Photo: ShutterstockNearly half of all LGBTQ+ youth feel unsafe in school settings, and over half said they had been bullied due to their queer identities, a new report from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) found.
But even though over half of queer respondents also showed signs of anxiety and depression, majorities of LGBTQ+ youth have also come out to their families and feel hopeful for the future nonetheless.
Approximately 54% of transgender and gender-expansive youth and 46% of LGBQ+ youth surveyed said that they felt unsafe in at least one school setting. Nearly 60% of all LGBTQ+ youth said that they had been “teased, bullied, or treated badly” at school over their LGBTQ+ identities.
Only one in five LGBTQ+ youth reported school bullying to a school staff member. While 23.3% of these kids said the adult “didn’t help me at all,” 20.0% said the adult “helped me a lot.”
Additionally, 55.1% of survey respondents screened positive for depression, 63.5% screened positive for depression, and 64.7% rated their ability to manage stress as “fair” or “poor.” These rates were on average five points higher for transgender and gender-expansive youth. 48.9% of LGBTQ+ youth had received therapy in the prior year.
The HRC noted that these findings have likely been affected by the spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation nationwide. During the most recent legislative session, 10 have passed transphobic “bathroom bills,” 23 states have passed transphobic “sports bans,” six have passed “forced outing” bills requiring schools to out trans and gender-expansive youth to their parents, and six have passed “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” bills banning queer content from classrooms.
Despite this, 90.3% of LGBTQ+ youth said they were proud to be part of the LGBTQ+ community, and nearly 83% of queer youth said that they had come out to at least one member of their immediate family.
Trans and gender-expansive youth who feel free to express their gender identity around their families and those whose family members use their correct pronouns and names also reported the lowest levels of depression and anxiety among trans and gender-expansive youth.
Additionally, 56.8% of LGBTQ+ youth said they somewhat or strongly agree that “the LGBTQ+ community is accepted more and more every day.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
A majority of queer youth feel hopeful despite widespread bullying & stress
Scottie's Playtime 
Denmark joins the list of countries who have sharply restricted youth gender transitions (Here).
Not sure how these countries are far right wing Trump bigots but I’m sure, Scottie, you’ll find a way to maintain your faith while rejecting reality’s arbitration of it. Your denialism has already been predicted.
As the linked article says,
“Why AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) staunchly refuses to accept the conclusions of multiple systematic reviews of evidence that found the practice of youth gender transition to either not be clearly beneficial, or net-harmful, is unclear. Although the AAP has finally agreed to commission its own systematic review, it has already presaged the review’s conclusion, which is that it will support the current pro-affirmation AAP position. In the meantime, thousands of American children and parents continue to be misinformed that science and evidence support the practice of gender transitions for youth (that’s what you’re doing, Scottie) who desire them, and that those raising concerns are merely science-deniers spreading “scientific misinformation” at best, and likely ill-intentioned.”
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Ah the resident anti-trans science denier Tildeb. Why don’t you mention places like Germany that are making it easier to transition? To change gender and names on legal documents.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/german-cabinet-approved-plan-make-easier-people-legally-102474580
You prefer to cheery pick and misrepresent so it looks like the world is discovering suddenly trans is horrible and made up. First let’s look at the article you linked too. I do this because many people don’t understand how deceptive you are on this subject.
It is a substack written by an anti-trans group.
The name of the blog, (that is what substacks are, just a blog) is Reality’s Last Stand. That should tell you all you need to know. Second the article is a fucking lie and you know it if you follow their own links and read the actual documents!
https://ugeskriftet.dk/videnskab/sundhedsfaglige-tilbud-til-born-og-unge-med-konsubehag
The document they linked to doesn’t say anything about restricting care, in fact it does just the opposite. But to be sure, I searched for Denmark banning care for youths with dysphoria. All I got back was stuff affirming how Denmark removed dysphoria as a mental illness back in 2017. The article they linked to describes the use of puberty blockers and the use of hormones at a young age, and states that at age 15 patients no longer need parental permissions. The only place that comes back with Denmark reducing care was this very article you linked too.
Please Tildeb tell me you did not just take the anti-trans groups say and did the minimum research on it. That is like taking anything RFK says about vaccines as true without checking. It is like taking the word of hate groups like mom’s for liberty or mom’s of TikTok word that movies and books with any LGBTQIA content are pornographic. Or the word of Tony Perkins, another religious fundamentalist, that conversion therapy works to make gay people straight.
The truth is more places are accepting that gender identity is not set by what is between your legs. More, not fewer, countries are offering transitioning treatment to minors as a medically necessary. But for a much more balanced and truthful article, I suggest everyone including you read this one. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/04/gender-affirming-care-debate-europe-dutch-protocol/673890/ Notice it is really new, it says that despite the questions and push no real effort to stop or delay treatments are being done.
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I’m sorry you feel you need to constantly smear me, Scottie, as well as anyone who criticizes the unreality you are constantly trying to advance. That’s not the Scottie from a decade ago. You’ve changed drastically, my friend, and it saddens me. Once upon a time, you were better than this.
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Tildeb, it is not a smear but the truth. You are a fanatic about being anti-trans just like the republican right Christian nationalists trying hard to ban trans care, rainbow stickers, drag queen story times, along with any books having any representation of LGBTQIA characters. Your view is unscientific and not supported by medical fact. Even your understanding of biology is stuck in the distant past. I can not read your mind, so I don’t know for sure what is driving your hate of medical care for trans kids, but it really no different that those I already compared you to.
I have not changed, the only changes in me is I know more now about these subjects than I ever did before. What does seem to be different is your self justifications that you used to claim before you lashed out at the current social acceptance of gays and trans kids. You used to claim to be a liberal from Canada who focused on US politics, also you claimed to be a science teacher but said social acceptance of LGBTQIA students and support of them had gone too far, again you claimed to be a teacher but you seem to lack even the basic understanding of how medical science has advanced. You seem to lack basic research skills just like believing the article you linked instead of seeing that it was a flat out propagandist lie.
As I said, I don’t care what your motivations are. You are wrong and unwilling to accept the medical science, advances in our understanding of biology concerning sex and the issues surrounding gender identity. For all I know you could be a TERF operative, a right wing maga Christian Nationalist, or just some old bitter dude who has seen the world around him change too much for him to be comfortable in the social acceptance of the modern age. Some people just want things to stay as they were, the way they liked it and were comfortable with. Some people just don’t want others to live in ways different from the way they themselves do. It makes they unhappy because that different way feels icky and wrong to them. Guess what, it doesn’t matter if you are not comfortable or think that is icky or disgusting, grow up and realized the world doesn’t have to stop advancing because you want it to stay as it was.
You are entitled to your mistaken beliefs just as religious bigots are. But to force it on others as the republican right is doing right now by denying kids necessary medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones based on the junk lies and myths people like you push is horribly harmful. It is destroying the lives of entire generations of kids growing up with gender identity issues, and even the rights of gay kids to be themselves publicly. And yes, you better understand I will combat that misinformation and push back against the people spreading it. People like you.
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Sorry, Scottie … but I have to do this …
You wrote to tildeb: You are a fanatic about being anti-trans … but don’t you see that your multiple posts from the other side define you similarly?
You get very little pushback on your blog on this topic, but this does not mean every person that comes across it agrees with you — they just don’t say anything. Then when someone like tildeb happens to step forth and debate your stance, you call him a fanatic …???
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Hello Nan. Nope I don’t. Very strong disagree! Don’t you see this is a civil rights issue the same as equal rights for blacks, and equal rights for gay people? Plus Tildeb cites and uses articles that push lies such as the one he did here. The pages linked said the opposite that the blog claimed. It is lies and myths to promote hate and stop medical treatment for people that need it. Why do you want to believe a lie over the true medical facts? Sorry but are you also one of those who are uncomfortable with the social acceptance changes in society who wants to pause all the advances in understanding?
I am sorry you are uncomfortable with trans people and the entire gender issue. But just as I won’t tolerate nor accept separate and not equal for non-white people. I won’t accept or tolerate bigots who make claims not backed up by science or medical consensus about the LGBTQIA community.
I have fought bigotry, including soft bigotry such as you recently mentioned in a comment, all my life. I won’t stop now. And I will push back on it. That is not being a fanatic Nan, it is being a decent human being who understands that such discrimination always is wrong and falls to advances in social and medical understanding. Just as history shows it has time after time.
One last thing. You get very little pushback on your blog on this topic, but this does not mean every person that comes across it agrees with you Are you sure about that? Is there a Scotties Playtime community bitch group I don’t know about? Or is it you and Tildeb chatting with each other, reinforcing the bigotry based on lies and myths?
