Writes Jennifer Finney Boylan in "To understand biological sex, look at the brain, not the body" (WaPo).
In the past decade, there has been some fascinating research on the brains of transgender people. What is most remarkable about this work is not that trans women’s brains have been found to resemble those of cisgender women, or that trans men’s brains resemble those of cis men. What the research has found is that the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct.
But what does that mean, a male brain, or a female brain, or even a transgender one? It’s a fraught topic, because brains are a collection of characteristics, rather than a binary classification of either/or. There are researchers who would tell you that brains are not more gendered than, say, kidneys or lungs. Gina Rippon, in her 2019 book “The Gendered Brain,” warns against bunk science that declares brains to be male or female — it’s “neurosexism,” a fancy way of justifying the belief that women’s brains are inferior to men’s....
[T]here’s a problem with using neurology as an argument for trans acceptance — it suggests that, on some level, there is something wrong with transgender people, that we are who we are as a result of a sickness or a biological hiccup. But trans people are not broken. And, in fact, trying to open people’s hearts by saying “Check out my brain!” can do more harm than good, because this line of argument delegitimizes the experiences of many trans folks. It suggests that there’s only one way to be trans — to feel trapped in the wrong body, to go through transition, and to wind up, when all is said and done, on the opposite-gender pole....
What we need now is understanding, not cruelty....
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151 comments:
Binary sexes: male and female. Binary sex-correlated genders (i.e. attributes): masculine and feminine. A transgender spectrum (e.g. homo/cisexual orientation). A viable human life from conception until Her or her Choice.
"To understand biological sex, look at the brain, not the body"
Whoa whoa...slow down. I thought there weren't any differences between male and female brains. I know that I've read previous claims from the trans-adjacent stating exactly that before haven't I? Haven't you?
...Or is this another Mandela effect symptom of the transvestite-lunacy? I've lost complete track of which flip we're now supposed to flop on...
What's the Venn diagram of those who insist the science is settled on climate change but not on biological sex?
Biological. BIOLOGICAL sex has nothing to do with the brain. Mental illness and other deviancy does have something to do with the brain.
If we need understanding -- and I'd like to understand -- then that article won't help. What a word salad. Hypothesis statement, argument, conclusion. Or is traditional essay construction too boomer?
Transgenders can gladly and gayly flout any of their desires. It's when they want to force, more and more violently, their desires on unwanted people that they need to be stopped. No woman should have to look at a guys junk just because the guy wants the woman to look at his junk.
What we need now is understanding, not cruelty....
Can we stop with the cruelty accusations?? Give us a break. Everyone's brain is different as stated, and we obviously don't agree with what constitutes "cruelty".
Making a woman share a jail cell with a man is cruel. Letting a man beat up a woman in an ultimate fighting ring is cruel. There have already been severe injuries.
Letting a 6'3" man win the NCAA swimming championship against women who have trained their whole lives is cruel. Vilifying the woman who took second and had her title stolen is cruel. It's actually sick.
Sexually charged transgender shows for children where these guys spread their legs is cruel.
The arrogance of liberals is astonishing to think they own the definition of cruelty and own purity, altruism, and charity. It's delusional. Especially those libs that live in the Ivory Tower.
We are getting very close to the left trying to normalize pedophilia. That's real. That's sick. That's cruel. It's evil.
Feminists seem to be completely on board.
Brains are more important in male vs female than plumbing, but it has to do with focus, namely whether to increase or decrease complexity. Males like to decrease complexity (abstraction from ...) and women like to increase complexity. That makes males better at large systems and women better at small ones.
Nothing there leads to men wearing dresses though. That has to do with attraction that bypasses the usual computations of what's interesting.
I find it...not helpful...that some people cannot look at differences without thinking one must be better than the other.
Gender is also important for healthcare!
What we need now is understanding, not cruelty....
Tell it to the people attacking "TERFs"
You do not gain "understanding" by censoring people.
Unless your position is that the one true Almighty god has told you exactly what The Truth is, and that therefore all mortals must bow down and accept you Truth, since that is the only Truth.
In which case you're a Taliban level religious lunatic
Trans as it’s own gender category. I could open my heart to that.
From the article: "The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
In an actual, serious intellectual article, the next sentence would be what percentage of the population actually has those combinations.
This article does not. It is about "fweelings"
If that is as deep as your intellectual investigations delve, then you are NOT an intellectual.
Professor Boylan is not writing in good faith, and being trans may be why. I am sure Boylan knows there is no controversies over people who do mot have the standard XX/ XY chromosome set nor those with hysterectomies, etc.
What is between one’s ears is not what determines what chromosomes one is able to contribute toward pregnancy.
The brain discussion might lead to useful knowledge, but has no bearing on gender.
it suggests that, on some level, there is something wrong with transgender people, that we are who we are as a result of a sickness or a biological hiccup.
Kind of hard to dispute this at a time when transgender activists are pushing for extensive invasive surgeries and lifelong pharmaceutical therapies. Like, I take metformin for my diabetes and it would be ludicrous for me to suggest that this isn't because I'm sick. It's only if gender dysphoria is conceptualised as an illness that the surgeries and drugs make sense as a form of medical "treatment." If all it was was transvestites, well, there would still be controversy, but I don't think the issue would be nearly as fraught.
So what about the guys who start out seemingly normal and marry women and have kids but decide in middle age they are really women?
Did their brains change, or rather did their T levels drop off?
A good rule of thumb is that if it has a penis, it's male.
"Science/Biology Dies in Darkness."
[T]here’s a problem with using neurology as an argument for trans acceptance — it suggests that, on some level, there is something wrong with transgender people, that we are who we are as a result of a sickness or a biological hiccup
1: There is MUCH wrong with trans people. If there weren't then their feelings would be in accord with reality, including biological reality.
2: If there is not in fact a biological cause for your "trans" ness, then if it's nothing more than "feelings" or "desires", then we only have to respect your "feelings" to the extend that you have to respect the feelings of pro-Trump 2020 "election deniers".
If "feelings" trump reality when you want them to, then they do so when ANYONE wants them to
The problem, in part, progresses from modern diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) under the nominally "secular" Pro-Choice ethical religion of progressive liberal sects that normalizes Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) policies (e.g. abortion, the mascufeminine standard adopted by pedophiles and trans/homosexuals, trans/homosexual social distancing from others in the transgender spectrum, racism, sexism, ageism).
But what does that mean, a male brain, or a female brain, or even a transgender one? It’s a fraught topic, because brains are a collection of characteristics, rather than a binary classification of either/or.
IOW, it's all bullshit
Men are taller than women, on average.
A six foot tall woman is still a woman, and a 5 foot tall man is still a man.
If you want to come up with a set of measurements, and say "these measurements are typically male, and these are typically female", and then go on to say "a male will have at least 75 out of 100 of these with male values, and a female with have 75 out of 100 of these with female values" we'll listen to the argument.
But only if first you define what impacts these measurements have on real life, and then get rid of ALL claims of "disparate impact sexism" for anything affected by those measurements
IOW, if "male brains" have features that make the possessor more likely to be a more successful computer programmer, then it's not sexism that there are more male than female programmers, and anyone who claims that it is must be labeled as a "reality denier" and banned from social media for "misinformation".
