's best for themselves. Same goes for people with some severe mental illnesses.

The thing you have failed to understand is demonstrated nicely by your own example of schizophrenia. You acknowledge it as a mental illness, and yet you also acknowledge that many schizophrenics are perfectly capable of living on their own and making their own choices. That's because rightfully determining one to be incapable of making their own choices requires an individual diagnosis. We do not just categorize people into vague camps and then assert that all of them should get the same treatment all the time.

This goes back to the point I've been making for weeks or even months now. Your assertion that trans people are mentally ill even if correct is entirely useless. Show mean trans person who is suicidal and I'll agree with you that they shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. Not because they are trans, but because they are suicidal.

Your logic here is literally the same logic as me digging through statistics to prove that black people are more dangerous than white people and using that to justify locking up any random black person. That's what we call rationalized bigotry.

A wife's wish to have a violent free home is reasonable. A mentally ill person thinking they're born in the wrong body is not.

You have done absolutely nothing to show that the latter is unreasonable, except to egregiously strawman what trans people are telling us.

Your argument here has been that their feelings are invalid because they are not in line with their biological reality, while utterly failing to understand that that's literally what they're telling you. This isn't an example of them being delusional as you claim, it's them telling you something that is almost literally a self affirming statement.

Do you think it's moral to give a suicidal person a loaded gun because he/she wishes to die? Do you think it's moral to give someone with a peanut allergy some peanuts because he/she wishes to eat them? Do you think it's moral to agree with a schizophrenic that the voices are right and their wish to strangle a duck should be enacted? Do you honestly think every wish must be appeased?

Appeasing and regarding are not the same thing.

This is basic English.

If a terrorist wished to blow up a shopping center, would it be disrespectful to call the police or bomb squad to thwart that wish of his/hers? 

Yes. But disrespect comes with a negative connotation that doesn't apply here. Disrespect is to act towards someone without regard for their wishes, feelings or rights. So if you are not regarding them, you are not respecting them.

Would you respect terrorist's plot to blow up a shopping center? No - Then you would disrespect them.

On what grounds have you decided that a "negative connotation" doesn't apply here? My terrorist example is analogistic to some transgender people's wish to transition, except you haven't explained why one deserves a negative connotation and the other doesn't.

And no, common sense isn't a logically valid answer.

Because most people wouldn't absurdly combine an inherently negative term such as "disrespect" with another inherently negative term such as "terrorist".

I don't. That's for themselves, their parents and their doctors to consider as they diagnose each case individually.

No, no. You don't get away from the consequences of your argument that easily.

You've argued at length that transgender identities should be 'regarded'. 

Are you now suggesting that these transgender teenagers, of which 70-80% will simply grow out of their transgender identities, should have, in some circumstances, their transgender identity not regarded?

Do you 'regard' transgender identities, or do only regard some of them? Which is it, Double_R?

No, I made the point that the transparent logical absurdities you engaged in to reach that conclusion and subsequent false interpretation of my comments is far more easily explained by bigotry than a a good faith non bigotry inspired error in reason.

You're just lying. People can see the full context here: The transgenderism debate (debateart.com)

No. I argued that there is a significant proportion of transgender teenagers (70-80%) who will grow out of their transgenderism. Nowhere in that argument does it refer to the ease.