I am aware that the whole transgender thing is a particular bugbear of mine and a subject on which I

[Berni]

risk becoming a bore (or at least more of one than I am on other subjects), but it really, genuinely bothers me just how quickly an orthodoxy seems to have crept in that simply does not allow discussion of the fundamentals of this issue.

How did we get to a stage where, if a public figure refers to a transgender person by their biologically accurate personal pronoun or by their given forename, there is an outcry and apologies/sackings are demanded? How can it be that a publically-expressed degree of healthy scepticism over what is scientifically an extremely dubious matter (to say the least) is considered tantamount to a hate crime? How can we be in a situation where it is considered unreasonable that a volleyball player who is biologically a man is prevented by the sport's authorities from competing as a woman?

In short: what the f**k is wrong with everyone? :-(

[Billy Goat Sverige]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

First they came for BFR, but you said nothing...

[Jake]

http://blackademic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/lavernOITNB.jpg

[Berni]

out that someone with a functioning ***** and testicles and absolutely no female sexual characteristics whatsoever is not a woman is just a statement of fact. We are not dealing in opinions or prejudices here, we are dealing in demonstrable, dangly, meat-and-two-veg FACTS.

We are being made to conform to an out-and-out lie for fear of being thought intolerant. Even radical feminists are being cast into outer darkness or silenced on the grounds that they not unreasonably object to the idea that someone can pop on a wig, a frock and a bit of slap and call themselves a woman despite never having lived one minute as a woman in their lives.

It is genuinely - not just rhetorically - insane.

[Monty91]

[Classic Jorge]

sorry, had to

[Pokster]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

comedians / university movement of the 80s, through the likes of the BFR incident and the climate change industry to the current trans issues, you will note that the outstanding feature is the insistence on adherence to the sacred texts with NO DISSENT ALLOWED COMRADE!

The endgame is clearly the inhibition of freedom of speech as a method of inibiting freedom of thought; destroy imagination and you destroy ambition and aspiration - and then you have the grey, unthinking turnip-growing, tractor-producing drones required for Jeremy and his ilk to be truly free to enjoy their dachas in peace.

[Berni]

accept their self-definition.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Have you just made that term up?

[Monty91]

I almost felt compelled to defend it, purely on your behalf.

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

[Monty91]

[Classic Jorge]

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/13622663._Bradfor d_Jesus_Man__dies_in_hospital_after_fall_at_home/ (http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/13622663._Bradford_Jesus_Man__dies_in_hospital_aft er_fall_at_home/)

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Monty91]

cost me a fortune in dry cleaning

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

[Monty91]

Bit harsh

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Gender is male or female.

The rest are just f**king freaks.

[Classic Jorge]

[Monty91]

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I would describe these people as 'freaks' and, 'God's punishment for something dreadful their parents did.'

[Monty91]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Classic Jorge]

No need

[Norn Iron]

as it is probably offensive.

[Berni]

hermaphrodites, who are very unfortunate souls suffering a horrible downstairs mix-up. :-(

I feel very sorry for them.

[Berni]

Well, sort of, anyway.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Is heemasex a preferred term these days?

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Has to be Queer.

[Monty91]

[Berni]

Literally, the worst of both worlds. :-(

[Classic Jorge]

[Classic Jorge]

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/12/129924/3544154-s0xzq3x.gif

[Classic Jorge]

Truly the gods are cruel

[Berni]

a lot of use to me, but still.

Anyway, what does this have to do with transgenders?

[Monty91]

variation. How can you be so sure?

[Berni]

that there is such a thing as transgender. Certainly there may well be a biological reason why these people are as they are, but there are biological reasons for many delusions - including schizophrenia. No such biochemical imbalance or dysfunction can make a man a woman or vice versa - any more than paranoid schizophrenia means you are actually talking to God or are Napoleon or whatever.

Of course, I may be wrong. However, there is no evidence to prove me wrong as things stand, but despite that, it is increasingly socially unacceptable to express my doubts and reservations on this matter.

That capacity for one group who - lest we forget - may well be delusional to shut down debate is a deeply worrying precedent, I would have thought.

[Monty91]

push to shut down petty and callous treatment of these people, among which I would count someone who stubbornly refuses to use a biologically accurate pronoun against someone's wishes.

No-one is getting sacked for raising legitimate science-based questions about these people and their 'condition'.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNF-l19WoAAaYTG.jpg:large

[Monty91]

I don't think anyone should be losing their job for calling a man a man.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

write such a thing.

Now I'm shaking my head a bit.

Now I've spat at my monitor :-(

[Berni]

than a lie. And it is a lie - you may consider it a white lie, but lies have a habit of proliferating.

You need to ask yourself where that lie leads? And the answer is men being allowed to use female changing and lavatory facilities, be imprisoned in female prisons, join female sports teams and sundry other absurdities. Why? Because well-meaning people like you make it impossible to stop the insanity and say 'BECAUSE YOU ARE A MAN' when these people ask why they shouldn't be treated in exactly the same way as women.

Truth is not something to be taken too lightly. When we insist that our media, politicians and other public figures tell an outright lie in the name of 'niceness', then we start to devalue - or at least render negotiable - the idea of truth itself. That is not merely irritating, it is genuinely dangerous.

[Monty91]

to be treated with the same tact and empathy that I am fairly sure you would afford any other mentally ill person.

I think if you remove the grandstanding on your part, we aren't too far apart on this subject at all.

[Monty91]

[Berni]

such a way :shrug:

However, there is a massive difference between treating a tiny segment of aberrant people with tact and empathy and trying to make everyone pretend the world is other than it is in order to make them feel better about their aberration. We don't pretend cripples can run or that blindoids can see, so why should we pretend that a man is a woman?

[Monty91]

the ways in which you describe. They are an oppressed minority group and deserve protection :shrug:

[Berni]

[Monty91]

discrimination?

[Berni]

If your definition of non-discrimination means a six foot man should be able to walk into a social situation or job interview, dressed like a woman with a woman's name and expect no-one to bat an eyelid or react or act as if there's something amiss, then I'm afraid you're asking too much of your fellow human beings. You might as well insist that David Icke has the right to be taken seriously when he tells us we're ruled by lizards.

[Monty91]

by and large don't have to put up with anymore. A shifting of then needle in social etiquette.

That would be a reasonable end-point, I think.

[Berni]

General good manners should take care of that, though, surely? However, there is always going to be a certain amount awkwardness when you ask people to undergo a process of cognitive dissonance where what they're seeing and hearing goes against what they're thinking like that.

Anyway, at what point do we just accept that some people are going to get a raw deal? What about ugly people, for instance? In the sense you mean it, ugly people are discriminated against far more commonly than transgenders are, but where's their lobby? And it's even worse for the stupid and ugly.

[Monty91]

in the sense that they are generally surrounded by other unattractive people and by virtue of this enjoy a certain immunity from explicit social ridicule.

So I don't think that is a meaningful social issue. People who are ugly due to deformities, of course, is a different matter.

[Gunner Since Time Began - born to moan]