Soldato
I went a bit acronym blind in reading the last few pages of this thread so I did a bit of Googling. I stumbled upon this article, apologies if it's been posted before:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/trans-rights-have-gone-wrong/
I've found my opinions changing on this issue recently. I support the right of people, including children, to act as they feel and explore what their gender means to them. In relation to children I have a suspicion that the growing Trans movement has allowed kids to opportunity to rebel against societal norms that they don't feel they conform or want to conform to, e.g. I identify more with guys, I like guy stuff, am I a guy? In a lot of ways this is a symptom of what I would describe as the de-genderising of society, people are still male of female on a physiological level but there's a growing belief that being either male or female shouldn't pigeonhole you into certain cultural life choices. The difficulty is that society as a whole hasn't really caught up with that mindset, "A chick playing rugby? Must be a lesbian or a dude in a dress" "A guy who does ballet? Clearly gay" etc. Over time I think societal gendered norms like this will become rarer and then this gender identity conversation won't be so broad, it will be about whether or not somebody feels they have been born in the wrong body, rather than what they identify with.
So I guess I come down on enabling freedom of expression in a way that doesn't impact on other people in a significantly negative way. The issue that I see at the moment is that, as the spectator points out, we're not able to adequately debate this subject. Any dissent is jumped upon, silenced, and the offenders labelled bigots. I don't mind having a conversation about trans people playing sport, about trans use of gendered facilities, about how best to identify kids who genuinely are having a trans crisis and how to support them, but it needs to be a discussion, it needs to be frank, and it needs to be in good faith. We can't find ourselves going further down the rabbit warren of promoting life changing drugs to kids, or causing massive societal upheaval without having a) evidence to work off and b) a discussion about what is the right thing to do.
Now I think the points made above make a pretty reasoned argument, and i know that the anti-trans crowd would vehemently disagree, however I also know that even though I've said I'm open to discussion, the extreme pro-trans side of the argument will brand me a bigot and seek to shut me down, and that's the problem with allowing the debate to be led by the extreme.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/trans-rights-have-gone-wrong/
I've found my opinions changing on this issue recently. I support the right of people, including children, to act as they feel and explore what their gender means to them. In relation to children I have a suspicion that the growing Trans movement has allowed kids to opportunity to rebel against societal norms that they don't feel they conform or want to conform to, e.g. I identify more with guys, I like guy stuff, am I a guy? In a lot of ways this is a symptom of what I would describe as the de-genderising of society, people are still male of female on a physiological level but there's a growing belief that being either male or female shouldn't pigeonhole you into certain cultural life choices. The difficulty is that society as a whole hasn't really caught up with that mindset, "A chick playing rugby? Must be a lesbian or a dude in a dress" "A guy who does ballet? Clearly gay" etc. Over time I think societal gendered norms like this will become rarer and then this gender identity conversation won't be so broad, it will be about whether or not somebody feels they have been born in the wrong body, rather than what they identify with.
So I guess I come down on enabling freedom of expression in a way that doesn't impact on other people in a significantly negative way. The issue that I see at the moment is that, as the spectator points out, we're not able to adequately debate this subject. Any dissent is jumped upon, silenced, and the offenders labelled bigots. I don't mind having a conversation about trans people playing sport, about trans use of gendered facilities, about how best to identify kids who genuinely are having a trans crisis and how to support them, but it needs to be a discussion, it needs to be frank, and it needs to be in good faith. We can't find ourselves going further down the rabbit warren of promoting life changing drugs to kids, or causing massive societal upheaval without having a) evidence to work off and b) a discussion about what is the right thing to do.
Now I think the points made above make a pretty reasoned argument, and i know that the anti-trans crowd would vehemently disagree, however I also know that even though I've said I'm open to discussion, the extreme pro-trans side of the argument will brand me a bigot and seek to shut me down, and that's the problem with allowing the debate to be led by the extreme.