LGBT+ Discussion

[AlexLaw76]

Southgate backtracking on their righteous stance previously taken....shocker

[Sheaf Saint]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Anyone who considers themselves a they and non binary is clearly having mental health problems. If someone were anorexic, how we would treat them is most likely to give them therapy and over a period of time help them to accept themselves for who they are and learn how to live without the desire to starve themselves. We certainly wouldn't play along with their delusion and tell them how fat they were. 

It's infinitely kinder to understand that these people need compassion but they also need to learn to accept themselves for the man or woman that they are and not ask the world to change entirely to fit themselves into a made up category that they decided to invent five minutes ago. 

Fuck me. I've seen some ill-informed bollocks posted on this forum over the years, and this is right up there with the very worst of it.

I would try and share with you the wealth of information out there which shows that gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, but something tells me you would still find a way to dismiss it because it doesn't fit your world view, so I'm not going to waste my time other than to just say please educate yourself on this issue.

[aintforever]

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

What about "xe" and "xir"? 

If it meant that much to someone I wouldn't give a shit. I don't get what half these gender terms even mean but just think it's right to treat people with respect, whoever they are or whatever they want to be called. No skin off my nose.

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, aintforever said:

If it meant that much to someone I wouldn't give a shit. I don't get what half these gender terms even mean but just think it's right to treat people with respect, whoever they are or whatever they want to be called. No skin off my nose.

By that logic, you'd play along with an anorexic's delusion that they are overweight because you'd respect them enough to go along with how they see themselves. Or you'd agree that someone with phantom limb syndrome should be able to cut off their legs. Having made up gender terms is a sign of underlying mental illness and what you don't do is play along with that if you have care and respect for that person. This is particularly true if it infringes on women's rights. 

[hypochondriac]

8 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Fuck me. I've seen some ill-informed bollocks posted on this forum over the years, and this is right up there with the very worst of it.

I would try and share with you the wealth of information out there which shows that gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, but something tells me you would still find a way to dismiss it because it doesn't fit your world view, so I'm not going to waste my time other than to just say please educate yourself on this issue.

Many transexuals consider it to be a mental illness that they suffer from. I agree with them because it quite clearly is. 

[Sheaf Saint]

7 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Many transexuals consider it to be a mental illness that they suffer from. I agree with them because it quite clearly is. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48448804

The WHO (and countless other health institutions worldwide including the NHS) don't consider it to be a mental health disorder, but I guess you know better than them, right?

[Lighthouse]

9 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48448804

The WHO (and countless other health institutions worldwide including the NHS) don't consider it to be a mental health disorder, but I guess you know better than them, right?

So the massive correlation with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, the need to surgically remove perfectly healthy organs and take testosterone blockers (even though it's definitely not biological) and the 40% attempted suicide rate are, in your view, entirely coincidental? 

[Fan The Flames]

This is obvious one of Hypos pet topics.

The right wing libertarians think its appalling to tell you what to eat but demand to tell what you can call yourself.

[whelk]

49 minutes ago, aintforever said:

If it meant that much to someone I wouldn't give a shit. I don't get what half these gender terms even mean but just think it's right to treat people with respect, whoever they are or whatever they want to be called. No skin off my nose.

I can live with they but bollocks to Xis- gets stupidly confusing. 

[Lighthouse]

4 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

This is obvious one of Hypos pet topics.

The right wing libertarians think its appalling to tell you what to eat but demand to tell what you can call yourself.

But that's not the issue at all and it's indicative of why this has become such a highly charged political point, even if it's an incredibly tedious one. You can identify, dress, sleep with etc. whoever you like, all people are asking for is the right not to be involved. It comes down to a simple case of Hitchen's razor; you can have all the gender stuff, I'll give you the word 'gender' and you can identify as whatever you like on the proviso that I never have to pay any interest in it, like I don't with people's religions, diets or star signs. I'm perfectly happy with refering to people only by biological sex, when society deems it decent. The problem is that this right to refer to proven facts is now being eroded and people wont stand for it. Even people like Richard Dawkins, who has spent his life fighting against dogma, bigotry and voting liberal, is now under attack.

