The Guardian: Joe Biden's gender discrimination order offers hope for young trans athletes - Discussion Thread

[bearrock]

39 minutes ago, tshile said:

Well. The good news is this person has a great support structure, with tons of positive resources, they just didn’t know it. Think they’re finally starting to realize it but it’s a process to learn such a thing. Because, while I get people like to pretend child-parent relations are so simple that being a good parent means your child will always trust you, and if they don’t it’s because you failed, it really is a lot more complicated than that for a 10/11/12 year old going through something this serious. The confusion and fear knows no bounds, it doesn’t simply stop at “I can trust my parents for help” for everyone. 
 

I was mocked for this in another thread but I happen to be tied to a close group through my profession that happens to be super progressive (most tech people tend to be, they think I’m a far right nut job at times.) I was able to reach out to one last night and was sent a long list of resources and advice. 
 

My personal, uninformed, inexperienced opinion is a big part of the problem is this need to label everything and by extension having a label for yourself. One of the bigger pieces of advice was to reject that nonsense and preach it’s ok to not know, to not have a label, and it’s silly to think at 12 you can pick a label for you and the rest of your life. Be open to change, realize it’s a journey not a single point in your life.

 

that and spend most of your time listening and little time talking. At least for a while. But I’ve already learned that in dealing with other serious, but very different scenarios. 

 

Just wanted to clarify that my previous comment was more about kids and families faced with this issue in general and not about the family you know.  Sounds like the family you know is taking a deliberate and thoughtful approach with lot of resources to draw from, so that's great to hear.  

[TD_washingtonredskins]

18 hours ago, Fergasun said:

As a millenial, all this gender/sexuality stuff gives me a headache.  We went from "sexuality is not a choice" to "gender is a choice" and I don't know how to square the logic on that.  Why couldn't we have agreed that "gender is not a choice" and separate it from behavior?  At least we don't have people identifying and trying to identify as animals... maybe it would be nice if I could be protected under the endangered species act - I am a bald eagle!  

 

I don't agree that "gender is a choice".  People can feel a different gender... or want to behave a different gender.   I know a family going through it and I completly get the mental health benefits that I suppose even me saying "gender is not a choice" could cause mental anguish. 

 

There are some of those! There's a kid in my son's school who identifies as a bird...I think it's a crow, and it pisses him off to no end. 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, bearrock said:

Just wanted to clarify that my previous comment was more about kids and families faced with this issue in general and not about the family you know.  Sounds like the family you know is taking a deliberate and thoughtful approach with lot of resources to draw from, so that's great to hear.  

I had assumed as much  

 

it’s really not hard to put kids first. 

 

some people just chose to pretend that’s their motive, but not actually live up to it. 

[Fergasun]

One other comment I will make.  How is this an issue at 10, 11, 12 (or younger)?  I would think most people agree that gender/sex topics require emotional maturity.   10, 11, 12 year olds shouldn't even have their minds on that type of stuff (maybe 12?).  

 

Yet, more and more, society is pushing the bounds. Who is pushing culture to introduce these things to young kids?  I guess sex ed does occur in 4th grade roughly.   My opinion, and what makes me uncomfortable is how the more, what I will controversially call "non-traditional" sex/gender concepts get pushed, the more people can latch onto those concepts. 

 

Why has people identifying as trans doubled?  

 

I don't mean this in a hostile way.  When our son was 9 and daughter was 6, she would always play with his and wear his underwear.  We took that to mean, "younger sister looks up o younger brother".  Not... "she identified as a boy".  At some point she grew out of it.  Yet, I see stories of 7 and 8 year old "trans kids" and it makes me scratch my head. 

 

There is something to be said about society recognizing that maybe there are more "boxes" that people fit in gender/sexually.  You don't want people to hide in the Catholic Church or never find real joy with another human because they don't fit into societies "boxes".  But pushing "boxes" onto kids at a younger is so a oversexualization,  like I find beauty pagents for girls under 12 to be gross oversexualization.

[bearrock]

16 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

One other comment I will make.  How is this an issue at 10, 11, 12 (or younger)?  I would think most people agree that gender/sex topics require emotional maturity.   10, 11, 12 year olds shouldn't even have their minds on that type of stuff (maybe 12?).  

 

Yet, more and more, society is pushing the bounds. Who is pushing culture to introduce these things to young kids?  I guess sex ed does occur in 4th grade roughly.   My opinion, and what makes me uncomfortable is how the more, what I will controversially call "non-traditional" sex/gender concepts get pushed, the more people can latch onto those concepts. 

