This subject reminds me a bit of the arguments against giving money to panhandlers. Many of them are grifters. Many are mentally ill or substance addicts or both. And some - a few - are just once-productive people way down on their luck, and hoping to return to a dignified life. There are people who never give, because it encourages stasis, some who always give, because "be kind" and some who give if the panhandler has a dog (blackmail), and some who give on a cold day but not a warm one, and so forth. There's no perfect solution but the one point I hold on to is that if it is a private transaction, being kind in the same way we tell white lies ("Do I look fat in these jeans?"), it is a whole different ball game from a public transaction, because it is not consequential in any significant way. Public dissenting consistency is where there are gains to be made, and where our energies should be directed.
The number of transitioners will eventually grow fewer year by year, as the numbers of detransitioners will grow larger and their regret louder. Old women who are really men are not inspiring. The fashion will fade and will eventually be seen as ugly, which, of course, it is.
Small violations of gender are equal to or greater than small violations of the first amendment. Both have macro effects. So our actions will have meanings and reverberations far beyond courtesy or kindness. Do I call my wife's son "she?" I do. Do I ever think of him as she? Never.
Ninety-five percent of the trans people I have ever met or seen are conspicuously not the sex they claim to be—they are something else. As a man, I know what it is like to be in the presence of a woman, beautiful or unbeautiful, and it is not that easy to fool me. I think the most important thing whatever your comportment is to remain aware of what you actually think.
I find this entire discussion unbearable because it reminds me how privileged we are in the west to even be having this conversation. As we speak, little girls bodies are being repeatedly raped by men who think they're entitled to shove their penis into her tiny little vagina because they've paid a couple of dollars to her pimp/torturer/slave owner.
The fact that we spend so much time, energy and resources accommodating fetishists and freaks leaves me quaking with righteous rage. Meanwhile, that little girl endures unfathomable suffering because we have abandoned her. As this patriarchal culture continues to centre men's fetishes, and feeds its obsession with controlling women's bodies, we're collectively losing our minds. Now these men have the ultimate power to redefine reality. It's unspeakable in its sociopathy.
The saddest thing of all is that women's socialization as nurturers has been weaponized against us. Our desire to 'be kind' has effectively decapitated the women's liberation movement. Andrea Dworkin would be absolutely stunned by what women are agreeing to in trans ideology.
I despair for my daughter and my 16 year old grandaughter.
Dawn Ennis, also trans, brings up the biblical Golden Rule, “Treat others how you would want to be treated.” <-- Well, if that’s the case, I shouldn’t use a “preferred pronoun” at all because it promotes a lie and this is not how I wish to be treated.
Most of the adult men who want us to believe that they are women are heterosexual with the sexual fetish of autogynephilia. They get sexual arousal when people “validate” their insistence that they are women. So to be polite, we are supposed to join in playing along with their sexual fetish?! Why? Why do we have to be involved in their sexual fetish?
The answer lies in "most." Why should genuinely dysphoric people be punished because their condition is being exploited by fetishists? I went to a concert a few months ago. The pianist was Sara Davis Buechner, a transwoman who transitioned decades ago, before it became fashionable. Her presentation is *echt* female. Nothing flashy, modest clothing. Her music is obviously the reigning passion in her life. She isn't an activist. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know. I'm with friends and we're talking about her electric performance. It would be a monumental effort for me to keep summoning the word "he" to describe what I am looking out, and if I did use "he" my friends would be puzzled, as well they might be. Then *I* would be the talking point, not Buechner or the music. Where's the benefit there? That I was consistent? It was a private moment in my own life, not my public life. If I did that, it would register as hostility to the pianist, not as loyalty to women's sex-based rights. We complain about purity spirals amongst the woke. Absolute consistency on this file can start to look a lot like purity spiral that shrinks your appeal to a choir. I'd rather craft a strategy that allows me a wider audience, including the undecideds.