If your findings dont' have that level of validity, then they aren't worth looking at
"trans women’s brains have been found to resemble those of cisgender women"
Resemble how much etc. etc.?
"the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct"
So when trans people say they are "really" men or women, their subjective judgment is at odds with their brain reality? Doesn't this research actually undercut the primary trans "argument"?
"brains are a collection of characteristics, rather than a binary classification of either/or."
OK . . . so when transgenderists claim to be one or the other they are at at fault?
"it’s “neurosexism,” a fancy way of justifying the belief that women’s brains are inferior to men’s"
Who says that? Women's brains are smaller, on average, true, but. . .
"But trans people are not broken."
Wait. They are not broken, and nothing is wrong, but they do need elaborate medical procedures at other people's expense?
"What we need now is understanding, not cruelty...."
Can we get a tag for cruelty bullshit?
"But, sooner or later, one of us must know"
During the Paltrow trial, one of the brain researchers said
"The mind is a metaphysical creation of the brain". Genius.
There is only one binary that matters: sperm and eggs. Culture, society, and personal experiences lead to different languages, foods, practices, and fashions. None of it matters for sex and the continuation of the species.
These are first-world problems for neurotic social media people who live in fantasy world without causes or consequences. Breed or die. Wear whatever clothes you like and chop up your body all you like, but produce a fertile next generation or your culture will end with you.
Sex is determined by chromosomes
Science is science
[T]here’s a problem with using neurology as an argument for trans acceptance — it suggests that, on some level, there is something wrong with transgender people, that we are who we are as a result of a sickness or a biological hiccup
1: There is MUCH wrong with trans people. If there weren't then their feelings would be in accord with reality, including biological reality.
Thus the "dysphoria" label, and, as Johns Hopkins concluded, of the mind, not body, and, furthermore, the distinction of stable (e.g. trans/homo/cissexual), malleable (e.g. an unpredictable minority), and unstable classes (i.e. self-abortive, abortive a la recent female mass murderer).
2: If there is not in fact a biological cause for your "trans" ness, then if it's nothing more than "feelings" or "desires", then we only have to respect your "feelings" to the extend that you have to respect the feelings of pro-Trump 2020 "election deniers".
They abort Down Syndrome babies... fetal-babies for less. There are cultures (e.g. American) where albinophobia is paraded with pride, and others (e.g. African) where they perform human rites.
DNA doesn't lie. The Left are the SCIENCE DENIERS they try to pin on everyone else.
WaPo(D) opinion?
No thanks. 99% of Wapo is The Party narrative(D), propaganda, and crap.
We are getting very close to the left trying to normalize pedophilia. That's real. That's sick. That's cruel. It's evil.
Feminists seem to be completely on board.
5/1/23, 9:23 AM\
THIS^^ And what is sad, is that former feminists are caving to men.
The Democrat party are all on board in their desire to ruin women's sports.
If you dare not agree - you will be labeled a trans-phobe.
The democrat party = anti-women.
Hey - leftists - leave them kids alone.
If you are over age 18 - do what you want with your body.
From the article: "The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
Few and far between. So, normalize, tolerate, or reject.
For example, trans/homosexualism has no redeeming value to society or humanity. Tolerate or reject?
Transgender conversion through medical, surgical, or psychiatric therapy has unpredictable results. Tolerate or reject?
A human life evolves from conception until Her... or her Choice. Tolerate or reject?
One man, one woman, and human reproduction in sex and a lifetime in matrimony. Normalize?
The feminist, masculinists, and social progressives, and profit complex want to abort the baby and have her, too.
"Some want to draw a bright line in areas where maleness and femaleness might matter most — in sports, or locker rooms, or prisons." Copulation, not so much.
So now having thoroughly muddled and commingled "sex" and "gender;" having with ill intent destroyed the efficacy of heretofore useful words; the same pundits intend to bring order out of the egregious chaos, to "solve" the crisis they have created.
Thanks for nothing, Woke Assholes
The reason you ‘see it everywhere’ is A: Big Trans is extremely well funded and is willing to spend it on the current batch of corruptocrats and 2: flooding the zone with ridiculous articles like this promoting the redefining and addition of genders…
I hate to provide my attention to dribble like this. The people concerned with providing unfettered access to children for the purpose of either pedophilia or the promotion of gender reassignment and the criminalization of people trying to precent same deserve my/our attention…
When a skeleton is found, it can easiliy be identified as male or female, from the skull, hips, femor, and may other points. In many cases a skeleton can determine race (Caucasion, bBack or Asian) The science is extremely clear from a biological point of view. With DNA tests, there is never a doubt aout sex or race.
What you think you are is completely different than the biology. I am perfectly fine if you want to make adult choices to dress or act a certain way as long as it doesn't harm others or yourself. That is your perogative. However, you cannot change science.
Kindness Nose on… Kindness Nose off…
What we need now is an understanding of the malice, gullibility, dishonesty,and hunger for power at the center of the transgender propaganda campaign.
Biology of different sexes is science. The treatment of such differences can be policy, err Politics. Shame on Washington Post for wanting to treat sexual differences as some sort of mental issue for the purposes of partisan politics.
I’m finding it interesting and alarming that the political left these days are promoting policies that consider men’s and women’s brains to be different. Women sports shouldn’t be exclusive to women. Any person that is unsure of their gender should be put on medicine that render them sterile without psychological discussion. And that adult sexual interest in minors is acceptable.
"Biological. BIOLOGICAL sex has nothing to do with the brain."
The brain is part of biology. You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system. You can do it, but don't skip it and act as though you've already made it. Boylan came forward with enough evidence (esp. if you read the whole article and the linked study) to shift the burden on you to say more than of course what matters is genitalia.
Roll out the loyal WaPo speech crime police.
The left are losing on this issue - because trans-men in womens sports is unfair.
so the left must roll out the speech crime parameters.
Greg the Class Traitor @ 9:31: What you said. This is all horse puckey; the kind of frothy vacuous bickering that is exhibited by a civilization in a power-dive toward cultural and thus social and thus economic, political and military collapse.
What Gusty said. Spot on.
Can you learn a lot about a mental illness by studying how the neurons fire? I suppose so. But XX is still XX, and XY is still XY.
Yesterday, at the intermission a transgender woman was hanging around the men's room at the Civic Opera House. Was she in line for the urinals? Seems unlikely. But she was reasonably presenting as a female. The logical thing would be to do what I assume transvestites and transgenders have been doing for centuries, namely, go to the women's room and use the stalls, which I assume provide some measure of privacy. The same for people who go the other way--use the stalls.
What am I missing?
it suggests that, on some level, there is something wrong with transgender people, that we are who we are as a result of a sickness or a biological hiccup.
The basic biological purpose of life is to produce more life. In humans that is accomplished by the male inseminating the female, conception, pregnancy and then the female giving birth. Anything that interrupts or even complicates this process is a "biological hiccup".
As said above, if transgender dysphoria is not a sickness, then why does it need to be treated medically?
I suspect that no one would dispute that there are genetic (or mental) anomalies amongst humankind, as there are in all species (eg., how evolution happens....) But to upend and overturn traditional and socially normal mores and institutions for the singular accommodation of ~1% of this a-typical population, is extraordinary.
