Do we have a responsibility to accept transgendered individuals?

Great Debates
301

[QUOTE=Dragoness]
What we have here, I think, is a fundamental difference of worldview. It seems like you’re looking at many things that I see as rather separate phenomena as all contributing to one overall thing- the “atomization of society.” For instance, corporations have certainly become international. This is definite positive and negative effects, but I’m not sure that it has much to do with the atomization of society- after all, did your society rely so much on corporations having patriotic loyalty? There are definite trends- better transportation means that families are more likely to be geographically spread- but then again, that has positive effects (yaay for travel!) and technology goes a long way to compensate for spread-out families. The internet has detrimental effects as far as people focusing on their local communities- but it damn well has positive effects as well. Less nepotism means more opportunities for class mobility and meritocracy- seems like a net good to me. Mulitculturalism is a big mess of a concept, but it doens’t have much to do with tolerating gays or transsexuals at all, does it? Basically, you seem to be conflating a lot of things, and seeing acceptance of transsexuals as one of many factors in the wave of disintigration of society that you’re trying to beat back, when I don’t really think there’s one united wave at all- just a lot of developments in our modern world that chance the way we interact with other people, but don’t exactly spell doom for society. The fundamental difference seems to be liberal and conservative (in the lower-case relatively non-political sense) or maybe optimistic and pessimistic, I don’t know.
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Your mistake is thinking that I am advocating that we act a certain way. I am not at all advocating any course of action, merely examining the issue from multiple angles. I think multiculturalism has everything to do with tolerating gays and transsexuals. Tolerate everyone, cultures can coexist! Which of course is a flat out lie. Cultures cannot coexist. Secularism makes religion subservient to the state. Multiculturalism paves over cultural traditions all the time. Abrahamic religions think that homosexuality is a sin. It’s hard to get around that one and keep the culture intact. In terms of atomization the very fact that I don’t work with my Father is evidence of extreme atomization. It is actually rare that people work in the family business or in some way that can benefit the family directly these days other than the abstract wealth of money that they can bring to the table. (Leaving out emotional attachment)

Right, you are supporting a particular ideology. I am not, or at least I am keeping mine close to the vest in this particular context. I don’t think it is unqualified good or evil. I don’t agree that it is an unqualified Good. The beggars that you see on the streets of a modern Cosmopolis would be relatively unheard of in a tribal society. The problem with this issue is that what is lost is generally of no value to those who think that losing it is a good idea. To those losing it, they are losing something more precious than gold, but largely what is seen from the outside is iron pyrite, or worse, not seen at all. Creative Destruction is the Western Way, it was the way of Rome and the way of Christ. It trampled the indians under the hooves of cavalry, and it turned one tribe against another until colonial powers could dominate the resources of African nations with relatively small bureaucracies. You see it as an unqualified good, but perhaps you do not see colonialism as being the other side of that coin. We live within boxes and interact with boxes, with most of our relationships being centered around what they can ‘do’, our identities tied to what we ‘do’ not who we ‘are’.

302

Bayle Domon Preparing people doesn’t change it from being sudden. It’s like “I am going to shape shift in six months”, but when he finally does it, it’s going to be pretty sudden. Also, the process of it is probably more disturbing than the final result. Regardless of whether it’s drawn out over months or even years it’s not the same as having always been black. See what I mean?

303

[QUOTE=mswas]
Bayle Domon Preparing people doesn’t change it from being sudden. It’s like “I am going to shape shift in six months”, but when he finally does it, it’s going to be pretty sudden. Also, the process of it is probably more disturbing than the final result. Regardless of whether it’s drawn out over months or even years it’s not the same as having always been black. See what I mean?
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No. No, I really don’t. Your point of view is really quite alien to me.

304

[QUOTE=BayleDomon]
No. No, I really don’t. Your point of view is really quite alien to me.
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Ok, black guy, born black, goes to school, still black, goes to college, still black, goes to get a job, still black, quits gets another job still black.

Stanton, born a man (enough to adopt that identity anyhow), goes to school still a man, goes to college still a man, goes to get a job still a man, then somewhere in that time at the job becomes a woman.

Do you see how one has continuity and the other does not? Sure Stanton’s decision might have a pure continuity for Stanton, but not for the external observer who saw Stanton as a Man until suddenly one day he decided he wanted to become a woman.

The realization of “Holy shit even gender’s mutable!” has a pretty profound impact upon the psyche. Sure people who get a sex-change spend years dealing with this notion and come to terms with it enough to make a dramatic life altering change, but it’s kind of just sprung on the people who are observing from the outside.

305

[QUOTE=mswas]

The realization of “Holy shit even gender’s mutable!” has a pretty profound impact upon the psyche. Sure people who get a sex-change spend years dealing with this notion and come to terms with it enough to make a dramatic life altering change, but it’s kind of just sprung on the people who are observing from the outside.
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Oh, dude. That is just lame. Pitiful and lame. Give it up. You have no case. Dying one’s hair blue is ‘sprung on people observing from the outside’. So is pretty much anything someone can do that somebody else doesn’t like. Too bad for them.

