Serious question - where do we draw the line with acceptance of mental weirdness?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Marley23]
The more I hear and think about these issues, the more I am convinced that the belief in only two genders is not adequate to explain the variety of sexual behaviors and preferences out there. Two physical sexes? Maybe. But male and female (and perhaps gay and straight) doesn’t seem to cover all the options.

So what are the OP and jtgain saying, exactly? ‘These behaviors are weird, why do we have to tolerate them?’ Why shouldn’t they be tolerated? Is there some reason I don’t know about? We lose nothing as a society by accomodating people who are TG or gay, with the exception of certain kinds of discrimination.
[/QUOTE]

But we do “tolerate” them. Nobody is (seriously stating) that we should burn down homes and kill gays and transgendered. The only objections are to PUBLIC (not private) accomodations such as legal marriage, adoption, and employment laws.

If you are a male trapped in a woman’s body who wants to dress up like a female, but still likes the male side of you, then great! Nobody will stop you.

If I don’t hire you because I think you are a weirdo, then that should be my right as well…

22

What counts as insane and sane? Racism seems pretty nuts to me, and the crap racists spew is a lot more harmful to impressionable children than something a tranny would say. Should racists be prevented from having kids? What about religious people? Some people think they’re crazy, or at least that they believe a lot of delusional things. Should religious people be prevented from having kids? Christ, many people who have kids suffer from depression, OCD, or other mental problems.

You have to actually show where the harm is. Simply saying “But..But..They’re Weird!” doesn’t do it.

23

[QUOTE=jtgain]
What kind of nonsense is that Der Trihs?

If I have a penis, I am male. If I have a vagina, I am female. What kind of convaluted nonsense gives you the idea that if I “think” I am a female, yet I have a penis, that I am somehow female?

If I “think” I am a parking meter, does that make it so?
[/QUOTE]
No, because if you were, you wouldn’t think at all. A parking meter is an object, and wholly defined by it’s function and structure. A person has a mind, and the mind is what makes us what we are. And our minds have gender.

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Of course I would still be a male if I were castrated in a terrible accident. I didn’t grow a vagina in that accident, and although I lost my sexual organs, I still was born with them.

It wouldn’t make me any less human if I lost an arm or a leg, so I don’t understand the question.
[/QUOTE]
The point is that it wasn’t your sex organs that made you male in the first place, which is why losing them doesn’t make you not a male. It is your brain that makes you male.

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Second question: You admit that a transgendered person is suffering from a mental illness, but you say that a person cannot be locked up unless they present a threat to others..
[/QUOTE]
Miller specifally said that it was an illness, but NOT a mental one.

24

[QUOTE=jtgain]
But we do “tolerate” them. Nobody is (seriously stating) that we should burn down homes and kill gays and transgendered.
[/QUOTE]
Of course people say that. People DO that. Not as much as they used to, but they do.

25

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Second question: You admit that a transgendered person is suffering from a mental illness, but you say that a person cannot be locked up unless they present a threat to others..

Well, a young impressionable child who listens to insane (by your definition) teachings about gender roles would qualify as a harm…Should it not? Or should insane people be allowed to spew general craziness to children?
[/QUOTE]

Well, do you believe that insane people are not normally allowed to talk to children? Should they be kept away from children just because some of their beliefs differ from the facts? Lots of parents tell their children things that aren’t true. A parent who tells a child “I was born with a girl’s body, but I was really a boy inside” is making a statement that seems a little woo-woo to me, but no more so than telling a child that homeopathy works. In fact, I think we have committed a fundamental error in this debate by assuming that anyone who believes something at odds with the facts is insane. Most people have some beliefs that are unsupported by fact.

26

[QUOTE=jtgain]
But we do “tolerate” them. Nobody is (seriously stating) that we should burn down homes and kill gays and transgendered. The only objections are to PUBLIC (not private) accomodations such as legal marriage, adoption, and employment laws.
[/quote]

Since when does intolerance only include murder? :rolleyes:

So in other words, yes, you’re arguing you should be allowed to discriminate against people on these grounds. Just checking.

