Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Fried Egg]

Another interesting thing to come out of the Cass Review was that so many adult gender clinics refused to cooperate and hand over data for those that started transitioning as children but went on to conclude their treatment as an adult.

Fortunately, there's going to be a new enquiry to look at adult gender services.

[Pattern-chaser]

"Sex" and "gender", and all words, mean what we say they mean. Language is not static or fixed; it belongs to its speakers. And they (we) say that you are wrong to treat sex and gender as synonyms.

If gender ≠ sex, what is gender?

If the female/male gender ≠ the female/male sex, what is the female/male gender?

I think it's clear that we're not talking about grammatical gender here; so what is the female/male gender if "gender" refers neither to grammatical gender nor to biological sex?

Your questions are disingenuous, I think. If you really wanted to know what is meant by "gender", all you would have to do is to read the posts in this thread, and not just ignore them, and treat them with the scorn that your personal disapproval more-than-warrants. Your pretence that gender (in a contemporary sense) does not exist simply hasn't worked in this topic, although it clearly continues to be useable from your personal point of view.

[Pattern-chaser]

Oh, don't get me started on cognitive 'therapy'! [No, I know that's not what you were getting at. ] Cognitive 'therapy' is most often used as a coercive attempt at 'reprogramming', to force people to behave according to an arbitrarily-defined 'norm'. It is toxic and perverse.

This is a mischaracterization of Cognitive (Behavior) Therapy as developed and practiced by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, who (as far as I know) didn't approve of any coercion in psychotherapy.

Good for them, if they do. No, I'm referring principally, but as an example only, to ABA, Applied Behaviour Analysis, a coercive regime applied to autists, to make them conform, and be less uncomfortable/inconvenient for 'normal' people to be around. ABA was created by Ivor Lovaas and his team, the same people who created gay conversion 'therapy'. It is pretty similar to CBT; I'm not sure which one came first.

If you're really interested, try reading "ABA: The Neuro-Normative Conversion Therapy ".

Cognitive therapy is, at best, a practice that should be employed with caution and great care.

That's a truism, because which psychological or medical therapy should not "be employed with caution and great care"?

Yes, but that's "at best", as I said. At its worst, it is a form of psychological assault. Continued such attacks can leave lifelong emotional damage, perhaps a little similar to what PTSD can do.

[Pattern-chaser]

Teenagers are being seduced into medical transitioning by "gender-affirming" theorists/activists/therapists on the basis of ideological faith rather than scientific facts; but if they later decide to detransition, it's all the detransitioners' fault? Oh, come on!

Oh come on! You sound exactly like those who squealed, maybe 20 years ago (?), that our educators were promoting gay and homosexual stuff, thereby making our children gay; teaching them to be gay. And we now know this was just reactionaries trying to force their conservative agenda on others. You seem to be behaving as they did, back then...?

[Lagayascienza]

Transsexuality always has, and always will, exist. Like homosexuality, left handedness and different colored eyes, it is just another of humanity's many normal variations. There have always been left-handed people and there have always been "lady boys" and "bull dykes". Happily, for over 70 years, gender reassignment surgery has allowed many transexuals to live full, well-adjusted lives. I have personally known and worked professionally with several such. However, this issue is (still!?) confronting for religious conservatives and those on the political right. They would rather torture people for an inborn trait than accept them as they are.

As I have mentioned before, I am against irreversible medical interventions for children. However, denying persistently gender dysphoric children other forms of gender affirming care when they have no psychiatric condition other than anxiety caused by their gender dysphoria and by the reactions of others to their dysphoria, is unconscionable. But that is what religious conservatives would like. They would close all gender-affirming clinics which have for many years built expertise and which have decades of experience in dealing with this issue. That would leave gender dysphoric children and their parents with no help. Despite a couple of overly-publicized/sensationalized de-transitioners egged on by their conservative backers, I don’t think this is the way we should go.

[Fried Egg]

Transsexuality always has, and always will, exist. Like homosexuality, left handedness and different colored eyes, it is just another of humanity's many normal variations. There have always been left-handed people and there have always been "lady boys" and "bull dykes". Happily, for over 70 years, gender reassignment surgery has allowed many transexuals to live full, well-adjusted lives. I have personally known and worked professionally with several such. However, this issue is (still!?) confronting for religious conservatives and those on the political right. They would rather torture people for an inborn trait than accept them as they are.

As I have mentioned before, I am against irreversible medical interventions for children. However, denying persistently gender dysphoric children other forms of gender affirming care when they have no psychiatric condition other than anxiety caused by their gender dysphoria and by the reactions of others to their dysphoria, is unconscionable. But that is what religious conservatives would like. They would close all gender-affirming clinics which have for many years built expertise and which have decades of experience in dealing with this issue. That would leave gender dysphoric children and their parents with no help. Despite a couple of overly-publicized/sensationalized de-transitioners egged on by their conservative backers, I don’t think this is the way we should go.