Agreed and I also think that people fail to realize that the application of pronouns is actually contingent on our (secondary) sex characteristics rather than our literal status as women and men. That’s because when you observe someone in public, you do not have any immediate means of verifying their biological status. Now obviously, we are going to be correct in almost 100% of cases when we rely on sex characteristics because trans people are such a tiny proportion of the population, then on top of that, a good faction of trans-identifying males cannot pass. But the point I make is that if our first impulse upon looking at someone is to describe them as “she”, then it is later learned the person is biologically male-- it would not be inconsistent to continue describing that person as “she” since they do in fact have the secondary sex characteristics of females.
The inconsistency comes when describing someone who DOES exhibit male characteristics as a “she”, because at that point, it is purely ideological. I don’t think we should be adjusting our language to accommodate ideologues, but when it comes to people who are minding their business, have no relationship with this perverted “movement”, but have to rely on medicalization to alter their phenotype bc it’s the only path available for them to live a normal life --- I don’t think it’s detrimental or contradictory to use a pronoun that we’d otherwise use for them anyway.
"when it comes to people who... have to rely on medicalization to alter their phenotype bc it’s the only path available for them to live a normal life...."
No. When a mentally disturbed man pumps his body full of wrong sex hormones and has half a dozen surgeries to turn his penis inside out and connect it to part of his colon, that's not what any sane person would consider a "normal life."
Ok, fine. That isn’t a “normal” life but it is as close to normalcy that the can get given their inhibitions. My point was not to suggest that they don’t have serious issues -- Just that it really isn’t necessary to conflate people who are not promoting negativity and actually work to blend into society with these god-awful ideologues.
No. The whole"trans" debacle has proved to be so out of control, so damaging to the larger society, none of them, without exception, should ever be allowed to pass themselves off as something they are not.
But even back when it was uncommon, there seems to have been a consensus that if someone submitted to the surgery, then "transsexuals" had earned the right to opposite-sex pronouns. If you don't make exceptions even for them, who is going to take your prescription seriously? Who is going to enforce this "should"? It's all very well for private individuals to take this stand, but as a journalist, I need to recognize that politics is "the art of the possible." Your stand is simply not possible today as a public policy.
Caroline Corado-Perez did a podcast (Visible Women) on why more men are concert pianists than women are. Basically - piano keys are too far apart for women to comfortably (and thus, reliably) play complex pieces with long chords. Pianos are designed based on men’s hand size.
Mr. Beuchner can mimic feminine accoutrements as much as he wants, he’s still a man and his ability to perform piano as a concert pianist is greatly amplified by his sex.
Why can’t he wear the clothes he wears while still acknowledging that he’s a man?
Pronouns are to help the listener understand who the speaker is talking about. They aren't to indulge the people being spoken of, or to make definitive statements about the person's biology. If the person being referred to looks like a woman, or I believe the listener believes the person looks like a woman, I use she. Unless dealing with a biological issue, as in medicine or certain crimes. Very simple.
Yes, why are we normalizing this deviance? Especially since the "success" of these AGP males convinces other, younger, males to adopt this perverse and psychotic delusion?
George, please watch the 45 minute video linked below. It will explain exactly why this perverted and harmful "trans" nonsense is now being pushed down our throats.
Homo sapiens are a dimorphic species and everyone of us is born either male or female and our conscious selves can exist only within our physical sexed bodies until we die. Cosmetic surgeries and wrong sex hormones cannot actually change the biological sex each individual has been born as.
Nobody can change sex and there are no convincing arguments that there is any benefit for the law and all of society to be compelled to pretend that it is possible. Not only should trans genderism be dismissed as a fantasy but there are many more convincing arguments why the premise harms the rights, safety and dignity of a very large proportion of society and should be rejected on that basis.
Endorsing the use of preferred pronouns harms more people than it benefits. So my strategy is stick to reality and let the individuals who are confused take responsibility for getting appropriate therapy.
This was a pleasure to read and echoes my own positions very closely. It was interesting reading about the thoughts of someone else doing precisely what I was doing as I read the initial essays.