And it appears that, in record time, this "trans movement" has attained all of the results foreseen by Eric Hoffer, in Temper of Our Times (1967):
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation."
[As they say, embrace the power of "and."]
The brain is part of biology. You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system.
300,000 years of experience.
Feminists seem to be completely on board.
Feminism/masculinism is a class-disordered ideology (e.g. racism) exploiting diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) in service of minority progress.
take me to river
and push me in the water
just watching me drown
"People of good faith are... uncertain ...."
The mediaswine just don't get it. People of good faith are not idiots who think men can be women because they will it so. People of good faith use the term "biological males" to communicate with the idiots who do think so.
It's not uncertainty. It's an acknowledgment that a portion of the population is comprised of anti-science loons who believe that men can be women and vice versa, that the sky is falling and that human fetuses are merely bundles of cells. Oh, yeah, and that QuidProJoe is doing a good job.
Poor writing - Filled with unsubstantiated accusations...
The brains of schizophrenics are also different from others'. That doesn't make their delusions true.
Trans people deserve compassion and understanding, but we aren't obligated to destroy basic social norms to accommodate their perceptions of reality.
Gee, according to Wikipedia, Trisomy X is "relatively common". At a rate of 1/1000.
Huh. "Relative" to what, then?
Gender is a social construct created by the patriarchy for the purpose of subjugating women. Embrace it!
"The brain discussion might lead to useful knowledge, but has no bearing on gender."
Are you certain? If so, how do you know?
"People of good faith are... uncertain about when, and how, sex matters, and just how biological it is."
Really? I'm certain that sex is biological, and that doesn't make me a person of bad faith! I'm also certain that it matters to most people, and that certainty is reinforced whenever I consider my wife and three children. Just because a small minority of people doesn't see it that way doesn't taint my views as being in 'bad faith.'
I'm perfectly happy to accept those people who believe otherwise, and to treat them fairly. But not if they impugn my beliefs as being in bad faith, or try to create a world in which my views are considered a thought crime, for which I could be locked up (as Dylan Mulvaney is now suggesting should be done, for 'misgendering' him.) Live and let live runs both ways.
"What the research has found is that the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct."
I'd have been more inclined to believe this if I hadn't watched the left so thoroughly politicize science over the last decade.
I call bullshit on this essay- overall, the physical characteristics of a biological male brain cannot be distinguished between those with gender dysphoria and those without. However, you can distinguish the physical characteristics of a transgender female brain from a cis-female brain, and the reason is simple- the trans-female has a male brain, not a female one.
You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system.
Focus on the nervous system is a fool’s game, for or against. I do have a question for those siding with Big Trans however: If the essence of gender is the CNS why do we have to pay to change your bits?
"Boylan came forward with enough evidence (esp. if you read the whole article and the linked study) to shift the burden on you to say more than of course what matters is genitalia."
Really? The English Prof cites one self-serving biological study and that shifts the burden of proof as to the role of genitalia in determining gender. So what is provided by genitalia? Probable cause? A preponderance of the evidence? What? Or rather, what nonsense!
It's all just a smokescreen. Most normals don't care what various sexual deviants do to one another as long as they do it in private and leave others, particularly children, alone? The grand debates are necessary because their agenda dictates otherwise. They are coming for the children.
""trans women’s brains have been found to resemble those of cisgender women""
"trans women’s spleens have been found to resemble those of cisgender women"
Fun fact: Prior to 2009, science had no real idea what the spleen was for. Now they know it controls the level of blood cells. The spleen controls the level of white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets (small cells that form blood clots). It screens the blood and removes any old or damaged red blood cells.
That gives us hope that some day science will finally figure out what the appendix is for.
The science of every age is not determined by facts, but rather, their absence. It was and always will be so.
Have they found that gay gene yet?
A lot of things are probably mental conditions, and we have learned to live with that quite productively. Is this different? Only when it disconnects from reality.
There really ought to be an "open" category in individual sports where persons can compete against members of their own biological sex, whatever gender they claim. Team sports should use common sense to remain safe and competitive.
The transition industry has gotten way ahead of reality. Will no one think of the children? Where is Nancy Pelosi's concern when we really need it? What do they know in Europe on this topic that we are overlooking here? (Hint: they are pulling back on childhood affirmation treatment and irreversible interventions.)
"What we need now is understanding, not cruelty..."
Let's take a closer look at who is being cruel. As others have pointed out there's plenty of cruelty to go around. And a lot is coming from the left who are pushing the mutilation and chemical castration of children, destroying women's sports, and endangering biological women in prisons, locker rooms and restrooms by seeking to allow biological males in those areas. A biological woman or girl should not be trapped in a room where she must undress around a person who has a functioning penis. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is being cruel.
If you are desperately trying to justify a belief system, you will argue anything. Cognitive dissonance is not a problem; it is a challenge!
Almost all the "science" in this field is junk, and anyone who tries to do actual real science is denounced. There is no science. If someone is citing science in this topic, they are either trying to sell you something or clueless, probably both.
for brain to be visible to look at >> crack open skulls? but which bodies to choose?
The argument on sexual differences is in the nervous system, not the reproductive system? That’s an interesting theory. If you said endocrine system rather than nervous system, then I might see where you were going. So why is it that the treatment for gender dysphoria the use or hormones rather than mental assessment and treatment? If gender and sex is mental, then I’ll all for solving with mental assessment and study rather than hormones.
Althouse: "The brain is part of biology. You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system."
Because genital classification works, for purposes of procreation, which we are evolutionarily programmed to pursue. Brain classification doesn't work, that way.
Because it's easy to observe for purposes of procreative classification, in contrast to brain classification. How would you observe the brains of potential mating partners, if that was how we sorted for mating purposes? Might we find that sexually-attractive brains were affixed to bodies lacking the parts that fit/mate with ours? "Insert tab A into slot B . . . wait a minute, where's slot B?"
So, if procreation is regarded as desirable, classification by genitalia in mate-sorting is essential.
Easy-peasy.
What the research has found is that the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct
So the research is consistent with other research on brains of people with psychosis, who have lost touch with reality.
But if the trans-brain is something distinct, then a "trans-woman" is again NOT a woman!
In an actual, serious intellectual article, the next sentence would be what percentage of the population actually has those combinations.
And suppose among teenagers there are 1 / 1000 who have exceptional chromosomal combinations. Suppose some (half? a tenth? Call it one third to make the mathc, coming up, easier) of those kids experience bullying, hateful comments, etc. So, US population 330 million, chromosonally challenged 330 thousand, 10 percent teenaged is 33 thousand, and one third of those bullied: 10 thousand potential victims. There are about 20 to 25 thousand school districts across the US. Distribute the victims fairly across the districts and only about half of them have the issue, and that issue is confined to one, maybe two, individual students.
There are more teenaged pregnant girls in those schools who get bullied, and need help, than Trans-Kids. More kids with hearing impairment. MANY more fat kids.
Isn't it reasonable to address the general issue of "bullying" than the question of trans-prevalence?