Bringing it back on topic, Labour would be best served saying that the only thing they will legislate by is the proven biological definition of sex and leave it at that. 

[hypochondriac]

21 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

So the massive correlation with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, the need to surgically remove perfectly healthy organs and take testosterone blockers (even though it's definitely not biological) and the 40% attempted suicide rate are, in your view, entirely coincidental? 

It was reclassified in 2019 after massive political pressure from lobby groups. The fact it impacts upon and is a mental health condition is undeniable no matter what the WHO want to claim. 

[hypochondriac]

20 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

This is obvious one of Hypos pet topics.

The right wing libertarians think its appalling to tell you what to eat but demand to tell what you can call yourself.

You misunderstand. You can call yourself anything you like. It's forcing others to call you whatever you like that's the issue. 

[Fan The Flames]

25 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

But that's not the issue at all and it's indicative of why this has become such a highly charged political point, even if it's an incredibly tedious one. You can identify, dress, sleep with etc. whoever you like, all people are asking for is the right not to be involved. It comes down to a simple case of Hitchen's razor; you can have all the gender stuff, I'll give you the word 'gender' and you can identify as whatever you like on the proviso that I never have to pay any interest in it, like I don't with people's religions, diets or star signs. I'm perfectly happy with refering to people only by biological sex, when society deems it decent. The problem is that this right to refer to proven facts is now being eroded and people wont stand for it. Even people like Richard Dawkins, who has spent his life fighting against dogma, bigotry and voting liberal, is now under attack.

Bringing it back on topic, Labour would be best served saying that the only thing they will legislate by is the proven biological definition of sex and leave it at that. 

So that's where the debate it at, not what can people call themselves, but where can people with penises or vaginas can go and what services they can access. I'm happy with that.

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

So that's where the debate it at, not what can people call themselves, but where can people with penises or vaginas can go and what services they can access. I'm happy with that.

No one has ever argued that people can't call themselves whatever they want. 

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

So the massive correlation with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, the need to surgically remove perfectly healthy organs and take testosterone blockers (even though it's definitely not biological) and the 40% attempted suicide rate are, in your view, entirely coincidental? 

From the NHS website...

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/

All those health issues you cited are just as prevalent among gay and bisexual people as well, but homosexuality isn't considered a mental illness in and of itself. Depression, anxiety and suicidality among LGBTQ+ individuals are well understood to be widely caused by emotional distress brought on by social and cultural issues such as prejudice and victimisation/bullying.

So no, they are not merely a coincidence, but they are a symptom of the gender dysphoria rather than a cause of it.

Edited 15 November, 2023 by Sheaf Saint

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

It was reclassified in 2019 after massive political pressure from lobby groups. The fact it impacts upon and is a mental health condition is undeniable no matter what the WHO want to claim. 

It's not undeniable, it's just your (severely ill-informed) opinion.

[AlexLaw76]

If I am forced to call someone something they have made up. I should be allowed to call them something I have made up. 
 

 

[Sheaf Saint]

7 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

If I am forced to call someone something they have made up. I should be allowed to call them something I have made up. 
 

 

Nobody is forcing you to call them anything. They are asking you to.

You can either choose to be respectful to their wishes and agree, or you can choose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you. 

[Lighthouse]

17 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Nobody is forcing you to call them anything. They are asking you to.

You can either choose to be respectful to their wishes and agree, or you can choose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you. 

I respectfully ask that you adhere to my wish to be refered to in the second person pronoun of 'yarp', rather than 'you'.

50 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

All those health issues you cited are just as prevalent among gay and bisexual people as well, but homosexuality isn't considered a mental illness in and of itself.