Anyone who disagrees with something I post can comment their disagreement with me / what the post is about. I don’t mind disagreement. But those people will get responded to, they will be corrected, they don’t get to say don’t respond because I don’t care. If you don’t care and are just here to spam hateful bigotry, I don’t need the comment. So just don’t do it! If you are interested in a discussion about facts and reality, I am all for it. Hugs
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Definition of fanatic: Marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea.
Think about this, Scottie. Nearly every post of yours is about the trans movement. And tildeb is the fanatic?
I have no skin in the game. People are going to do what they’re going to do (in the trans world or elsewhere). Certainly I have my opinions about things (e.g., religion/Christianity, abortion) –and I’ll often write about them– but people are going to do/believe what they want … and the fact they disagree with my perspective doesn’t make them a fanatic.
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Hello Nan. Every post that Tildeb comments on is about trans issues. Think about that! Why is that the only thing that I post that he cares about? Because he is an anti-trans …
I do this blog Nan, to add a voice for those that are being attacked. To fight injustice, to fight bigotry, and to fight the right wing media lies, distortions, and hated. To the point that a person who pushes lies and goes against medical consensus to stop the necessary medical treatments need by a patient makes them a fanatic, not the supporters of those needed treatments. It also makes them dangerous. Think about abortion protestors who block clinics compared to those who fought to keep them open, who also escorted the women through the haters. Would you say the ones helping the women have access to the clinics were fanatics? Too enthusiastic?
Yes Nan you do have skin in the game. Everyone does. First you already acknowledge you don’t feel comfortable sharing bathrooms and other personal spaces with trans women, so you are against trans people using the bathroom of the gender they identify with. You also have said the LGBTQIA have brought these attacks on themselves by being too open and pushing for their equality in public. Third everyone has a responsibility to fight hatred and bigotry where ever they encounter it if possible, everyone should be promoting equality and social acceptance for those facing discrimination, and any inequality for a marginalized group for being openly who they are and wanting to live publicly as themselves is inequality for everyone.
Tell me Nan, were those people fighting for equality for black people in the 1960s too enthusiastic? Were the gays, lesbians, and drag queens fighting cops that kept attacking and harming them too enthusiastic? Were the gays fighting for equal marriage rights being too enthusiastic? Every time a group has to stand up and fight the bigots / haters for the rights denied them, those who don’t want the change says those people were over the line.
So yes Nan I am enthusiastic about equality, stopping bigotry, correct the lies and distortions anti-trans people like Tildeb push. Hugs
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Enthusiastic: Having or showing great excitement and interest.
Fanatic: Marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea.
Yes Scottie, I agree that it’s taken warriors for the cause to make major changes in our society. And it’s apparent that you see yourself in this role. But beating people over the head time and again and calling others fanatics because they happen to view things differently than you hardly fits the role of warrior. IMO.
P.S. Glad your health is improving!
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In spite of the fact that only your belief contrary to reality is what you consider ‘the Truth(TM), JAMA Network Open tells us that (as noted in the NYT which is hardly an extreme right wing anti-trans newspaper) noted there were 3678 gender-affirming surgeries for 12 to 18-year-olds from 2016 to 2019 even though you claim this NEVER happens, that this a ‘right wing talking point’, that it is disinformation, that it all lies, all bullshit.
You keep insisting reality is the lie and your beliefs are not. Obviously, it’s a safe bet that the numbers are going to go up. And the evidence continues to mount about kids – not adults – transitioning through chemical and surgical alterations to otherwise health bodies and taking onboard all the massive increased health risks and commonplace sterility for them for the rest of their lives that you so ardently champion. Very strange champion.
Deep breath
But I’m the fanatic. Yeah. Right.
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Hey Tildeb, again you lied. The real number was less than 1200 patients 18 or younger. But nice that you managed to link to the same article twice, because if people read the article they will see your glaring lie. Yes you are a fanatic as shown by your mischaracterization of the report above. I will give you one thing, you are sure driven to go against the best medical practice for trans children. One that is supported by the majority of medical organizations worldwide. You know those experts in the very subject that you are constantly rejecting and lying about. And you of course have the same skills, same education studies, same years working in the field with kids with gender issues, same advanced degrees as these medical professionals you are in such disagreement with?
For those wanting the truth, here are some quotes from the article. First a quoted paragraph that shows Tildeb’s flat out lie insinuating that 3678 young people got sexual reassignment surgery. That number is for gender affirming surgeries. That is far different from sexual reassignment surgeries. In fact most of those gender affirming surgeries are to fix everything from birth defects to injuries to the genitals, or things like breast reductions for cis boys suffering from unwanted breast growth during puberty. Also I found out that it includes boys whose foreskin is too tight, requiring either a circumcision or surgeries to fix the foreskin.
Ok as I doubt that many people are willing to wade through all of that linked article, let me quote something the authors wrote about the limitations and possible errors in the article.
Also instead of the insinuation you make, the conclusion of the report calls more medical providers for transgender treatment and care. It also repeats that gender-affirming care is medically necessary.
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Lie? No. These are the numbers that grab attention because they show these ‘gender affirming’ procedures ARE happening to children, that your claims that they are not happening, that this is a right wing lie, that this is being promoted by religious extremism, that this Tall Tale is told by anti-gay zealots and fanatics, is not zero. You are wrong, Scottie.
So ONLY 1200!!!!? Well, that’s quite the admission coming from It’s-not-Happening Scottie.
Could it be that working hard to ‘prove’ me wrong in a trivial way is much stronger motivation for you than is noticing that the distance from None (that you have constantly claimed is The Truth(TM)) a much larger admission by you as the determining factor about who is lying here? My point, that you constantly and continually lie about, is that these surgeries ARE being done to children under the age of 18 generally and even under the age of 12 occasionally. That should shock the living shit out of you. But you just deny, deny, deny this number matters at all, while calling anyone and everyone who points out that they are occurring ALL THE TIME as morally bankrupt haters and bigots especially of gays. You’ve lost the thread of reality here, Scottie.
Secondly, you seem determined to suffer from not understanding that the medical societies you continue to mistakenly assume champions good health care represent the DOCTORS and CLINICIANS who make up their membership… NOT the children who receive this ‘affirming care’. That’s why this is an ongoing and horrendous chemical and surgical experiment on children you’re convinced is the Gold Standard for such mental disorders… because people like you assume it is Good… regardless of any and all contrary evidence from reality. You’re siding with these bodies – many of which are staffed not by doctors but gender advocates. They want their membership to be able to cash in on this gravy train. That’s their job. That’s why we’re seeing more and more lawsuits against medical practitioners while these organizations continue to alter and adjust their ‘best practices’ not to account for this mounting evidence but to provide legal cover BECAUSE of it. The most egregious of these organizations is WPATH, who not only now counsel castration as a New and Improved gender ‘care’ category but have LOWERED the age to receive GAS to… well, whatever the dcotor thinks is a Good Idea. (Not that any children are actually receiving this ‘affirming care’ of course because Scottie insists they are not… but if they are, then it’s all Good and all those complaining like clinic workers and counselors and doctors and researchers and litigious detransitioners are all Bad People Of The Worst Kind).
Once again, Scotties, in your rush to vilify and defend the indefensible, you’ve lost the plot. And the plot, because you keep missing it, is to advocate for a systemic review so that all the organizations and the memberships of them can START working from an informed evidence-based position so that they can DEMONSTRATE why this ‘affirming care’ is best practices. Right now, we’re coming at this ass backwards and assuming this affirmation approach is the right one and so all the downstream practices must be correct. That’s the same belief you have. Let’s see if reality supports it. I mean, in the meantime it’s ONLY 1200 children… not that they matter in the least if they are not over 3000 according to Scottie. Life long medicalization and developmental retardation matters not. WPATH doesn’t care, the AAP doesn’t care, so why should anyone… unless they are The Worst Kind Of People, like… oh, just spit ballin’ here… like parents!
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Tildeb you lied about the numbers hoping no one would read the article and then think as you insulated oh my god they mutated children, gasp. Did you miss this part <b.Second, we captured procedures commonly reported as GAS procedures; however, it is possible that some of these procedures were performed for other underlying indications or diseases rather than solely for gender affirmation. Surprise teen girls have breast cancer sometimes and need mastectomies. Boys injure scrotum (ball sack and balls for those not sure) and penises. I bet that more than a few teen girls find they have an issue with their internal parts also. And yes in some cases like the one I posted that you missed which I thought you would jump on 17 year old trans girls who are closer to 18 than 16 with parental consent and approval and years of medical treatments have top surgery. Unlike the cry most of you anti-trans people, it is not sterilizing kids.
