The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

"The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime" UCLA School of Law.

With a suicide rate 10 times higher than average, the "treatment" is clearly an abject failure.

No wonder you're not giving a citation for this one. Fuck off with your bullshit and lies.

It paints a very bleak picture of how far into his own citation AJW looked, and how much investigation he expected everyone else to do on it, that he'd directly quote a line making it clear that the citation he's making comes from the "National Transgender Discrimination Survey," while simultaneously dismissing the idea that discrimination might be a factor in the suicide rate.

I honestly suspect, now that we've had two citations from this guy that ended up exactly alike, that AJW simply does not read his own citations beyond the summary on the first page, and is so intellectually incurious that he cannot envision anyone else digging even a little bit deeper. Because to be clear, the quotation he gives is from the very first sentence of the report he's getting it from, and tellingly, it isn't even a complete sentence.

Why isn't it a complete sentence? Well, if I had to speculate, I'd say it's because the part of the sentence he's omitting is about suicide within the gay and lesbian community, and suggests that this rate, too, is higher than the national average, but lower than with trans people. I think we can draw a pretty obvious conclusion from this: AJW doesn't want us to see that the suicide rate by demographic tends to rise depending on how hard his particular brand of religious zealots attempt to discriminate against that demographic. Tolerance for the gay community is higher than it is for trans people, and the suicide rate changes accordingly... but he can't have us noting that, because then the responsibility is on his group, and not the ones he's looking for a reason to look down on.

What's particularly sad is that it's blisteringly clear that AJW hasn't even bothered to read the entire executive summary, because just one paragraph later that same summary begins to list some interesting statistics suggestive of why those suicide attempts occur, and not a one of those causes is "they're just inherently mentally ill and were allowed to get away with it." He skips over, for example, how age, race, and educational status all factor into this, and that (critically) the suicide rate is elevated at a statistically significant level for out trans people, and those who cannot easily pass as their preferred gender identity. So, the suicide rate is higher for trans people if other people know that they're trans... I wonder why that could be? Why would that be the case if the reason they're attempting suicide is that transgenderism is a mental illness?

He also skips over the big section on discrimination in the summary, which is inexcusable because due to the formatting, that section is just a few inches to the left of the one sentence he bothered to half read on the page. The suicide rate, it turns out, rises significantly in correlation to facing discrimination, with bigotry from family and coworkers raising it some, and out and out violence and sexual assault raising it higher still. This is hardly surprising, but it's also a factor that AJW dismisses out of hand as not being important to the issue, so what's important is that we recognize that he's dead fucking wrong.

He's so wrong, in fact, that the conclusion he draws is directly and one hundred percent contradicted by the report that he himself is citing:

Comparably high, or higher, prevalence of suicide attempts were found among respondents who said that they someday wanted FTM genital surgery, hysterectomy, or phalloplasty, suggesting that desiring transition related health care services and procedures but not yet having them may exacerbate respondents’ distress at the incongruence between their gender identity and physical appearance. It is also possible that elevated prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts may be due to distress related to barriers to obtaining transitionrelated health care, such as a lack of insurance coverage, inability to afford the procedures, or lack of access to providers. These findings may also be related to the higher rates of reported lifetime suicide attempts among those who have undergone transition-related surgery.

It is rare that we get handed such a profound and comprehensive lack of understanding. To recap: AJW waltzes in and suggests that trans people not be allowed to transition, because that's the wrong choice from a mental health perspective. In support of this, he specifically avoids citing a study he's clearly only read half a sentence of, saying that suicide rates among transgender people are higher than average by a lot, and he asserts that this is proof positive both that transitioning is not effective as a mental health remedy, and that transgenderism itself is why they commit suicide. Actually reading the study shows that not only does his citation suggest a range of other factors are at play that AJW simply could not have known about, being that he was separated from these sections of the paper by the insurmountable obstacle of a single separating paragraph, but that it also shows that desiring transitional surgery yet being unable to get it is a large contributing factor in the elevated suicide rate. So, he cited a study, all serious and po-faced, that literally says the exact opposite of what he is suggesting.

But hey, I guess that all the things in it that disagree with what AJW already believes just don't "make sense," right?

Not that he'd even know. I mean, it's not like he read the report or anything.

[AJW333]

Then why was homosexuality listed as a mental health disorder by the American Psychiatry Association all the way up to 1973?