So if a guy looks really feminine, he gets a “she”, but if his makeup/hair etc. leave something to be desired, then it’s “he”. That approach is just acceptance of the trans ideology. Interestingly, you don’t find trans-identified males trying to look like Angela Merkel, for example (or Nicola Sturgeon 🤣)
WEll, in my last post, I described a world-famous pianist who is not beautiful, but whose presentation is so typical of a middle-aged woman, you'd be hard-pressed to find the man behind the lamination. The transwomen I have met and interacted with have contacted me because they are NOT activists, and just live their lives without fanfare. They go for a very standard look. They have jobs and friends. They know they have a disorder, and this is how they cope with it. They aren't in women's locker rooms. If you saw them in a bathroom, you would not be afraid, because you'd have to look very closely to know, and they would not be seeking eye contact. We see so many kinky guys with beards and frilly lingerie on social media, we tend to forget about the genuine article. I for one have no wish to add to their considerable mental burden, which is diminished with transition, but never disappears.
but it's true: if it looks like a man/woman, talks like a man/woman etc, it feels much more natural and less coercive.
i've met multiple people at parties and had no idea they were "trans", so there was zero issue; then i've had my nephew bring over a scruffy young man in makeup and nail polish and told me they "identify as a woman" LOL and I should call them "she" or "they".
at which point i usually just crack up and avoid them.
A friend should be honest when honesty is helpful. Am I doing something stupid as a parent? Please confront me. Is my new haircut ugly? Please let me know. However, if I made a parenting mistake 10 years ago that I cannot correct now, I don't want my friends to add to my guilt by honesty. And if I look 10 years older than my age, please please lie to my face.:)
No. Sorry. I did not hit the heart button for this article.
Pronouns are the gateway drug to "trans"madness. And if this hurts the tender feelings of the mythological creature, the so-called "true trans," let them book an appointment with a psychiatrist. A non-affirming psychiatrist.
I will not participate in the pronoun stupidity. I don't care who is offended. Luckily, I am retired so no one can coerce me into lying with my speech.
No one owns the language. So, no one can unilaterally redefine the "plural pronoun they" to refer to a single person. Nor can a woman force me to use "he" in referring to her.
It is not "kind" to use a person's "preferred pronouns." Engaging in that delusion only perpetuates and spreads a contagious psychiatric disorder. Children are often the victims of this contagion and it inflicts psychological and physical suffering on them. Causing that suffering is cruelty, not kindness. The rights of society and its most vulnerable people are more important than the wounded feelings of a narcissist. I will use the pronouns that are consistent with observable reality, which in some instances may include calling a man "she" and a woman "he" but I will not be compelled to use "preferred pronouns" by an unreasonable request from a narcissist.
So often I will read an essay on this topic, where I agree with most of it. This is the first, where I agree with all of it, for exactly the same reasons.
Thank you for writing the essay I would have written if I had a way with words.
Well, maybe if asked, Buechner would happily say he is a biological man. How do I know? All I can say is that if I did not know he was trans, I would say I am looking at a woman. The presentation is accurate and not at all exaggerated. I won't rehearse my reasons for referring to Buechner as "she" but I am at peace with that decision.
Re pronouns as a sign of “genuine respect for the truly dysphoric (rare, often lost in the shuffle amongst the LARPers, the contagion-infected and the kinky).”
1. Dysphoric just means they are truly unhappy with the sex of their body. Lots and lots of people, including the contagion-infected and the kinky, really truly meet the criteria for “gender dysphoria.” That’s a problem with this very slippery and vague diagnosis: all sorts of people truly fall under it. So I don’t think “truly dysphoric” is a useful criterion.
