Regarding the treatment of gender dysphoria in society

[UltimateIRS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDAU3SPYFsA

 

References: https://plus.google.com/+BlackPigeonSpeaks/posts/fNMkSDNDrtV

[Lunar Origins]

Oh boy, I'm just gonna prepare for mudslinging and the like.

 

Give me a bit to properly write up my two cents, but I assure you, it'll be here.

[Snatch Steal]

I'm guessing this is just to stir up nonsense so I'll make sure I don't get pissed

 

[spoiler=This is just me (tw:minor SJWfagging)]

Ok look

 

People have genders. People are exposed to gender identity. Gender identities are forced upon people at birth, and events that happen either in their formulation or during their early childhood can define their future interests, making them want to deviate.

You see, everyone has a gender. You are born male, female, or, maybe by a miracle, hermaphrodite. Unfortunately, some people are exposed to things at a young age that make them question their true identity.

I can't understand what it's like to have gender confusion, but I am in a handful of groups of people who are cringed at, made fun of, and systematically discriminated against.

 

Comparing a transgender person to an otherkin is just bonkers, and that woman isn't even a humanlike otherkin, she's literally a funking cat. 

You see, people can have genders. People cannot be cats.

 

As for the middle aged man:

middle aged people cannot be 6 years old. It's a fact.

 

And as for the woman who tried to blind herself:

people........were not made to be blind. People were made to have a gender (or, at least, one in particular; can't speak on behalf of genderfluid people)

 

Also, is this guy trying to insinuate that mental disorders are a bad thing, and can be changed with a snap of one's fingers? What about Autism? Should we "not endorse" Autism, a learning disorder that causes people to be different?

 

TL;DR:

 

Regularly Functioning Human = {Male, Female}

Regularly Functioning Human ≠ Cat

Regularly Functioning Human ≠ blind

Middle Aged Human ≠ Six-Year-Old

 

Therefore

 

If Regularly Functioning Human = {Male, Female}

then why the funk is it a big deal to make a transition

honest to god

 

 

 

[Zauls]

If a person wants to change their gender, that's not hurting anyone and is nobody else's business, so we shouldn't tell them they can't. The increased suicide rates can't just be put down to "being trans means there's something wrong in their brain so they are suicidal", I don't get how you make such an assumption. It's more likely down to the discrimination they endure and the marginalisation, which is why the kind of attitude presented in the video is so unhelpful.

 

Also, isn't this the exact way people treated homosexuals in the not too distant past?

[Lunar Origins]

Well, Toadtotter did my work for me.  Mostly.  I'm too jaded to give a damn about this stuff anyways... buuut, as a transgender person, let me describe my life now.

 

I'm a normal, fully functioning human being in a loving relationship with another normal, fully functioning human being.  I lead a fulfilling life, do normal, fully functional day-to-day activities and have family that love me.  I'm happy, considered by a few (wrong) people to be pretty, and have a wonderful smile.  The only people who ever seem to cause problems with me are the ones who cannot see past this little itty bitty piece of my past that is largely irrelevant to the person I am now.

 

What I am now is not illness, nor could it ever be described as illness.  Illnesses are maladies, things that are wrong and horrible for the person experiencing them.  I am under no such thing.

 

Illness is, perhaps, what I would have been described as pre-transition.  That's the only way I can see that being relevant.

[vla1ne]

well, it's not like the video says anything really offensive, it's just citing facts and studies. ok, the conclusion might be offensive, but it does, for the most part follow the facts, mental illness or not, blinding yourself, becoming a cat, or a 6 year old girl are not things you can really call healthy. if the studies included mostly people such as that, then there are grounds to discredit it as you can argue that they shouldn't count, whether or not they fall under the category of "transgender" can be debated, but you can't really say those 3 people are in their right minds. but, if the studies did not include people such as the 6 year old grown man girl, or the cat woman, then the studies might hold. also, it's not like the study said everybody who was transgender was likely to kill themselves, but the percent was found to be higher. an objection you could raise there though is "what outside factors were not included?" because if those transgender folk were harassed more often than non transgender people, then that again, may be grounds to void the conclusion.

