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Originally Posted by ianch99
This is an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history. This is also worth reading: https://www.petertatchellfoundation....ns-liberation/
As in many recent areas of disagreement, the lack of nuance is evident. There are many people who strongly believe that they are mis-gendered and go through tremendous personal trauma, counselling, medical treatments and invasive surgery to achieve the gender they fundamentally believe they belong to. These people are not "mental".
Society should be able to accommodate these people and, at the same time, ensure safeguarding for the small number of cases where security concerns are raised. You can argue that, in the past, homosexually was treated in the same way: homosexuality was considered an "unnatural" act, leading to punishments ranging from fines and imprisonment to public shaming and even death. Yet, today, it is part of mainstream society. |
Tatchell’s piece is the usual mix of unevidenced assertions, contradictions and circular definitions.
To assert the ‘facts’ of sexual attraction and so-called gender identity side by side is ludicrous. You can observe sexual attraction, and therefore sexual orientation, in a laboratory. It has a powerful physiological component that is measurable. You can do no such thing vis a vis ‘gender identity’ which is an entirely internal, self-referencing psychological state riven with contradictions and circularity (ask a trans activist to define the word ‘woman’ without reference to the word ‘woman’ … it’s entertaining).
There is no credible evidence for the existence of the ‘trans brain’. No serious study has ever shown any such thing. It is not gender-critical commentators who are trying to impose regressive sexual stereotypes, it is the trans community. Anyone who has ever seen a trans-identifying male dress as a woman knows that regressive stereotypes of womanhood are very much a trans trait. And his so-called solutions to the problems of males in the female prison estate and other sensitive female-only spaces are just exercises in special pleading. It doesn’t matter how carefully you assess a man who wants to attend a women-only safe space, the process of assessment in and of itself embeds and normalises the idea that men should be allowed to identify themselves into those spaces by default, over-and above the objection of women who do not want them there simply because they are men.
I’m also curious what published evidence there is that Tatchell was campaigning on these issues 50 years ago. I’ve never seen any. I have on the other hand seen evidence in print of his past advocacy for pedophilia. So he’s not someone whose views on societal norms I’d instinctively trust.
I could go on, but I shall take a deep breath and refrain. For now.