I'm sure there are some extremists who would want to shut down the whole system of gender care but for most people, they are just happy that we're starting to move the dial back to a more reasonable position. No doubt there's a danger of over-correction, of the pendulum swinging too far the other way, but such is always the way society seems to move and we can only try to guard against that.

However, I do think it is not accurate to characterize critics of the modern "excesses" of the trans movement as just religious conservatives. Much of the criticism is coming from women (gender critical feminists) and even some the gay/lesbian community (that don't like being grouped together with the trans community). Many of the critics might ordinarily (on other issues) tend to fall down on the left.

[Fried Egg]

Oh, and your statement that the extent to which there is trans regret is "overly-publicized/sensationalized" might turn out to be quite wrong. The problem is that the information is not out there as many clinics don't even to bother finding out what happens after transitioning, and still others are mired in secrecy. I do hope you're right.

[Lagayascienza]

I don't know how many clinics report on such matters. I imagine people transition and then just want to get on with their lives without having to regularly give updates to clinics.

I don't think my characterization of trans critics was too far off the mark. On social media and on their websites they've been having a field day since the release of the Cass Report. Their god has answered their prayers just like with the abortion issue in the USA. They want all gender-affirming care shut down just as they want all abortions stopped.

[Fried Egg]

I don't know how many clinics report on such matters. I imagine people transition and then just want to get on with their lives without having to regularly give updates to clinics.

Well it was made clear by Cass that most adult clinics she contacted refused to cooperate and share data (for those patients who began to transition as children but completed their treatment as adults). Why the secrecy?

I don't think we can just leave this to the imagination and speculate. We need more accurate data and better evidence for the long term efficacy of medical transitioning practices.

I don't think my characterization of trans critics was too far off the mark. On social media and on their websites they've been having a field day since the release of the Cass Report. Their god has answered their prayers just like with the abortion issue in the USA. They want all gender-affirming care shut down just as they want all abortions stopped.

Well, sure, people are going to take things to far and read more into it than is really there. The rest of us should just concentrate with the facts and no where in the Cass Review does it suggest that gender treatment centres should be completely shut down.

There is some real concern among some aspects of the gay community that young people are being put into gender transitioning pathways when actually they're just gay. Leaked conversations from the WPATH files reveal as much. Then there's whistle blowers (former staff) from the Tavistock gender clinic saying things like 'It feels like conversion therapy for gay children'.

Then there's a recent case of a former patient of a gender clinic in the US taking them to court accusing them of gay conversion practices. From City-Journal magazine

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination.

The case underscores an important clinical reality: gender dysphoria has multiple developmental pathways, and many who experience it will turn out to be gay. Even the Endocrine Society concedes that many of the youth who outgrow their dysphoria by adolescence later identify as gay or bisexual. Decades of research confirm as much. Gender clinicians in the U.K. used to have a “dark joke . . . that there would be no gay people left at the rate [the Gender Identity Development Service] was going,” former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes reported. Rather than help young gay people to accept their bodies and their sexuality, what if “gender-affirming” clinicians are putting them on a pathway to irreversible harm?

Due partly to Shape’s lifelong difficulty in accepting himself as gay, his lawyers are not taking the usual approach to detransition litigation. Rather than state a straightforward claim of medical malpractice or fraud, they allege that Fenway Health has violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “discrimination because of . . . sex” includes discrimination based on homosexuality. Citing this and other precedents, Shape’s lawyers argue that federal law affords distinct protections to gay men and lesbians—upon which clinics that operate with a transgender bias are trampling.

[Consul]

I think it's clear that we're not talking about grammatical gender here; so what is the female/male gender if "gender" refers neither to grammatical gender nor to biological sex?

Your questions are disingenuous, I think. If you really wanted to know what is meant by "gender", all you would have to do is to read the posts in this thread, and not just ignore them, and treat them with the scorn that your personal disapproval more-than-warrants. Your pretence that gender (in a contemporary sense) does not exist simply hasn't worked in this topic, although it clearly continues to be useable from your personal point of view.

Whether there is such a thing as a female/male gender (≠ the female/male sex) depends on what it is. I want to know what it is, so I asked for a definition. As always, I don't get any. If you've already presented one that you use, I'd welcome a link to the post containing it.

[Lagayascienza]

"Gender" and "sex" are synonyms in everyday speech. I can say "My gender is male" or "My sex is male" and people will know very well what I mean. My "gender identity" simply refers to the gender or sex I identify myself as, or the gender or sex I feel myself to be. It's pretty straight-forward.

So, those are the meanings of the terms in everyday language and, with language, usage determines form.