 

Why has people identifying as trans doubled?  

 

I don't mean this in a hostile way.  When our son was 9 and daughter was 6, she would always play with his and wear his underwear.  We took that to mean, "younger sister looks up o younger brother".  Not... "she identified as a boy".  At some point she grew out of it.  Yet, I see stories of 7 and 8 year old "trans kids" and it makes me scratch my head. 

 

There is something to be said about society recognizing that maybe there are more "boxes" that people fit in gender/sexually.  You don't want people to hide in the Catholic Church or never find real joy with another human because they don't fit into societies "boxes".  But pushing "boxes" onto kids at a younger is so a oversexualization,  like I find beauty pagents for girls under 12 to be gross oversexualization.

 

I think it will be a while before society comes to a general resolution on this issue.  I think there are various diverging viewpoint on the topics that make up this discussion and what complicates the matter is that positions that group certain people together on one topic, will then make a drastically different grouping on another topic.  For example, lot of the discussion probably starts with whether and to what extent a person's biological sex influences behavior, which we often then translate into gender norms.  We may have people who say it has no effect, that any influence is societal construct.  Some may say there are macro trends, but it is not useful when applied to individuals.  Some may say biological sex introduces many biological characteristics that in turn has effect on behavior so gender norms are somewhat predictive.   Then we have topics such as whether gender is a useful concept to begin with.  To what extent does it make sense to say that gender stereotypes of male/female doesn't fit me, so I will switch to the only other binary category (when most likely that particular category doesn't fit you all that better either).  The concept of non-binary gender categories.  The impact of living their entire life as a woman (by in large a discriminated class) vs transitioning at age x (does it make a difference?  should it make a difference in treatment and policy?).  To what extent gender transition requires (justifies?) a physical transition (isn't it a reinforcement of physical normative characteristics to say I am gender X, so I will now change my physical characteristics to match gender x?  No one is splicing genes to change chromosomes, so all that one is doing at most is changing external and hormonal physical characteristics.  Aren't physical transitioning just another way of reinforcing societal norms regarding what is expected of sex and/or gender?).  Is it any of someone else's business to begin with? (a man wants to wear a dress, a woman wants to jog on the beach shirtless, so what?)  

 

And while all of society grapples with their thoughts and positions on even the fundamental building blocks of the topics that make up this discussion, we are trying to make policy decisions on the fly and pretend like it is the most obvious choice in the world to make.  It makes for a particularly messy situation.  

 

On the issue of young people and trans, I think it would be more helpful for society to take the position that we are, at minimum, unsure of how meaningful this notion of binary class of gender is to begin with.  So if you don't fit the gender category you were assigned by virtue of your biological sex, it's fine (perhaps even natural) and probably a reflection of how little utility gender classification has.  You still have a lifetime to figure out who you are at core and if you can spend that effort unhampered by how you are "supposed" or "expected" to behave by some broad classification, all the better. 

[tshile]

40 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

How is this an issue at 10, 11, 12 (or younger)?  I would think most people agree that gender/sex topics require emotional maturity.   10, 11, 12 year olds shouldn't even have their minds on that type of stuff (maybe 12?).  

 

Yet, more and more, society is pushing the bounds. Who is pushing culture to introduce these things to young kids? 

adolescents is full of figuring out who you are and what you’re about, figuring out what groups you do fit with or don’t, questions why you’re being bullied, or why someone else got to be pretty but you didn’t, why your boobs are growing when others aren’t, and all sorts of other things. It’s a pretty sensitive time in growing up. 
 

the cat is out of the bag on gender identity and sexual orientation. So, it’s natural these questions come up as well. Especially for a child that doesn’t seem to feel comfortable about themselves, their body, or how they do or don’t fit in. 
 

I think most adults forget this because they “made it” to adulthood and forget the growing pains along the way 

 

the internet removes all barriers to information - good or bad. 
 

and kids talk on school. My kids say things we never say in the house (good or bad). 
 

this is pretty basic stuff with kids. I think people just forget

[ClaytoAli]

Attention seeking people…..1st world problems.