 

as for the medication, that might actually be stronger evidence, what might be inferred from that is that some transgender may suffer from is an alternate form of depression, and that it may manifest itself in the urge to change genders. that would be harder to argue against, but another way it could be interpreted is that the medication may have had an alternate effect on the person that removed the desire to change genders along with an unrelated depression, causing a false correlation. and when you look at it that way, it may be consistent with some, if not all cases, but this is just a quick review of the facts, it would take far longer, and i'd have to go through the papers myself to see if they factored in such variables. but other than that, if they did, it'd be strong evidence, if they didn't, then it'd be little more than a false correlation.

[Lunar Origins]

The depression transgender people go through is both due to the dysphoria they experience and outside sources - but in my experience, it mostly sits with outside sources.  Look at Leelah Alcorn.  If she had been allowed to transition, then she'd still be with us today.  But her parents, being non-supportive and putting her in 'correction therapy', drove her to suicide.

[Snatch Steal]

Also, isn't this the exact way people treated homosexuals in the not too distant past?

 

[Halubaris Maphotika]

I agree with Toadtotter and I disagree with him in saying that I feel his post was not even remotely SJW.

[Mysty]

I mostly agree with Toadtotter, but I will still put in my view on this. Do note that I can only speak from a basis of knowing and talking to transgender people and not being transgender myself. Also, I also speak from a general biased dislike of "unnatural" medical "alterations", even if my definitions of "unnatural" and "alterations" are largely seemingly inconsistent.

 

First, I will preface this by saying that biological sex is a fact and that I will use the words males and females (if at all) to reference that while using the words boy/girl/man/woman to identify how the person identifies. That being said, I think biological sex determines little more than genitalia, and certainly not as much as society seems to think. I think the core of the problem lies within society itself - associating certain behaviors as "masculine behaviors" or "feminine behaviors", which implies that men are supposed to act one way and women another. However, society has begun transitioning:
• Used to be that women who played sports were tomboys while men who didn't play sports were weak. Since then, society has evolved to where it's normal for women to play sports or not.

• Used to be that women were supposed to remain chaste, while now it is as acceptable for a woman to sleep around as much as she wants. (However, it still seems unacceptable for men to not want to sleep around.)

• Actually used to be that pink was a man's color and blue was a woman's color (I think 1920s?). At some point, this script was flipped (probably the 60s). Nowadays, while the two colors are standard for using on blankets and/or shoes to determine biological sex of a newborn baby, different colors can be seen on every person.

• Other than rockstars or people into such music, men generally had short hair while women had long hair. Now it's quite okay for either to have either.

Even with these transitions, not every behavior is considered gender-neutral. However, I believe each person's interests don't depend on the male-female spectrum. I think this is at least part of the cause of transgenderism - not an actual "mental illness" so much as a disparity from the expected norms society places on us for how we should act or dress or whatever combined with a "want" to adhere, essentially peer pressure. Therefore, I think the "solution" to transgenderism isn't to alter them with medicine but for society to understand the fallacy of matching genders to biological sexes and/or the fallacy of having "gender expectations" at all. Of course, this is just from an "outside looking in" perspective, so I don't have a lot of the information, so I expect that it can easily be wrong, skewed, or misinterpreted.

Additionally, I do not have BIID, but I'm inclined to believe that I'd rather remove what body part/function they feel they'd rather not have than to go through medical help to try to help them otherwise. (There was actually an episode of Chicago Med about this, in which the patient forced the ambulance's hand in either removing his left arm or letting him die.) While humans aren't 'fully' functional without certain limbs/senses, I know and know of several people who continue to live happy, functional lives even if they aren't in 'perfect' condition, and I'd rather a person be happy and mostly functional as opposed to either:
• 'mentally altered', happy, and fully functional
• unhappy and fully functional

 

The other two cases (cat-woman and "Stephanie") really are strange. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I'm suspicious that there are people that "join" a movement 'badly' to discredit and dismantle that movement, and I suspect that, for the most part, the otherkins and "Stephanie" are such people.

[Snatch Steal]

That being said, I think biological sex determines little more than genitalia, and certainly not as much as society seems to think. I think the core of the problem lies within society itself - associating certain behaviors as "masculine behaviors" or "feminine behaviors", which implies that men are supposed to act one way and women another.