2. Some people think there’s some sort of “real and rare” condition of “being trans” separate from the categories (like the large wave of teens, and the kinksters) they view as being “less real.” But truly, this thing we call “being trans” in the 21st century West, which evolved from and is quite different from what we called “being trans” in the 20th century West, is a pure _cultural creation_ and not a “real” physical condition in any way. Trans as a concept is truly something we made up. Other cultures have made up much better (and more functional!) narratives and niches for their gender nonconforming people:
3. Even if there were some sort of “true” gender dysphoric (there’s not-- if they fall under the diagnosis, they fall under the diagnosis--which indicates a problem with the diagnosis) -- but if there WERE an “ideal” and “real” example of someone who was gender-nonconforming from earliest childhood, really simply wishes he or she were the opposite sex, and gives it their earnest best shot, I’m not sure going along with their pronouns is necessarily a sign of respect and kindness.
I’m less sure on this point than the other two points, but I’m...fairly sure that’s what I think.
Do we call anorexic people Fatty because it fits their beliefs? Do we agree with people with body dysmorphia (who have a false belief that they are deformed), that yes, they are unbearable to look at? Do we agree with a psychotic person that yes, the CIA is after them, so barricading themselves at home is an excellent idea?
Or would we view those things as unkind, counterproductive, condescending, ultimately harmful to a person who is truly struggling and deserves care and compassion but maybe not our “agreement”?
Yes, I agree. I do not refer to myself as a "cis male". I refer to myself as a "normal male".
The term "normal" is very interesting. Today, NO ONE will say that anything is normal. In church, we do responsive reading. There is the italicized text, and there is the other text. I listen for the term used for this - "bold" (it's actually not bold), straight. The service leader wiggles and squirms to find a term that can be used. I use "regular" or "normal" for this text.
This subject reminds me a bit of the arguments against giving money to panhandlers. Many of them are grifters. Many are mentally ill or substance addicts or both. And some - a few - are just once-productive people way down on their luck, and hoping to return to a dignified life. There are people who never give, because it encourages stasis, some who always give, because "be kind" and some who give if the panhandler has a dog (blackmail), and some who give on a cold day but not a warm one, and so forth. There's no perfect solution but the one point I hold on to is that if it is a private transaction, being kind in the same way we tell white lies ("Do I look fat in these jeans?"), it is a whole different ball game from a public transaction, because it is not consequential in any significant way. Public dissenting consistency is where there are gains to be made, and where our energies should be directed.
The number of transitioners will eventually grow fewer year by year, as the numbers of detransitioners will grow larger and their regret louder. Old women who are really men are not inspiring. The fashion will fade and will eventually be seen as ugly, which, of course, it is.
Small violations of gender are equal to or greater than small violations of the first amendment. Both have macro effects. So our actions will have meanings and reverberations far beyond courtesy or kindness. Do I call my wife's son "she?" I do. Do I ever think of him as she? Never.
Ninety-five percent of the trans people I have ever met or seen are conspicuously not the sex they claim to be—they are something else. As a man, I know what it is like to be in the presence of a woman, beautiful or unbeautiful, and it is not that easy to fool me. I think the most important thing whatever your comportment is to remain aware of what you actually think.
excellent analogy
I find this entire discussion unbearable because it reminds me how privileged we are in the west to even be having this conversation. As we speak, little girls bodies are being repeatedly raped by men who think they're entitled to shove their penis into her tiny little vagina because they've paid a couple of dollars to her pimp/torturer/slave owner.
The fact that we spend so much time, energy and resources accommodating fetishists and freaks leaves me quaking with righteous rage. Meanwhile, that little girl endures unfathomable suffering because we have abandoned her. As this patriarchal culture continues to centre men's fetishes, and feeds its obsession with controlling women's bodies, we're collectively losing our minds. Now these men have the ultimate power to redefine reality. It's unspeakable in its sociopathy.
The saddest thing of all is that women's socialization as nurturers has been weaponized against us. Our desire to 'be kind' has effectively decapitated the women's liberation movement. Andrea Dworkin would be absolutely stunned by what women are agreeing to in trans ideology.
I despair for my daughter and my 16 year old grandaughter.
Dawn Ennis, also trans, brings up the biblical Golden Rule, “Treat others how you would want to be treated.” <-- Well, if that’s the case, I shouldn’t use a “preferred pronoun” at all because it promotes a lie and this is not how I wish to be treated.