Well, sex is completely biological. From chromosomes to genitalia to pubescent hormonal flood. To the number of naturally occurring orifices in the body (females have one extra). Now, if you want to argue gender, then you may have some wiggle room with the traits of men and women being more statistical and therefore a more or less proposition.
This is just another swipe at the end goal as to erase male and female.
Everyone knows that boy brains are good at science and math and girl brains are good at making cupcakes and raising children.
"Boylan came forward with enough evidence (esp. if you read the whole article and the linked study) to shift the burden on you to say more than of course what matters is genitalia."
Genes, first. Secondary sexual characteristics, second. Trans- a state or process of divergence (e.g. homosexual orientation) at the fringe. Boylan is promoting a strawman apology a la Carhart.
In wrestling there are weight categories.
You can't put a 250lb wrestler up against a 125lb wrestler. The size, weight, and strength advantage is too great.
This seems logical and fair. Not cruel.
Isn't it the same when we are talking about men completing in women's sports?
"Boylan came forward with enough evidence (esp. if you read the whole article and the linked study) to shift the burden on you to say more than of course what matters is genitalia."
Oh, than I’ll accept that challenge by rephrasing not in the form of a question: If genitalia were not what mattered you wouldn’t need me to pay to change your bits…
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation."
Yes - there is big money in trans-surgery and big pharma. Like big WAR.
Sprinkle with the left's desire to sexualize childhood.
Feminism/masculinism progresses to keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence sequestered in darkness.
You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system.
300,000 years of experience
300,000 years-plus of perpetuation of the human species. Which is accomplished by one type of human who produces ova and upon fertilization with sperm cells produced by another type of human, is capable of bearing and then birthing the resulting new human life, or when fertilization does not happen, expelling said ovum and preparatory tissue is a process called menstruation. For convenience sake, we call these ova producers and child bearers "female" (or women), and the other type of human is given the label of "male" (or man).
And there are different rules and social conventions for each body type -- regardless of their nervous system -- because bearing children is different than anything male.
It ain't that hard. Really, it isn't. Unless you are determined to make it so. Primitive peoples from 300,000 years ago got it. Why can't some professor??
From the linked study results, "The follow-up post hoc tests revealed that transgender women were significantly more female than cisgender men (Cohen’s d = 0.64, t(46) = 2.20, p = 0.016), but significantly less female than cisgender women (Cohen’s d = 1.87, t(46) = 6.48, p < 0.001)."
Based on those results, it's sure interesting that transwomen seem to lean so far into traditional expressions of femininity. Regardless, if you had to decide whether transwomen are women based on these data, I think you'd have to come down on the side that they are not.
To infer consciousness, look at the brain, probably.
Tina848 said...
When a skeleton is found, it can easiliy be identified as male or female, from the skull, hips, femor, and may other points. In many cases a skeleton can determine race (Caucasion, bBack or Asian) The science is extremely clear from a biological point of view. With DNA tests, there is never a doubt aout sex or race.
What you think you are is completely different than the biology. I am perfectly fine if you want to make adult choices to dress or act a certain way as long as it doesn't harm others or yourself. That is your perogative. However, you cannot change science.
5/1/23, 9:54 AM
THIS^^^
Boylan is proposing a metric. However, sex is determined by genes from conception. Gender is an emergent property of sex-correlated attributes. What Boylan is asserting is that science can discern origin and expression, is actually an article of faith.
The term “biological male,” as it is used by sentient individuals, does not require brain scans or any other difficult test. Is the individual equipped with a functioning penis, yes or no? By “functioning,” I mean can the penis sustain an erection and penetrate a female member of h. sapiens? In other words, can he engage in rape? Note that this simple test encompasses individuals born with both male and female genitalia (roughly 1 in 5000 births), cases of males who’ve had a vasectomy, and cases of males whose prostate has been removed, e.g., due to cancer. Trying to tell us that this simple, objective, test is wrong simply illustrates how wildly out of touch some nominally intelligent individual can be.
When Jennifer Finney Boylan writes the mawkish sentiment “What we need now is understanding, not cruelty....” it is clear that she is deliberately looking at cruelty from only one side. She is not regarding it as cruel for the two girls in different high schools in Loudoun County, Virginia, to have been raped by a biological (teenaged) male who wore a skirt to school and followed one into a girls’ rest room. Really, Althouse? Really, Jennifer Finney Boylan? Teenaged girls are supposed to accept being raped because otherwise it would be cruel to classify their rapist as a biological male and tell him to stay out of the girls’ rest rooms? It seems to me we’re growing an odd crop of feminists these days.
I presume that in the world of Jennifer Finney Boylan it is perfectly okay to house biological male prisoners, including biological male prisoners found guilty of rape, in the same cell with female prisoners just on their say-so that they think of themselves as female. Whether Jennifer Finney Boylan thinks this because she doesn’t much care what happens to female prisoners, or whether she feels that they should accept their rapes for the greater glory of transgenderism is unclear since the article is behind a paywall. You’d think feminists would care at least a little bit about fdme prisoners. You’d be wrong, of course.
What should we make of reports that Lia Thomas delights in displaying his (fully functioning) male genitalia at teammates, and ogling them as they change into or out of their swim suits? Or that a chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma pledged a biological male (as defined above) who openly ogles sorority sisters he catches partially dressed or walking back from a shower wrapped in a towel? Should they simply accept the highly uncomfortable ogling in the name of transgenderism? In the mind of Jennifer Fenney Boylan are they “asking for it” to be less than fully clothed when the biological male is around? Or is it less cruel to innocent females caught up in this madness to tell a biological male to get the surgery or pledge a frat or forget about Greek life on campus?
It seems simple to me. Do your own thing, be who you feel you ought to be, but don’t hurt other people. What’s wrong with not hurting other people? Perhaps Jennifer Finney Boylan can explain.
Blogger Not Sure said...
The brains of schizophrenics are also different from others'. That doesn't make their delusions true.
Trans people deserve compassion and understanding, but we aren't obligated to destroy basic social norms to accommodate their perceptions of reality.
Excellent ! That medical schools are starting to teach this nonsense is really disturbing.
The democrat party machine - they know about all the brains... they have all the research, the tests...the studies.. the science! the unquestioned results! The science is settled, you phobes.
Trust the science. Do not question the democrat party and their media surrogates on any issue. For hark - they have all the so-called "studies".... and you're all a pack of trans-phobes.... if you do not fall in line with their reasoning and narratives.
Wapo's Note to those of you free thinkers who are not "right wing" - get back on the narrative thought-plantation.
Don't care about your damn brain.
Get your penis out of my female locker room.
If I can't see someone's genitals any easier than I can see their brain, we probably won't have a problem sharing a space that is supposed to be for women. If it's a place like a locker room where there are people in various states of undress in the same space, then go into the one that matches your body parts regardless of your brain.
You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system.
If it is within the nervous system, why does the body need to be changed by an outside force? Are we thinking that throughout human evolution, a sizable proportion of people were men in female bodies and there was nothing to do about it? Or have they historically thought, "this is how I feel and this is my body and the two naturally go together because that is my biology?"
Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok
A 12-year-old in
@MiddleboroughPS
was allegedly sent home from school and told he’s making people feel unsafe for wearing a shirt that said “there are only 2 genders.”