Entrenched, baseless homophobia promulgated by your religion?

If it's all the Christians fault, why have nearly all the countries in the world, regardless of religion (eg communist countries) designated it as a disorder up until the latter part of the 20th century?

If that's the question you're going to ask, like it's some kind of gotcha, then why hasn't the fact that the APA hasn't had that classification for over thirty years presented the perfect counterpoint for you?

No, because the APA appears to have caved in to intense lobbying from homosexual activism.

Really??? Then how come the massive suicide rate among transgendered people?

"The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime" UCLA School of Law.

With a suicide rate 10 times higher than average, the "treatment" is clearly an abject failure.

And you've ruled out contributing factors... how? Factors like, say, just for example, off the top of my head... the intense, constant, aggressive and oftentimes violent campaign of harassment, bigotry, and hate that your side has been waging against them for decades?  

No, it has to be that they transitioned at all, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the out and out war christians have been fighting against these people who've done nothing wrong, nor the increased levels of harassment, assault, rape, and discrimination they face on a daily basis through no fault of their own, because of people like you. You think maybe their suicide rate might go down if you and yours stopped trying to hard to make it culturally acceptable to treat them as second class citizens?  

Your bigotry against Christians is quite evident here. In Australia, there has been no such "war" against transsexuals. If there is any aggression towards them, it is most likely going to come from the irreligious .

[AJW333]

You would see a changed set of values, ie more of the "fruit of the Spirit" should be evident in your life,

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Gal 5:22

Oh, and falsified on the very first hurdle! Wonderful!

So, my family has three case studies in it for this: my wife, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law. The latter two are devout christians with beliefs that roughly align with yours, as far as I've seen what you believe here: they are also highly depressed, aggressive people that lash out at their family, isolate themselves from others, and say the most hateful things. So much for "joy, peace, kindness," and so on there.  

My wife is no longer a christian, but she was for many years, and before you begin baselessly speculating about how she totally wasn't, I will tell you that my wife spent several months in an intensive care unit, refusing medical treatment in favor of praying to your god, while her organs shut down and she drew ever closer to death. If faith in god nigh unto death doesn't make you a christian, I don't know what will. She also reports being much happier now than she ever was under your religion, and that now she doesn't spend her life in fear of demonic influences and the supernatural. Her stress levels have fallen, her instances of hateful behavior have reduced, and her love, joy, patience and so on have increased, since becoming an atheist. The opposite of what you said.

So, you made a testable claim, and right away, I have three examples of that not being the case. Your evidence is falsified. Good job.

Do you think that the experiences of three people constitutes scientific proof of anything? For a guy who bangs on and on about the scientific method, your appeal to anecdotal experience is quite a turnaround.

[AJW333]

Then why was homosexuality listed as a mental health disorder by the American Psychiatry Association all the way up to 1973?

Because systemic bigotry used to be a much bigger problem in America than it is now. The real question is this: if homosexuality is actually a mental disorder, why did doctors stop diagnosing it as such over 30 years ago?

Really??? Then how come the massive suicide rate among transgendered people?

"The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime" UCLA School of Law.

With a suicide rate 10 times higher than average, the "treatment" is clearly an abject failure.

Because of people like you, fuck-stick.


Seriously? Are you really serious right now? Transgender people are one of the most marginalized and stigmatized groups in society, so much so that most of them would rather hide who they are and waste away from within rather than come out and get help, and that is why the suicide rate is so high. It's not because of the failure of the medical treatments for gender dysphoria; it's because of the failures in how society treats people in general, especially those who are different.


Many trans people are too scared to come out for fear of how they'll be treated, so they hide who they are until they can't take it any more and end it. Many others do come out and are treated so poorly by their family, friends, and/or everyone else that they decide not to go through it any more. How dare you suggest that these suicides are caused by the people who were trying to help, especially without the background or knowledge to be leveling such a shameful accusation?



What you need to do is dig out the statistics for the difference in suicide rates between transgender people who transition and those who don't. Unless you can show that the suicide rates for post-transition trans people are as high or higher than the rates for pre-transition trans people, your assertion is baseless and you need to fuck off.

I find myself wondering why so many of you on this forum can't seem to have a civilized debate without resorting to verbal abuse every time you have a disagreement. In just a short time here, I've been told to fuck off more times than I have in my whole life. What makes atheists so aggressive I wonder?