Really and truly, your attempt to make a case for the Borg failed from the word go and has no legs. Not only that, you know you’re wrong but will be damned if you’ll admit it. This is just about being stubborn now, isn’t it? You’re going to keep dredging up lame, pitiful arguments that simply haven’t a hope of making a case until when?

306

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
Oh, dude. That is just lame. Pitiful and lame. Give it up. You have no case. Dying one’s hair blue is ‘sprung on people observing from the outside’. So is pretty much anything someone can do that somebody else doesn’t like. Too bad for them.

Really and truly, your attempt to make a case for the Borg failed from the word go and has no legs. Not only that, you know you’re wrong but will be damned if you’ll admit it. This is just about being stubborn now, isn’t it? You’re going to keep dredging up lame, pitiful arguments that simply haven’t a hope of making a case until when?
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Spoken like a person who spends more time arguing points than examining issues.

307

[QUOTE=mswas]
Spoken like a person who spends more time arguing points than examining issues.
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I’ve examined the issue. I posted links for you . I bet you didn’t go to them.

308

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
I’ve examined the issue. I posted links for you . I bet you didn’t go to them.
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What is ‘the’ issue we are discussing here in your opinion?

309

[QUOTE=mswas]
The beggars that you see on the streets of a modern Cosmopolis would be relatively unheard of in a tribal society.
[/QUOTE]

Cite?

310

[QUOTE=mswas]
The realization of “Holy shit even gender’s mutable!” has a pretty profound impact upon the psyche. Sure people who get a sex-change spend years dealing with this notion and come to terms with it enough to make a dramatic life altering change, but it’s kind of just sprung on the people who are observing from the outside.
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I’m still having a difficult time placing any weight on this concern. If someone with black parents was passing for white and one day came into the office and announced they were really black, people might have to deal with the mutability of perceived race. So what? I don’t see how your inability to deal with reality should put any restrictions on my actions.

This whole thing seems to boil down to people’s right not to feel squicked out. Concern about mutability of gender feels like grasping at straws. The exact same case could be made for someone you assumed was straight, and was announcing that they were gay or bisexual. How is this any less fundamental to someone’s identity then gender?

You haven’t proposed any real world way to draw lines, to make judgments, based on this feeling of being squicked out. It’s just some vague handwaving about the collective. I don’t buy that the collective has any rights. People have rights.

311

[QUOTE=mswas]
What is ‘the’ issue we are discussing here in your opinion?
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The nature of being transgendered. You can argue until you’re blue in the face or bereft of fingertips but it’s not a ‘choice’. It’s not your or anybody else’s damn business what someone does about his or her life. Anyway, presumably you claim to be ‘democratic’. One poll at a local newspaper is 65% pro keeping him. So besides all your other bogus ‘reasons’ for supporting the firing, is it your contention that tyranny of the minority is a valid way to operate? Yeah, I figured.

It’s sad to see how far people will go to try to rationalize bigotry and prejudice and how many knots they will tie themselves into to come up with all sorts of invented ‘reasons’ which are transparently hypocritical. The fact is that the idea squiks you out and you need to come up with a better reason to explain the bigotry to others than that. Like the little kid who thinks nobody can see him because he’s covered his eyes, you’re not fooling anybody.

312

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
The nature of being transgendered.
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Therein lies your confusion. That’s not what the argument is about. It’s about a transgendered person’s effect on society.

Telemark I think I have made points which are largely being ignored. I think there is a qualitative difference between changing something that to most people seems like an immutable fact, and obfuscating some aspect of one’s identity. There is a huge qualitative difference there, and I think that people are ignoring it in order to add credence to their ‘it’s just like this other group that wasn’t tolerated’ arguments. The fact is it is not like black people who are born black, or a gay man who can choose to let you in on his secret or not. It is a sudden and dramatic shift from one gender to another.

313

MrDibble I do not know how to research for a proper cite here on the internet, but I have read a lot about different tribal societies finding a place for orphans and taking care of orphans as a tribal society is formed like a large extended family, as opposed to an atomized cosmopolis. This is as much as I will address this tangent here in this particular thread. Obviously one tribal society is different from another, and I recognize that. I am sure if you really care you could find something, or you could start a debate topic about it.

314

Good lord, he’s actually defending tribalism as a social positive?

The mind reels.

315

[QUOTE=Miller]
Good lord, he’s actually defending tribalism as a social positive?

The mind reels.
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How can someone not just accept the proper encoding. It boggles my mind! We need to implant the free-thought module in this one quick, he’s thinking the wrong ones for a free-thinker!

Social positive isn’t measured on some sort of linear progression, it is determined by the society making the judgment. Tribalism has some benefits. When you choose a different makeup you make alterations to the society you live in. You have drunk the kool aid and assume that modern society is ‘de facto’ good. Rather than making arguments you cast aspersions on my character.

I’m so glad we have reasonable chaps like you around. Without ad hominems and wild appeals to emotion, where would we be?

I’m blown away by how people on a message board that likes to think of itself as some sort of intellectual elite are completely numb to the alternate side of this debate.