Watch him destroy the school board đŸ”¥
https://twitter.com/i/status/1652659333921148929
No one questions that transgenderism (e.g. homosexual orientation) exists. No one questions that transsexuals exist. People do question the purpose of normalization of unfit behaviors and therapy that has demonstrated no skill, and does, in fact, unpredictably, progress unstable transgender conditions, particularly in underage boys and girls, particularly when we are in transition during puberty, particularly when there is a dearth of knowledge and awareness during our formative years.
First off. I don't get my information on biology from english teachers.
"The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
No. No it's not. It is rare.
" Boylan came forward with enough evidence (esp. if you read the whole article and the linked study) to shift the burden on you to say more than of course what matters is genitalia."
Sorry, Ms Ann, but one study does not a scientific conclusion make.
Lets make genitalia a baseline and go from there.
What the laws are attempting to do is not have children exploited sexually. I think that is a good thing.
Why is all the focus on Male to Female cross dressers? One would get the impression that they are much more common than female to male.
In fact, it is the opposite. About 60-70% of all cross dressers are female to male.
A paranoid conspiracy theorist like me might think there is some reason why the f>m's are largely ignored.
I do think there is a reason/ I just can't fathom what it might be.
John Henry
One might wonder if drugs taken by trans people alter brain chemistry.
I do question why a person with an axe to grind on this subject should be taken seriously, in the WaPo or elsewhere.
I believe a man who wants to present himself as a woman is displaying a sexual fetish. That belief explains his behavior and doesn't require me to deny science. Occam's razor applies.
"To understand biological sex, look at the brain, not the body"
As Althouse might say...
"Let's take a closer look at those brains"
As usual, anything written by failed literary novelist Boyle is pure pap.
Boyle starts by complaining that people, including subhumans like Republican men, are using terms such as "biological male/female" rather than instantaneously submitting to the invented slur, "cis," and Boyle perceives this as an insult. But it wasn't so long ago that the political trans community itself openly used and recommended the "biological" or "biologically-born" label.
Do keep up with what the professional liar class demands of you, she demands, even if it changes frequently. So, empathy for such activists? No. They not only slur me but demand I slur myself. It's grim to watch you meekly submit.
To the study: it does not prove that so-called "trans brains" are different from male or female brains, as Finney asserts. Setting aside her offensive exploitation of the exceedingly rare chromosomal conditions, this is not the trans movement's "born like this" moment she claims it to be. Using a mere 72 subjects, 24 self-defined female trans (why no male?), the researchers do nothing more than apply a slightly different measurement to differentiate between the subjects' responses to certain mechanical brain stimulus.
I'm pretty suspicious of this type of neuro-biological research, and this is a good example of the built-in subjectivity that mars their findings (such studies usually tell us much more about the psychology of the researchers themselves).
The authors here actually only do one thing that they falsely claim deviates from prior brain-sex differentiation research. This thing is "measuring" brain stimuli on a "spectrum" across the sexes instead of a crusty old male-female dichotomy.
And what do they find? Surprise! Some ladies are more feminine than other ladies, and ditto for males. Ergo, transbrain from birth! But nobody since Mencken has ever denied such deviations within males and females in general, and even he didn't deny it: he just bemoaned it.
I didn't look at all the citations or search hard for any mention of whether any of these self-reporting "trans-women" were taking hormones or blockers. But it doesn't matter. "Research" like this in no way challenges the fact that there are two distinct sexes with verifiable and immutable biological, chemical, psychological, and developmental differences (barring the abovementioned few born with actually verifiable chromosomal disorders).
Soon Boyle will be on to her next theory or linguistic bullying, supported as ever by dishonest "researchers." Far more can be learned about her transgender journey in her memoir, which made me want to rescue her poor wife and get her to the nearest domestic violence shelter or cult reprogramming specialist. I don't think you need to stick Boyle's head in the pretty color MRI fantasyland of neurobiology to grasp what drives her activism: trans has been very good for her vitae. She went from being a backwater MFA type overshadowed by her peers to being a professor at an elite school and a columnist for the Times, with the usual Who-ville Size teaching obligations and higher social cachet and cha-ching.
I've known about trannies since the 60s. There was a movie about Christine Jorgenson. In the navy there was a lot of discussion of the ladyboys of Olongapo Philipines and apparently there was a street in Honolulu where you could get cheap service if you did not worry too much about what was in the pants. I knew about Jan Morris in the 80s, Dierdre McCluskey in the 90s. Always sunny in Philadelphia had a woman with aq large bulge in the oughties. There was a series with Richard Dreyfuss about a tranny professor. Tristan Taormano had a column in Salon in the 90s where she often talked about how much fun it was to hang out with trannies. HBO's Real Sex had a couple of segments about "chicks with dicks" in the early oughties. I could probably think of other examples.
In other words, they have always been around. A bit odd or sad, perhaps, but nobody paid a lot of attention to them.
And drag shows are a tradition going back to the early 1900s. Though dragsters, as RuPaul has always emphasised were not transgender. They were just men, often gay, who like to dress up and perform as women.
What has caused the explosion in trannies in the past year or 2? It is almost like there is a conspiracy to promote it. It could not be the pharmaceutical and plastic surgery industries behind this, could it?
I certainly have no problem with trannies. I do have the problem with the way it is being jammed down my throat.
John Henry
The trans community activists have determined that their social what-if make-believe construct must be imposed on all others, which would be funny, if it weren’t so evil. They demand we fit into their construct, rather than they simply fit into theirs, and leave all others’ alone. We can’t be, shouldn’t be forced to lie about these basic things.
IMHO, stroke victims, Parkinson’s victims, autistic people, etc should get all the brain science bandwidth we have, not this bs that serves no purpose but to shame people into submission.
There is a lesbian dating site called "Her".
It recently started kicking off lesbians who refused to date men.
John Henry
Well the BRAIN is part of the BODY, Lady. If you are studying the brain it is biology or psychology, the study of the physical or the mental traits of a patient. I'll step out out on a sturdy limb here and say, "Nothing these 'researchers' have to say about 'gendered brains' is going to add to the cultural knowledge to the extent Men...Mars / Women...Venus did 20 or so years ago."
On the contrary the new Lysenkoism is already wearing out it's unlikely and uncanny welcome into the medical research field. Thank God that He is still in control.
"No one who embarks upon a life as a trans person in this country is doing so out of caprice, or a whim, or a delusion."
That's a blatant lie.
"If Helen Reddy were still alive, she would have to sing, “I am a person who produces eggs, hear me roar.” Shania Twain could bellow, “Man, I feel like a person with an ovary.” Gary Puckett and the Union Gap would change their ballad to the not so catchy, “Person with a vagina, person with a vagina, have you got cheating on your mind?”"
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/a_woman_by_any_other_name_is_still_a_woman.html
From the article: "The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
Even if this were true, and it is so far from from truthful that the world is "full" of any people much less truly intersex people born with ambiguous sexual organs, that it is laughable these idiots would spout such nonsense. But they do. IMO it is the height of cruelty to lump these unfortunate souls in with your activism, to link their difficult medical pathologies with your personal mental contagion, that I'm surprised Althouse didn't call out the cruelty of these fellow professors.