To be clear! No minors / kids are having sexual reassignment surgeries! No one under 18 is having their reproductive organs removed for transitioning! Period! It is a scare tactic by the anti-trans haters. The article you linked to specifically mentioned that.
The rest of your screed was simply more distortion. The medical decisions on best medical practices are based on peer reviewed studies that are gone over by experts in the fields effected.
And to be clear the best medical practices say to treat gender identity issues with a combination of mental, emotional, and physical exams along with social transitioning moving to puberty blockers when called for and in the upper ages if needed hormone treatments.
That is the facts. The true facts. Pack in your lies and take them else where. A place your fellow trans haters / bigots can get together and stoke each other up with more lies, distortions, and myths to scare.
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” A place your fellow trans haters / bigots can get together and stoke each other up with more lies, distortions, and myths to scare.”
And who are those ‘fellow trans haters/bigots’?
The list is very long, Scottie, and includes such myth pedlars as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, evolutionary biologists, a veritable who’s who of gays and lesbians who fought the fight for equal rights you now enjoy, anyone who claims to be a feminist and cares as much for women as they do the men who are trying to erase them, and literally thousands of detransitioners who went from being championed by ‘concerned’ people like you to vilified by ‘defenders’ like you for not following the ideological script you parrot and parrot and parrot. Oh… and let’s not forget medical practitioners and teachers caught between the ideological capture of their professional bodies but risking their licenses to not go along, and thousands of families ripped apart by this lunacy, that children can not only consent to life long medicalization and sterility but that institutions are only too willing to facilitate this process starting with puberty blockers presented as innocuous and reversible but designed to be a chemical castrator with unknown long term effects on developing children.
Once you realize the scope and depth of your indoctrination and the level to which you have allowed your beliefs to guide your reasoning, the ideology’s betrayal especially of young gays and women, you will need a way back. You are closing that door rapidly the more hatred you spew about those trying to give you that very opportunity.
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Tildeb. You are a hateful misinformed fringe! You, like the Christian Nationalists that are banning books from school libraries and drag queens from reading stories to kids, you like to claim you are representing far more people than you do. Likewise, you are a small but very vocal / very online minority. You have outsized influence due to your tactics. You mention a few discredited people who long ago past relevance like it should shock people. Harris has long been a bigot well known for promoting hate against Muslims, and Dawkins was exposed as someone who never accepted the advancements in biological science that made his work a footnote. He was never that good, what made him famous was his ability to write in terms people could understand.
But that goes beyond the point. Again you misinform and distort to confuse people. You are an anti-vaxxer and a person unable to accept the changes in society due to advancements in understanding type person. Your talking points are the same as the hosts of the Daily Wire, which should tell you something. But you accuse me of doing what you do because you have no real argument in favor of your position, they have all been disproven. It is sad Tildeb. I have lost any and all respect for you.
You are wrong on the medical information, you are wrong on the science. I have shown that over and over, and yet you repeat it. Anti-vaxxer again and again, or is it flat earther over and over again? Trans people take nothing away from any other group, all those accusations have been proven false. Yet again you repeat them. Trans women are women and are not stealing titles or sports events from others, your accusation has been proven wrong. Gay kids are not being force to transition for any reason that has also been proven wrong.
You’re getting close to being monotonous Tildeb. You threw everything against the wall and nothing stuck. Go play with your fellow hater bigots, you will have more fun there and not be constantly proven wrong.
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Corinna Cohn*. Why won’t you listen?
“They (kids who have acted on their gender dysphoria) won’t care about their parents’ concerns. A lot of them aren’t going to be able to have their own kids and so they’re never going to even learn how to think like a parent. They’re always going to think like a child. They’re not going to appreciate what their parents were up against — being lied to by the government. Being lied to by their president being lied to by their doctors.”
*Corinna Cohn is a software developer living in Indiana who was among the very first teenagers to go on cross-sex hormones in adolescence, at the age of 15 in 1993. He was inducted into a cross-sex identity on the very first transsexual-interest Internet Relay Chat groups in the early 1990’s and underwent vaginoplasty at the age of 19. After decades of attempting to live as a woman, he reached an acknowledgment that he insists every other person who undertakes the same quixotic endeavor will eventually acknowledge to be true: “Their sex is what they were born as. Everybody knows if you’re born male, you’re always male. If you’re born female, you’re always female. There’s no disputing that.”
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Oh my dogs that love gravy Tildeb, you are proving my point about you being a fanatic. Oh my one-person regrets transitioning to the point of having sexual gender reassignment surgery as an adult. Quick we must stop everyone and anyone to be able to transition in any manner from social as a kid to letting adults make their own medical decisions! Stop being so stupid! Sorry fourth years later she regrets a choice she made and so wants to stop anyone else from having the right to choose. Hell I regret selling the house I owned in WBP, should no one be able to sell their homes?
You should have included a link to where you got your blurb on the woman. I wonder if they misgendered him or you did? Here is a link to the opinion she wrote and she doesn’t mention feeling pushed to transition in it. She does talk about fearing the homophobia that existed then which is coming back today. She talks about the fact her life did not turn out as she hoped and she was lonely. Here is the link if anyone is interested in what she wrote about her self. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/11/i-was-too-young-to-decide-about-transgender-surgery-at-nineteen/
Earlier I said you were like a maga trumper who claims that everyone knows trump won the 2020 election. And you highlight / make bolder a single person making the same kind of claim. This leads me to the idea that you reject the scientific medical advancements that show you’re wrong, sex is a spectrum and gender identity has nothing to do with what your sexual organs look like at birth. Why? You claim not to be religious so it can’t be based on god not putting someone in the wrong body? Or was that claim you made another lie? Or are you just what I called you, a bitter old man who can not accept the changes in society that make you uncomfortable or that you personally don’t understand? Why does someone being trans matter to you? You are not fighting gender dysphoria and hiding it, are you? Remember no minor gets gender affirming care on their own, a parent or guardian has to approve of it and someone has to pay for it.
I guess it doesn’t matter. Tildeb listen to me carefully. You are wrong. Stop reading / watching right wing terf anti-trans media that is misinforming you. Stop pushing lies and misinformation. You are harming kids and even trans adults.
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My question was why aren’t you listening. The answer is because you already know the ‘correct’ answer and so any and all contrary evidence can and WILL be dismissed not on merit but because it has been brought forward only by The Very Worst Kind Of Person. This is how you are thinking, Scottie, and it is no different a tactic than the religious fanatic who dismisses contrary evidence from reality as coming from a morally bankrupt non believer. They don’t listen; you don’t listen. Both remain certain in their beliefs and both see themselves as champions of The Truth(TM).
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No Tildeb, you will not pull that filibuster maga trick of keeping repeating your right when you are wrong. I am correct because unlike you I use cited facts based on peer-reviewed studies! I correct every one of your lies, yet you keep acting like you never even bothered to read the real facts. Again like the vaccine deniers and the maga crowd. “No I am not, you are” childish bullshit. I don’t know if you’re hoping that anyone still unsure reading this far will agree with your warped distortions or if you clip them to share else where. It doesn’t matter I am fucking tired of it! I let commenters have a lot of room to have their say on stuff. I don’t limit discussions and I let them go long. But you have pushed past my patience with lies, distortions, right wing terf talking points, and myths created to scare people.
So here is your warning. Keep pulling this shit and I will ban you! Scottie
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Hi Scottie;
I think Nan and others understand me at this point, if anyone can, but I’d like to define myself a bit more for a moment: I truly respect the rights of people to have a difference of opinion, to feel uncomfortable about things, to decide that something isn’t for them. Nan and I have had this discussion before, and I feel very confident that she draws a line between what she believes for herself and what she expects of others. So, having said that…
.
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I find it very interesting how people ring in with the “won’t you think of the children”. The fact is, no matter where you go, what you research, where you research, you will find anecdotal “evidence” of what should or should not have happened. But often they go further and declare that there is no such things as someone being born an exterior gender different from that of the “interior”. Beyond ignorant of simple genetics, that is dangerous because it sets up the idea that those with this struggle must by lying, deceived or abused. Frankly I think such people are more interested in being right, gaining power and prestige from being so “righteous and caring”, but actually care very very little for the people going through this difficult issue.
Let’s be very clear: if I can use the term the right depends on here – ‘gender dysphoria’ is one of the leading causes of suicide in trans youth, and in fact, one lgbt youth will attempt suicide at a rate of every 45 seconds. What is the ‘right’s’ attempt to help with this? They chastise, limit, bully, and legislate against lgbt issues.
