(April 26, 2021 at 9:01 am)Eleven Wrote: Such an analogy only works with computer nerds.

I've worked in IT for 30 years.

(April 26, 2021 at 9:34 am)Jehanne Wrote: I've worked in IT for 30 years.

Yes, but most people aren't as knowledgeable in IT as you. Why else would they keep calling you for help?

(April 26, 2021 at 9:40 am)Eleven Wrote:

(April 26, 2021 at 9:34 am)Jehanne Wrote: I've worked in IT for 30 years.

Yes, but most people aren't as knowledgeable in IT as you. Why else would they keep calling you for help?

My Dad (since deceased) once called me and asked where the "Any key" was.

(April 26, 2021 at 8:31 am)Jehanne Wrote: I would agree with that, but, of course, there are conservatives (including, some academics) who would say that being transgender is a choice, kind of like choosing Domino's over Pizza Hut.

Maybe on some extremely technical level, that choice paradigm is accurate, but I think we can agree that a choice between living the way every fibre of your being says you should and slowly killing yourself living a lie isn’t really much of a choice. Especially if said way of living is still so deeply stigmatized by society that one major political party refuses to even trust you to use a public restroom without raping someone and it doesn’t even matter to them that the only times something like that even happened in reality, it was by someone who already had a record as a sex offender.

I think in many traditional societies, gender is not about self-expression or the mode with which one may chose to interact with others, but about how one is perceived to be physically equipped to help expand and reinforce the family and tribe against decimation by disease, natural disaster, conflict and warfare, and the duty to use these equipment towards furthering those goals.

In this context, gender roles is part of necessary social regimentation, not individual expression.   viewed through this lens transgenderism is most certainly a choice, to not fulfill duties perceived to come with one’s physical equipment.   Much as one can be drafted to serve in certain military by virtual of being born in a certain place, so one can be expected to act certain parts if one is born with a certain configuration of genitalia.  Transgenderism might be seen as draft dodging. 

ironically, those who abhor transgenderism are also the once who are most likely to use “socialism” as a curse word.   Yet resistance to transgenderism seems to me to have its ultimate basis in a primeval form of socialism.

I would interpret the analogy as follows:

Transgenderism is:
1) Hardware: a reflection of biological and physiological traits;
2) Software: A reflection of mental behaviors that possess some flexibility under conscious control;
3) Firmware: A reflection of software that operates at a lower level and is largely impervious to conscious influence.

I don't think gender is a well enough defined concept to say much.

the gender in many traditional societies seem to be hardware plus software that are expected to be loaded to suit the hardware.   firmware is expected to conform and keep quiet.  firmware that fail to do so is considered buggy.   loading the wrong software would e considered a serious user error. 

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(April 26, 2021 at 12:01 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I would interpret the analogy as follows:

Transgenderism is:
1) Hardware: a reflection of biological and physiological traits;
2) Software: A reflection of mental behaviors that possess some flexibility under conscious control;
3) Firmware: A reflection of software that operates at a lower level and is largely impervious to conscious influence.

I don't think gender is a well enough defined concept to say much.

I think components that may constitute gender are conceptually not ill defined.   what is meaningfully ill defined is the exact collection of components should be included in such definition of gender as appropriate to form basis of law.

I don't understand it because I cant empathise with the feeling of being born the wrong gender.
What I think is that I am therefore not qualified to have an informed opinion on it and leave to people who actually know about that sort of thing.

I am intelligent enough to admit my ignorance.

(April 26, 2021 at 12:39 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: I don't understand it because I cant empathise with the feeling of being born the wrong gender.
What I think is that I am therefore not qualified to have an informed opinion on it and leave to people who actually know about that sort of thing.

I am intelligent enough to admit my ignorance.

There is also the question of whether definition of gender should primarily support the urge of individual towards self expression, or the perceived need of society to standardize and regimentize, or some mixture of these.

Quote:There're two plausible causes of gender dysphoria/transgenderism that I'm aware of:

1. Internalised sexist gender role stereotypes (eg a boy thinking he is more like a girl on the inside).
2. Free-floating unhappiness/existential anomy being misattributed to transgenderism (eg somebody thinking: "I'm just not happy/feel weird/don't feel I fit in....I know, I must have been born in the wrong body! That's it!")

False on both counts and woefully ignorant.

Quote:The head of the UKs only NHS transgender clinic resigned fairly recently due to blinkered pressure from "pro-trans" advocacy groups to "diagnose" transgenderism and prescribe hormone treatment/surgery for every case of presented gender dysphoria - with clamouring hysterical calls of "TRANSPHOBIA!" and the consequent suppression of less....invasive treatments/diagnoses. A sorry situation with no clear remedial exit door I think. And no, I do not think it's possible to be "born in the wrong body."

Nope, he left and others who left did so on ideological grounds and the changes had nothing to do with "pro-trans advocacy groups" or "hysterical calls of "TRANSPHOBIA! It changed because the medical science changed and thus the treatment changed with it and some didn't like that change because it clashed with their idealogy.

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This is series done by Clinical psychologist Cass Eris. She pretty blows through all the scare tactics and lies being pushed by Anti Trans propagandists.