People who are mentally ill do often have children. I don’t know what adoption laws say, but I don’t think having a TG parent would be harmful to a child. And defining that condition as an illness does not make it harmful to a child.

27

[QUOTE=jtgain]

You admit that a transgendered person is suffering from a mental illness, but you say that a person cannot be locked up unless they present a threat to others..
[/QUOTE]

He said no such thing.

28

[QUOTE=jtgain]
ok, your first question: Of course I would still be a male if I were castrated in a terrible accident. I didn’t grow a vagina in that accident, and although I lost my sexual organs, I still was born with them.

It wouldn’t make me any less human if I lost an arm or a leg, so I don’t understand the question.
[/quote]

The point, obviously, is that gender is not determined solely by external genitalia.

How do you deal with the existence of intersexed people? If someone is born with a vagina, but no breasts and a lot of body and facial hair: male or female? Vulva and undescended testicles? Completely female genitalia, but also a Y chromosone?

No, I didn’t admit that. I admitted that they suffered from an illness, and then presented one argument (which I personally feel to be the most persuasive) that it is a physical illness. In case the first argument did not work, I presented a second argument as to why, if one insists on considering it a mental illness, gender reassignment and social acceptence are still important goals.

Regardless, are you saying that people who have any sort of mental illness should not be allowed to marry and raise children? Should a narcissicist be prevented from marrying a claustrophobic? Should people with low self esteem have their children taken away from them?

Again, I do not think that transexuality is a mental illness, I think it is a phsical illness. Regardless, I never defined it as “insane.” Mental illness is not the same as insanity.

And you did not answer my question: what specific harm would befall a child raised by a homosexual or a transexual? What exact bad thing is going to befall that child? How is the experience going to prevent them from living a healthy and happy life?

29

[QUOTE=jtgain]
If I don’t hire you because I think you are a weirdo, then that should be my right as well…
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: On behalf of the Weirdo-American Community, why?

30

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
:dubious: On behalf of the Weirdo-American Community, why?
[/QUOTE]

Becuase it is. If I think you are a weirdo, without regards to race, sex, or religion, then I can throw your resume in the garbage.

In Florida, homosexual couples may not adopt children. If that is an illness, physical or not, then shouldn’t children be sheltered from it?

I know that many heterosexual couples force nonsense on their kids. Should we then take over all supervision of children on those grounds? The only thing we can do is pass laws or regulations that keep people who we know are bad for our kids:

People with illnesses..especially mental ones…

31

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Becuase it is. If I think you are a weirdo, without regards to race, sex, or religion, then I can throw your resume in the garbage.

In Florida, homosexual couples may not adopt children. If that is an illness, physical or not, then shouldn’t children be sheltered from it?
[/quote]

Homosexuality is neither a mental nor a physical illness, and no reputable medical practicioner will tell you otherwise.

Again, how is having a homosexual parent bad for a child?

32

[QUOTE=jtgain]
In Florida, homosexual couples may not adopt children. If that is an illness, physical or not, then shouldn’t children be sheltered from it?
[/QUOTE]

Why, is it contagious?

33

[QUOTE=jtgain]
In Florida, homosexual couples may not adopt children. If that is an illness, physical or not, then shouldn’t children be sheltered from it?

I know that many heterosexual couples force nonsense on their kids. Should we then take over all supervision of children on those grounds? The only thing we can do is pass laws or regulations that keep people who we know are bad for our kids:

People with illnesses..especially mental ones…
[/QUOTE]
I have OCD. No kids for me?

You seem to be taking “illnesses” as a whole. Doesn’t work like that. Think of it in physical terms; someone with severe brain damage might be stopped from adopting. Someone with a broken wrist? Wouldn’t be. Our judgement as to whether people can adopt based on physical injuries is whether that specific ailment would mean they’d have problems raising a kid. What’s your cite that gays, lesbians, and transgendered people have such problems? You can’t just generalise to overall mental illness.