Most of the adult men who want us to believe that they are women are heterosexual with the sexual fetish of autogynephilia. They get sexual arousal when people “validate” their insistence that they are women. So to be polite, we are supposed to join in playing along with their sexual fetish?! Why? Why do we have to be involved in their sexual fetish?
The answer lies in "most." Why should genuinely dysphoric people be punished because their condition is being exploited by fetishists? I went to a concert a few months ago. The pianist was Sara Davis Buechner, a transwoman who transitioned decades ago, before it became fashionable. Her presentation is *echt* female. Nothing flashy, modest clothing. Her music is obviously the reigning passion in her life. She isn't an activist. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know. I'm with friends and we're talking about her electric performance. It would be a monumental effort for me to keep summoning the word "he" to describe what I am looking out, and if I did use "he" my friends would be puzzled, as well they might be. Then *I* would be the talking point, not Buechner or the music. Where's the benefit there? That I was consistent? It was a private moment in my own life, not my public life. If I did that, it would register as hostility to the pianist, not as loyalty to women's sex-based rights. We complain about purity spirals amongst the woke. Absolute consistency on this file can start to look a lot like purity spiral that shrinks your appeal to a choir. I'd rather craft a strategy that allows me a wider audience, including the undecideds.
And "she" is a man.
Agreed and I also think that people fail to realize that the application of pronouns is actually contingent on our (secondary) sex characteristics rather than our literal status as women and men. That’s because when you observe someone in public, you do not have any immediate means of verifying their biological status. Now obviously, we are going to be correct in almost 100% of cases when we rely on sex characteristics because trans people are such a tiny proportion of the population, then on top of that, a good faction of trans-identifying males cannot pass. But the point I make is that if our first impulse upon looking at someone is to describe them as “she”, then it is later learned the person is biologically male-- it would not be inconsistent to continue describing that person as “she” since they do in fact have the secondary sex characteristics of females.
The inconsistency comes when describing someone who DOES exhibit male characteristics as a “she”, because at that point, it is purely ideological. I don’t think we should be adjusting our language to accommodate ideologues, but when it comes to people who are minding their business, have no relationship with this perverted “movement”, but have to rely on medicalization to alter their phenotype bc it’s the only path available for them to live a normal life --- I don’t think it’s detrimental or contradictory to use a pronoun that we’d otherwise use for them anyway.
"when it comes to people who... have to rely on medicalization to alter their phenotype bc it’s the only path available for them to live a normal life...."
No. When a mentally disturbed man pumps his body full of wrong sex hormones and has half a dozen surgeries to turn his penis inside out and connect it to part of his colon, that's not what any sane person would consider a "normal life."
Ok, fine. That isn’t a “normal” life but it is as close to normalcy that the can get given their inhibitions. My point was not to suggest that they don’t have serious issues -- Just that it really isn’t necessary to conflate people who are not promoting negativity and actually work to blend into society with these god-awful ideologues.
No. The whole"trans" debacle has proved to be so out of control, so damaging to the larger society, none of them, without exception, should ever be allowed to pass themselves off as something they are not.
But even back when it was uncommon, there seems to have been a consensus that if someone submitted to the surgery, then "transsexuals" had earned the right to opposite-sex pronouns. If you don't make exceptions even for them, who is going to take your prescription seriously? Who is going to enforce this "should"? It's all very well for private individuals to take this stand, but as a journalist, I need to recognize that politics is "the art of the possible." Your stand is simply not possible today as a public policy.
Caroline Corado-Perez did a podcast (Visible Women) on why more men are concert pianists than women are. Basically - piano keys are too far apart for women to comfortably (and thus, reliably) play complex pieces with long chords. Pianos are designed based on men’s hand size.
Mr. Beuchner can mimic feminine accoutrements as much as he wants, he’s still a man and his ability to perform piano as a concert pianist is greatly amplified by his sex.
Why can’t he wear the clothes he wears while still acknowledging that he’s a man?