Back to the point at hand, in Australia, less than 10% of the population are practicing Christians. In terms of opposition to transsexuals, the bulk of it comes from the average guy in the street. My former neighbour who was very much a rough as guts, heavy drinking "blokey" tradesman is undergoing gender reassignment. As an electrician, you can bet your bottom dollar, all the pagans on the work site are going to have a real tough time accepting him/her turning up to work in a dress.

[AJW333]

No wonder you're not giving a citation for this one. Fuck off with your bullshit and lies.

It paints a very bleak picture of how far into his own citation AJW looked, and how much investigation he expected everyone else to do on it, that he'd directly quote a line making it clear that the citation he's making comes from the "National Transgender Discrimination Survey," while simultaneously dismissing the idea that discrimination might be a factor in the suicide rate.

I honestly suspect, now that we've had two citations from this guy that ended up exactly alike, that AJW simply does not read his own citations beyond the summary on the first page, and is so intellectually incurious that he cannot envision anyone else digging even a little bit deeper. Because to be clear, the quotation he gives is from the very first sentence of the report he's getting it from, and tellingly, it isn't even a complete sentence.

Why isn't it a complete sentence? Well, if I had to speculate, I'd say it's because the part of the sentence he's omitting is about suicide within the gay and lesbian community, and suggests that this rate, too, is higher than the national average, but lower than with trans people. I think we can draw a pretty obvious conclusion from this: AJW doesn't want us to see that the suicide rate by demographic tends to rise depending on how hard his particular brand of religious zealots attempt to discriminate against that demographic. Tolerance for the gay community is higher than it is for trans people, and the suicide rate changes accordingly... but he can't have us noting that, because then the responsibility is on his group, and not the ones he's looking for a reason to look down on.

What's particularly sad is that it's blisteringly clear that AJW hasn't even bothered to read the entire executive summary, because just one paragraph later that same summary begins to list some interesting statistics suggestive of why those suicide attempts occur, and not a one of those causes is "they're just inherently mentally ill and were allowed to get away with it." He skips over, for example, how age, race, and educational status all factor into this, and that (critically) the suicide rate is elevated at a statistically significant level for out trans people, and those who cannot easily pass as their preferred gender identity. So, the suicide rate is higher for trans people if other people know that they're trans... I wonder why that could be? Why would that be the case if the reason they're attempting suicide is that transgenderism is a mental illness?

He also skips over the big section on discrimination in the summary, which is inexcusable because due to the formatting, that section is just a few inches to the left of the one sentence he bothered to half read on the page. The suicide rate, it turns out, rises significantly in correlation to facing discrimination, with bigotry from family and coworkers raising it some, and out and out violence and sexual assault raising it higher still. This is hardly surprising, but it's also a factor that AJW dismisses out of hand as not being important to the issue, so what's important is that we recognize that he's dead fucking wrong.

He's so wrong, in fact, that the conclusion he draws is directly and one hundred percent contradicted by the report that he himself is citing:

Comparably high, or higher, prevalence of suicide attempts were found among respondents who said that they someday wanted FTM genital surgery, hysterectomy, or phalloplasty, suggesting that desiring transition related health care services and procedures but not yet having them may exacerbate respondents’ distress at the incongruence between their gender identity and physical appearance. It is also possible that elevated prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts may be due to distress related to barriers to obtaining transitionrelated health care, such as a lack of insurance coverage, inability to afford the procedures, or lack of access to providers. These findings may also be related to the higher rates of reported lifetime suicide attempts among those who have undergone transition-related surgery.

It is rare that we get handed such a profound and comprehensive lack of understanding. To recap: AJW waltzes in and suggests that trans people not be allowed to transition, because that's the wrong choice from a mental health perspective. In support of this, he specifically avoids citing a study he's clearly only read half a sentence of, saying that suicide rates among transgender people are higher than average by a lot, and he asserts that this is proof positive both that transitioning is not effective as a mental health remedy, and that transgenderism itself is why they commit suicide. Actually reading the study shows that not only does his citation suggest a range of other factors are at play that AJW simply could not have known about, being that he was separated from these sections of the paper by the insurmountable obstacle of a single separating paragraph, but that it also shows that desiring transitional surgery yet being unable to get it is a large contributing factor in the elevated suicide rate. So, he cited a study, all serious and po-faced, that literally says the exact opposite of what he is suggesting.