Let’s be very clear: yes, about 8% of the surgeries done were for trans youth according to JAMA (3,000+) but JAMA doesn’t define those stats very clearly so I have no clear evidence what that means. But be very clear in this: this comes with guidelines, therapy and long-term care, patient and parental understandings and guidance. One doesn’t just walk into the local clinic and get a sex change, especially as a minor.
What is the leading cause of death for children? Guns. And what is the ‘right’s’ response to this? Less regulation, less restriction on carry, and if Bobert and her crew are a clue – general fanaticism.
I guess my point here is that –IF– trans youth are getting corrective surgeries, which I am highly speculative, it comes with a great deal of therapy, guidance, clear understanding for the parents and the patients, and a lot of guidelines and restrictions within the medical community. This is very much a personal issue, a defining issue, and the number of people who have absolutely no skin in the game yet seek to have their petty ass demands followed is astounding.
.
Here’s an idea: how about all these wanna-be warriors for the young people of America start on the easy things, like school lunch programs so kids can eat no matter the financial position of their parents? How about maximizing the education of our youth so that they have every chance for great success in life rather than making the schools a have vs. have not system? How about folks seek to put their religious fervor into the things Jesus asked of us rather than demand others conform to the zealot’s cause of the moment? How about we expect the minimum of ownership of guns that can take a life have the same minimum as ownership of a car: training, license, insurance? How about getting their nose out of the pants of others and recognize that people are free to seek their own peace?
Well, I guess those don’t carry the drama of being self-righteous.
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Thank you, Randy. While the procedure you state (therapy, guidance, understanding) may be the “standard,” from the FEW things I’ve come across (this is definitely not one of my primary interests!), it does seem this may not always be the case. And from my perspective, therein lies part of the problem. Especially when it involves CHILDREN who are too easily influenced by “trends” and may be able to convince a “loving, caring parent who wants to give their child the best life they can” that they are in the “wrong body.”
Nevertheless, more than anything, I’m sick … sick … sick of hearing about it! And I wonder why things related to the sexual part of our bodies seem to always suck all the air out of a room.
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Well said Randy, very well said. Brother I keep saying you are one of the smartest, most thoughtful, wonderfully kind person I have ever met. And you keep proving it! Love you. Hugs
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Randy, you express a very common concern/tactic about those who criticize today’s medical response to the gender affirming care model, that their motives are questionable and that perhaps they are not taking into account the feelings of those truly affected but wish to aggrandize themselves. As a new atheist, I am well experienced having my motives receive this ‘concern’.
So let me draw a comparison and see if you can appreciate why someone… anyone… might bother with questioning the effects of something like gender affirming care. Stick with me, here.
Spring Forest Qigong, a Minnesota-based “healing center” that claims to heal through energy channeling and champions the use of an ancient Chinese ritual called “external qigong” to heal the afflicted. According to its website, illnesses are the result of “energy blockages within the body.” SFQ asserts that qigong is the magical wand that dispels these obstructions, thereby restoring the body’s “natural balance.” This involves the enigmatic Qigong Master Chunyi Lin waving his hands over one’s body, channeling energies and dissolving said blockages.
Now, here’s the thing: the SFQ site provides links to several “scientific” articles from the Journal of Holistic Nursing and The American Journal of Chinese Medicine. These papers, apparently, endorse external qigong as an antidote for chronic pain. But for novices to the mystical realm of SFQ and qigong, the site offers glowing testimonials from satisfied SFQ customers. In every case, the testimonials are quite positive… everything from pain relief to curing Stage 4 cancer. Testimonials rely on FEELINGS because there is ‘good evidence’ that the waving of hands by the ‘master healer’ causes the reported effects. But in every case of positive testimonials, there is BELIEF that there really is something called the body’s energy balance, BELIEF it can be blocked, BELIEF that this blockage can cause adverse health effects, BELIEF it can be ‘cleared’ by a ‘Master Healer’, and BELIEF that, because subjective feelings are improved after a session, this ‘proves’ efficacy.
Well, so what? What’s wrong with a bunch of people who find this ‘therapy’ worthwhile?
Nothing, to my way of thinking. By all means.
But…
Let’s introduce this idea in schools – starting in pre-K – and spend public money purchasing ‘learning’ materials. Do you have a problem yet?
Let’s mandate teachers to ‘teach’ body energy, how it flows, what can block it, how to unblock it. Let’s open up a new faculty at universities to further ‘inform’ this ‘discipline’ with ‘research’ collating and tabulating these testimonials. Any problem yet?
Let’s put out policy statements from various medical associations supporting the ‘best practices’ of body energy treatment and offer to inquiring media ‘experts’ to explain why all of this should be covered by insurance. Any problem yet?
Okay… now let’s start introducing various testimonials that are NOT favorable. Do you think any of these might have merit? Let’s start adding people who did not receive other efficacious treatments because their medical practitioners and counsellors referred them to more and more energy treatments? Do you see any problems developing here?
Let’s add MANDATORY affirmation of energy blockage as the root cause of a veritable host of afflictions to be part of a medical professional’s licensing.
Now let’s LEGISLATE that questioning the efficacy of body energy system as a medical response to physical and mental and social dysfunction treatments and therapies is a hate crime, that BELIEF in it is a protected right.
Now let’s make sure we teach every child that any discomfort they might have with their body is, in fact, an imbalance of their energy system, that the first line of treatment will be energy flowing drugs that retards physical development including the brain. Further medical steps will be even more retarding and affect the body’s basic chemistry. In fact, altering and discarding various body parts surgically will address body energy blockages that are causing body energy imbalances. And we must TEACH children this is what love and kindness and acceptance looks like versus haters and bigots who might disagree.
Why should anyone be concerned? And, if they are, then surely their motivation must be at best somewhat questionable.
Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who blew the whistle on medical malpractice at the clinic traveling under the guise of “gender-affirming care”—points out that people generally and children in particular are harmed when we privilege personal testimony over evidence. And, wow, did she have evidence! In spite of what you might believe, Randy, the clinic she worked in was inundated with requests for transition services without adequate protocols to handle them, that patients were hastily approved for transitioning despite notable mental-health comorbidities, that individuals were not fully briefed on the risks and side effects of their prescribed medications, and that any opposition within the clinic was quelled.
So what? Why should anyone care?
I think when people are fooled into believing what isn’t true and then professions and governments institutionalize those beliefs as the only acceptable ones to have, the only acceptable to teach, the only acceptable ones to act on, when children are subject to therapies and treatments that are – at best – highly experimental but definitely retards physical and cognitive development, it shouldn’t require moral courage to support a systemic review to find out if, in fact, body energy systems is a physical/chemical system at all, to find out if the belief in it is warranted by compelling evidence from reality independent of the feelings some people might have about it, a belief that is line with one that supports the efficacious use of chemicals and surgeries to ‘correct’.
When you say as if true that someone can have, “an exterior gender different from that of the “interior”” you indicate a belief you hold and assume is true. Who cares if there are only two sexes? (Go ahead and name a third if you doubt this fact.) Once we enter the gender language, there is no shortage of biological sex denialism at play. Just belief. Just like assuming the body has an energy system that when impeded causes all illnesses. It is that belief in gender that is the foundation for all the reasoning that follows. But is it true?
Is it true?
Without anyone daring to question the belief about whether or not gender is anything other than a convenient term to describe stereotypical sex-based behaviours, how on earth is ANYONE ever going find out? Disparaging the motivations of anyone who tries seems to me to be designed more to shut people up and a way to promote one’s self as holding a reasonable middle ground (where none exists, just like claiming to be agnostic when asked if one believes in some god) than it is a principled position to care about others and how they are treated.
Because I work with children, I am faced with the pernicious effects of gender ideology ON CHILDREN every day. I am not okay with this.
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Tildeb. Jamie Reed was totally discredited and you know it. Why do you continue to spread debunked lies? Below is an article and few quotes from the first few paragraphs. There is more at the link. One other thing, you write to Randy that you were a new atheist? But you told me years ago that you were an atheist and not a Christian nor religious. Was that just another story you made up?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/jamie-reeds-claims-about-transgender-care-are-under-fire.html
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Because she wasn’t discredited (as you repeatedly claim) and, in fact, the NYTimes confirmed all but one of the accusations, which is why it has gone to the AG who has started an investigation.