But it is no surprise, after all they go away with taking over the tiny flock of cross-dressing ENTERTAINERS who literally just want to dress up and play girl for a few hours a night and made them the frontline troops to spread their hideous social disease to children. Now what is an ethical but exuberant performer in drag supposed to do? Join the pedophile army or give up show business?
Now THAT is cruel. And not at any allowance in there for "neutrality." Your either WITH the pederasts or no longer fit to be a drag queen. Like the Reese's voiceover guy says, "sorry notsorry!"
I could probably think of other examples.
Everybody forgets The World According to Garp these days.
OK, let's accept for the sake of argument that the brains are different. Does it follow that people with XY chromosomes should be allowed to compete against those with XX chromosomes? Does it follow that we should be chopping parts off of kids? Heck, does it follow that we should be chopping parts off of adults?
"The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
Full of, here means 0.018%
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
I’ve heard this before, but as far as I know, they don’t account for homosexuality. Those those “female brains” in men are just men who are attracted to other men. The “male brain” in women is just women attracted to other women.
I think it's the fucking cats doing it. And then they sit there in our laps purring like nothing happened.
The prime imperative for all biological organisms is life: sustain life and reproduce. The drive to reproduce is so strong it will overpower the self-preservation mode of most animals. Much human comedy is derived from this obvious biological fact and what we do to accommodate it. The purpose of Life is to create more Life.
Therefore anything that takes the place of the prime imperative to survive and reproduce is by definition abnormal aberrant behavior. Mating with inanimate objects is pointless but we've all seen animals try just to try and fulfill their purpose. And same sex attraction is not logical nor "normal" in the strict biological context but at least fulfills the biological drive to "try" even though that kind of "mating" won't create life. We have socially constructed ways of helping gay couples acquire children legally and lawfully because in our compassion we understand that children need parents and where willing stable couples wish to help orphans we should allow it. It's even kinda accepted as a "normal family" at this point in history by enough people to make it acceptable even to people who still view homosexuality as abnormal.
That's the beautiful diversity of the live and let live America I grew up in. Now we have dystopiam government hellbent on worsening every aspect of our lives, compounded by radical and empowered populations of creeps, weirdos, pedophiles and rapists who have formed an unlikely coalition in order to victimize young people. Creeps weirdos and pedophiles get the protection of the state and an international child smuggling scheme that brings thousands of new victims to our borders and in every day along with all the public schoolchildren they could ever hope to get their filthy hands on. So the creeps weirdos and pedophiles are only too happy to help their new radicalized transactivist allies.
But the rapists are the biggest problem Now they get to declare they are girls to invade their locker rooms, their showers, their lesbian dating sites and most despicable of all, prison. We take women who are supposed to be constitutionally protected from cruel and unusual punishment and lock them up with men who have free access to abuse them over and over and if the real women speak out about being raped by the fake women then the real women get punished for violating the civil rights of rapists, who are now allowed to rape to their heart's content. Literally a cruel punishment proscribed by our Constitution. Demanded to be so by progressives.
And the cruelly neutral Althouse has endless compassion for the freaks weirdos creeps and rapists, even to the point they are marginalizing her old allies the feminists. Feminism is no longer tolerated among the non-TERF feminists. It just us stupid Conservatives that are the problem for pointing out how ridiculous it all is.
"I've known about trannies since the 60s. There was a movie about Christine Jorgenson."
Your terminology is unclear. "Trannies" is the traditional term for men who enjoy dressing as women, short for "transvestite." Many men who enjoy dressing as women are heterosexual in orientation, and they derive sexual satisfaction by wearing women's under- and/or overwear. Gay men who dress as women usually do it as performance, (ironic or burlesque)--such as actor Divine--rather than because they want to live as or be women or derive sexual satisfaction from dressing as women.
Christine Jorgenson was a man who underwent sex change surgery to become a woman, perhaps the first well-publicized "transsexual," (now more often "transgender").
I understand "transvestite" has become essentially archaic, and "cross-dresser" is the preferred (or more common) term today, so "tranny" may now generally today refer to transgendered persons, but that is a recent development. When you refer to the "trannies" you've known about since the 60s, are you referring to transvestites or transexuals? If the latter, you are rare in having known about them so early, as transsexuals were not common in the 1960s, and there was little public awareness of them.
The purpose of Life is to create more Life.
That's the only known fitness function. Everything else stems from religious (i.e. moral, ethical, legal) constructs. Religious in peace and the force of arms in conflict.
One point that I will concede, is that there is a need for a proper metric(s) a la "women and men are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature", "life from conception", "legal viability with nervous system function in state but not process", etc.
"'No one who embarks upon a life as a trans person in this country is doing so out of caprice, or a whim, or a delusion.'
"That's a blatant lie."
How do you know? Can you prove your accusation? Why would someone undergo trans surgery as caprice or a whim? (There probably are those who do so because they are confused. This is why no such surgery should be performed on anyone until the person seeking it has taken hormones and dressed and lived as the gender they identify as for sufficient time to be aware of and willing to live with the implications of actually going through with the surgery.)
Two men and a womb is fashion Forward!
From the article: "The world is full of people with other combinations: XXY (or Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (or Trisomy X), XXXY, and so on."
This is so aggressively ignorant as to be presumptively bad faith. People with XXY, XXXY, XXX, XO chromosomes still are (and present as, and identify as) male or female, based on whether they have a Y chromosome. Anyone who's done the slightest reading about people with chromosomal anomalies understands this. It's simply a lie to suggest that those people construe some sort of third gender.
cassandra lite @ 9:18 - "What's the Venn diagram of those who insist the science is settled on climate change but not on biological sex?"
I dub thee Thread Winner. Let's add in those sporting "We believe the science" signs and bumper stickers. More like "We believe the science when it supports our side of the argument".
This argument about "male" versus "female" brains being the determining factor in deciding who is a woman or a man, sounds like fake science. I'm female, but until about age 16, I identified with being male as a teenager, more so than female. So did my mother, who dressed as a boy for many years. If her or my brain scans were to show that they're slightly different from other females that does NOT make us men!
So all of a sudden there ARE differences between men and women? Well what happened to recognizing the differences between women and other women, and between men and other men? Or are all women and all men supposed to "think alike" now?
I've said it before and I'll say it again this is retrograde nonsense. And ironically progressives are embracing it. As I mentioned before , I suspect it's intended to be a political wedge issue for the propagandist left because it works on the simple minded, who want a reason to hate republicans and conservatives.
And I don't rule out that some percentage of the population are just perverts who want to get their hands on women and children. They know they can count on the useful idiot intellectuals and the brain-dead "woke" women to back them up.
And I wouldn't care about any of this nonsense if it wasn't for the fact the children ARE being hurt. The self-proclaimed nicer, smarter people may want to pretend that isn't true, but they're lying to themselves. All they have to do is look around and see what's going on in any middle or high school to know there is a mental health problem among our teenagers.
When your political ideology includes mutilating children, maybe, just maybe you're the baddie!
Writes the woman who is not a person of good faith. Unless a person has genetic defects, he or she is either male or female at the cellular level. Those pushing the trans mania are undermining our society with their pathologies.