But hey, I guess that all the things in it that disagree with what AJW already believes just don't "make sense," right?

Not that he'd even know. I mean, it's not like he read the report or anything.  

The report doesn't say the exact opposite to what I am claiming. All I said was that the suicide rate in transsexuals was high and as a therapy, should be seriously questioned given the alarming suicide rate in post transitioned individuals. To simply blame the Christians is hopelessly flawed since a huge amount of grief is coming from non-religious people.

[AJW333]

This comparison of suicide attempt rates is also faulty in another way.  The proper comparison group for transexuals is the mentally ill, not the general population.  They have a difficult and stressful life long condition.  A comparison to people with a chronic illness would be more appropriate.  Does your study differentiate between pre-transitioning rates and post-transition rates?  That's another aspect that needs to be considered.

Oh well, see, let me tell you how this goes, because this isn't the first time that AWJ has posted (a few sentences of) a citation, where actually reading the thing shows a markedly different conclusion than what he had presented. What happened when that was pointed out was amazing.

So, the parts of the citation that agree with what AWJ already believes were perfectly acceptable evidence, and should be treated seriously. The parts that don't agree with what AWJ already believes- and in this past case that was the conclusions of the scientists that wrote the study, unambiguously and unequivocally stated- well, those parts "don't make sense" and should be disregarded immediately and without thought. The end result was that what makes a good study for citation is how much it aligns with what AWJ believes, not methodology or the quality of the evidence. Even within the same study, those parts that can be twisted to fit AWJ's beliefs should be treated with respect, and those parts that do not, or that a proper understanding of the concepts involved would suggest otherwise, "don't make sense." What really matters, the only thing that matters, is whether it makes sense to AWJ.

So I don't think questions of methodology or a full understanding of the results of the citation will matter much, here, because they don't make sense within AWJ's presupposed worldview, which is reason enough, in the self-serving prism through which he sees the world, to disregard them. To AWJ, the study he cited is short snippets of text, surrounded by vast black swathes of redaction, editing out all those things that are not what he already believes.

You are correct that I didn't read the article. This is because I was already aware of the 41% figure for transgender suicide and was providing a link to  authenticate the number. Probably should have read it and saved myself some grief.
Note that I am not disputing the reasons given for the suicide. I did say that it wasn't established how much discrimination is responsible for and I believe that reliable figures are hard to come by. What I am disputing is the overall effectiveness of the "therapy." If my son liked wearing dresses, I wouldn't allow him to go to school in one, since the bullying would do him a huge amount of damage. It is pointless to say, "he has a right to wear a dress and everyone should respect that." In the real world, this ain't gonna happen. He's going to be picked on mercilessly by all sorts of people, religious and non-religious.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

You are the only person in this entire conversation who genuinely thinks that because something was Naturally Selected for the human race, in the past hundreds of thousands of years of our evolutionary development, that it's a good thing for our society. 

I didn't say it was a good thing, I was suggesting that for those who follow evolution and natural selection, that it logically follows that a species should reproduce as when it was physically able to.  

"It follows logically"??? How do you figure? Who told you that?

Evolution is a theory (or model, if you prefer) explaining why species are observed to change with each generation, while traits that help individuals survive better than others tend to be better-preserved in the gene pool of that species, and that the pools have been observed to split into sub-populations and eventually new species. That's it. People who tell you "evolution says we must _____" are generally full of shit.

Now, we can draw certain inferences from the theory about why we act certain ways, based on our observation that Natural Selection favors certain behaviors (for instance, our tribalism led to religion, a coalescing factor which seems to help tribes survive by giving a stronger sense of belonging to the "group effort", so to speak), but there is nothing, repeat nothing, which says that "____ trait evolved over the course of our previous _____ generations as Hunter-Gatherer tribes, therefore we must continue to act that way". Continuing to act as we always have is the opposite of evolution. We are an intelligent, social species, capable of innovating and learning. One example is that it was an evolutionary survival factor for us to prefer fat, sugar, salt, and carbohydrates because food was hard to acquire in the H-G tribal days; it gave us a dopamine high (literally) as a reward in our brains, to eat such foods... but once we developed agriculture and food became easier to acquire, it became a liability-- weight problems, blood pressure problems, etc. Now we try to avoid too many of those foods.

Xenophobia (tribalism) and hatred of "The Other" is wired into our genes, for the same reason--we developed as a tribal species--but it does not mean we should be trying to harm one another on the basis of their differences. We play sports like football, instead.