34

Presumably, if we know (as you say) that something belongs in the category of Harmful Mental Illness, we should be able to show that it is harmful. If our only evidence for its being harmful is that we know (as you say) that it belongs in the category of Harmful Mental Illness, then lo, we are like unto a dog chasing its tail. In other words, jtgain, you can beg the question all you want but you won’t get a nickel from me.

35

[QUOTE=Marley23]

So what are the OP and jtgain saying, exactly? ‘These behaviors are weird, why do we have to tolerate them?’ Why shouldn’t they be tolerated? Is there some reason I don’t know about? We lose nothing as a society by accomodating people who are TG or gay, with the exception of certain kinds of discrimination.
[/QUOTE]

Marley, I agree. First, it should be firmly established that homosexuality is not considered abnormal by the APA. Transgender is identified in the diagnostic manual but so is alcoholism/substance abuse. The debate should center on the cause of transgender, whether it is psychological or physiological, so there is greater understanding.

There is certainly more knowledge now than ever before in the role of genetic code and biological influences on brain development. The nurture versus nature argument may have more roots in nature than was ever believed or understood by behaviorists.

36

[QUOTE=VCO3]
At what point do we draw the line? Does Schizophrenia become “trans-realitied”?
[/quote]

Differently minded, baby. :cool:

Hi. I’m a person who’s been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. Unlike transsexualism or homosexuality, there’s a pretty solid concurrence of opinion that if anything at all can be said to constitute “mental illness”, paranoid schizophrenia does.
a) You can draw the line wherever you damn well please as long as you understand that your line-drawing pertains only to whatever opinions you choose to hold. If you opt to give voice to those opinions, I am likely to voice my own opinions of you as well. If you think that yours intrinsically have more validity than mine because I’m a schizzy, that’s what’s known as “begging the question” when the opinion in question is the question of what to consider to be invalid nutso blatherings. You don’t get to beg the question like that. I’ve certainly seen no evidence that your brain works any better than that of most of the schizophrenics I know.

b) When it comes to going beyond holding and voicing an opinion and bleeds over into taking actions against people on the basis of having decided that their brains are outputting gibberish and that they’re not OK in the heads, you’re committing a political act. Whether it’s the act of teaching people that homosexuality is a sickness or implementing a policy that assumes transsexual folks are delusional or passing a law infringing on the right of schizophrenics to decline mind-altering treatment, or something of that general ilk, it all boils down to a political decision you have made to treat certain categories of other people as exceptions to the right to self-determination. You’re deciding that you get the right to define reality (because you, of course, aren’t crazy) and they don’t.

c) We are inclined to disagree. We’re organized. (Some of us a bit better than others, to be sure). We vote. We will communicate with the general public to sway them to our perspective. Our perspective coerces no one, it’s liberationist, and although I am not going to say no one can ever come to harm as a consequence of it, it’s in alignment with the general social principle of people being free do so as they wish as long as it’s not intrusive upon others’ rights. Your perspective is coercive, self-righteous, is intrinsically aimed at stopping people from doing what they wish, and is flavored with the automatic disklike of anything different and the urge to prevent difference.

37

[QUOTE=jtgain]
The only thing we can do is pass laws or regulations that keep people who we know are bad for our kids:

People with illnesses..especially mental ones…
[/QUOTE]

“People with illnesses”? Hypothetical: Joe suffers from asthma. Joe cannot, therefore, adopt children. Right?

38

[QUOTE=jtgain]
We had it right before. Transgendered and homosexuals have a mental illness. I’m not saying that they should be locked up, but the synapses aren’t firing right up there…
[/QUOTE]

Have you ever even talked to a homosexual or transgendered person? I can assure you they’re no more nuts than the rest of us.

I also think you’re underestimating the severity of mental illness required for people to get “locked up”. We’re not living in the dark ages, thank god.

39

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Why, is it contagious?
[/QUOTE]

Absolutely! Why, you can catch teh gay the very first time you suck a cock!

40

[QUOTE=WF Tomba]
In other words, jtgain, you can beg the question all you want but you won’t get a nickel from me.
[/QUOTE]

Heh. Very nice. :cool: