The points you make could be said about a lot of countries though. So we could certainly address them if you want to do so in a broader sense.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Like for instance okay a lot of people are ignorant to other cultures. What culture are people being ignorant of when it comes to gender stuff or transgender stuff?
I mean I know transgender people have a high rate of suicide. I know the suicide rate doesn't really improve even after they transition.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm talking about.
What I'm saying is that your complete ignorance to what 'gender' actually means comes across as the mirror image to the Tumblrites who want to create a tonne of pronouns and supposed 'genders', without actually knowing what gender really means or implies.
Yes, there are two sides to gender: masculine and feminine. But further than that there are many ways of interpreting this. That article that outlines the '50 genders'? Not as ridiculous as you'd believe. It doesn't go on about demi-queer foxkin or apache attack helicopters. Instead, it outlines the ways that sexuality, sex and gender relate to each other. E.g., hetero masculine man is one, homo masculine man is another, hetero feminine man, etc., etc.
I agree that trying to make people use ridiculous pronouns for every different person who makes one up is silly, but the reason I dislike it is because I think it reduces the seriousness of the study of what gender means in the modern world. It is a gross exaggeration of the situation. However, you just dismiss the entire idea that gender is complex and see gender the same as sex, which is inaccurate and ill-informed.
Do you get what I'm saying? Your refutation of the literal definitions of gender are the polar opposite of the extreme Tumblr examples, and is just as laughable as someone who thinks that feeling like they are, inside, an animal/dragon/fictional character has anything to do with the study of the concepts of male and female personality traits within humans.
Lol but dude I'm not ignorant to these ideas. I just don't buy into them. I've heard your arguments before, your theories. You say there are many ways to interpret it..right after calling me ignorant but if you can interpret it in many ways well what about my way?
I've heard this all before, I've even heard people just say gender is nothing but a social construct. It's all fine and dandy to me, I still find 50 genders or more silly and I think we eventually cross a line from examining what it is to be human or however you put it..to indulging crazy people.
You just seem to come at me as if I'm arguing with you that 2+2 isn't 4. That is concrete..we know that. It's not up to interpretation. If someone doesn't agree with how you interpret something it doesn't make them ignorant.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Before we continue, can I just clarify a few things, because I don't feel like you're getting your specific points across very clearly. Are you saying that despite gender not being the same as biological sex, and despite many other countries having more than two genders used in their languages, that there are only two genders, and that's the end of it? And do you completely dismiss the idea that gender identity is informed in at least part by social constructs?
Or are you just saying that some people take it all too far? Because that last thing I agree with.
What I'm saying is that "other countries have more than two genders" is certainly irrelevant when it comes to it being true or false.
I would prefer people stick to male/female. If they want to float this "there is more than one gender" then okay, but it gets f*cking ridiculous when you get to 50. Especially when it's so asinine that a lot of these "genders" more or less mean the same thing.
I just feel like if a person see's an article with 50+ genders and goes "this seems about right" then they probably have legit mental issues. To which some of them aren't anything. They aren't "you're mostly masculine, but sometimes feminine!" or anything, so are just "you're no gender at all" lol.
Now, what about transgender people and the high rate of suicide both before and AFTER they transform? Now at first you might be tempted to blame that on society, that it's society that makes them feel bad and kill themselves and it says nothing about the ineffectiveness of the transformation. I was on board that same train..until I found out other groups that were as oppressed or way more oppressed still didn't have suicide rates that high so yeah I just default back to "it's a mental issue".
For instance this discussion might interest you:
It's about "trans" people and the "horrors" they face which you can see a lot of..more or less lying. Like when he talks about trans people being "denied" healthcare. It also talks about suicide rates and the opinions of some doctors when it comes to the safety of these hormones, etc.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Last edited by Surtur on Aug 24th, 2016 at 12:34 PM
"Socially transitioned transgender children who are supported in their gender identity have developmentally normative levels of depression and only minimal elevations in anxiety, suggesting that psychopathology is not inevitable within this group."
"Most studies of mental health among transgender people have examined adolescents and adults. These studies consistently report dramatically elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality among transgender people. These elevated rates of psychopathology are likely the result of years of prejudice, discrimination, and stigma; conflict between one’s appearance and stated identity; and general rejection by people in their social environments, including their families. There is now growing evidence that social support is linked to better mental health outcomes among transgender adolescents and adults. These findings suggest the possibility that social transitions in children, a form of affirmation and support by a prepubescent child’s parents, could be associated with good mental health outcomes in transgender children."
https://www.theguardian.com/society...-family-support
"Such support included the use of pronouns that matched the child’s gender identity, calling them by the name of their choosing and, often, and allowing them to change their hairstyle and clothing to reflect their identity. Such children are also known as “socially transitioned” children."
Warning: This is a ****ing long one. But bear with me.
Well, I don't necessarily buy into the idea that there are 50 different specific genders, I just think it shows that the idea of gender is much more complex than a binary system. I'm not a huge fan of labels, so I don't really like the idea of just sticking a bunch of names on things and saying "That's how it is now", like it's the new factual way of life, as that limits the meaning of it in the same way that a binary system does.
As for the social construction of gender, this is where a lot of where I've built my view on gender comes from. I think that the way that people have constructed gender in the past has essentially led us to the predicaments we face today: i.e., what it means to be a man or a woman, what it means to be male or female. Personally, if I knew myself less well than I do, I could probably claim to be 'nonbinary' or whatever, as the idea of what it means to 'be a man' has never been something I've been able to relate to. Holding back emotions, gaining positions of power, driven by sex, none of these things relate very much to my own life. Does that make me not a man? No, because my sex is a male body. Does it make me realise that most of what we're told about gender is bullshit? Yes.