But interestingly, notice how the ‘discrediting’ response has been by a few selected testimonials. Again, highlighting FEELINGS… which is the point of my comment to Randy. Feelings do not reveal what’s true and they are certainly no way to organize evidence-based medical treatment. Two of those who supposedly have ‘discredited’ Reed (who herself is married to a trans)and were
highlighted by a local newspaper article are by people who founded/funded the clinic and these are the voices amplified by the local newspaper as if ‘satisfied’ customers which, again, is how much of gender care is based and/or justified! But the takeaway point of Reed is to highlight that long term and careful therapy and parental consent long before chemicals and surgeries are introduced is a complete fiction. Whether the contrary evidence is from Reed who worked in the clinic to various medical professionals at Tavistock or doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital or a litany of Planned Parenthood scripts offered with little to no professional multiple sessions for comorbidity – the list goes on and on – the fact of the matter is that this common narrative of some long therapy with parental involvement and support eventually culminating in chemical and surgical interventions of adults who then provide informed consent is the myth. It’s BELIEF once again directing affirmation only policy and almost immediate medical intervention rather than evidence-based medicine. That’s why this gender cart is before the reality horse: we need a systemic review and reshape care for gender dysphoria based on evidence from reality rather than belief and feelings based on false narrative.
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Notice Tildeb, you constantly use and support right wing republicans in office who happen to be Christian nationalists. Think about that! Yes she was discredited by the very people she worked with and the people who went to the clinic. I just posted two articles showing that! And it was not a few select testimonials. Think about this, why if what she is claiming was true have not any other concerned staff came out to support her position? But there are none because she is wrong. Notice when called out in court or the press she backed off a lot of her accusations. Why would she do that if she was so correct and saving kids? Because she couldn’t back up the lies she was pushing.
I will give you this Tildeb, you are a true believer on a mission. Despite all evidence and everything showing you are wrong, you keep pushing your lies, distortions, and myths designed to scare people. You are like Ken Hamm.
Even now you lie about a few testimonials in an attempt to bolster your position and her lies. Notice not one single person from that place has come out to support her and everyone else says she is wrong. But that is typical of driven haters / bigots, the truth or the evidence doesn’t matter to you, only your narrative does. I remember all the doom and gloom of when marriage equality became the law of the land and the anti-gay haters / bigots claimed everything from men marrying their pets to kids forced to have sex in kindergarten. None of that happened. But just like you and your anti-trans haters / bigots, those people never admitted they were wrong nor stopped their attacks.
Again the fiction is what Reed and your people are pushing. Get it into your head that the best medical practices for gender affirming care of all the major medical associations disagree with you! You are no different from anti-vaxxers and those who claim evolution is wrong. The world is moving to more acceptance of trans people and trans care for young people with far more countries adopting gender affirming transition care. Again I recently posted that.
I am really sorry you can not accept the modern society and age where medical understanding of sex and gender have advanced past where you are comfortable. Sex is a spectrum according to the current biological understand. That you can not accept that is really showing how you are not trust worth on these issues. This happens every time there are people like you desperately clinging to the past. But it doesn’t matter. You are wrong! Medical science has proven you wrong. No matter how much you lie, distort, or try to create scary myths the evidence is against you. Just like it is the flat earthers, the creationists, the people who insist that the earth is 6000 years old, or people who claim that the moon landings are fake.
At this point you are someone I can not take seriously. Because I deal in facts, while you deal in lies and myth. I am starting to find you funny as it is so easy to show your lies. You are so sure your minority view which is not supported medically or scientific is correct you push lies, distortions, and scare myths that hurt real live young people who have to live with the consequences your hate forces on them.
I am going to regret this but I am curious over your line “litany of Planned Parenthood scripts offered with little to no professional multiple sessions for comorbidity”. At the risk of you spouting disproven fundamentalist Christian right wing media lies what do you mean. Remember you claimed repeatedly not to be a Christian to me. Please tell me you are not an anti-abortion freak also. But it would be in character for what comments you have left.
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Sex is a spectrum according to the current biological understand.
Medical News Today (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363)
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Natal sex is not assigned. It is observed. There are exactly two sexes: male and female. Our entire evolutionary history determines which of us is which and this and not something distinct to humans. I believe it covers all mammals and much of the other classes like flowers, as well. Intersex – often raised as if this widens the binary system – is not a sex. It’s a disorder. Nor does it create a spectrum (very rare and usually 46,XX). What defines the strategy is either geared for large gametes (eggs/female definition) or small gametes (sperm/male definition).
This systemic tailoring of our biological sex starts at about 10 weeks of gestation for humans and the hormonal differences begins here. By age two, boys and girls have undergone 2 very significant and very different ‘puberties’ geared either to the body housing either large or small gametes. In this regard there simply is no third sex. The third puberty – the one most of us are familiar with entering our teen years – comes much later and is actually smaller in hormonal level changes than the one shortly after birth (most people don’t know this). This later puberty is the one gender ideologues believes can magically stop sex development through various kinds of blockers but when it comes to the sex of the body, that ship has long sailed. Each of us is either male or female and no amount of made up words can alter this brute fact.
If you are reading something that does not comport to this biological understanding, that ‘something’ will also need to explain how evolutionary development stops at the neck for humans but not every other mammal. If the ‘something’ does not explain why evolutionary theory is suspended only for humans, then we know we are reading or listening to ideology and not biological science.
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Tildeb;
You make a fine argument that the physical, hormonal and chromosomal measurements can clearly be made, the observations seem clear. I’m sure there is no argument that can’t be set aside by using one of those measurements; I’m sure you’ve heard of those born with both sexes or no visible sex, and I’m sure you could argue those away by demonstrating the measurement of hormones or the dna or who the hell knows what other measurement could be used.
So, who are you? Can you even define yourself? Your identity deals with a whole lot more than what is physical. Can you take a dna sample and create a new whatever is behind “tildeb”, or would that be a different person? I know the logical response to that is it can’t be measured and it can’t be tested. But dogs have been cloned and their “personality” is different. Identical twins are not personality wise identical. So what makes you think that a person is what is measurable rather than what is unique and beautiful for each of us?
Better yet, WHY do you believe that who we are as a tildeb or a randy is so simply broken down into measurable dna, hormones, flesh, etc.? Why are you so passionate in your argument that we must fall into boxes only defined by two options? Define yourself in a box all you want, but when did you gain the power to define someone else?
This, Tildeb, is what you continually seem to be either incapable of accepting or unwilling to accept: your opinion is irrelevant if (it were) I am a woman locked in a man’s body. Your measurements are irrelevant. Your arguments are irrelevant. It continually amazes me that you can be so apparently intelligent yet unable to grasp that.
The ONLY thing your opinion, measurements, arguments, etc., has relevance to is how you will accept that I AM WHO I AM! This is the whole concept behind the Pride Movement. This is the whole issue behind children being launched into the streets because a parent “can’t love a gay child”. This is the whole horror that a person can be fired, not get a damn cake or blocked from loving and marrying who they love. This is the whole concept that a gay person’s partner would have no legal or medical rights to speak for them. The Pride Movement is necessary, LGBT PRIDE IS NECESSARY because pretentious little piss ants feel they have the right to deny who I am, that I can be denied my very being.
Tildeb, the gestalt of who you are, of who I am, of each and every human being – the gestalt is not a sum of the parts you can measure. I am sorry that you can’t see this and I am sad for you that you are oblivious to the beauty of the unique human being. More I am terribly concerned that you and others like you feel you have the right to not only ignore that others are different than whatever box you have locked yourself into, but that you see those others lesser than you, immoral, not real, not worthy of their personhood, their identity, their uniqueness, their growth, their worthiness to BE. You, and you others, have NO RIGHT to do that.
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Funny how insisting that males cannot be females and females cannot be males seems to bring out this diatribe about attacking gays and not respecting people. It’s absolutely not the case.
Randy, are you not in the least concerned that a significant majority of transitioners are autistic and slightly more than half appear to be same-sex attracted? In my mind, this should raise the very real possibility that young gays and lesbians are being ‘championed’ by older gays and lesbians to transition the gay away. I sincerely doubt you want to help facilitate this. In the minds AND TESTIMONY of many doctors and counsellors at Tavistock, the running ‘joke’ before the clinic was to all intents and purposes shut down for gross medical negligence, was that at the rate of children transitioning, there would be no gays left. Not my words, mind you, but theirs. In the Cass Report. Vilifying me doesn’t address what I think is a really important concern. Are young gays and lesbians being harmed by gender ideology? I think there is very strong evidence that this IS the case. And I think this is terrible.
