flobaba You are not missing anything, a trans woman is not a woman. And to make things even worse some think that anyone who says otherwise is a bigot or transphobe.

RowJimmy It is also true that he is wrong about everything. Everything. There is not a single thing he is right about.

Don't think this personally but that attitude is why Trump is the president. I've got family in America who voted for Biden last time and this time switched to Trump and they don't even like Trump but could not stand what the Democrats have become. Your view there seems to be held by the Democrat party as well.

Fetterman gets it.

JazzG it’s hard to absorb any of this when the alternative is to be led by

• convicted felon - for falsifying business records in connection with an extramarital affair with a porn actress
• twice impeached
• charged with conspiracy for January 6 attack that led to 5 deaths
• all the sexual assault stuff
  …

I could give this stuff credibility if the chosen one was a saint. Not this cretin.

JazzG You are not missing anything, a trans woman is not a woman. And to make things even worse some think that anyone who says otherwise is a bigot or transphobe.

Ever been friends with anyone before and after they transitioned with hormone therapy and surgery?

Burnwinter so you determine who is on “the right side” and only then do you engage in good faith or even consider an opinion that is contrary to yours? I guess that’s very admirable. I personally have trouble telling right from wrong infallibly on every single moral and political issue in the world, but I am glad there are people out there who don’t.

Qwiss you of course have proof of me “enabling” them and not “opposing” them right? Didn’t realise you’d been following me around with a film crew in the last few years.

Gurgen so you determine who is on “the right side”

Don't come the raw prawn as they say.

We've exchanged views for years. Many times you've agreed and disagreed with me without a hint of nuance. Most times you express yourself with perfect confidence you're "on the right side". And that's normal. You've got a problem with me doing it? Physician, heal thyself.

RocktheCasbah I've had three friends transition over the last twenty years or so ... three fairly complicated people, two women and one man. Today, they are all happier and more fulfilled than once they were, leading imperfect lives like the rest of us.

Just three anecdotes, but it induces vertigo to think of these cases while reading anti-trans preoccupations about bathroom intrusions and elite sports.

That stuff is just not at all in the picture for these people. I'm talking about an art gallery curator, software developer and a rural high school teacher, neither upsetting anyone nor infringing anyone's rights.

When you observe someone transition you see that "biological sex" is very far from static, binary and immutable. Tip different hormones into an adult body and, subject to many limits of course, that body's expression plastically changes.

That's nothing simple, but it's likely to keep on going because of hormones becoming a commodity. In the words of the recently deceased David Lynch, "fix your hearts or die".

If you want a real, proper social problem to worry about, may I recommend crystal meth addiction and psychosis. I'd be perfectly happy to man the barricades with a few wingnuts if it would keep that shit away from my communities.

You guys are so elite eh?

I don't understand. A man in a woman's body.

Like, that's the point where it ceases to make sense to simple minded folks like me.

flobaba In a few years time people are gonna look back at this and be like what the actual fuck was going on. Especially with the mutilation of kids, that is worst of all this. When someone is an adult they can do whatever makes them happy but leave the kids out of this.

Burnwinter I don't know anyone and I don't think it is relevant nor would I change my views. I do know of a man who transitioned into a woman. I'm happy for your friends and wish them all their best. But they are trans women are not women. They are trans women and there is nothing with that.

Mutilation of which kids?

Claudius Yeah exactly the type of response I expected. What kids, who are these kids you talk of.

JazzG you brought up mutilsted kids, mate. I we are just curious for the facts.

flobaba some people are just better at it than others.

flobaba Oh, and what if I'm trans woman today. Can I decide in like 3 years that eh, been there done that, and go back to being a man? What would I be then? A trans untrans? Retrans?

Sure. Those people exist. The number of people who choose what might be called "medical detrans" here in Australia would be able to fit in one room. My guess is the number will be way more in the future due to much easier access to hormones, but it's still a very small number, a very small fraction of a very small fraction.

1 in 10,000 people or something like that is a lot fewer than the number of persistent violent offenders in my communities. Most of whom are cis men but perhaps I shouldn't say that or someone will get very upset!

That's why I mentioned meth addiction. Within a couple of kilometres of where I was living for the past two months there are a few dozen long term meth addicts, many of them suffering from psychotic symptoms, sleeping rough. They're in a dire state.

Meth addiction is a concrete social problem. Back up in Darwin, the policing of the so-called "long grass" is a concrete social problem. But in my communities, trans identity is not a problem, let alone detransition.