[tshile]

@bearrocki always enjoy your posts on this subject. 
 

my takeaway from all of this, as someone who’s uninformed and inexperienced as possible on it, is that male/female and boy/girl are just labels. And people are lazy and tend to use labels to make things easy. But labels are so basic and simple they leave so much out

 

long gone are the days where a woman stays home and cooks and cleans and raises children while men work. Or girls only like pink and purple, only play with dolls and kitchen sets. 
 

if you frame those two labels the same way we use Republican/democrat, or any of the various races and the history of them being used as labels for people, you can easily see how there’s so much more. Surely plenty of people aren’t solely democrads or solely republicans. And we’ve accepted just because your skin is a certain color or your ancestors have certain roots, that doesn’t define you. 
 

if we stopped pretending being male means X and being female means Y, and start accepting people exist on a gradient, a lot of this problem goes away. And if we lived that way as a society you may see less need for altering one’s form as they don’t feel that’s required to act or be treated the way they feel they should. 
 

labels are lazy. It starts with that. To me. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by tshile

[ClaytoAli]

16 minutes ago, tshile said:

@bearrocki always enjoy your posts on this subject. 
 

my takeaway from all of this, as someone who’s uninformed and inexperienced as possible on it, is that male/female and boy/girl are just labels. And people are lazy and tend to use labels to make things easy. But labels are so basic and simple they leave so much out

 

long gone are the days where a woman stays home and cooks and cleans and raises children while men work. Or girls only like pink and purple, only play with dolls and kitchen sets. 
 

if you frame those two labels the same way we use Republican/democrat, or any of the various races and the history of them being used as labels for people, you can easily see how there’s so much more. Surely plenty of people aren’t solely democrads or solely republicans. And we’ve accepted just because your skin is a certain color or your ancestors have certain roots, that doesn’t define you. 
 

if we stopped pretending being male means X and being female means Y, and start accepting people exist on a gradient, a lot of this problem goes away. And if we lived that way as a society you may see less need for altering one’s form as they don’t feel that’s required to act or be treated the way they feel they should. 
 

labels are lazy. It starts with that. To me. 

Males, man, men produce sperm and xy chromosomes. Sis-man is fake.

 

Fe-males don’t

 

The 'fe' in female and the 'wo' in woman are derived from the Latin word femina, meaning "woman or wilfman (eng.)" The term femina was used to distinguish between women and men.

 

Some one is in the wrong here. It might be the minority thinking.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by ClaytoAli

[tshile]

17 hours ago, tshile said:

Hey everyone

Ready for another trip down the gender is a social construct sex is a biological assignment road?

 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

@bearrocki always enjoy your posts on this subject. 
 

my takeaway from all of this, as someone who’s uninformed and inexperienced as possible on it, is that male/female and boy/girl are just labels. And people are lazy and tend to use labels to make things easy. But labels are so basic and simple they leave so much out

 

long gone are the days where a woman stays home and cooks and cleans and raises children while men work. Or girls only like pink and purple, only play with dolls and kitchen sets. 
 

if you frame those two labels the same way we use Republican/democrat, or any of the various races and the history of them being used as labels for people, you can easily see how there’s so much more. Surely plenty of people aren’t solely democrads or solely republicans. And we’ve accepted just because your skin is a certain color or your ancestors have certain roots, that doesn’t define you. 
 

if we stopped pretending being male means X and being female means Y, and start accepting people exist on a gradient, a lot of this problem goes away. And if we lived that way as a society you may see less need for altering one’s form as they don’t feel that’s required to act or be treated the way they feel they should. 
 

labels are lazy. It starts with that. To me. 

 

So, I agree with most of what you say...but I think you're describing gender NORMS. To me, that's a little different. If a man wants to dress in pink, wear makeup, raise the children, date other men, drink Cosmos, watch the Kardashians, etc...who cares? He's not asking society to conform to his interests and claim he is what he isn't, use facilities that he shouldn't use, win awards that are categorized for other people, etc. That's the line that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

So, I agree with most of what you say...but I think you're describing gender NORMS. To me, that's a little different. If a man wants to dress in pink, wear makeup, raise the children, date other men, drink Cosmos, watch the Kardashians, etc...who cares? He's not asking society to conform to his interests and claim he is what he isn't, use facilities that he shouldn't use, win awards that are categorized for other people, etc. That's the line that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. 

Oh I’m speaking strictly how we talk to or about, or treat people 

 

if we all had a little respect navigating the bathroom issue would be easier, same for the other issues. 
 

but when it starts with demonizing, ostracizing, bullying, etc as how we talk and treat each other, then all those problems become incredibly difficult if not impossible to resolve. 
 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

4 hours ago, Fergasun said:

One other comment I will make.  How is this an issue at 10, 11, 12 (or younger)?  I would think most people agree that gender/sex topics require emotional maturity.   10, 11, 12 year olds shouldn't even have their minds on that type of stuff (maybe 12?).  