 

Hit the nail on the head

[Catman25]

Society is hell-bent on adhering to social constructions that are ultimately arbitrary. I think we need to echo the fact that personal happiness is the end goal here. I'm inclined to sympathize with people with BIID and people who genuinely identify as other species or as a different age. Whether these are considered mental illnesses or not is, again, arbitrary. What good is a diagnosis of mental illness, when indulging your desires to be a cat makes you happier than you've ever been?

 

A lot of points made in this video fall flat because they assume everything is so concrete, that everything needs to fit inside the boundaries we've constructed. There's a lot of apples to oranges going on, and I think a lot of the facts they brought up can be easily countered.

 

There are so many cases of people transitioning and being happy (I know and you know without looking it up that they far outnumber the amount of "sex change regrets"). I feel like if these guys sat down and talked to one of these people, it'd be an eye-opening experience.

[Halubaris Maphotika]

I don't care what they be as long as they don't force me to do or say what they want me to do or say.

 

I also don't mind transition surgery as long as they pay for it and not me through taxes.

[vla1ne]

Society is hell-bent on adhering to social constructions that are ultimately arbitrary. I think we need to echo the fact that personal happiness is the end goal here. I'm inclined to sympathize with people with BIID and people who genuinely identify as other species or as a different age. Whether these are considered mental illnesses or not is, again, arbitrary. What good is a diagnosis of mental illness, when indulging your desires to be a cat makes you happier than you've ever been?

 

A lot of points made in this video fall flat because they assume everything is so concrete, that everything needs to fit inside the boundaries we've constructed. There's a lot of apples to oranges going on, and I think a lot of the facts they brought up can be easily countered.

 

There are so many cases of people transitioning and being happy (I know and you know without looking it up that they far outnumber the amount of "sex change regrets"). I feel like if these guys sat down and talked to one of these people, it'd be an eye-opening experience.

the video (and studies aquainted) used normal human biology as a basis though. and it even used drug studies as an assist to push it's point. the points they made don't really fall flat because of definitions (or boundaries), definitions are what hold this study (or any other reputable study) together. the conclusion had hints of opinions, but the studies did not. feelings are all well and good, but to debunk a video such as this, you've got to use facts, not feelings. there were apples to oranges, but they were for the most part, not game ending. 

 

Take the homosexuality issue for example, it's been proven that not only is homosexuality completely natural, it is literally biological effect that has been recorded throughout history, and for the most part, only religion has demonized it. but homosexuality was actually beneficial in the past when leaving men to take care of other men's women, or women tending to other womens men. it prevented issues such as cheating from ever being a thing and curbed populations when too many children were born (it's been found that the more children you have, the higher the likelihood that they'll become gay). but to sum it up, the argument was fought on more sides than the emotional, they had to get the facts on their side before many were willing to listen. the facts were always on their side, mind you, but they had to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

this is a similar thing, if you disagree with the video, you have to fight on the same terms, facts before feelings, or at least facts alongside feelings. because this video is using actual reported results of multiple studies, if you want to debate it, you have to bring your own hard facts. only after that will you be able to use appeals to emotion as standalone arguments. for example, there have been multiple potential flaws in the study pointed out above, and there are even some things that this study did not provide that could have solidified it's case, but since it didn't choose to (or didn't remember), i won't either,

 

 

for the record, i don't object to trans people, and i have my own disagreements with the study. i don't fully support the conclusion. but i have yet to look at the whole thing because i don't care enough about the subject right now to go through multiple pages of research. and depending on what variables were controlled for in the study, it could either become more or less valid.

[Catman25]

the video (and studies aquainted) used normal human biology as a basis though. and it even used drug studies as an assist to push it's point. the points they made don't really fall flat because of definitions (or boundaries), definitions are what hold this study (or any other reputable study) together. the conclusion had hints of opinions, but the studies did not. feelings are all well and good, but to debunk a video such as this, you've got to use facts, not feelings. there were apples to oranges, but they were for the most part, not game ending. 