New understandings of non-coding DNA (the 98% that doesn't create your body) might explain a good deal.
Look to the spleen.
"Feminism is no longer tolerated among the non-TERF feminists."
Feminism is a concept by which we measure our pain.
A transgender cyclist (woman with a penis) won a women's mounting bike race in New Mexico this weekend.
First prize was $35,000. Tour of the Gila in New Mexico.
Maybe once bigger money and college scholarships are on the line, liberal feminists might start rethinking their accusations of "cruelty".
Get a bunch of dudes to transition and take over the waste of money administrative positions at American universities. Liberal administrators do like their ivory tower paychecks, pensions, and benefits.
The problem with these machine learning studies is that, especially after removing the context of the data by PCA, you have no idea what the algorithm is using to classify the images, it could easily be that it is only using the fact that larger brains are male. There was a famous machine learning project done to distinguish between nato and Russian tanks in satellite photos. It was very accurate, but after study it was just classifying tanks in scenes with snow on the ground as Russian.
So we have no idea why the machine is classifying this way and it is as likely to be a trivial difference as not. The training data had no reported context so there could have been skewed data in age or health, or body mass, perhaps trans people weigh less. I suspect that mostly only abnormal people are getting MRIs, you don’t get one unless you think something is wrong, so the training set may be abnormal. The training data was from a standard set and I could not find out if they are patients or healthy volunteers. At least give us some general stats on the subjects.
The big reveal is that the classifier is giving a .75 probability of male for a trans male to be, but the confidence intervals show some overlap, give us a few histograms please. Since most trans people go from female to male it would have been nice to have that group added to see if they were only .75 female, you only needed 25 of them, right?
Now you need to do the hard work, manually find some features in the images that you can actually use to determine if it’s a male or trans image, then you will know something.
"I certainly have no problem with trannies. I do have the problem with the way it is being jammed down my throat." John Henry
So true, that. Look to the quick victory for gay marriage. The Human Rights Campaign had to do something with that fund-raising infrastructure, so they did this. What about the fact that they are throwing gays over the side? Will no one speak up for butch lesbians or effeminate gay guys? Isn't this just a rather crude move to butcher the butches and gag the gays?
The horror! The horror!
And what is the Democrat Party thinking? That the liberal center is also weak-minded? I know that Smilin' Joe Biden is not a responsible person at this point, but what are they scripting him to say?
Vote Democrat. It is the party of the Mutilation of the Confused.
Utter and complete bullshit.
Care to explain how this miraculous evolution has happened in only the past 3 years or so?
People just don't want to be gay anymore.
Too boring. Not enough clicks...
Ann Althouse said...
The brain is part of biology. You have to make the argument for why rules and social conventions should follow genitalia rather than the nervous system. You can do it, but don't skip it and act as though you've already made it.
1: No we do NOT have to make the argument for why the rules and social conventions that have been followed for all of human history are the ones we should stick with. The burden is properly, completely, and totally on the people who want to change that. until you've made a rational argument for change (and you haven't yet done so), the default remains preeminent
2: Because the genitalia define sex, and always have.
Why? Well because Male genitalia + female genitalia == baby
"Male brain" + "female brain" == ??? Fighting? Complete inability to agree with / understand each other?
So other than that you have yet to provide an actual definition of "male brain" and "female brain", whereas we have actual and clear definitions of male genitalia and female genitalia, you've got a great argument there.
/sarc
Do you really not see the insanity of the position you're pushing?
Robert Cook,
I've known the term tranny as a person, almost always a man, who lives as the opposite sex.
What many call today transsexuals. That is how I've always used the term and how I have almost always seen it used. It is certainly how Tristan taormino of Salon used it. Ditto Michael must of village voice.
Perhaps it depends on where we live, what we read, who we hang with.
Sorry about the confusion on your part.
John Henry
Furries will be next on the hit parade. Not for condemnation, but for normalization. And then sheep-fanciers.
Cookie emerges to do battle for transitionworld.
Send lawyers, guns, and money.
"Congratulations! It's a...well, the MRIs are tied up right now. Shouldn't be too long."
A real scientific study would examine the brains/responses of hundreds of people of both sexes, without knowing which---if any---claimed to have "gender dysphoria".
Only a second group of researchers would know which were cis and which were trans when THEY were tabulating the results.
The study cited here looked for differences in tiny populations the researchers had already identified, so it's useless as "science".
Publishing junk science doesn't shift the burden of proof.
"Why would someone undergo trans surgery as caprice or a whim?"
I suspect many of us will think of that Versace woman and Madonna as people who underwent disfiguring surgery on a caprice and whim.
Here's a movie on the subject.
Note the film maker's exposure of the propaganda that is going on.
Similar chronic behaviors often produce similar findings in brain studies.
What is the causality?
Do certain brains produce certain behaviors or do certain behaviors produce certain brain findings or both?
The neuroscience is extremely far from being even close to settled. We do not have the technology to study the brain in a way that would produce even somewhat conclusive results.
We are talking political science here, not neuroscience.
I really don't know why all of you think explaining a completely reasonable response to the dear professor is worth your time.
She thinks you NEVER understand things the way she does because she always responds with a snarky response that in essence tells you are Neanderthals incapable of really "getting it".
She's actually not persuasive at all. Just condescending.
Sheesh!
In Saturday's tranny post someone mentioned Calvin Trilling. That reminded me It's been 30 or more years since I've read him.
So I downloaded "quite enough of Calvin Trilling, a collection of essays and columns from over the years.
And what do I run across? An essay about a hypothetical story conference at an unnam but Time-like magazine.
One of the possible stories is about a small town in Indiana that is the sex change capital of the world! There is some discussion of reason. The town used to quarry a lot of limestone but that dried up. Now sex changes bring in even more money.
Egads, there is just no escaping.
The essay is from 1999.
Calvin Trilling, for those who don't know him, is primarily a satirist and long time New Yorker staff writer.
Every bit as good as I remembered him
John Henry
"I've known the term tranny as a person, almost always a man, who lives as the opposite sex."
In the well-informed words of Dr. Frank N. Stein in Rocky Horror Picture Show:
"I am just a sweet transvestite/ From Transexual, Transylvania."
I understand that "tranny" is now considered quite rude by people in the transworld. Bret Stephens wrote a column about it at WSJ on the subject of free speech before he went to the dark side.
Wondering if there was anything behind the Indiana sex change capital, I searched (using Duck duck go, not google) for "sex change capital" + "Indiana"
I did not find anything on Indiana but I did get a couple dozen articles about the town of Trinidad Colorado including this one from 1998.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-sex-change-capital-of-the-us/
Sex-Change Industry a Boon to Small City
By JAMES BROOKE
The New York Times
November 8, 1998
Perched for the last century on the sandstone facade of the First National Bank building here, three impish gargoyles have watched the changing foot traffic on Main Street, as this small plains city reinvented itself again and again.
When cattle was king, this proud building of Romanesque arches was the headquarters of a vast cattle and land empire. When coal was king, the back offices became a health clinic for the United Mine Workers of America.
With tourism now the king in Colorado, the former union clinic receives medical travelers from around the world who have come to consult a surgeon who has made this town known as ''the sex-change capital of the world.''