 

Yet, more and more, society is pushing the bounds. Who is pushing culture to introduce these things to young kids?  I guess sex ed does occur in 4th grade roughly.   My opinion, and what makes me uncomfortable is how the more, what I will controversially call "non-traditional" sex/gender concepts get pushed, the more people can latch onto those concepts. 

 

Why has people identifying as trans doubled?  

 

I don't mean this in a hostile way.  When our son was 9 and daughter was 6, she would always play with his and wear his underwear.  We took that to mean, "younger sister looks up o younger brother".  Not... "she identified as a boy".  At some point she grew out of it.  Yet, I see stories of 7 and 8 year old "trans kids" and it makes me scratch my head. 

 

There is something to be said about society recognizing that maybe there are more "boxes" that people fit in gender/sexually.  You don't want people to hide in the Catholic Church or never find real joy with another human because they don't fit into societies "boxes".  But pushing "boxes" onto kids at a younger is so a oversexualization,  like I find beauty pagents for girls under 12 to be gross oversexualization.

I think the biggest misconception about gender affirming care for minors is that preteens are getting the care. This really isn’t the case. There are no hormones to regulate. And even when they are teens they or their parents can’t just ask for it. Psychologists and doctors make an independent objective decision on what is best for the child. 
 

If my child wanted to dress as a girl or a boy I would let them. Whatever, does it really matter? If they were still doing it when they were a teenager and felt strong enough about it they wanted to go to a dr then I think at that point it is clear that it is more than a whim. At the same time if they came in running to me when they was 14 saying “I’m now such and such and I want hormones” I would tell them OK. Dress how you like (within reason) and sort of laugh it off…

 

I mean, these kids parents have lived with them all their life’s, they know them best. Certainly better than any politician. And it is extremely rare that a parent doesn’t want what is best for their child.

Like mothers always know their son is gay before they come out. You just know.

[The Evil Genius]

From what i have read, Tribal nations here have generally accepted transgendered members and even treated "two spirit" (an English term recently [1990] coined) as special members of their tribe. 

 

Christianity can't allow for it though..so we're stuck with tunnel vision when it comes to gender. 

 

 

[tshile]

6 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

Christianity can't allow for it though..so we're stuck with tunnel vision when it comes to gender

Is that true though? I don’t recall that in any of the teachings but I’m a bit out of practice. 
 

or is this like many other things where “Christians” tell us about what is and isn’t right by Jesus and god but they hate propor who don’t look like them or are poor or whatever ?

[The Evil Genius]

Yeah, maybe should have said whatever ****ization of Christianity we have here can't allow for it. 

[tshile]

I was allowed to make my own decisions about going to church after I was confirmed. That was the deal. 
 

I got confirmed and never went back. I have people that ask why. 
 

i tell them at 12 (when I got confirmed) I could figure out they were all hypocrite and had no desire to be around it

 

i had no idea how bad it was at that time. But I was right. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by tshile

[skinsmarydu]

5 minutes ago, tshile said:

I was allowed to make my own decisions about going to church after I was confirmed. That was the deal. 
 

I got confirmed and never went back. I have people that ask why. 
 

i tell them at 12 (when I got confirmed) I could figure out they were all hypocrite and had no desire to be around it

 

i had no idea how bad it was at that time. But I was right. 

As a PK, I had that **** shoved down my throat till the day I left home.  (That's how I came up with the saying, "John 3:16 doesn't exclude anyone!") 

The only times you'll find me in a church is either a wedding or a funeral.  The hypocrisy is absolutely overwhelming. 

[The Evil Genius]

 

[gbear]

As a parent of a trans 8 year old, I can assure you many kids know their penis or vagina does not match their gender.  My daughter wanted to cut her penis off at 3 years old because it doesn't belong there.  Gender dysphoria is very real, and it can start pretty much as soon as a child starts to develop a sense of self.

 

As a trans-racial adoptive parent, believe me this is about the last thing I would wish her to be.  That is not because of any sense of embarrassment. It is because I would wish for her to miss a few of the correlations to suicide.  One of the main causes for suicide in the trans population is thought to be a lack of feeling acceptance.  This is already a challenge for her.  Thus, as with all our kids, we do what we can to support who she is and wants to be.  We are lucky enough to be in a supportive school system, but I know she still takes some flack as all "different" kids do.