Burnwinter if I feel like I'm a rat, can I do a surgery add some fur and whiskers, high pitch my voice and burrow into some rats nest and expect rats there to be like what's up bro? After all I feel I've been assigned the wrong species? Nope, they'll all run away cos they'd know I'm not a rat despite my hopefully excellent disguise. Personally, I think the trans thing is some sort of mental health issue and needs to be cared for and addressed as such.

It is a mental health issue. Clinical term is gender dysphoria. I'm no expert but the evidence seems to be that the majority of cases are effectively treated by a combination of social-lifestyle changes combined with a variety of surgical and medical (ie hormonal) interventions, that is, "transitioning."
So the question is not whether it's a real thing, but at what point can a reliable diagnosis be made that justifies medical intervention (eg puberty blockers) in minors. That's not a simple question (at least in my mind), but you have to admit it's a real thing in order to address it.

Burnwinter again, I'm absolutely fine with anyone thinking they are anything they want to think. But don't warp my own reality and the reality of the vast majority into yours. That's all I'm saying.

Also, this is very much a first world/rich folks problems. People who don't know where their next meal is coming from, people without resources, they aren't spending their time thinking about switching genders.

flobaba People who don't know where their next meal is coming from, people without resources, they aren't spending their time thinking about switching genders.

No, for your noble poor it's even worse. Those who find themselves without food and without community are the most abject of our species. They carry more pain, not less. They have fewer means to therapy, and starvation is certainly not one of them. Trans people of higher class have those means and use them. They can afford some level of visibility in addressing their needs. Those of lower classes are rendered invisible, often by necessity, because otherwise they are annihilated by the multifactorial violences of capitalism and intolerance. Indeed, their plight is often death, which you would relegate them to with your inverse logic. People aren't trans because they're rich, they are seen because they have means to be.

You want the world to be simple because you are not brave enough to face its complexity. That you want it to be simple doesn't make it so. The willfull ignorance of bigotry always makes a specious claim to realism, common sense, and, yes, simplicity. It is an alluring worldview because you get to be right without doing the work of thinking and make brash claims based on false axioms. You get to have power without responsibility and unearned rights over others. It is a corrosive perspective that erodes the social fabrics of obligation, mutual interest, and intersubjectivity - and it is a solipsim that eats away at the soul of whoever cultivates it within themselves.

flobaba But don't warp my own reality and the reality of the vast majority into yours.

What's warping your reality is the media coverage and social media panic telling you trans people are morons, criminals and perverts ruining your way of life.

Brought to you by more or less the same people who brought you reds under the bed, the Lavender Scare, the boogaloo, the Southern strategy, the welfare queen, the AIDS panic, the superpredator, the Tampa crisis, the seven country travel ban ... curing COVID-19 with bleach ...

Gurgen I just see you posting your general right wing shit and then pretending you aren't a massive rightwinger. Very much the sort of person who enables the far right.

flobaba does it have to make sense? Nobody is expecting you to do anything. Just don't be actively horrible to trans people.

What annoys me so much about anti-trans activists is it doesn't affect their life at all. They're just being horrible for the sake of it.

Qwiss this is basically my approach. I barely understand the science or psychology etc., but I ask myself how does it affect me? Even if i have to do a deal or project with a trans person, how does it affect me? It doesn’t. So I keep shit moving.

Coombs yes, you're right - I'm a bigot. Been hiding it all this while, but it's finally out there. Exposed by my inability to understand how make up and surgery makes a man a woman.

Do we see how this conversation has evolved and escalated?

Burnwinter lol, the media isn't telling me anything. I consume a left leaning diet of news items as that is where my sensibilities mostly align anyway. I'm not sure where I have intimated anywhere that I think trans folk are any of the adjectives you've used to describe them. That's all on you boss.

Qwiss no, people are expecting me to see someone who is a man (or woman), and join them in an alternative world fantasy where I address them as the opposite. And if I refuse to participate, I'm a bigot or a mean person... Somehow, I'm the bad guy. For the record I couldn't care less which bathroom they use. My shit stinks equally terribly to all olfactory nerves, gender regardless. But there's a saying in my native Yoruba: "ma pe aja l'obo fun mi" - don't tell me a dog's a monkey. I can tell the difference myself, thank you.

flobaba Do we see how this conversation has evolved and escalated?

It may have escalated, but it certainly hasn't evolved.

flobaba Exposed by my inability to understand how make up and surgery makes a man a woman.

Also, you've been given the tools to understand by many on here, you just refuse to use them. That's wilfull, and requires calling out. I don't expect you to change your mind, but you certainly shouldn't go unchallenged.

Qwiss thanks for proving my point, enjoy your echo chamber.