Understanding transgenderism.

[Jehanne]

Of course, neither is Asperger’s.

It has been suggested that 50% of all US Presidents have been psychotic.

[The Grand Nudger]

Social constructs are real things.  So are concerns and frustrations rooted in constructs.  Heres a rabbit hole for you.  West virginia has the highest percentage of transgender teens in the us.

Do we think that's an effect of a local breeding pop in west virginia?  That there was some supercollection of trans carriers fucking about two decades ago blipping the charts today?  Seems unlikely.  At any rate, little about gender makes any sense at all, under any view - in that sense...but that doesn't mean that gender can't be made sense of outside of those nonsensical gender assertions which color our perception as minds embodied in societies.

By that logic, sexual orientation is also purely a social construct (see below).  That's obviously wrong somewhere along the way.  Other than that, your entire argument is ipse dixit, which is a polite way of saying that you're talking out of your ass.  Do you have any medical or scientific evidence supporting your view.  I've already provided evidence that you're wrong, and so far you haven't addressed it.

By what logic?  Sex is not an idea or theory comprised of multiple conceptual elements, subjective, and not based on empirical data. Preferring one sex over another stymies gender. You might like flat chested muscular girls as a guy. Soft effeminate boys as a girl, etc. They aren't just different things, they're not even the same kind of thing. You might even be a trans person with cis-appropriate sexual orientations. Being trans is not the same thing as being straight or gay. For all of these reasons, none of them arguable in any way shape or form, conflating one with the other is ludicrous.

Claiming otherwise, even as a prop to some doomed objection, is a running category error. There is absolutely no evidence for biological essentialism in gender, all evidence points to the contrary...and, as much as you might object to this being an ipse dixit argument,...sometimes, things really just are the way they are. This is one of those times. An understanding of transgenderism is rooted in gender, not sex. Culture, not biology. Subjective appraisals, not empirical facts.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I'm fairly certain Angrboda's criticism had nothing to do with claiming trans and gays are the same thing.

You used the regional concentrations of transgenders in places like West Virginia as your evidence that it's a social construct. And she showed there are likewise regional concentrations of homosexuality. Which by your logic, means homosexuality is also a social construct.

[Angrboda]

By that logic, sexual orientation is also purely a social construct (see below).  That's obviously wrong somewhere along the way.  Other than that, your entire argument is ipse dixit, which is a polite way of saying that you're talking out of your ass.  Do you have any medical or scientific evidence supporting your view.  I've already provided evidence that you're wrong, and so far you haven't addressed it.

By what logic?  Sex is not an idea or theory comprised of multiple conceptual elements, subjective, and not based on empirical data.  Preferring one sex over another stymies gender.  You might like flat chested muscular girls as a guy.  Soft effeminate boys as a girl, etc.  They aren't just different things, they're not even the same kind of thing.  You might even be a trans person with cis-appropriate sexual orientations.  Being trans is not the same thing as being straight or gay.  For all of these reasons, none of them arguable in any way shape or form, conflating one with the other is ludicrous.

Apparently you need it spelled out for you. You were implying that because the percentage of transgender individuals among states vary, it's not a natural or objective trait because if it were, then one would expect the percentages to be the same wherever one went. So I pointed out that the percentages of LGBT vary depending upon where you go as well, being mostly determined by sexual orientation. If variation in percentages depending on where you go is evidence that transgender identity has no objective or natural basis, then the same phenomenon among percentages of LGBT indicates that sexual orientation has no objective or natural basis, because it's the same logic. But we know that this is not true of sexual orientation, so obviously that logic is insufficient to show it for transgender identity because it's the same argument. If it's invalid for sexual orientation, then it's invalid as an argument for transgenderism.

Let me offer you an analogy. We know that morals differ across both cultures and time. Yet we also know that the variation of morals is not in itself sufficient to show that morals don't have an objective foundation. The variation can have multiple explanations beyond the one you've latched upon that it indicates a lack of an objective basis. I presume you can see that for morals, well the same applies to the differences in transgender expression.