We can get scientific and technical and talk about X and Y chromosomes but that does not get us very far when discussing the everyday concepts of "gender", "sex", and "gender-identity" because these everyday concepts are about more than just chromosomes. They are also about breasts and genitalia and cloths and relationships and, very importantly, about human feelings.

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm sure there are some extremists who would want to shut down the whole system of gender care but for most people, they are just happy that we're starting to move the dial back to a more reasonable position. No doubt there's a danger of over-correction, of the pendulum swinging too far the other way, but such is always the way society seems to move and we can only try to guard against that.

I think it's far too soon to talk of pendulums. Gender dysphoria is, as far as lay people are concerned, is still a recent discovery. Yes, it's been around forever, but most of us weren't aware of it. So we started from a position of ignorance, and denial, and we are still seeking a 'happy medium'. There have, as yet, been no real swings, of pendulums or otherwise, because there hasn't been time.

However, I do think it is not accurate to characterize critics of the modern "excesses" of the trans movement as just religious conservatives. Much of the criticism is coming from women (gender critical feminists) and even some the gay/lesbian community (that don't like being grouped together with the trans community). Many of the critics might ordinarily (on other issues) tend to fall down on the left.

I have no firm figures, but it seems to me that most feminists are supportive of trans people, excepting only J.K. Rowlings' Sisters of Hatred, also known as 'TERFs'. Most of the LGBTQ+ community also support one another, if only because they need to stand together against the constant prejudice they suffer from the so-called 'normal' people.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think it's clear that we're not talking about grammatical gender here; so what is the female/male gender if "gender" refers neither to grammatical gender nor to biological sex?

Your questions are disingenuous, I think. If you really wanted to know what is meant by "gender", all you would have to do is to read the posts in this thread, and not just ignore them, and treat them with the scorn that your personal disapproval more-than-warrants. Your pretence that gender (in a contemporary sense) does not exist simply hasn't worked in this topic, although it clearly continues to be useable from your personal point of view.

Whether there is such a thing as a female/male gender (≠ the female/male sex) depends on what it is. I want to know what it is, so I asked for a definition. As always, I don't get any. If you've already presented one that you use, I'd welcome a link to the post containing it.

In informal terms, sex is biological sex, based on the possession, or not, of a penis or vagina. Gender is how you feel, but it isn't based solely on feelings. Those feelings are the outward effect of internal differences that are more substantial than feelings alone.

That's probably not a very good description, but that's my fault for not explaining as well as perhaps others could, not because gender is impossible to describe.

[Consul]

Teenagers are being seduced into medical transitioning by "gender-affirming" theorists/activists/therapists on the basis of ideological faith rather than scientific facts; but if they later decide to detransition, it's all the detransitioners' fault? Oh, come on!

Oh come on! You sound exactly like those who squealed, maybe 20 years ago (?), that our educators were promoting gay and homosexual stuff, thereby making our children gay; teaching them to be gay. And we now know this was just reactionaries trying to force their conservative agenda on others. You seem to be behaving as they did, back then...?

No, I'm really not! Have you heard of the Tavistock clinic scandal?

[Fried Egg]

However, I do think it is not accurate to characterize critics of the modern "excesses" of the trans movement as just religious conservatives. Much of the criticism is coming from women (gender critical feminists) and even some the gay/lesbian community (that don't like being grouped together with the trans community). Many of the critics might ordinarily (on other issues) tend to fall down on the left.

I have no firm figures, but it seems to me that most feminists are supportive of trans people, excepting only J.K. Rowlings' Sisters of Hatred, also known as 'TERFs'. Most of the LGBTQ+ community also support one another, if only because they need to stand together against the constant prejudice they suffer from the so-called 'normal' people.

Apparently there are many different types or flavours of feminism and I wouldn't pretend to know much about it, or attempt to quantify what proportion support any given position. My comment above was simply pointing out that opposition to the recent "excesses" of the trans movement comes not only from religious conservatives.

Anyhow, there is nothing hateful about JK Rowling or the so called "TERFS" who are simply attempting to speak out to protect various women's rights (that have been so hard fought for) against the incursions of biological men. Besides that they are quite happy for anybody to live their lives however they want to live them. However, it is shocking the abuse JK Rowling (and others with similar views) receive. The threats of sexual violence and murder from the aggressive fringes of the trans-woman community are shocking to behold.

Oh, and there is no LGBTQ+ community. They are disparate groups with different problems and concerns. See above for how the some gay people are increasingly concerned about the high numbers of gay people are being "steered" into thinking that they're the wrong gender (rather than coming to terms with the fact they are gay).

The whole notion of a LGBTQ+ community is going to explode real soon. Just like other of these silly acronyms that lump together different minority groups as if they all share the same problems. BAME is a classic example (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) that was popular a few years ago but quickly died a death because no one identified with it. The very idea of lumping them all together is an offensive notion and I think the same is true of LGBTQ+.