 

Many on here seem to think gender has no reason to be taught to little kids.  I would argue the need to teach acceptance of all requires us to teach it.  If it is a point of hatred or disgust being taught at home by those who are ignorant, then we have a duty to teach kids that they may better learn acceptance as a social norm. Do you think racists are born that way or do you think they learn it by what they are exposed to growing up?  What age should a child be taught not to say the n word?  We learn our social rules early, and if we don't, we should.    

[EmirOfShmo]

 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

@gbear thank you for sharing your personal connection to this topic. I 100% agree that acceptance and kindness should be stressed everywhere and taught. 

 

[GhostofSparta]

16 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

Christianity can't allow for it though..so we're stuck with tunnel vision when it comes to gender. 

Remember, being Christian means that you get to decide which parts of the Bible are literal and which aren't to support the beliefs you already have. For example:

 

God literally created the universe in 6 days less than 10,000 years ago. That's not poetry or symbolism, that's literal and should be taught as scientific fact.

 

Jesus said it's almost impossible for rich people to go to heaven and that rich should give away all their possessions to the poor. That's metaphor and shouldn't be used when creating laws or policy (and certainly shouldn't even be an unofficial rule that rich people should follow of their own volition, that's commie talk).

 

 

So then you apply that again the Genesis. God created a man, Adam, and a woman, Eve. So God only made male and female. That's literal. Now you should just ignore the fact that, technically speaking, Eve is just a clone of Adam (made from his rib and all). So if one were feeling contrarian, one could argue that Eve is transwoman because she was a clone of a man and created with male DNA, which Christians argue is what makes someone male. So the creation story is to be taken literally, but don't get too hung up on the detail that the first ever woman was, in fact, a male clone because that part should only be taken literally in the exact way they want.

 

And then later in the New Testament, Paul in Galatians 3:28 says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither free nor slave, neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ." Now obviously that can't be taken literally, because we're all still individuals, it's just a metaphor bro. But it's still not a metaphor we actually need to like, live by or anything, because obviously then we couldn't have Paul's Pharisee-esque rules for the church about all the things women (and only women) aren't allowed to do, and we couldn't have had race-based chattel slavery for centuries and then race based discrimination after, usually against people who are themselves also Christian, if race didn't matter.

 

 

 

So in a way, much like how America is only aware of the most extreme version of Islam because they're the loudest and inspire fear in anyone who disagrees with them, the version of Christianity that America is most likely to implement is the kind that is the loudest and most likely to kill you or blow up your local abortion clinic to make sure everyone else believes like them. People may prefer your granny's version of religion that boils down to "Just live and let live, people find Jesus in their own way on their own time, and only God can judge," but people are more likely to attempt to appease/pacify Crazy Steve and his idea that "Since I'm legally allowed, for some ****ing reason, to go to my local school board meeting with my gun and shout that gays are evil and prayer should be mandatory in schools, then I'm going to do that every day until I'm satisfied that my demands are met, and once they are I'll have new ones because clearly this works."

 

 

Transgenderism is a complicated issue. I have no kids, so I'm not gonna argue with the people who are parents whose kids have to go thru all this now. I'm not in your shoes, and as a cishet guy, I was never in the shoes of a (potentially) trans kid. But unless you homeschool your kid on some farm off the grid, your child will meet other people who have a different life than you. Asking other people to always act the way you want 100% of the time because you have kids is bull****. So people like DeSantis and Matt Walsh can try their damndest to force every teacher to never bring up gay people or trans people or racism or whatever, but if your kid interacts with more people that just your immediate family then they're going to meet somebody different at some point and start asking questions. I was raised very conservative Christian, went to private school and everything. But I had 2 uncles who never married and I never knew why, but eventually learned that one was gay and one was asexual and that those meant. Even another uncle that married couldn't have kids and ended up adopting, so I learned about infertility and some women cannot, in fact, have kids. And this was all before I turned 18, so I knew about all this as a child.

 

Controlling your kids' choices is one thing. Controlling the entire world to try to control the information the encounter is just a fool's errand. But damn if religious extremists aren't fools willing to try.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

14 minutes ago, GhostofSparta said:

Controlling your kids' choices is one thing. Controlling the entire world to try to control the information the encounter is just a fool's errand. But damn if religious extremists aren't fools willing to try.

 

This is a great point, but I honestly believe that this is where many people on all sides of this topic are swinging and missing these days. The way I see it, the extreme right is trying to control what they see but the extreme left is trying to control how what is seen is labeled and defined. I don't think either is the right approach as long as people are treated well.