You have a theory as to why people of specific genders choose to express their gender in specific ways, and that is that gender expression is culturally conditioned. And it is. But they choose the culturally conditioned gender expression which corresponds with their perceived gender. If it's purely culturally conditioned then you need to explain why a small percentage choose to go against their culturally conditioned gender expressions, which you have failed to do. Under your theory, there seems no good reason for transgenderism at all aside from rebellious personalities, which is an absurd explanation. And your explanation totally falls down in the case of genderqueer individuals, whose gender doesn't conform to cultural expectation.

The problem is that you're confusing gender, which is not culturally conditioned, with gender expression, which is. Culture tells a female cis-gendered person in the U.S. that she can express her gender by wearing a dress. But culture doesn't tell her that she is the gender of person who should adopt the gender expressions that go along with being female. That's not culturally conditioned. Just as culture conditions appropriate ways to express aggression, it's their testosterone influenced brains that are telling men to be aggressive. You've confused gender expression with gender itself. They're not the same thing.

And you still haven't addressed the evidence from brain structures.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Under your theory, there seems no good reason for transgenderism at all aside from rebellious personalities, which is an absurd explanation.

Right, if gender is just a cultural norm, or construct, then transgender individuals are just another counterculture group. No different than listening to rock music a few decades ago. It makes talk of dysphoria incoherent. And it makes the point of transitioning unintelligeble.

Psychologists have not latched on to such single rigid explanations since the middle of the foregone century. Every behavior is understood to be the result of multivariate interactions. As an example, obesity is highly heritable, somewhere near 70%. But no matter how heritable it is, you will never become obese in a famine. You will also not become obese depending on the diet available to your location.

The presence of regional variation does not imply the absence of heritability or biological contributions. Environments, including cultural ones, will always magnify biological differences, that's Evolution 101.

[Jehanne]

The presence of regional variation does not imply the absence of heritability or biological contributions. Environments, including cultural ones, will always magnify biological differences, that's Evolution 101.

Some biologists, such as Professor Jerry Coyne, are hard determinists, and reject libertarian free will, and by that paradigm, our gender and where we choose to live are products of external and internal events beyond our control

[The Grand Nudger]

Under your theory, there seems no good reason for transgenderism at all aside from rebellious personalities, which is an absurd explanation.  

Right, if gender is just a cultural norm, or construct, then transgender individuals are just another counterculture group. No different than listening to rock music a few decades ago. It makes talk of dysphoria incoherent. And it makes the point of transitioning unintelligeble.

It makes the observation of dysphoria a seperate issue.  There are trans people who do not suffer from pronounced dyspmorphia, and ofc their body maps are as accurate as anyone els'es can be expected to be. If you were born the wrong gender, that's one thing. If you were born the wrong sex - another. The one won't solve the other - not for cis or trans people.

Psychologists have not latched on to such single rigid explanations since the middle of the foregone century. Every behavior is understood to be the result of multivariate interactions. As an example, obesity is highly heritable, somewhere near 70%. But no matter how heritable it is, you will never become obese in a famine. You will also not become obese depending on the diet available to your location.

The presence of regional variation does not imply the absence of heritability or biological contributions. Environments, including cultural ones, will always magnify biological differences, that's Evolution 101.

Is that the explanation for the large collection of trans teens in west virginia, if you had to guess? Maybe there's something in the water.

---

Some biologists, such as Professor Jerry Coyne, are hard determinists, and reject libertarian free will, and by that paradigm, our gender and where we choose to live are products of external and internal events beyond our control

Our societies gender assertions are beyond our control, and our body map is impossible to ignore.  Even if we had something like a libertarian free will, and it was at play here - I doubt that it would be super effective.  Doesn't keep us from stuffing our face with chips, either.

I also think that the desire to outwardly present to the word as we inwardly perceive ourselves to be is universal.

[John 6IX Breezy]

If you were born the wrong gender, that's one thing. If you were born the wrong sex - another. The one won't solve the other - not for cis or trans people.

How can you be born the wrong gender under your social constructionist perspective? It's as incoherent as saying you were born speaking the wrong language.

[The Grand Nudger]

In any and all of the ways your society instructs. Just as we all apprehend it.