The difference being LGB people don't need to cut off parts of their body in order to be able to live with themselves. You can explain homosexuality, rationally and (if you wanted to) with clear evidence.

53 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Depression, anxiety and suicidality among LGBTQ+ individuals are well understood to be widely caused by emotional distress brought on by social and cultural issues such as prejudice and victimisation/bullying.

I didn't want to put words in your mouth but I knew that argument was coming. There isn't a rough prison, school or neighbourhood in the world where anything close to 40% of people try to kill themself. The natural flight or fight reaction to danger is almost invariably to desperately try and escape that situation alive. I probably went to secondary school with 2,000 pupils across all the other years. Some of those students would have been regularly threatened at knifepoint on their estate, beaten senseless by their alcohol step dad, neglected by their prostitute drug addict mum or as you say, struggled with coming out as LGB (if it's 1 in 5 that's 400 students). I knew of one suicide the whole time I was there and that was a guy who'd left school, gone to uni and couldn't keep fighting his own internal demons, not even bullying related.

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

So no, they are not merely a coincidence, but they are a symptom of the gender dysphoria rather than a cause of it

I'm not trying to be rude but that's the kind of rationalising and rephrasing that just sounds like denial. Like saying people with alcohol problems aren't alcoholics, they just need alcohol in order to function normally. However you want to phrase it, all those issues are intrinsically linked to people with BDD.

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Corrected it for you. Bella Ramsey is gender neutral. 

I get that it's tricky though. A few years back, the poet Kate Tempest came out as gender neutral and changed their name to Kae. I still struggle to remember though, having been so used to thinking of them as a she/her. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it's hard to change lifelong habits

Would be easier if we didn't have separate words for he and she like in other languages (Chinese, for example), then this wouldn't even be an issue.

I’m surprised back in the days when languages were evolving no one stamped it out saying it was wrong to have masculine and feminine words for things, they should have known in 2023 people will be be able to choose what gender they are, be neither or both or a cat, whatever they want. 

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Nobody is forcing you to call them anything. They are asking you to.

You can either choose to be respectful to their wishes and agree, or you can choose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you. 

They're asking me to be complicit in a lie and to continue with that deceit which in many cases can be detrimental to their mental health. 2+2 does not equal 5 and someone born with a penis is not a she. 

[pingpong]

Have we gone back in time 50 years? Being gay was a designated mental illness back then, with all the same talking points.

Hopefully it won't be another 50 before we are enlightened on transgender issues.

I don't know if it is because I work in a technical field, but my transgender colleagues are highly intelligent and well adjusted people who just happen to identify differently to their sex at birth. If anything, they are mentally stronger than many of my other colleagues, given the shit they have to put up with just going out and about.

And as for non binary, that seems a much more common sense outlook than the neurotypical cis view - it's a bit mental to base your identity on artificial gender norms that have no basis in reality, I'm a man so I do DIY, watch football and like tractors. I'm a woman so I like dainty things and the colour pink. It's ludicrous really.

Unless of course it is just about genitals.  A lot of the time, it's just people being upset about other people's genitals...

 

 

 

[egg]

2 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Nobody is forcing you to call them anything. They are asking you to.

You can either choose to be respectful to their wishes and agree, or you can choose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you. 

Fine line is that. My brother in law came out as bi years ago, and has gone gender neutral. My missus regards him as her "brother" because he is and always has been. My kids call him "uncle" because he is and always has been. Can he decide that he's no longer a "brother" or an "uncle" and expect others to toe the line? It's not a rhetorical question by the way, he doesn't seem to know what he's to be called by his family, so how the feck are we supposed to know?! 

[Winnersaint]

6 hours ago, whelk said:

I got corrected by my daughter for calling the girl in the Last of Us a girl. Apparently she is neither boy nor girl

I did find reading an interview with Bella Ramsey a bit strange seeing they/them all over the place, but hey-ho. Its a wedge issue and in this day and age we have to take a side.