I also notice that you don’t bother to address my previous comment exploring the problem of insisting that BELIEF should drive medical practice as it does in gender care. Allowing belief this role opens the door to all kinds of what is called iatrogenic harm (harm caused by medical procedures) yet the same practice basing medical care on ‘gender’ doesn’t seem to alert you to the very great harm that can result when basic biology is denied and medical sex-based issues and concerns are recast as if ‘hate’ and ‘bigotry’. Well, the rate of harm is growing. That should cause a rise of concern rather than Scottie’s tactic of always doubling down that any and all contrary evidence is always lies and deceit and brought about only by Terrible People out to attack gays. That’s simply not what detransitioners are telling us nor gets rid of the rising rate of lawsuits nor explains the sudden haste of rewriting of policies and procedures to try to offer greater legal cover for those who carry out ‘care’ that causes harm. These issues and not me is what has prompted various European countries to put the brakes on gender care and do systemic reviews that shuts down the open door policy still in full swing in many other western countries.
Identifying as a sex one is not, and insisting that everyone must go along with this lie, translates into gross medical negligence for basic medical care like screening and various cancers not to mention obstetrics and gynecology and pain management. Males and females are significantly different BECAUSE the biology is significantly different. Identifying as something other than what one is translates into a much greater risk for iatrogenic harm. Not recognizing basic biology but going along with a lie and demanding medicine goes along with denying reality carries a cost that I don’t think you’ve spent any time actually considering. Maybe my comments will get you to think more about this rather than waste even more time and effort thinking you must go along with Scottie’s warped view to vilify me for what you mistakenly BELIEVE are my (imaginary) intolerant and bigoted motives. If we cannot respect what’s true first and foremost, then we cannot have a honest and respectful discussion when you assume I must be an intolerant bigot and a Terrible Person for putting forth this baseline.
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Tildeb studies have been conducted and shown that kids are not being pushed in to transitioning, gay people or parents are not more ashamed of a gay child then a trans one, and that being trans is a not social contagion. You are again repeating stuff that has been disproven because you don’t like it. Again it is stupid right wing talking points to cause fear and mislead people. That is why you’re clearly a bigot and ideological driven. As for Tavistock it was a badly run understaffed clinic. But the report on them was conducted by a very anti-trans person, and the report was found to be incorrect. Even the report recommended that more trans care be provided but in multiple clinics instead of one. Cass called for conversion therapy for trans kids, and that is medically proven not to work and also to cause more health problems. This is the same approach fundamentalist Christians take with gay kids, never works.
Tildeb gender affirming care for trans kids is the accepted best practices. You claim that those who accept the medical science are deluded and only running on belief. Well that is what you and the rest of the anti-trans groups are doing. You are ignoring the well established medical science. I go by medical studies, scientific data, and what the majority of medical organizations promote as best medical practices. What you are doing is not only ignoring all that but claiming you know better. Shades of anti-vaxxers.
The rate of harm is not growing, just as the Covid vaccine did not cause more deaths than covid. What is growing is the non-stop shouting on all right wing media of misinformation and lies by people like you. Plus fundamentalist religious right wing positions use the false and misleading stuff you spread to make laws harmful to trans people. That is the real harm done to kids, denying them care based on lies. Time and time again I use medically sound data to prove you wrong but you don’t reconsider, you just plow ahead spewing more disinformation.
Those who regret transitioning or as some call them detransitioners are a very small segment of the people who transition. Here are the facts. 96% of those who transition are very happy that they did so. 4% claim to regret it, and over 2% claim it is because of family pressure. So that means only 1.8% regret transitioning due to not still identifying as the gender they changed to.
So as I once as both you and Nan, should we stop doing a best practice medical treatment because 4 out of 100 are unhappy. That means 96 people who are glad to have done so are denied! Does that make sense to you? Hey, did you know that was one of the best satisfaction rates around medical treatments. 12% regret getting tattoos, 20% regret knee surgery, 21% regret spinal surgery, and the regret rate for all surgeries is 14%. By your reasoning, we need to ban them all
https://checkyourfact.com/2023/05/26/fact-check-rate-of-regret-gender-affirming-surgery/
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Tildeb, you are stuck in the past. Medical advances prove you wrong on the idea that sex is binary. But some people can not accept changes and new information that changes what they always claimed is true.
Stomping your feet and repeating something false over and over doesn’t make it true. I remember a story on the development of faster rail trains when the country started using them. The railway rep was saying that these new trains would go over 35 mph. One man in the crowd stood up and shouted, “What do you takes us for fools. No one can live at that speed”!
Intersex is part of the spectrum. Biologists and doctors don’t consider it a disorder. There are more people with degrees of intersex conditions than people with red hair. Look it up. It is far more common than once thought. Again advances in medical understandings / technology. I have posted on this so I am not going to repeat myself too much. Sex is made up of the chemical soup in our bodies. You can be a female who gave birth and yet have half your chemical markers show you are male. Here is why sex is a spectrum, male and female is a sliding scale that depends on chromosomes, genes, gene switches, and lots of other components to place a person on that sliding scale. A person can be all the way to one side or the other, or anywhere in between. It doesn’t stop at the neck, that is stupid, try not to be. This is now medical understand of biology. Catch up please. Here are some things for you to read so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. You once claimed to be a teacher, well you should have no trouble understanding these articles.
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Sex is made up of the chemical soup in our bodies.
Scottie, you continue to (seemingly) confuse the distinction of SEX and GENDER. A child is born with physical characteristics that determine their SEX.
While in some instances there may be things in the “chemical soup/markers” that you reference which indicate some sort of “blending” of GENDER (femaleness. maleness), the physical factors at birth cannot be denied.
This is not to say that there are occasionally physical anomalies at birth, but in the BIG picture, the newborn’s SEX is determined by plumbing. What happens within a person’s psychological makeup AFTER birth is an entirely different can of worms.
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Hello Nan. Do you bother to read the articles or even the titles of the things I post on this subject? I don’t title them. The authors do, in the case of the biology of sex, it is the biologist that title it. I think they know what they are talking about.
Sadly you are the one confusing sex and gender.
Sex is the physical makeup of the body. You even commented that. Gender is a social construct of how people react to the partions of male and female we have socially created.
What is a woman’s work vs a man’s work? I heard that a lot growing up and now it is making a resurgence on right wing media.
Sex is a medical determination of what you are. Gender is who you are.
the physical factors at birth cannot be denied. is back to the outdated and incorrect idea that if it dangles it is a boy / male, and if not it is a girl / female. It is also wrong as I keep typing to you and Tildeb.
The point is that was correct medical understanding 70 years ago and a lot of us grew up thinking that. It is what was taught in schools and reinforced in society. If you had a penis you were male, if not you were female. But medical advances in technology has made it possible to advance medical understandings beyond that. I know you don’t want it to change.
Sex is the physical chemical soup of your body, and the reproductive organs are only a part of that, not the entirety. It is a quick way to make an assumption but it is wrong a lot of the time. That is why biologist now say sex is a spectrum instead of two binary points. To know where someone is on that spectrum you need to know their chemical soup ingredients. Hope this clears it up.
Your way of looking at it more resembles gender than sex. It is what restroom to use, or is someone manly enough or feminine enough to be a male or female. For that you have to accept what the person tells you or acts like. Hugs
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Scottie, I personally could care less what “gender” a person wants to assume. But a newborn’s PHYSICAL attributes are what determines its SEX.
What goes on in a person’s brain/mental state is where this whole argument/discussion is centered. ALL the “proofs” and “studies” you provide are simply reinforcement of this.
Doctors who deliver babies do not say … “Hmmm. This looks to be a boy, but many it’s “gender” is a girl. I guess I’ll call it a he/she.”
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Again Nan, you join Tildeb knowiing more than experts in the field of study, who have years of higher education and practice the understanding of sex and gender.
Sorry you’re stuck in the past and can not move forward into the modern age. But you’re wrong. What dangles or don’t only makes up a social determination, which is gender. Sex is the physical makeup of a person’s body. Read the actual findings of biologists I have posted.
Or stay in the past, thinking something is as it is not. Your choice.
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Sex is the physical makeup of a person’s body. — This is EXACTLY what I am saying! GENDER is a horse of another color.
And sorry, but no. I’m not going to read all the “proofs” you have posted. I have neither the time nor the interest. I only comment because I dislike you telling me my perspective is wrong simply based on the fact that we don’t see the issue in the same way.
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Nan. I posted science articles from biologists. They talked of the human body and what made a body more male or more female. The way you use penis and vagina is social. How we as a society have decided to treat people we think have either one. That is more gender than sex because it is social. That is why you are struggling with the concept. Understand a person can have a dangle yet have half or more of their physical make up, their body chemistry is female. Same with the reverse.