''It's a boon to business here,'' the surgeon, Stanley H. Biber, said of his specialty in this town 200 miles south of Denver. ''They come with families, they stay in the hotels, they eat in the restaurants, they buy at the florists.''
(Snip)
Looking at the NYT story and Trilling's essay, I see enough similarities that Trilling may have gotten the idea from the NYT. But enough differences that I may be imagining things.
John Henry
"To understand bi-illogical sex, look at the brain, not the body"
Fixed. A cursory observation based on difference in brain size is presumptuous. Also, correlation is not causation.
Robert Cook,
Wikipedia has an entry on "Tranny" Nothing about transvestites. Per them, strictly transsexuals. It used to be acceptable but fell out of favor a few years back, may be coming back to acceptability now.
I'll go ahead and keep using it.
Also a number of dictionary sites show the preferred meaning to be transsexual though some show a secondary meaning of transvestite.
And you and I seem to agree that transvestites are men who enjoy dressing in women's clothing but do not consider themselves women.
John Henry
""People of good faith are... uncertain about when, and how, sex matters, and just how biological it is."
The stupid, lying cow does not know any people of "good faith", and wouldn't care to hear their opinions if she did.
A biological woman or girl should not be trapped in a room where she must undress around a person who has a functioning penis.
A biological woman or girl also should not be coerced or bullied or shamed or even "sympathized" into believing that she has to change her body radically to match her interests (like the daughter of friends of ours, a lovely and entirely female young woman in college who was a total tomboy as a child, and remains today a fierce competitor in three varsity sports - field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse).
Who was it, up thread, who termed this farrago "retrograde"? All my life - more, all Althouse's life - women have been fighting for what they finally won, on behalf of both sexes: the ability to follow one's interests regardless of stereotypes. And now? God forbid you're a girl who likes cars or a boy who likes dressing up. Your elementary school teacher, your preschool teacher may anchor your class's attitudes about personal interests in terms of gender stereotypes. Et voilĂ , you're a trans child and your parents are committing child abuse if they adopt a position of watchful waiting (or even of accepting that you're interested in what you're interested in!) if they don't immediately socially transition you.
Or if your school is one of those that forbid teachers from telling parents of this situation that their anchoring may have created, your parents may be accused of child abuse if they don't welcome your secret social transition with open arms and start you on puberty blockers or hormones ASAP.
Oh, and I agree with those who are pushing back against Althouse's statement that because this person presented some data from a tiny and uncontrolled study that barely provided a little juice for her claim, we have to take that claim as the ground on which we're fighting.
It's not. The ground is still mammalian biology and behavior. Are there gay non-human primates? Maybe - there are certainly primates who perform homosexual acts, though I have not heard that we know of any individual animals who solely have gay sex. But even if I'm mistaken, so what? The claim here is that "homosexual" and "trans" are different classes, and there is so far no way to tell definitively - from physiology, from brain structure, chemistry, or activity, from the endocrine system - if a person, much less a non-human mammal, is trans except through interview. A trans animal would just "act gay."
The "trans is just another kind of normal" crowd is going to have to do a lot more work before that claim can possibly be convincing. But trying to define the fighting ground is absolutely good tactics, can't blame them for trying. I wish my side were more committed to it rather than whatever Marquess of Queensbury nonsense we tend to adhere to.
To understand biological sex, look at the brain, not the body.
Beg pardon? My understanding is that a woman in a vegetative state can be impregnated and give birth, provided her body is supported in its normal functions (nutrition, breathing, excretion, like that). A man in a vegetative state can impregnate (with some assistance - I think a man in a coma can have erections and possibly ejaculate, but I don't know about a man in a vegetative state - however, as long as his testicles are functioning, he should be able to produce sperm that can be used to impregnate a woman). (Both of these things would be horribly unethical - maybe even with an advance directive? I dunno... Maybe in the case of the woman, unethical even with an advance directive, but maybe not in the case of the man? Regardless, I'm talking about biology, not ethics.)
Am I wrong?
If a coroner is called upon to identify the sex of a mutilated body he is likely to use dna. Can dna identify more than two of the 38 or 55 genders? What would those two be?
The trans mania is the Lysenkoism of the 21st Century.
Furries will be next on the hit parade. Not for condemnation, but for normalization. And then sheep-fanciers.
First they'll have to establish that sheep can give consent. From what i hear from sheep farmers, they're all just asking for it anyway.
And the cruelly neutral Althouse has endless compassion...
I agree with this much, and actually have no problem with it. It's what I want and expect from a woman in Althouse's position. Society needs the compassionate to remind us of our better natures in stressful times and help heal our wounds after conflict.
The problem is giving such women the right to vote. Good governance can often be seen as cruel from certain points of view. Especially if the issue is presented in a way to attract the interest of the compassionate, and the message given to them is manipulated to play on their compassion. Have you ever wondered why female circumcision was labeled "female genital mutilation (FGM)" and transgender surgery is labeled as "gender affirming care"? Want to bet that Althouse opposed female circumcision and supports transgender surgery? One makes her feel bad, and the other makes her feel good.
I respect Althouse, and I am very interested in her ideas. I would love it if she engaged in a dialogue with us more regularly. I want her influence to be felt.
I just don't want her to vote.
Repeal the 19th.
Anna Keppa said...
A real scientific study would examine the brains/responses of hundreds of people of both sexes, without knowing which---if any---claimed to have "gender dysphoria".
Only a second group of researchers would know which were cis and which were trans when THEY were tabulating the results.
The study cited here looked for differences in tiny populations the researchers had already identified, so it's useless as "science".
Publishing junk science doesn't shift the burden of proof.
This
1000 times this
in ANY reputable field this "research" would not be published.
There's two ways you can do this kind of study.
The first is to do what Anna said: You get information from 100s of people, have each individual screwed by someone who does NOT know anything about the people
The second would be to have a training set of 4 groups of people (male | female x cis | trans), come up with your classifiers, and then have an automated system that runs those classifiers against 100s of people of all types, and then you score your classifier based on how well it actually classified the unknown people.
Solely looking at people where you already know the answers you're going to give, and then playing with the data until it gives you the "answers" you want, isn't science
it's not even junk science
it's just fraud
Good thing she distinguishes between conservatives and 'people of good faith.' They use the term 'right wing' to refer to even the most moderate Republicans so I can't assume she meant 'extreme right wing.'
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/05/02/the-science-says-get-em-while-theyre-young-n547716
It’s hard to believe that some physicians wait until age 8 or 9 to begin the process of gender transition for children.
The “science” says you should start much, much earlier. As we all know 2-year-olds begin the dangerous contemplation of suicide if their parents force them to wear blue or pink diapers, the colors of which fail to match their internal sense of gender identity.
That’s why hospital systems in North Carolina are blazing a new trail and beginning to provide gender transition treatments to children as young as 2.
Is that what "compassion" looks like to you, Prof Althouse?
you have a gay son, yes? Should "he" have been "transitioned" to a "she", starting at age 2?
The term "biological male" is redundant phrasing. There is only one kind of male human - a biological one. Females who pretend to be males are still females. Males who pretend to be females are still males.
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