Pronouns are to help the listener understand who the speaker is talking about. They aren't to indulge the people being spoken of, or to make definitive statements about the person's biology. If the person being referred to looks like a woman, or I believe the listener believes the person looks like a woman, I use she. Unless dealing with a biological issue, as in medicine or certain crimes. Very simple.
Not so simple for those of us who have different goals than you have.
No. You haven't made the case that lying to prop up a delusion or avoid social censure is "very simple."
No.
I won't do it.
Yes, why are we normalizing this deviance? Especially since the "success" of these AGP males convinces other, younger, males to adopt this perverse and psychotic delusion?
Don't normalize this dysphoria.
George, please watch the 45 minute video linked below. It will explain exactly why this perverted and harmful "trans" nonsense is now being pushed down our throats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGKxSyEqCgU
Homo sapiens are a dimorphic species and everyone of us is born either male or female and our conscious selves can exist only within our physical sexed bodies until we die. Cosmetic surgeries and wrong sex hormones cannot actually change the biological sex each individual has been born as.
Nobody can change sex and there are no convincing arguments that there is any benefit for the law and all of society to be compelled to pretend that it is possible. Not only should trans genderism be dismissed as a fantasy but there are many more convincing arguments why the premise harms the rights, safety and dignity of a very large proportion of society and should be rejected on that basis.
Endorsing the use of preferred pronouns harms more people than it benefits. So my strategy is stick to reality and let the individuals who are confused take responsibility for getting appropriate therapy.
My goodness you have a gift with words, Barbara.
This was a pleasure to read and echoes my own positions very closely. It was interesting reading about the thoughts of someone else doing precisely what I was doing as I read the initial essays.
So if a guy looks really feminine, he gets a “she”, but if his makeup/hair etc. leave something to be desired, then it’s “he”. That approach is just acceptance of the trans ideology. Interestingly, you don’t find trans-identified males trying to look like Angela Merkel, for example (or Nicola Sturgeon 🤣)
WEll, in my last post, I described a world-famous pianist who is not beautiful, but whose presentation is so typical of a middle-aged woman, you'd be hard-pressed to find the man behind the lamination. The transwomen I have met and interacted with have contacted me because they are NOT activists, and just live their lives without fanfare. They go for a very standard look. They have jobs and friends. They know they have a disorder, and this is how they cope with it. They aren't in women's locker rooms. If you saw them in a bathroom, you would not be afraid, because you'd have to look very closely to know, and they would not be seeking eye contact. We see so many kinky guys with beards and frilly lingerie on social media, we tend to forget about the genuine article. I for one have no wish to add to their considerable mental burden, which is diminished with transition, but never disappears.
i think they call it "passing privilege" LOL
but it's true: if it looks like a man/woman, talks like a man/woman etc, it feels much more natural and less coercive.
i've met multiple people at parties and had no idea they were "trans", so there was zero issue; then i've had my nephew bring over a scruffy young man in makeup and nail polish and told me they "identify as a woman" LOL and I should call them "she" or "they".
at which point i usually just crack up and avoid them.
True fakes vs. false fakes? My head is about to explode. LOL!
I disagree with the friendship point, a friend should be honest more than dishonestly kind.
A friend should be honest when honesty is helpful. Am I doing something stupid as a parent? Please confront me. Is my new haircut ugly? Please let me know. However, if I made a parenting mistake 10 years ago that I cannot correct now, I don't want my friends to add to my guilt by honesty. And if I look 10 years older than my age, please please lie to my face.:)
Haha, for sure!
No. Sorry. I did not hit the heart button for this article.
Pronouns are the gateway drug to "trans"madness. And if this hurts the tender feelings of the mythological creature, the so-called "true trans," let them book an appointment with a psychiatrist. A non-affirming psychiatrist.
Well-written.
I will not participate in the pronoun stupidity. I don't care who is offended. Luckily, I am retired so no one can coerce me into lying with my speech.
No one owns the language. So, no one can unilaterally redefine the "plural pronoun they" to refer to a single person. Nor can a woman force me to use "he" in referring to her.
