I appreciate the response. And I appreciate the civility. I do. It speaks volumes about your character, and is FAR more important than your ‘gender’ or your appearance.
First, as to a)... I’d like to say I’m surprised that you believe that Medium is 99.9% stories about trans folk to other trans folk, but I’m not. Because people tend to live in their own bubbles in social media, and algorithms promote that. The reason you see 99.9% stories to/by trans people is because that is your bubble. You have created it by focusing on that one aspect as though nothing else exists, and Medium’s algorithm feeds you more stories about that topic, so then you read more on it, so then the algorithm gives you more… It’s how the interet works now. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: they ALL create bubbles, if you aren’t careful. It sounds like your bubble is very, very solid and very, very insular.
My Medium articles are about lots of things, though (probably because) I rarely come on here. They are about leadership, and self-improvement, and politics, and gender, and philosophy, and CRT, and all sorts of stuff. Medium is NOT a trans site. That is objectively false.
Sorry to burst your bubble. ;)
c) Thanks for taking the time to explain all this. Unfortunately, none of it is new as I have read quite a bit to try and see where I might be wrong. Although, the ‘gender is developed in the womb’ notion is something I haven’t looked into, as I find it so silly it’s not worth the bother (I will unpack later).
I fundamentally disagree with most everything you’ve promoted. Statements like “In other words, they look, act and relate to the world just as any other boy would” are so ridiculous, sexist, and simplistic it makes my head spin.
How do “boys” act?
How do “boys” look?
How do “boys” relate to the world?
If you have a clear and bounded answer to these questions, which includes ALL boys and excludes ALL girls, please let me know.
If you don’t, then that kind of statement is idiotic. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it is. It presumes that ‘boys’ are all a certain kind of person, which is demonstrably false. It presumes ‘boys’ need to look, or think, or act a certain way, in order to be boys, which is demonstrably false.
It makes YOU the arbiter of what a ‘boy’ is, as though YOU can look at an individual’s actions and declare “Ha! That is something ONLY a boy would do!”
That is utterly ridiculous.
As for the ‘science’, I also disagree. I’ve read studies on trans ‘brains’ and gendered ‘brains’. As far as I can tell, they don’t reveal much of anything except for a really strong desire on the part of individuals to read conclusions into the data. The notion that a 3 or 4 year old can even COMPREHEND gender, let alone express it in a meaningful way, also makes me laugh. Adults like you cannot express what a 'girl' is with any clarity... but you expect a 3 year old to understand the concept?
The notion that a person can have ‘gender’ in the womb is new to me…. and absolutely nonsensical. Gender is a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, by every definition I’ve ever seen. How can an individual have a sense of their place within a social construct BEFORE they participate in society?
Or are you and this study re-defining what Gender is? Are you claiming that (for example) girls liking pink and wearing dresses and having long hair is NOT a social construct, but is an actual immutable and biological reality? That these individuals would want to look and dress this way no matter the age/culture/society they live in? That’s a pretty big claim.
As you can see, I have more questions than anything else, because most of the claims are nonsensical to me. I’d be happy to consider them, if they had consistency and clear definitions, but most of gender ideology does not. You don’t need to answer all my questions, that would take you forever. I'd be interested to see if you can clearly answer any.
You end your response with a false dichotomy: either I am willing to learn and accept your version of things, or I am clinging to prejudices and cognitive dissonance.
But this isn’t about prejudice. As I said before, it’s about unpacking really, really bad ideas and intellectual inconsistencies and mental laziness.
I know trans people have always been here. You’re welcome to stay. I hope we can all get along. I hope you can find peace and contentment, and I hope that we get rid of this foolish notion that trans people should never be hurt or offended, because you are all stronger than that. You’re not babies and we should stop treating you like you are. You are welcome to attack and tear apart the things I believe in and hold most dear, the things that define who I am. I can take it. And I’d appreciate that you respect me enough to think that.
In the end, I think that the ideas behind your beliefs are untrue, and I think we should be exposing untruth for what it is, even if it hurts people. Truth hurts, but it is WAY better to live in honesty and truth than it is to promote and live in a lie. That hurts everyone.
Feel free to link studies and I’ll have (another) look. I don’t expect to see much that is eye-opening, but I won’t know until I look.