316

[QUOTE=mswas]
I think there is a qualitative difference between changing something that to most people seems like an immutable fact, and obfuscating some aspect of one’s identity. There is a huge qualitative difference there, and I think that people are ignoring it in order to add credence to their ‘it’s just like this other group that wasn’t tolerated’ arguments.
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I understand your argument, it just doesn’t make sense. I reject the idea that there is a qualitative difference. We’re not ignoring it, we don’t agree.

Gender is not immutable, so why should “the collective” be allowed to act as if it was? I can’t see how being gay or straight is any different then changing gender on a qualitative level. Do you think that there are people out there who reacted the same way when someone who they thought was a straight man (married, with kids) suddenly showed up with his boyfriend, making the observer question whether sexual preference isn’t immutable?

You claim gender is qualitatively different from sexual preference? Why? I honestly don’t see the major distinction.

317

Telemark What about in a few years when medical technology has advanced to such a level that I could change my physical appearance in functional ways. Say I wanted to rearrange my muscles so that I could look like a Satyr. As my apparent species can be edited, should society be expected to simply accept it being that it’s technologically possible? I do fervently believe that it will be possible within my lifetime BTW. That’s part of why I posed this question.

318

Your race example might hold true for the majority of black men, but not all. I am Hispanic–if you saw me, you would likely never know. I look white, most people assume I am white. Personally I don’t identify as white or Hispanic–I am me. However occasionally some comment will come up and I will identify myself as being Hispanic, usually to the chagrin of the person who made the comment. The realization that I am Hispanic is ‘sprung’ upon them—but is that my problem? Or theirs? I am the same person, but the new information they now possess is up to them to come to terms with–again not my problem is it?

My continuity hasn’t changed, nor really has theirs. Their perception certainly has, and they learned a valuable lesson in that not everything is as it looks on the surface. Perhaps also the realization dawns on them that their prejudices are out of place.

For me the way I got a handle on this is to empathise with the transgendered individual. I am male, and I tried to imagine how I would feel if I had my current brain and my thought patterns, but I was housed in a female body. How confusing that would be and how difficult my life would be and the internal struggles that person would have.

How would mswas handle that if that was the your situation? Would you just accept it? Would you feel it was fair that you got fired over something like this?

[QUOTE=mswas]
Ok, black guy, born black, goes to school, still black, goes to college, still black, goes to get a job, still black, quits gets another job still black.

Stanton, born a man (enough to adopt that identity anyhow), goes to school still a man, goes to college still a man, goes to get a job still a man, then somewhere in that time at the job becomes a woman.

Do you see how one has continuity and the other does not? Sure Stanton’s decision might have a pure continuity for Stanton, but not for the external observer who saw Stanton as a Man until suddenly one day he decided he wanted to become a woman.

The realization of “Holy shit even gender’s mutable!” has a pretty profound impact upon the psyche. Sure people who get a sex-change spend years dealing with this notion and come to terms with it enough to make a dramatic life altering change, but it’s kind of just sprung on the people who are observing from the outside.
[/QUOTE]

319

[Quote=mswas]
The realization of “Holy shit even gender’s mutable!” has a pretty profound impact upon the psyche. Sure people who get a sex-change spend years dealing with this notion and come to terms with it enough to make a dramatic life altering change, but it’s kind of just sprung on the people who are observing from the outside.
[/quote]
Given that Richard Raskind/Renee Richards became a famous/notorious news event over 32 years ago, and John Irving put a transgendered football player into a widely read novel that was later made into a widely seen movie nearly thirty years ago, it should not be that much of a surprise.
Given that secondary sex characteristics clearly are mutable, (and that gender identity is a real issue for the people whose chromosomes dd not happen to align with “cultural norms”), I do not see an “ick factor” (which is the only argument you have seriously presented), as having a legitimate basis for either law or even societal acceptance.

I suspect that persons who engage in that sort of action, (aside from being fabulously wealthy and unlikely to really have to worry about social acceptance if they do not choose to run for office or seek work), will probably face a fair amount of discrimination. I would still see the objections as nothing more than a case of “ick” and I see no reason to permit society to engage in discriminatory practices for that reason, alone. There was a huge “ick” factor when people with Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsey first began to be allowed in public instead of being hidden behind the walls of institutions or homes. Society is tough; it can survive a bit of “ick” so that it can grow and accommodate other humans.
Dress codes? Hair styles? These things are ephemeral and can be changed daily, (or, at last, after one’s hair grows back), and may be the legitimate objects of rules to permit entry or employment.
I see no reason to support any enshrinement of societal “ick” in law–and you have made no argument to persuade me otherwise.

320

[QUOTE=mswas]
MrDibble I do not know how to research for a proper cite here on the internet, but I have read a lot about different tribal societies finding a place for orphans and taking care of orphans as a tribal society is formed like a large extended family, as opposed to an atomized cosmopolis. This is as much as I will address this tangent here in this particular thread. Obviously one tribal society is different from another, and I recognize that. I am sure if you really care you could find something, or you could start a debate topic about it.
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Not that it matters, since you don’t offer up any evidence, but orphans are not the same thing as beggars. So that’s a “No, I can’t back up what I say” on this too? Are you planning on retracting it, then?