Best article I’ve ever read about the trans debate. Really strong feelings on both sides. While live and let live is my default position, I agree mostly with Rowling. The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling “Dress however you please,” Rowlingtweeted in December 2019. “Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotaDrill.” “‘People who menstruate,’” Rowling mused. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” A few days later, she followed up with a 3,700-word essay laying out the reasons why she was so “worried about the new trans activism” and the effort “to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.” She was concerned, she added, about the “huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning.” She described her own struggles with feeling “mentally sexless” as a youth. “I too might have tried to transition,” Rowling wrote, if she’d been born 30 years later. Given a supportive online community, Rowling mused, “I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.
Good point… “The ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanizing and demeaning,” Rowling wrote. “I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”
I have followed this controversy only a little bit. But I have followed it. I have not needed to get into the technicality of the debate, which I think is not my place. But I have noted how she seems to gratuitously seek to provoke those who disagree with her and to bully them. This isn't the case of the random expression of opinion whereby you are attacked. If that happened my sympathies might be a little bit more with her. But she seems to go out of her way to repeat and provoke, which is very disappointing. I had admired her but it makes her come across as a bit of a jerk
I don't understand why anyone would consider such language to be appropriate and kind. It sure as hell wouldn't be if it came from men. I think it's disgusting.
I think I can understand gayness as the result of genes and environment, though the relative influence seems to vary from person to person. What I cannot understand because it's so foreign to me is why someone, a male, for example, would want to take it further and as fully as possible, and through harmones and procedures, transition to a female. I've heard many explain that they felt female from an early age? Why was that? Also genes and/or environment? In the end, whether we understand it or not, we ought to keep an open mind and avoid ostracizing or ridiculing such people. Is it a fad to the extent we ought to pass legislation regulating it? Rowling seems to think so. I just don't know enough.
More in transgender news: I'm fairly certain that New Jersey is thinking about building a prison (or a wing of a prison) for trans women right about now, after a "trans woman" got two women pregnant in a women's prison. Fortunately, New Jersey made the brilliant decision to move the 27-year-old criminal to a "youth correction facility", apparently to avoid the production of more little prisoners. Somehow, I don't think he/she is going to get his/her youth corrected. NJ transgender woman transferred from women’s only prison after impregnating 2 inmates, report says Why was this prisoner in a women's prison?
speaking only for myself, I consider being gay and being transgender as two separate conditions: Glossary of Terms - Human Rights Campaign (hrc.org) Transgender | An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.
I don't think those who oppose the trans "movement" are intentionally ostracizing or ridiculing such people. I think its more of us who feel like we are being forced to participate and conform in what we know to be facts and when we don't, we get labeled as bigots, etc... Throughout my first Bachelor in Psychology, the general consensus was when an individual presented themselves as something that can be verifiable proven false that person suffered from psychosis or a mental detachment from reality. A man who wore dresses and women's make up were considered to suffer from a mental issue. But the infiltration of liberals into the Psychology profession has worked to change the definition. What was once black is now white and anyone who has relied on the previously settled science are chastised and ridiculed for not abandoning the previous science and fully embracing the numerous new genders and sexuality. Personally I could care less if someone thinks they are trapped in the wrong body or if they are gay or not. But that does not give them the right to try to force me recognition of such or for me to validate their beliefs. The gay community originally started out with they wanted to be accepted for who they are and quickly progressed to if you aren't supporting their cause or goals then you are a bigot all while criticizing those who practice their faith. I have personally seen same sex couples raise a child that they did not conceive turn out to be gay because the child learned from observation of the parents that gay marriage is the way. I have seen a family with multiple girls and 1 boy with the parents favoring the girls and the boy came out "trans" because they wanted to be a girl and receive the same level of love and attention from their parents. To say environment has no affect on being gay or trans is foolish. When we look back a decade or more, the number of people in LGBTQ+ was less than a half of percent of the population. Now some estimates claim it could be up to 10% which coincides with the mainstream media push for the cool factor and instant victim status card that can be used during any argument or lost opportunity. To really believe individuals are born this way, one only has to wonder why it took all of these years for it reach the point that it defies all of the years of previous scientific facts. Massive Study Finds No Single Genetic Cause of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior
The article you linked notes that genetics play a part. I don't doubt environmental factors contribute as well and that it's complicated. It seems to me that most human traits probably are complicated and not based on a single gene. Either way, it does not seem to be a mere choice or a "belief." Gay people exist whether you recognize them or whether you want to validate them. It also stands to reason that there will be less openly gay people in societies where it's shunned or even criminal.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I see most sides in this debate as being passionate and reasonable and not wrong. I like to think that we as a society can work this out.
I’ve always thought the same, but most of us need partners to share our lives with. I never gave any thought to with whom they’d partner.