But xenophobia keeps the earth's population down to manageable levels. All those wars and starvation has to be good for the overall survival of the planet right? I mean, if the earth's population levels keep rising, there will be nothing left for anyone.

What!?!

While I agree that our population is expanding too quickly for the health of ourselves or our planet, I find it sick that you could even entertain the thought (even if you're just fantasizing that that's how we think!) that our hatred/fear of one another has a good purpose. It's a leftover from our evolutionary past that, if we can't get a handle on it, may indeed ruin us or drive us to extinction. Like our addiction to religious-group identities, once a useful or necessary thing, today we need to get over our xenophobia and inclination toward violence if we're to advance (and possibly survive) as a species.

[robvalue]

I can't even...

What the flaming fuckeroonie?

[AJW333]

I didn't say it was a good thing, I was suggesting that for those who follow evolution and natural selection, that it logically follows that a species should reproduce as when it was physically able to.  

"It follows logically"??? How do you figure? Who told you that?

Evolution is a theory (or model, if you prefer) explaining why species are observed to change with each generation, while traits that help individuals survive better than others tend to be better-preserved in the gene pool of that species, and that the pools have been observed to split into sub-populations and eventually new species. That's it. People who tell you "evolution says we must _____" are generally full of shit.

Now, we can draw certain inferences from the theory about why we act certain ways, based on our observation that Natural Selection favors certain behaviors (for instance, our tribalism led to religion, a coalescing factor which seems to help tribes survive by giving a stronger sense of belonging to the "group effort", so to speak), but there is nothing, repeat nothing, which says that "____ trait evolved over the course of our previous _____ generations as Hunter-Gatherer tribes, therefore we must continue to act that way". Continuing to act as we always have is the opposite of evolution. We are an intelligent, social species, capable of innovating and learning.

OK so far.

One example is that it was an evolutionary survival factor for us to prefer fat, sugar, salt, and carbohydrates because food was hard to acquire in the H-G tribal days;

Call me a cynic but are you sure this was evolutionary? Seems to me we eat crap because of slick marketing and the food companies know how to get us addicted.

But xenophobia keeps the earth's population down to manageable levels. All those wars and starvation has to be good for the overall survival of the planet right? I mean, if the earth's population levels keep rising, there will be nothing left for anyone.

What!?!

While I agree that our population is expanding too quickly for the health of ourselves or our planet, I find it sick that you could even entertain the thought (even if you're just fantasizing that that's how we think!) that our hatred/fear of one another has a good purpose.

I was extrapolating the cold hard logic of natural selection. You might be shocked to find just how many of the "elite" are depopulationists, eg Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Prince Phillip etc. Here's a list of interesting quotes to consider. Yes it is ugly but it's how a bunch of world leaders are thinking.

As for me, my wife and I sponsor 4 kids in Africa and have done for over 20 years. So no, I'm not a genocidal maniac

[LadyForCamus]

Because systemic bigotry used to be a much bigger problem in America than it is now. The real question is this: if homosexuality is actually a mental disorder, why did doctors stop diagnosing it as such over 30 years ago?







Because of people like you, fuck-stick.


Seriously? Are you really serious right now? Transgender people are one of the most marginalized and stigmatized groups in society, so much so that most of them would rather hide who they are and waste away from within rather than come out and get help, and that is why the suicide rate is so high. It's not because of the failure of the medical treatments for gender dysphoria; it's because of the failures in how society treats people in general, especially those who are different.


Many trans people are too scared to come out for fear of how they'll be treated, so they hide who they are until they can't take it any more and end it. Many others do come out and are treated so poorly by their family, friends, and/or everyone else that they decide not to go through it any more. How dare you suggest that these suicides are caused by the people who were trying to help, especially without the background or knowledge to be leveling such a shameful accusation?



What you need to do is dig out the statistics for the difference in suicide rates between transgender people who transition and those who don't. Unless you can show that the suicide rates for post-transition trans people are as high or higher than the rates for pre-transition trans people, your assertion is baseless and you need to fuck off.

I find myself wondering why so many of you on this forum can't seem to have a civilized debate without resorting to verbal abuse every time you have a disagreement. In just a short time here, I've been told to fuck off more times than I have in my whole life. What makes atheists so aggressive I wonder?

Willful ignorance tries one's patience after a certain point...