I think a lot of people are starting to realise that, but instead of dealing with it in a personal way, they're all too happy to start sticking a bunch of labels on it. Just how I don't see the point in being left or right wing, instead just kind of being in touch with both sides of the spectrum, I essentially see gender the same. Is my sex male? Yeah, and I'm happy with that because that's how I way born. But I don't have any real gender identity purely because I don't see things that simply and I'm happy with that, I don't see it being that important to have a 'gender identity'. I'd rather just focus on who I am as a person, rather than compare myself to the supposed ideas of 'male and female', as like I've said, I think the ideas of strict 'male and female' personality types (or as the internet calls them, 'genders') are very limited and not very useful to someone who is interested more in the complexities of the human condition. Do you understand what I'm talking about?
As for trans issues, I can't speak about them at length because I'm not every trans person ever and every trans person has their own issues and complexities that they deal with (not all of them commit suicide, so that means a huge number of them are actually very happy with their transition). But let me give a brief view on one way I could see it, in particular relation to your suicide points: society essentially tells us that we are either male or female, and that's the end of it. So what if someone is unsure of their gender identity, and since they feel uncomfortable being labelled a male, they feel like becoming female is the answer to their problems? I can relate to that, when I was younger and a mixed-up lad I often wondered if I'd be happier if I were born female instead. So I can relate to that point of view personally. Would I have been happier if I had decided "**** it, I'ma be a girl now"? Hell no. I would have realised I wasn't happy like that either. So yes: this is a mental issue, a gender dysphoria for being both male and female. So I could see why someone would commit suicide in that situation: if they aren't happy being male, and they aren't happy being female, why bother even being alive? Their solution probably should have been to stay as their born sex and just deal with it, because everyone has their own issues to get around, instead of just assuming they would be happier being female or male.
But this isn't across the board. It's not like every single trans person makes the transition for the exact same reasons. Maybe some were born with incredibly overt feminine or masculine personality traits and actually end up being really happy with themselves after the transition. Is that not a positive thing? That someone feels comfortable in their body, and are able to live a productive life from thereon in? That doesn't seem like a mental illness to me, as mental illness usually has no simple get-out clause like that. If a paranoid delusional person believes there is something inside their body and they cut themselves open and 'remove' it, they will still find something further to be paranoid about, because mental illness does not just go away like that. But if a person feels like they would be happier in a different body, make that transition, and then actually do feel happier, that isn't a sign of mental illness to me. If they do it and find themselves still unhappy, then clearly their issue is much larger or just different to a sex change, and they will continue to feel unhappy.
But since sex changes are so accepted now, people will just say "oh you don't feel happy? get a sex change!!" because that's the PC thing to say, and it's not always helpful. Like parents who let their teenage children get sex changes. That's not on, because they are in a very sensitive period of their life and may not truly know what they want. Let them dress up as the other gender and live that way for a while before just shipping them off to Mr Chop Chop and making an irreversible decision. This is a complex issue, not something that can always be cured by surgery.
Sorry that this is such a long post, but that just highlights my point: this is not a simple ****ing issue. You can't just say "All trans people are mental because suicide" because not every case is the same. Some people benefit from it, some people don't, and this continuing approach that both sides are taking only hurts things further. What if I'd come from a rich, liberal family and told them I felt out of place in my body and would have maybe been happier born a girl? They'd have probably talked me into a sex change. And I wouldn't have been any happier, probably have been even more depressed about it all, since I'd have lost my male side, and because as it turns out I actually really enjoy being a guy, and although my personal perception of my own 'gender', whatever that means, isn't simple male/female, that doesn't mean that surgery is going to help me at all.
But that doesn't go for all trans people, because humans are complex and every situation has its own context. A lesson to take away from this? Things are never simple, and you saying "all trans people be cray cray and will kill themselves" is reductionist, and the idea of just turning into the opposite gender at the drop of a hat is reductionist too. Neither are helpful for the future of humankind.
I hope this post isn't too long for you to read, because I feel like I've made some fairly good points here. And I will say that if you basically just dismiss literally everything I've said I'll take that as a sign that you don't want to actually discuss anything, that's fine, but it's a ****ing ballache to have to type all of this to someone who won't even at least try to understand what I'm saying.
__________________
Last edited by Scribble on Aug 24th, 2016 at 01:47 PM
I never actually said it was across the board when it comes to suicide and I think obviously even if you kill yourself after the transition you are just mentally ill no matter the gender.
I guess the problem is how do you really determine this because we usually find out too late(as in, once the person has killed themselves). Then we just exacerbate these issues by trying to implant this shit onto children. I'm sure you've heard stories of kids being encouraged to just choose a gender. Then we say there are 50 genders. Then we tell teachers not to refer to students as boys or girls. Then we ban words like "man" and on and on and do you just feel this is all heading in the right direction because it seems to be like just a lead up to tragedy.
Frankly I don't care if someone wants to believe in 7000 genders, but when they essentially start indoctrinating little kids into this stuff..I think it's all going out of hand.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Last edited by Surtur on Aug 24th, 2016 at 04:23 PM
Kids get gender stuff forced on them all the time and always have, it's not like it's "getting out of hand" because adults have always forced adult worldviews on children. Pink for girls, blue for boys being the most glaring one. Girls wear dresses, boys wear jeans. Etc. Adding to that with all of the new stuff is just as bad. Before you had your gender given to you as a fact, just because now they've added options doesn't make it any better. Let kids figure out who they are without all of these labels, it'll cause less confusion in them and allow people to be more open and happy.
You gotta let this dream die. I mean those crazy kids in the band "98 Degrees" knew when to call it quits.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.