 

Take the homosexuality issue for example, it's been proven that not only is homosexuality completely natural, it is literally biological effect that has been recorded throughout history, and for the most part, only religion has demonized it. but homosexuality was actually beneficial in the past when leaving men to take care of other men's women, or women tending to other womens men. it prevented issues such as cheating from ever being a thing and curbed populations when too many children were born (it's been found that the more children you have, the higher the likelihood that they'll become gay). but to sum it up, the argument was fought on more sides than the emotional, they had to get the facts on their side before many were willing to listen. the facts were always on their side, mind you, but they had to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

this is a similar thing, if you disagree with the video, you have to fight on the same terms, facts before feelings, or at least facts alongside feelings. because this video is using actual reported results of multiple studies, if you want to debate it, you have to bring your own hard facts. only after that will you be able to use appeals to emotion as standalone arguments. for example, there have been multiple potential flaws in the study pointed out above, and there are even some things that this study did not provide that could have solidified it's case, but since it didn't choose to (or didn't remember), i won't either,

 

 

for the record, i don't object to trans people, and i have my own disagreements with the study. i don't fully support the conclusion. but i have yet to look at the whole thing because i don't care enough about the subject right now to go through multiple pages of research. and depending on what variables were controlled for in the study, it could either become more or less valid.

 

I'll be honest, I'm a lazy ass JABRONI who has no desire to do research to counter a video on the internet. I felt, however, that a lot of the facts and data they provided could be quite easily countered; a lot of the things they stated seemed quite obvious, or very weak in strength. The one drug worked on one patient, the higher suicide rates of post-op vs everyone else, something about child abuse, etc. Well we know drugs don't work in all situations. We've seen many failed attempts of "treatment" of trans people, and even more homosexual people. And we know that a lot of people are happy after transition, coupled with the fact that they fail to mention the suicide rates of pre-op/repressed transgender people. And the child abuse thing seemed way out of left field, and if I've seen anything, it's definitely quite the opposite (i.e. Leelah Alcorn). It's just a lot of what they said, seemed to me, overshadowed by stuff that's already known to be true, or was just too far out there or fallacious, almost to the point that their use of evidence was so forced it seemed more "feeling"-based than facts.

 

And your first sentence deals with what I was trying to get across. Why must we restrict ourselves to "normal"? I think something really interesting that I actually agreed with is the idea that we're not born with a gender. It's socially constructed by the parents and society, based on biological sex, which is fine and dandy. I just don't think, should one grow to question that gender identity, that they should be viewed as deviating from "normal", or "acceptable." And the fact that the video mentions that but doesn't elaborate on that point feels like just another instance of them throwing darts at the board, hoping they hit something. Definitions may hold the study together, but my point was that they can be arbitrary: this isn't a realm dealing in absolutes. I'm all for science, I'm all for facts and evidence, but I don't think the way in which it was presented was very strong or very coherent.

[vla1ne]

I'll be honest, I'm a lazy ass motherf***er who has no desire to do research to counter a video on the internet. I felt, however, that a lot of the facts and data they provided could be quite easily countered; a lot of the things they stated seemed quite obvious, or very weak in strength. The one drug worked on one patient, the higher suicide rates of post-op vs everyone else, something about child abuse, etc. Well we know drugs don't work in all situations. We've seen many failed attempts of "treatment" of trans people, and even more homosexual people. And we know that a lot of people are happy after transition, coupled with the fact that they fail to mention the suicide rates of pre-op/repressed transgender people. And the child abuse thing seemed way out of left field, and if I've seen anything, it's definitely quite the opposite (i.e. Leelah Alcorn). It's just a lot of what they said, seemed to me, overshadowed by stuff that's already known to be true, or was just too far out there or fallacious, almost to the point that their use of evidence was so forced it seemed more "feeling"-based than facts.