[Winnersaint]

4 minutes ago, pingpong said:

I'm a man so I do DIY

 

 

 

 I'm a bloke, I fucking hate DIY though.

[egg]

1 minute ago, Winnersaint said:

I did find reading an interview with Bella Ramsey a bit strange seeing they/them all over the place, but hey-ho. Its a wedge issue and in this day and age we have to take a side.

My only issue is how it's possible to describe an individual in the plural. It feels very odd that an individual can identify in that way. 

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

I probably went to secondary school with 2,000 pupils across all the other years. Some of those students would have been regularly threatened at knifepoint on their estate, beaten senseless by their alcohol step dad, neglected by their prostitute drug addict mum or as you say, struggled with coming out as LGB (if it's 1 in 5 that's 400 students). I knew of one suicide the whole time I was there and that was a guy who'd left school, gone to uni and couldn't keep fighting his own internal demons, not even bullying related.

An interesting anecdote, but completely irrelevant. The types of stressors yarp (😉) are referring to aren't comparable to the kind of depression and anxiety triggers experienced by LGBTQ people, especially youths.

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

I'm not trying to be rude but that's the kind of rationalising and rephrasing that just sounds like denial. Like saying people with alcohol problems aren't alcoholics, they just need alcohol in order to function normally. However you want to phrase it, all those issues are intrinsically linked to people with BDD.

It's not denial, it's evidence-backed. And that last sentence is just flat out untrue. There has been a lot of research into this area, and all the evidence suggests that LGBTQ people are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexuality or gender identity, but face a higher risk of it as a result of stigmatisation and non-validation in society.

Facts About LGBTQ Youth Suicide | The Trevor Project

[Fan The Flames]

My issue is how are you meant to know to call them they/them, you can't rely on visual cues.

[egg]

1 minute ago, Fan The Flames said:

My issue is how are you meant to know to call them they/them, you can't rely on visual cues.

You can't know. There was that situation at a local Starbucks where it all kicked off because a customer identified the server as the gender they visualised rather than what the person wanted to be identified as. Madness that the punter was expected to know. 

[Sheaf Saint]

18 minutes ago, egg said:

My only issue is how it's possible to describe an individual in the plural. It feels very odd that an individual can identify in that way. 

I get that, but it's not unprecedented. Using they/them is common when referring to an individual whose identity is unknown, but it does seem a little un-personal to use it when referring to a specific person. But again, that's just a result of how our language was constructed and used in the past, and it will become more normalised over time.

[Lighthouse]

17 minutes ago, pingpong said:

Have we gone back in time 50 years? Being gay was a designated mental illness back then, with all the same talking points.

Hopefully it won't be another 50 before we are enlightened on transgender issues.

Alchemy, homeopathy and Wahhabi Islam were once radical new ideas, that doesn't mean they were good. Beware of labeling ideas as 'enlightened' simply because they are new. If you support the choice of gender identity, then you deny the existence of sexuality. You have to choose one. You cannot be gay if you walk into a gay bar and have no idea what anyone's chosen gender is.

22 minutes ago, pingpong said:

And as for non binary, that seems a much more common sense outlook than the neurotypical cis view - it's a bit mental to base your identity on artificial gender norms that have no basis in reality, I'm a man so I do DIY, watch football and like tractors. I'm a woman so I like dainty things and the colour pink. It's ludicrous really.

Unless of course it is just about genitals.  A lot of the time, it's just people being upset about other people's genitals...

The whole non-binary argument is based on nothing more than sexist stereotypes. If you say you are non-binary because you don't conform to those stereotypes, all you are doing is reaffirming your belief that they must be true of other people. I'll give you another example; saying black teenagers carry knives is a negative stereotype. The correct response to which is to say that you don't carry a knife just because you're a black teenager. Your argument is the equivalence of saying, 'I don't carry a knife, therefore I'm not black'. You're not a woman because you don't wear dresses and nail polish? Well, you try telling a feminist that.