If you bothered to read the damn scientific articles from real trained professionals instead of stubbornly insisting that since it has been that way all your life you won’t accept the new data, you would have a better understanding of the changes in society.
We have to accept that things don’t stay the same, and it is easier for the younger people to accept that change. Your view of what physical sex is not medically true now, but is still socially mostly true. But that is changing.
So die on that hill if you want to, but until you show me you have more qualifications than trained educated professionals in their fields, you are wrong!
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–SIGH–
That is why you are struggling with the concept. No, Scottie. I’m NOT struggling with the concept. YOU are so immersed in this topic that you are totally misinterpreting what I’m saying and reformatting it in your brain to mean what you want it to mean.
I’m NOT talking about GENDER. I’ve tried very hard to make it clear that I’m talking about the physical features that are visible at birth and determine the SEX of a person. What goes on in the brain or the emotions (or whatever is involved in “gender” matters) is an entirely different matter and takes place AFTER birth.
I’m really sorry that you seem unable to grasp what I’m saying, but in any event, rather than continue on and on and on and … let’s just accept that we see things from different perspectives. If you want to think/believe I’m still living in the stone age … well, that’s your prerogative.
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Sorry Nan, but you are wrong. I am the one understanding modern science and you are denying it. The physical features that are visible at birth and determine the SEX of a person are only socially. Not medically. Medically, the sex of a human is a spectrum that people are on.
I am sorry you can not see that the value you place on a penis or vagina regardless of other conditions means more to you than the truth. Sex assignment by examination of what is visual at birth is a social concept. Mostly who gets to go into what bathroom, or what P.E. class one is in.
To be clear. Your determined to make sex what it always has been socially. That is wrong. Just as flat earth theory is wrong. Just as people who deny the age of the earth are wrong.
You are correct about one thing. Gender is in the brain. But how much male chemicals one has and how much female chemicals one has in their body is physical medical science fact. I have tried to make that very clear.
No it doesn’t take place after birth, it is in the person. Their chemical make up. Nan you are stuck in a concept that long ago was discarded. I guess because it is easier for you to sort people, male on one side and female on the other. But that is social, not medical.
I am really sorry you seem unable to grasp what I’m saying. You are correct, we see things differently. I am willing to accept the newer medical understandings, and you are not. You want that easy way it used to be so you can comfortably determine who is male and who is female. Those days are gone. Time as moved on.
Yes we disagree, one of us lives in today, one of us lives in the past. As you wrote.
well, that’s your prerogative. Hugs
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New Father: “Oh look! There’s the head! And now the rest of it. Honey, what shall we call this new creature? I think we should call it a BOY! Boys have many more social advantages in the world today. Yes! This is a BOY.”
Birth Practitioner: “But sir …”
And Scottie, since I am so “backward” in my thinking, with your help and guidance, I have switched the concept I have had of myself all these many years … and I am now a MAN! Praise be!
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Nan, don’t be like Tildeb and ignore what I wrote. I replied to your suggestion that visual inspection was not how a baby’s sex was determined, with the fact it is. I also explained rather patiently that the chemical makeup that determines if one is male or female is biological and that the idea that if it dangles you’re a boy is very different. This anti-science and anti-willing to accept new ways of thinking is something I never would have expected from you, someone who very publically challenged centuries of religious church dogma.
Nan. For the last time, it has nothing to do with switching the concept of who you are. You are talking gender which is a social concept. What it means to be male or female in society is a social idea. You even admitted that.
What seems to me to be the hang-up you have is accepting that someone with a penis could possibly be anything but fully male. I guess because that puts people in neat boxes for you. Boys with penises get to go to this toilet and everyone without go to that one. And you have repeatedly stated you don’t want someone with a penis in a bathroom that you are in. Not that it makes a difference in a stall only bathroom. You can not see anything on the person in another stall. It just gives you a yucky feeling.
But again at the risk of repeating my self is a centuries old myth and social convention.
We now understand medically people can be fully female, somewhat female, or slightly male but still have a vagina. Why is that concept so hard for you?
Your response is totally incorrect, inaccurate of what I wrote to you. Oh well. Be happy. Scottie
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Scottie, you are soooo INTENT on proving that you’re right and I (and tildeb) are wrong! And I find that sad. In nearly EVERY discussion that involves opposite ideas, most folks try to find a meeting of the minds. So far, this has NOT been the case on this topic.
You are your own person and you can believe what you want and live your life as you want. The same holds true for tildeb and me and anyone else that doesn’t fall in line with your perspectives on this topic.
I honor your outlook even though I don’t totally agree with it. Please try to do the same with me.
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Nan, there can be no middle ground on civil rights nor what is accepted as scientific medical best practices accepted as best medical treatment according to the majority of medical originations. . Do you accept the middle ground on abortion the right pushes as acceptable? How many weeks do we tell women your body is not yours but ours now?
You might as well ask me to accept the anti-vax misinformation and conspiracies the Covid deniers scream constantly.
You are your own person and you can believe what you want and live your life as you want.
You are also Nan. But the difference between you and Tildeb is you are struggling to understand a science concept from a social one. Your problem seems to be struggling with the social treatment of people based on their anatomy vs the newer scientific understanding that the reproductive organ is not what makes a person male or female biologically. It is rather that simple.
Tildeb is actively pushing harmful disinformation, lies, and myths to scare people about the agreed on best medical practices. The stuff he pushes is doing active harm to trans kids. I can not let that go by unchallenged, especially when he clearly is disingenuous. If he really wanted the truth, he would not keep repeating the same disproved right wing talking points.
Sorry Nan. I can respect you to an extent. I can not honor your request to honor a proven lie to please someone, or assuage their feelings. I wouldn’t respect your right to call black people the N* word. I wouldn’t respect your right to claim that gay people molest kids to create more gay kids. I won’t accept active harm and bigotry. Remember I dealt with it all my life, something a straight cis woman such as you have no conception of.
Yes Nan, I do show Tildeb is wrong in every way and I use facts. Notice he never argues the facts after I post them. As for you, as long as you deny the reality of modern medical science or promote bigotry in the comments, I will show that is wrong also. I have no problem with people being wrong, but I still might correct misconceptions simply for others reading along. But if you do what Tildeb does and push debunked already talked about issues, I will strongly push back with modern understandings of medical facts and I won’t hesitate to doing so. The stakes are that high.
Remember what Ark use to say, it is not necessarily the person you are replying to you need to reach as they won’t listen, it is those reading along who need to hear the truth. Hugs
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“Remember what Ark use to say, it is not necessarily the person you are replying to you need to reach as they won’t listen, it is those reading along who need to hear the truth.”
Not that irony would ever have much impact on you if it came from me, but Ark wanted to ban SOM (Silence of Mind) and so he and I had that very discussion you mention here and reflect the point I raised with Ark to Nan! Too damn funny.
The other point I raised with him (that you seem to have forgotten) is that I also said he was under no obligation whatsoever to respond to every comment SOM made on his blog, that it was perfectly fine to leave alone especially if he didn’t want to expend additional energy doing so, that others may or may not gain anything from such exchanges but that that wasn’t up to him to determine, that his blog would not suffer with a commentator many disagreed with. But then, I’m a huge fan of Mills.
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Tildeb. I won’t let you lie and misinform without giving people the truth. This is not disagreement, you are actively distorting and spreading harmful right wing propaganda that is harmful to trans kids. You push debunked theories that you know are false. I don’t know why you do it, but you seem driven to. Just as I don’t let people get away with lying about gay people, or black people, or Jewish people, I damn well won’t let you do it here. As I have told you, you have your own blog, post your anti-trans shit there.
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To make clear what I wrote. What dangles makes up how people view others in the social construct of gender. Such as what bathroom to use. It doesn’t determine the fact of where on the female / male a person chemically is.
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Oh Nan. I googled how sex is determined at birth. Hugs
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Human sex is dimorphic. Our entire physiology – every cell in the body – is either male or female except in very rare cases that are deemed a DISORDERm and for very good reasons. Disorders does not a spectrum make! It’s not open to debate. Even with intersex conditions, in all but the most rare occasions, it’s still one or the other. It’s like insisting that coin flips are a spectrum because, in far less extraordinarily rare cases than what we find in humans for sex determination, the coin can land on its edge. I will bet any coin that no one reading your responses claims the flipping of a coin should be widely accepted as a spectrum. It would be far less of a distortion of reality to pretend coin flipping is a spectrum than it is to pretend human sex is spectrum because landing on an edge is not indicative of a coin disorder. Our entire physiology – and all the related systems in the body – is always affected and usually determined inside variation by being either one or the other. That’s why the very rare cases where both exist in the same body is a disorder that causes all kinds of problems to the body that houses it. This dimorphic condition for humans is the result of evolution and not some kind of recently overturned belief system that you keep pretending is the case. Recognizing this brute physiological fact has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what you or I or anyone else FEELS or BELIEVES about masculine or feminine behaviours and roles. It’s just a brute physiological fact. So any biologist who says otherwise is either not being honest or doesn’t understand dimorphic evolution.