 

And your first sentence deals with what I was trying to get across. Why must we restrict ourselves to "normal"? I think something really interesting that I actually agreed with is the idea that we're not born with a gender. It's socially constructed by the parents and society, based on biological sex, which is fine and dandy. I just don't think, should one grow to question that gender identity, that they should be viewed as deviating from "normal", or "acceptable." And the fact that the video mentions that but doesn't elaborate on that point feels like just another instance of them throwing darts at the board, hoping they hit something. Definitions may hold the study together, but my point was that they can be arbitrary: this isn't a realm dealing in absolutes. I'm all for science, I'm all for facts and evidence, but I don't think the way in which it was presented was very strong or very coherent.

i'm lazy as well, i understand the feeling, but when the argument is based on studies, the best way to go about it is to break it down step by step. in this case, you are correct, the facts might actually be very easily countered, but that currently depends on how said studies were conducted, literally, the only thing that's required to break down this argument the way it's currently framed is to look at the control samples. the easiest being the drug test, if the test had/has multiple samples to pull from, then it would be far harder to break down, but if it really is just the one person, then it could easily be dismissed as an unfounded correlation instead. for the main argument, as state above, the control samples wouldh have to factor in harassment based upon trans post change. on another note though, past deliberate discriminatory harassment, there would be no need to factor in controls, because past that, nothing would be different from a normal persons life.

 

as for the point that a lot of people are happy post change, this can be true and still have a higher suicide rate in the result, the two don't have to be separate. the example he cited is actually a valid claim in his case, the decicion to go full trans is something that really is a massive decision in your life, and the regret of doing so could very well drive you to suicide if you ever regret the decision. that part is something that even outside of his argument, holds water, it's one of the parts i didn't disagree with, the decision is something that is life altering, and if you decide that you made the wrong choice later down the road, then the resulting (for lack of a better word) emotion could very well drive you to killing yourself. that's not to say you can't find happiness, or even be more happy post change, it simply means that the decision is something that should never be taken lightly.

 

they likely don't mention the rates of pre-op people because before the operation, it would be rather hard to find such people. it's be a lot like trying to find averted thefts, there's far fewer records of the prelude than the result. similar to those who kill themselves before coming out the closet, unless they leave a note or something similar, it'd be hard to definitively pin the cause of suicide.

 

what made it feel like more "feeling" than fact  was probably the tone, and that's probably also why i'm so against it, it comes off as if it had made the conclusion before it ever cited the evidence, and to top it off, the evidence it cited, while solid on the surface, could very well be brittle if you do so much as dig under the later presented. now that may not be the case, but the way it was presented does make it feel that way.

 

we don't really "restrict" ourselves to normal, normal is the base setting, and in the case of trans, it is not quite normal. not saying it's bad, simply saying it's not the normal. without the normal, the baseline if you will, there would be no setting to compare anything by. transgender does deviate from the normal, in a similar way to how homosexual deviates, that does not make it unacceptable, that simply makes it not normal. the argument against this video is not that transgender is "normal" it is "what's so bad about it" it still leaves you with arguments to get over, but it relieves the burden or trying to call yourself normal. put simply, it's not normal, but that in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

 

 

finally, i agree with you, the way it was presented really wasn't powerful at all. it did have valid points, in fact, the point i most strongly agree with in the entire video is "facts take precedence over feelings" but the core argument, the argument that trans is somehow a bad thing, or a mental illness akin to drug addiction or an alcoholic is where you get the most ammo from. if you haven't guessed by now, i'm a person who loves arguments, and i take incredible joy in breaking down all sides. the best way to beat his argument (barring going into his studies and tearing them apart) is to grant him the premise of it not being normal, the next step you take is to remind him that homosexuality is also abnormal, by the exact same standards (barring the cat lady and he 6 year old (wo)man). past that, you can then remind him that the damage done by becoming trans (to body AND mind) is insignificant in comparison to the things he's attempted to liken it to such as alcohol and drugs. then what you do is remind him that transexuals remain capable of functioning as members of society like anybody else so long as they're not ostracized by the public. and finally, you can bring your argument back to normalcy. the only non normal thing about a trans person is them being trans, and that doesn't make them a mass murderer, it simply means they're trans. it's not big deal, go about life as normal. past that, there is literally nothing his argument can do to hold water.

[Catman25]

as for the point that a lot of people are happy post change, this can be true and still have a higher suicide rate in the result, the two don't have to be separate. the example he cited is actually a valid claim in his case, the decicion to go full trans is something that really is a massive decision in your life, and the regret of doing so could very well drive you to suicide if you ever regret the decision. that part is something that even outside of his argument, holds water, it's one of the parts i didn't disagree with, the decision is something that is life altering, and if you decide that you made the wrong choice later down the road, then the resulting (for lack of a better word) emotion could very well drive you to killing yourself. that's not to say you can't find happiness, or even be more happy post change, it simply means that the decision is something that should never be taken lightly.