The only people upset about genitals are the people who wish to deny the existence of biological sex. I'm perfectly happy with 500 million years of evolution via sexual reproduction, just stop telling me I need to believe something else that you can't even explain.

[whelk]

39 minutes ago, pingpong said:

on artificial gender norms that have no basis in reality

Do animals have genders?

[Sheaf Saint]

4 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

If you support the choice of gender identity, then you deny the existence of sexuality.

Absolute bollocks. Why not go and learn about the difference between gender and sex. It's really not that hard to grasp.

[AlexLaw76]

2 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Nobody is forcing you to call them anything. They are asking you to.

You can either choose to be respectful to their wishes and agree, or you can choose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you. 

Imagine all people decide to refer to you as a Tory. No one would force you to accept that tag, but would ask you nicely.

You can either be respectful of their wishes to do so, or you can chose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you.

[Fan The Flames]

2 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Imagine all people decide to refer to you as a Tory. No one would force you to accept that tag, but would ask you nicely.

You can either be respectful of their wishes to do so, or you can chose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you.

😂 you've got it the wrong way around you wally.

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, Fan The Flames said:

😂 you've got it the wrong way around you wally.

Don't deny my right to refer others as far-right Tories.

[The Kraken]

6 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Imagine all people decide to refer to you as a Tory. No one would force you to accept that tag, but would ask you nicely.

You can either be respectful of their wishes to do so, or you can chose to be a belligerent prick and refuse. It's entirely up to you.

Wouldn’t be a problem for you would it, Jamie?

Take, for example, someone who has commented many times that they ARE a Tory because their family got gifted a council house many years ago. Would calling them a Tory, when they say have many times said they are, be a problem?

Edited 15 November, 2023 by The Kraken

[AlexLaw76]

2 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

Wouldn’t be a problem for you would it, Jamie?

Take, for example, someone who has commented many times that they ARE a Tory because their family got gifted a council house many years ago. Would calling them a Tory, when they say have many times said they are, be a problem?

Good story bro

[Fan The Flames]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Don't deny my right to refer others as far-right Tories.

You do what you want pal, but it isn't the jazz hands trap you think it is.

[Lighthouse]

16 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

An interesting anecdote, but completely irrelevant. The types of stressors yarp (😉) are referring to aren't comparable to the kind of depression and anxiety triggers experienced by LGBTQ people, especially youths.

It's not denial, it's evidence-backed. And that last sentence is just flat out untrue. There has been a lot of research into this area, and all the evidence suggests that LGBTQ people are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexuality or gender identity, but face a higher risk of it as a result of stigmatisation and non-validation in society.

Facts About LGBTQ Youth Suicide | The Trevor Project

I don't see how we can be talking about depression and anxiety triggers leading to suicide, without accepting that there's a fundamental mental health issue. If you can separate the two in your mind that's up to you but I think that takes a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. The link you've provided is from a support group which, well meaning is probably written by someone with a very obvious bias. I can't take that as being objective any more than I would a Christian parents support website, which promises summer camps to pray the gay away.

 

If you're using a lack of validation as a trigger for suicide, well where else does that lead us? For e.g. 99.7% of the world are not Sikh, we believe that the most sacred beliefs they live their lives by are, to put it bluntly, nonsense. The argument that you need to share my beliefs or I'll kill myself is fundamentally awful, deeply manipulative a quite honestly gaslighting a society for simply saying, "I don't share your beliefs, which you present without evidence."

[Lighthouse]

14 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Absolute bollocks. Why not go and learn about the difference between gender and sex. It's really not that hard to grasp.

That's interesting because now you've removed the idea of sexuality from gender, so you're arguing that a man who dates a transgender woman is quite simply a gay man dating another man. I'm perfectly happy with that argument but an awful lot of trans people I would wager are not. You talked about a lack of validation in your previous post but you freely acknowledge that a transgender person is a) Nothing to do with biological sex and b) Nothing to do with sexual attraction.