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Oh Tildeb. So glad that old you know so much more than the medical scientists who do the research and medical providers who study this and work in the field for a long time to understand their craft, their field of practice. But just like RFK knows more than immunologists and virologists about vaccines, you know more about sex and gender than the professions. So glad you make your self clear on that. What next you’re going to direct the next space launch or program a super computer. Maybe you will change the understandings of physics by claiming that what the researchers have found out is not true and a lie.
Do you see how stupid that sounds? You deny the experts and claim you know more than they do. It makes you a crackpot. Sorry, but to me, you have become an old man yelling at clouds, demanding the world behave as it did in your prime. You are a kid screaming in a grocery store demanding to have your own way because you want it.
Read reports by the fucking experts asshole.
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In spite of your snark, I am going wholly with evolutionary biologists on this one, although I’m absolutely certain that every single name I use to back it up – no matter how famous, no matter how much expertise they have in biological science communication, no matter what area of sex-based expertise they earned their doctorates in – you know, Scottie, and I know that every single one will be summarily dismissed by you as some kind of ‘transphobe’ as if this motivates their conclusions (project much?). Talk about hubris. And yet you accuse me of knowing better than the so-called ‘experts’… but only the ones you search the internet for because – oh look! – they just so happen to state what you want them to state. But the sad fact of the matter is that you know and I know that no amount of self identifying using words will create a prostate in a woman or a uterus in a male. It is absolute reality denial to pretend otherwise. But there you are. That denialism is your starting position armed as you are with what you pretend is this ‘new’ understanding of ‘biologists’. Yet it absolutely flies in the face of reality and more importantly YOU DON’T CARE that it does. In some twisted kind of rationalizing, you justify your biological denialism in the name of protecting gays, which is just incredibly bizarre.
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Hello Tildeb. Thank you for digging your self in deeper as a science denier. I look it as not unusual that people in their later ages, say who can not accept modern science and the social changes around them so argue against them. Dawkins lost it a long time ago as you would know if you followed him, but you just latched on to him because he supports your position. Guess what, I follow his YouTube channel and he has failed for a long time on modern science. He wants his heyday of importance back.
I love how you fail to mention that anyone who disagrees with you, while I post articles that give equal time in them to both sides. Why is that? Maybe I am looking for the truth and trying to understand a changing medical situation, while you are desperate to maintain a past that stigmatized and was harmful to trans kids.
Oh I am glad you admit your opinion is more valuable to you than experts with higher educations and years of study / practice. That does explain a lot.
I am tired of this Tildeb, you run on emotion and anti-science, demanding everyone believe in lies, disinformation, and myths that scare. As I have demonstrated, I deal in facts and you just admitted you dismiss experts for your own opinion. Great idea from someone who claimed to be a science teacher.
Why do I dismiss the people you push as homophones, unreliable, or discredited? It is because they are. I feel you post these Gish gallop responses hoping no one will look into them but instead accept what you are pushing. I don’t, I investigate them even when it takes away from far more enjoyable pursuits. That is about to stop. You have been warned.
That is the difference between you and me Tildeb. I do search things out and I use experts in the fields or experts in the subject medicine, biology, science, data study, and yes even a few personal blogs that took the time to wade through shit I don’t want to. You post right wing talking points, unsupported personal substacks, and wrong information with no accreditation or from people with a known certifiable anti-trans bias.
Face it, Tildeb you’re an anti-trans operative trying your best to muddy the waters. Remember when you championed Riley Gaines as being the victim of an unfair trans woman only to have it come out she tied for 5th place and both lost to four other cis women?
The one denying reality is you. I am sorry, but you have told so many lies, I really don’t care why. What you call denialism is accepting modern medical science, something you seem unable to do.
Tildeb this seems to be your last gasp of hope at making the conversation go your way. But it is getting exceedingly tiresome. You have nothing new to offer except to accuse me of what you are doing. The difference is I list sources and people can easily google what I say.
Tildeb you have had your say, you have posted the misinformation, and lies like a good maga soldier does on every blog that shows tRump did not win the 2020 election. But you have become tiresome and seriously repetitive. Stop now why you can still comment, my patience is at an end with this needless constant drain on my limited time to respond to your almost childish bullshit. You have already been warned! And from the responses I get, you’re not really impressing anyone. Scottie
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Hello Nan. I seriously doubt the doctor doing the delivery orders a battery of test to determine the chromosomes, a DNA test to determine the genes, and what ever other test is needed to tell if the baby is presenting male or female at birth. It would be great if they did that. The delivery room doctor or responsible person inspects the child and glances to see if it dangles or not. Plus the articles that I have posted also show that during puberty different genes and switches change the chemical makeup of the mixture of the soup to show it more male or more female leaning. Again what is between the legs don’t matter to the fact sex is considered a spectrum where what is visible can be different than what the combined chemical makeup. We talked about this you and me on the posts from biologists that tried to explain that. Hugs
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Well spoken, Randy. Good point about helping children, and one is likely able to do so right in one’s own neighborhood. Hungry kids’s top worry is when they next get to eat.
I would reiterate that if someone who feels as strongly as some commenters here is close to a family who’s looking at some sort of gender therapy for their child, look at doing what you can for that family, rather than going to someone else’s blog to spout. Cooking them a supper, now and then without a statement, will be underlining your message of caring. Seems more constructive, less destructive. Most of us here know how most of us here feel about equality for all, so arguing isn’t necessary.
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Hi Ali;
Sad, but you speak so very true. Too many will stand in their self-righteous fury and demand that others conform to their understandings of the world. Can you imagine where we would be if people actually held respect for others to allow them to be themselves, without judgement? To actually be there for them in the joys and turmoil of their lives rather than stand there and declare “I told you so”. That’s not the “neighbor” I grew up understanding I should be.
I really enjoy your perspective, Ali. Thank you.
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Tildeb; You declare yourself in the first paragraph. Get this: Your insistence is not relevant.
You are stuck in this belief that biology makes identity. Sexual Orientation is not the same as sexual identity, by the way. I should think you would have understood that by now, as long as you have come to this blog. The fact that you would use that bullshit statement shows just how reaching you have become on this topic. You are stuck in this belief that your opinion of another person’s identity hold any relevance at all. Please, get that in your skull. I am fascinated by your stubborn cling to the premise that if only you could convince me that your opinion or argument or evidence of another person’s identity was false that you would be right.
Further, I’ve not vilified you. It’s not about you, dude. You have the right to your opinion. You have NO RIGHT to place your opinion over the identity of another person – and that is the whole damn point that you can’t seem to get over.
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And again, well spoken.
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It’s not an opinion, Randy. It’s starting with respecting reality as the arbiter of our beliefs about it. Sex is binary. That is incontrovertible. Pretending otherwise does not serve what’s true. It serves something/someone else. And that is usually an incoherent ideology called ‘gender ideology’… belief that we really do have some kind of mysterious and invisible driver called ‘gender identity’ that is supposedly fixed yet quite fluid, and that when the ‘two’ don’t ‘align’, why then it’s perfectly sane to introduce developmentally retarding chemicals and surgeries because of course it’s reasonable to claim we can be born in the ‘wrong’ body and these ‘therapies’ will help make the right connections. Yup, no belief going on here. No, no, no. Just good science. Gender ideologues tell us so.
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Tildeb. Enough. The subject of sex being a spectrum has been gone over and shown medically and scientifically true. Mention it again and I will stop you from commenting. You have become tiresomely repetitive in your denial of modern medical science. I simply feel no matter what is responded, no matter the experts or facts, you disregard them for your opinion and the opportunity to push right wing anti-trans hate shit.
Do it again and I will ban you! I will not keep wasting my time on someone who is no different from a young earth creationist.
You had your run, everything you said has been address and proven wrong. Stop repeating already debunked lies or get banned. Your choice. Do I make myself clear? Either bring a new argument to the table or refrain from repeating comments I have already spent valuable time refuting.
Scottie, the owner of this blog!
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