I think my point with this was, while it's inevitable that there will be people who regret their decision to transition, the majority of people who undergo surgery are happier for it. And the fact that this solution exists and has been proven to be effective countless times means it'd be very questionable to do a 180 and step away from that approach. I think tackling it from this side and perhaps, as much as I'd hate to say, place more stringent requirements on getting the surgery would be a better approach than striking the whole operation idea and leaving tons of people to suffer when we know surgery could've helped a majority of them.

 

 

 

For the most part, I think we're agreeing on the rest.

[Snatch Steal]

the video (and studies aquainted) used normal human biology as a basis though. and it even used drug studies as an assist to push it's point. the points they made don't really fall flat because of definitions (or boundaries), definitions are what hold this study (or any other reputable study) together. the conclusion had hints of opinions, but the studies did not. feelings are all well and good, but to debunk a video such as this, you've got to use facts, not feelings. there were apples to oranges, but they were for the most part, not game ending. 

 

Take the homosexuality issue for example, it's been proven that not only is homosexuality completely natural, it is literally biological effect that has been recorded throughout history, and for the most part, only religion has demonized it. but homosexuality was actually beneficial in the past when leaving men to take care of other men's women, or women tending to other womens men. it prevented issues such as cheating from ever being a thing and curbed populations when too many children were born (it's been found that the more children you have, the higher the likelihood that they'll become gay). but to sum it up, the argument was fought on more sides than the emotional, they had to get the facts on their side before many were willing to listen. the facts were always on their side, mind you, but they had to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

this is a similar thing, if you disagree with the video, you have to fight on the same terms, facts before feelings, or at least facts alongside feelings. because this video is using actual reported results of multiple studies, if you want to debate it, you have to bring your own hard facts. only after that will you be able to use appeals to emotion as standalone arguments. for example, there have been multiple potential flaws in the study pointed out above, and there are even some things that this study did not provide that could have solidified it's case, but since it didn't choose to (or didn't remember), i won't either,

 

 

for the record, i don't object to trans people, and i have my own disagreements with the study. i don't fully support the conclusion. but i have yet to look at the whole thing because i don't care enough about the subject right now to go through multiple pages of research. and depending on what variables were controlled for in the study, it could either become more or less valid.

 

 

I'll be honest, I'm a lazy ass JABRONI who has no desire to do research to counter a video on the internet. I felt, however, that a lot of the facts and data they provided could be quite easily countered; a lot of the things they stated seemed quite obvious, or very weak in strength. The one drug worked on one patient, the higher suicide rates of post-op vs everyone else, something about child abuse, etc. Well we know drugs don't work in all situations. We've seen many failed attempts of "treatment" of trans people, and even more homosexual people. And we know that a lot of people are happy after transition, coupled with the fact that they fail to mention the suicide rates of pre-op/repressed transgender people. And the child abuse thing seemed way out of left field, and if I've seen anything, it's definitely quite the opposite (i.e. Leelah Alcorn). It's just a lot of what they said, seemed to me, overshadowed by stuff that's already known to be true, or was just too far out there or fallacious, almost to the point that their use of evidence was so forced it seemed more "feeling"-based than facts.

 

And your first sentence deals with what I was trying to get across. Why must we restrict ourselves to "normal"? I think something really interesting that I actually agreed with is the idea that we're not born with a gender. It's socially constructed by the parents and society, based on biological sex, which is fine and dandy. I just don't think, should one grow to question that gender identity, that they should be viewed as deviating from "normal", or "acceptable." And the fact that the video mentions that but doesn't elaborate on that point feels like just another instance of them throwing darts at the board, hoping they hit something. Definitions may hold the study together, but my point was that they can be arbitrary: this isn't a realm dealing in absolutes. I'm all for science, I'm all for facts and evidence, but I don't think the way in which it was presented was very strong or very coherent.