Well what else are you left with?

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, pingpong said:

Have we gone back in time 50 years? Being gay was a designated mental illness back then, with all the same talking points.

Hopefully it won't be another 50 before we are enlightened on transgender issues.

I don't know if it is because I work in a technical field, but my transgender colleagues are highly intelligent and well adjusted people who just happen to identify differently to their sex at birth. If anything, they are mentally stronger than many of my other colleagues, given the shit they have to put up with just going out and about.

And as for non binary, that seems a much more common sense outlook than the neurotypical cis view - it's a bit mental to base your identity on artificial gender norms that have no basis in reality, I'm a man so I do DIY, watch football and like tractors. I'm a woman so I like dainty things and the colour pink. It's ludicrous really.

Unless of course it is just about genitals.  A lot of the time, it's just people being upset about other people's genitals...

 

 

 

Hold on. Since when did non binary mean not conforming to gender stereotypes? You can be a man and do what the heck you like. You can prefer ballet to football, like pink or wear high heels but you're still a man. If you looking at the staggering levels of mental illness and high suicidality in trans people then unfortunately the well adjusted ones you know are not typical of the average trans individual. There's also a marked difference between authentic transexuals and so called trans tenders who make very little or no effort but demand to be called women and enter female spaces because they have autogynaphilia and it's a sexual fetish. 

[Turkish]

12 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

I don't see how we can be talking about depression and anxiety triggers leading to suicide, without accepting that there's a fundamental mental health issue. If you can separate the two in your mind that's up to you but I think that takes a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. The link you've provided is from a support group which, well meaning is probably written by someone with a very obvious bias. I can't take that as being objective any more than I would a Christian parents support website, which promises summer camps to pray the gay away.

 

If you're using a lack of validation as a trigger for suicide, well where else does that lead us? For e.g. 99.7% of the world are not Sikh, we believe that the most sacred beliefs they live their lives by are, to put it bluntly, nonsense. The argument that you need to share my beliefs or I'll kill myself is fundamentally awful, deeply manipulative a quite honestly gaslighting a society for simply saying, "I don't share your beliefs, which you present without evidence."

There is an obvious link between transgender and mental health. I know in this new woke world we aren't allowed to say that but that's the reality. Just because people dont like or want to accept it doesn't mean it's untrue. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

 

[Sheaf Saint]

4 hours ago, Turkish said:

There is an obvious link between transgender and mental health. I know in this new woke world we aren't allowed to say that but that's the reality. Just because people dont like or want to accept it doesn't mean it's untrue. 

Don't think anyone is denying there is a link. The dispute here is about the direction of causality.

There is a wealth of research data out there that indicates mental health problems among trans people are not an intrinsic part of gender dysphoria itself, but rather a common byproduct caused by social and cultural stressors. But there seems to be one or two people on this thread who dont want to accept that and think their own personal opinion somehow trumps it.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Don't think anyone is denying there is a link. The dispute here is about the direction of causality.

There is a wealth of research data out there that indicates mental health problems among trans people are not an intrinsic part of gender dysphoria itself, but rather a common byproduct caused by social and cultural stressors. But there seems to be one or two people on this thread who dont want to accept that and think their own personal opinion somehow trumps it.

Imagine the law suits there would be if the NHS or WHO said that transgender is caused by mental health issues. Making the direction of the cause a blurred line does everyone a favour, most of all them.

Edited 16 November, 2023 by Turkish

[Lighthouse]

48 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Don't think anyone is denying there is a link. The dispute here is about the direction of causality.

There is a wealth of research data out there that indicates mental health problems among trans people are not an intrinsic part of gender dysphoria itself, but rather a common byproduct caused by social and cultural stressors. But there seems to be one or two people on this thread who dont want to accept that and think their own personal opinion somehow trumps it.

