I hear both of you, and I don’t really mean we should ignore science here.
What I meant to emphasize was that gender variant people have explained their personal experience very compellingly. Even if there were no scientific findings of relevance to their experience, their experience, by itself, ought to convince us all.
Bring me a person who identifies as a dog or a houseplant and have them tell me a similarly compelling and sense-making story and I’ll give them due consideration, but in the absence of that, they make no more sense to me than the “attack helicopter” troll.
The same is not true of people who identify as trans-race. I’ve known some. We have a clearer sense (I daresay) that “race” is entirely social, that there are no built-in differences specifying “white” personality or behavior and “black” personality or behavior, etc – but there sure are social patterns, with projected expectations and assumptions, and if someone says “who I am is a person of THAT race” because it fits (or at least fits far better), that makes sense to me. And that’s without an iota of scientific “proof” that people of different races differ meaningfully, let alone that some individuals have the traits of some other race.
With sex, the notion that some people born male have “attributes more associated with female people” and vice versa is intrinsically and inherently dependent on there being sex-based differences in the first place. I don’t think we even know THAT for certain. But I’m not saying the science part is wrong, or even that it is irrelevant, but I am asserting that it is not necessary. For me. It should not be for you either.
I completely accept that people can be and are born with a brain structure/chemestry that makes them truly and honestly and sincerely feel like/identify as the opposite sex–the social and philosophical question is does that mean that they are the opposite sex, and that they should be considered the opposite sex by the rest of society. And I think that someone giving the opinion that the answer is “no” aren’t objectively wrong (or right) on this philosophical issue. You might as well call saying “marrage is between a man and a woman” or “abortion is murder” or “Greta Thunberg was being hilariously overdramatic in claiming that global warming stole her childhood” hate speech. (And I’m sure there are posters on this thread who would love for that to happen.)
First of all, I don’t think a lot of people understand that it is scientifically plausible. And explaining that to them may open them up to realizing that maybe they should be more open-minded on the philosophical/social implications of how we treat people.
Second, I think we can decide to adopt a policy that anyone who has made the subjective decision that it is not correct to treat trans people at least with basic respect in society may not demonstrate or advocate such disrespect on this board without sanction. And that we can adopt this policy on this board without stifling debate on every substantive aspect of the real questions here except “should people be free to be jerks to other people in society”. I mean, technically that’s a topic that could be debated. We can just decide that we don’t want to have that debate on SDMB.
For me personally, of course it’s not. That’s exactly what I’ve made clear. But the issue it hand is whether moderation should allow other people who don’t share the view that people should be treated with respect regardless of the scientific questions to exhibit that disrespect on this board. Hence the importance of distinguishing substantive questions (including both biological and sociological/philosophical ones, as Darren noted) from the question of treating people with respect.
If you are asking whether I think that’s an appropriate subject for debate, my answer is yes, without a doubt, I wholeheartedly think it is appropriate to debate whether people should be free to be jerks to other people in society.
I don’t know if you realize just how many debates boil down to this question.
Asking people to ignore basic biology or science for ideological reasons is immoral. Now, is it the most sensitive way of expressing a particular biological idea? Perhaps not. But many of you folks are drifting into thought police territory. I think that’s inadvisable.
If someone says “men are men and women are women, and they cannot cross over to be the other,” that is not “disrespect”, but if someone calls Caitlin Jenner a “he,” that is?
Not everyone is going to be comfortable with every subject though. When discussing biology and physics as it relates to humans some are going to have hurt feelings due to ideological reasons. Should conforming to their ideology, regardless of the ideology, be forcibly imposed on others?
Please read the thread and fight your own ignorance. It is not “basic biology” that mental identity must always be in accord with somatic phenotype at birth. It will be easy enough to search SDMB and find comments I’ve made in the past that explain the scientific issues in some detail. If you choose not to, I will take the next time that you claim that your ignorant view of the matter is “basic biology” to be willful ignorance.
But we can still debate whether something is actually a question of biology, science or ideology, can’t we? Even your assertion of what constitutes immorality is open to debate on these forums.
The question in the linked thread appears to be whether it is appropriate to use the female symbol on menstrual products. That debate might go,
“It is inappropriate because it is inappropriate to use the female symbol on a product used by men, and men use menstrual products.”
“Men do not use menstrual products.”
“Transgender men are men, and transgender men use menstrual products, therefore men do use menstrual products.”
“Transgender men are not real men.”
No. But it still has nothing to do with people denying the biology.
It may be about the word “biological” though, because I think Urbanredneck was using “real” as a synonym for “biological”, as in the question I asked above about adoptive relationships. I don’t think it was nice the way he put it, it’s painful for an adoptive parent to hear that from their child, and even if the sentiment is not nice it’s still not hate speech.
Well, no, that could hardly be further from the truth. Virtually everyone with a transphobic position ignorantly claims that their view is supported by “basic biology”.
What someone else perceives a form to be also has some level of validity. Person A’s brain sees X, person B’s brain sees Y every test shows X or Y it’s polite to be polite but why does person A have to conform to the world view of person B just because person B’s brain has a different interpretation?
Now, I am enlightened and I will call someone whatever they wish to be called. I’ll even try to use whatever usual pronoun, I’m not using Å as a pronoun. I don’t know how to pronounce it for one. But I don’t have the expectation that everyone else is going to feel the way I feel about this subject which is admittedly a challenge with the language that we all grew up with.
Now over time as language evolves perhaps it will be less of an issue. Who knows? But to expect everybody to be at the same point on the subject at the same time or face legal or social sanction is unreasonable.
If men is a set that includes transgender men and nontransgender men and whoever else identifies as men sure. But right now the definition of the set of men is usually understood to refer to the set of nontransgender biological men. Apologies in advance if I used one of those words wrong.
I am sympathetic to the issue of human rights so I am sympathetic to however one feels about their own identity. I just think it’s counterproductive to enforce conformity to a rapidly evolving viewpoint. Labeling something hatespeech is enforcing conformity. Especially as we see government actually undermining free speech.
Again, the idea that “We cannot make others conform to our way of thinking via persuasion and debate, so let’s make them conform to our way by force of forum law” goes pretty much counter to the essence of the Straight Dope.
Do you feel this way about all potential hate speech, or just this issue? Do you feel this way about, say, an argument that black people should be enslaved (or exterminated) because they are not fully human, as long as it’s expressed calmly and without invective?
What does any of that have to do with “basic biology”?
You are mistaken.
As the years go by, I’m less and less sympathetic to this common “I find this all so confusing” schtick. It’s really not that difficult to educate yourself if you actually have respect for the significant minority of your fellow human beings who are trans.