 

i'm lazy as well, i understand the feeling, but when the argument is based on studies, the best way to go about it is to break it down step by step. in this case, you are correct, the facts might actually be very easily countered, but that currently depends on how said studies were conducted, literally, the only thing that's required to break down this argument the way it's currently framed is to look at the control samples. the easiest being the drug test, if the test had/has multiple samples to pull from, then it would be far harder to break down, but if it really is just the one person, then it could easily be dismissed as an unfounded correlation instead. for the main argument, as state above, the control samples wouldh have to factor in harassment based upon trans post change. on another note though, past deliberate discriminatory harassment, there would be no need to factor in controls, because past that, nothing would be different from a normal persons life.

 

as for the point that a lot of people are happy post change, this can be true and still have a higher suicide rate in the result, the two don't have to be separate. the example he cited is actually a valid claim in his case, the decicion to go full trans is something that really is a massive decision in your life, and the regret of doing so could very well drive you to suicide if you ever regret the decision. that part is something that even outside of his argument, holds water, it's one of the parts i didn't disagree with, the decision is something that is life altering, and if you decide that you made the wrong choice later down the road, then the resulting (for lack of a better word) emotion could very well drive you to killing yourself. that's not to say you can't find happiness, or even be more happy post change, it simply means that the decision is something that should never be taken lightly.

 

they likely don't mention the rates of pre-op people because before the operation, it would be rather hard to find such people. it's be a lot like trying to find averted thefts, there's far fewer records of the prelude than the result. similar to those who kill themselves before coming out the closet, unless they leave a note or something similar, it'd be hard to definitively pin the cause of suicide.

 

what made it feel like more "feeling" than fact  was probably the tone, and that's probably also why i'm so against it, it comes off as if it had made the conclusion before it ever cited the evidence, and to top it off, the evidence it cited, while solid on the surface, could very well be brittle if you do so much as dig under the later presented. now that may not be the case, but the way it was presented does make it feel that way.

 

we don't really "restrict" ourselves to normal, normal is the base setting, and in the case of trans, it is not quite normal. not saying it's bad, simply saying it's not the normal. without the normal, the baseline if you will, there would be no setting to compare anything by. transgender does deviate from the normal, in a similar way to how homosexual deviates, that does not make it unacceptable, that simply makes it not normal. the argument against this video is not that transgender is "normal" it is "what's so bad about it" it still leaves you with arguments to get over, but it relieves the burden or trying to call yourself normal. put simply, it's not normal, but that in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

 

 

finally, i agree with you, the way it was presented really wasn't powerful at all. it did have valid points, in fact, the point i most strongly agree with in the entire video is "facts take precedence over feelings" but the core argument, the argument that trans is somehow a bad thing, or a mental illness akin to drug addiction or an alcoholic is where you get the most ammo from. if you haven't guessed by now, i'm a person who loves arguments, and i take incredible joy in breaking down all sides. the best way to beat his argument (barring going into his studies and tearing them apart) is to grant him the premise of it not being normal, the next step you take is to remind him that homosexuality is also abnormal, by the exact same standards (barring the cat lady and he 6 year old (wo)man). past that, you can then remind him that the damage done by becoming trans (to body AND mind) is insignificant in comparison to the things he's attempted to liken it to such as alcohol and drugs. then what you do is remind him that transexuals remain capable of functioning as members of society like anybody else so long as they're not ostracized by the public. and finally, you can bring your argument back to normalcy. the only non normal thing about a trans person is them being trans, and that doesn't make them a mass murderer, it simply means they're trans. it's not big deal, go about life as normal. past that, there is literally nothing his argument can do to hold water.

 

I fail to understand how laziness is posts becoming more massive with each post

[MiracleGhost47]

I don't really care about my gender. While there certainly are some distinctive actions cultures have taken to stereotype them, these augments have virtually nothing to do with my own personal identity. My identity is determined by my actions MUCH more than anything else. I typically don't care what closed-minded stereotypes have to say when they complain about how my personality "isn't masculine enough."  I only care about winning the approval of my true friends, and nothing more. I want people who can judge my identity based on my will to do what's right (or wrong), not my gender. 

 

I'm not saying that there should be no borderline between male and female, but some people are just too strict about it in my opinion.