Clearly you believe the statement, "I'm going to kill myself unless all of society accepts my beliefs," is perfectly rational and not indicative of a mental health problem. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. Even if I agree with you, what's the end game here?

Gender identities are:

• Nothing to do with mental health
• Nothing to do with biological sex
• Nothing to do with sexual attraction

So great, we've established everything they're not. So what are they? What is left that you require me to believe, that you consider it reasonable to end your own life for if I don't? I'll even give you the word woman, it means.... whatever you want it to mean. I'll just come up with a couple of new words to refer to people born with penises and vaginas - which will still exist no matter how much that upsets anyone - and we're right back in our default positions.

In your best case scenario, where I concede litterally every point you can possibly put forward, you're just left holding a bunch of meaningless words like 'woman' and 'gender', trying to deal with a lot of angry feminists.

[Sheaf Saint]

28 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Clearly you believe the statement, "I'm going to kill myself unless all of society accepts my beliefs," is perfectly rational and not indicative of a mental health problem.

That is an absurd strawman argument, attacking a position I have not claimed and ridiculously over-simplifying a very complicated issue.

I thought you were smarter than this Lighthouse.

Edited 16 November, 2023 by Sheaf Saint

[Lighthouse]

9 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

That is an absurd strawman argument, attacking a position I have not claimed and ridiculously over-simplifying a very complicated issue.

I thought you were smarter than this Lighthouse.

I don’t know how else to interpret whatever it is you’re trying to say. I am genuinely trying to understand what it is that people want me to believe but it’s frustrating, bordering on impossible, because nobody is willing to say what anything is. Everything you’ve said is just what something isn’t, I have zero information to go on here. You’ve claimed that BDD is not a mental illness but people with it have mental triggers which lead to a massive risk of suicide. Those two points are mutually exclusive, I can’t hold both those opinions.

[sadoldgit]

Whilst one person’s experience doesn’t  prove anything either way, this is relevant to this discussion.

I know someone who was female when we first met. We met in The Priory where we were both being treated for anxiety and depression. At the time she was a lesbian and I assumed that her issues revolved around her sexuality, not that she ever intimated that in any of the group sessions we shared. In our first meetings she was very closed down and would barely speak. After a while we got to talking about her interests - football, fishing, boxing, fit women - and we became friends. Over time her mental health improved although it didn’t seem like she got to the bottom of her depressive and anxiety issues but she seemed to handle her depressive moods much better.

We don’t live anywhere near each other so we haven’t meet since we left The Priory, but we have kept in touch via social media.

A few years passed and I received a message from her under a new name. She said that she had some news. She was now a he. Alison had now become Alex and had undergone a full transition process. He went on to marry his girlfriend and they now have two lovely kids. If you saw his pictures you would have no idea that he used to be female and he has a better beard than I do!

Since he became a he his personality has changed enormously and you wouldn’t find someone who was happier and more contented with their life. The difference in them and their personality is amazing. They have gone from a person who barely spoke more than a few words and was constantly staring at the floor to someone who is living life to the full and couldn’t be more engaging and fulfilled.

When we were together in The Priory I never had a clue that they were unhappy with their birth body. They seemed to be ok with being a lesbian and weren’t having issues with lesbian relationships. Now it is clear that they had huge issues and felt they were a man in a women’s body.

No matter what those who have a problem with trans people think, unless you are in that situation, you have absolutely zero understanding of what is going on with them and why.

I don’t understand what Alex has been through but I do understand what difference the transition has made to his life. Why on earth would anyone have an issue with accepting him now as a man? What difference does it make to you personally that a person born with the body of a woman now has the body of a man, the lifestyle of a man and, for all intents and purposes, is now a man?

Don’t bother to answer Batman. If you can’t work out the difference between calling someone a Tory who isn’t and the sexuality and gender identity issues, best you leave the discussion to the grown ups.
 

 

Edited 16 November, 2023 by sadoldgit
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