It is not "kind" to use a person's "preferred pronouns." Engaging in that delusion only perpetuates and spreads a contagious psychiatric disorder. Children are often the victims of this contagion and it inflicts psychological and physical suffering on them. Causing that suffering is cruelty, not kindness. The rights of society and its most vulnerable people are more important than the wounded feelings of a narcissist. I will use the pronouns that are consistent with observable reality, which in some instances may include calling a man "she" and a woman "he" but I will not be compelled to use "preferred pronouns" by an unreasonable request from a narcissist.
So often I will read an essay on this topic, where I agree with most of it. This is the first, where I agree with all of it, for exactly the same reasons.
Thank you for writing the essay I would have written if I had a way with words.
Well, maybe if asked, Buechner would happily say he is a biological man. How do I know? All I can say is that if I did not know he was trans, I would say I am looking at a woman. The presentation is accurate and not at all exaggerated. I won't rehearse my reasons for referring to Buechner as "she" but I am at peace with that decision.
Re pronouns as a sign of “genuine respect for the truly dysphoric (rare, often lost in the shuffle amongst the LARPers, the contagion-infected and the kinky).”
1. Dysphoric just means they are truly unhappy with the sex of their body. Lots and lots of people, including the contagion-infected and the kinky, really truly meet the criteria for “gender dysphoria.” That’s a problem with this very slippery and vague diagnosis: all sorts of people truly fall under it. So I don’t think “truly dysphoric” is a useful criterion.
https://bprice.substack.com/p/lots-of-kids-have-real-and-diagnosable
2. Some people think there’s some sort of “real and rare” condition of “being trans” separate from the categories (like the large wave of teens, and the kinksters) they view as being “less real.” But truly, this thing we call “being trans” in the 21st century West, which evolved from and is quite different from what we called “being trans” in the 20th century West, is a pure _cultural creation_ and not a “real” physical condition in any way. Trans as a concept is truly something we made up. Other cultures have made up much better (and more functional!) narratives and niches for their gender nonconforming people:
https://bprice.substack.com/p/trans-is-something-we-made-up
3. Even if there were some sort of “true” gender dysphoric (there’s not-- if they fall under the diagnosis, they fall under the diagnosis--which indicates a problem with the diagnosis) -- but if there WERE an “ideal” and “real” example of someone who was gender-nonconforming from earliest childhood, really simply wishes he or she were the opposite sex, and gives it their earnest best shot, I’m not sure going along with their pronouns is necessarily a sign of respect and kindness.
I’m less sure on this point than the other two points, but I’m...fairly sure that’s what I think.
Do we call anorexic people Fatty because it fits their beliefs? Do we agree with people with body dysmorphia (who have a false belief that they are deformed), that yes, they are unbearable to look at? Do we agree with a psychotic person that yes, the CIA is after them, so barricading themselves at home is an excellent idea?
Or would we view those things as unkind, counterproductive, condescending, ultimately harmful to a person who is truly struggling and deserves care and compassion but maybe not our “agreement”?
Just some stuff to think about.
If someone is struggling, they do not solve their struggle by forcing other people to lie. That's not a struggle. That's bullying and coercion.
men are men and women are women. am absolutely not going to be part of any bullshit that says otherwise. there is nothing to discuss.
The phrase "trans woman" doesn't seem so bad, if one interprets it to mean "fake woman".
I dislike the idea that "woman" is open to modification, since I will never use the term "cis woman" either. There aren't 20 "kinds" of women.
Yes, I agree. I do not refer to myself as a "cis male". I refer to myself as a "normal male".
The term "normal" is very interesting. Today, NO ONE will say that anything is normal. In church, we do responsive reading. There is the italicized text, and there is the other text. I listen for the term used for this - "bold" (it's actually not bold), straight. The service leader wiggles and squirms to find a term that can be used. I use "regular" or "normal" for this text.
exactly. I also use the term 'normal.' Normal is a neutral word referring to statistical occurrence. It should not be ... well, de-normed.