Are Gender Feminists and Trans Activists Undermining Science?

[Carolyn Marie]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-soh-trans-feminism-anti-science-20170210-story.html

This is very thought provoking, regardless of which side you might be on. I don't think we should dismiss science, but I'd have to research the studies she mentions to make an informed judgement. But I always tell my audiences that it is not an area of settled science.  I also believe that many children will grow out of their dysphoria at some point, but what percentage I have no idea.

I suspect this will spark some debate.

Carolyn Marie

[VickySGV]

In the words of the Bard of Avon in one play or another, "Even the Devil hath quoth holy scripture to his own design". 

I fully agree with her basic premise that in the practices of some activists, ancient science (meaning over 2 years old) is being hung onto like an oxygen mask by a drowning person.  New developments in science need to be applied, and most will actually strengthen the arguments for equality, or even show the mind boggling silliness of in-equality.

I am aware of the studies she refers to, and others in addition, and also of the work of Dr. Jo Olsen-Kennedy and the Los Angeles Transyouth Clinic at Los Angeles Children's hospital.  There is a great deal of research going on even as I type this and the examples she has used are older than currently available which put desistance in a different light as well.  The fact she is as geographically near to Dr. K. Zucker as she is may have some bearing on her actual choices of the cases.  Zucker is very good example of scientists who actually become ideological activists and has thus minted the other side of the coin this article describes.

 

[Guest Annutty]

This is why we need to, as a society, move towards including people of all possible genders and stop worrying about what sex people are (i.e. What chromosomes you have or how your brain is organized). I admit it's possible I'm male, although I've never done a chromosome test and my veins are filled with estrogen instead of testosterone, but I'm not a man. Not like cis men. Maybe I'm not a woman, but I'm sure as hell not a man. Maybe there's nothing biological that indicates I'm trans, but it's real enough for me. I'm transitioning because I want to, not because some test they could run in a lab says I'm likely to. I'm all for science. We need more info on trans people and gender and sex. But no amount of science could convince me to detransition. I'm happier this way. It would be so special to me if there was some sort of chromosome difference that proved I'm not 100% biologically male, like if I was xxy or part xy and part xx. But maybe it's just a preference to be feminine and to have a feminine body. Lots of girls grow up wanting to be beautiful... Why can't I?

I don't really see these as different sides, either. Gender, meaning the grouping of different traits and acceptable expressions associated with said gender, by our culture, is a construct. The physical reality that some people are born with penises and some with vaginas and some with neither or both or some other combination of gonads and genitals is not. They tend to correlate together (vagina = female = woman, and penis = male = man), but there are exceptions. After you do all the science, we still have to ask ourselves if we want to be a part of a society that polices gendered expression. If some, or even most, non conforming kids end up desisting and return to the gender they were assigned at birth, should that rule out the idea that trans kids do exist? Should we not allow any trans care for kids under 18, because some desist? They would have an easier time desisting if we were more open about gender and less concerned with sex and chromosomes. And the kids that want to transition would have an easier time doing so.

We can have science and we can make all people equal in our culture. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

[Cyndee]

End gender policing and coercion , let people be who they are. 

Stop the pink / blue madness...

I don't need science to tell me I am happier and healthier living as a female. 

Sorry but living as a man to conform to someone else's idea of what you should be is unhealthy, and unwise. I suppose It took decades to find out that my chromosomes did not make me happy and fulfilled. 

Biology is not destiny. 

 

 

[Tejana]

Hhmmm... Since .I have been chuckling to myself every time I passed over the title of this thread, I thought I would respond.

Q:  Are Gender Feminists and Trans Activists Undermining Science?

A:  Yes.

Science has been undermined by secular or religious ideologues since before humankind had a term for what is currently known as "science." Sometimes I wonder if we're not close to a new dark age where ideology is extolled over science, where dogma first denigrates & then destroys any knowledge with which it comes into conflict, where doctrinal ideals triumph over reason and rational thought.

I'm reminded of a quote by Thomas Paine, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."  Sometimes, I feel we are approaching a time when it is no longer the occasional individual who has renounced the use of reason. {Maybe I'm wrong?  Hope I am.]

[Drea]

12 minutes ago, Tejana said:

Hhmmm... Since .I have been chuckling to myself every time I passed over the title of this thread, I thought I would respond.

Q:  Are Gender Feminists and Trans Activists Undermining Science?

A:  Yes.

Science has been undermined by secular or religious ideologues since before humankind had a term for what is currently known as "science." Sometimes I wonder if we're not close to a new dark age where ideology is extolled over science, where dogma first denigrates & then destroys any knowledge with which it comes into conflict, where doctrinal ideals triumph over reason and rational thought.

I'm reminded of a quote by Thomas Paine, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."  Sometimes, I feel we are approaching a time when it is no longer the occasional individual who has renounced the use of reason. {Maybe I'm wrong?  Hope I am.]

Absolutely agree

Additonally

I note the article misses part of the feminists view by stating:

"Gender, according to them, is a construct; we are born as blank slates and it is parents and society at large that produce the differences we see between women and men in adulthood"

Essentially portraying a purely nurture only point of view.  While it correctly portrays their assertion that men's and women's brains (their point of view) are identical, it does not mention that they also subscribe to their biological realities as girls and women that forms difference between women and men.

The article seems to be an attempt to knit one of the fundamental conflict of belief between trans and some feminists.  The feminists saying there is no "female" or "male" brain and it is the physical realities and socialization that comprise the difference while trans people insisting gender is purely defined by the brain.

Seems to me this editorial is an attempt to knit the two points of view into some sort of compromise position.\

[Carolyn Marie]

Since I posted this on other social media, some trans friends have branded the author as transphobic and otherwise dismissed it.  I think Soh's main problem is generalizing about our community, as if there was only one viewpoint.  That is clearly not appropriate and not true, particularly in regard to the social/medical transition of children.

Her main point, as Tejana pointed out, is that science is very often politicized by the left and the right, and is certainly not unique to either feminists or trans activists.  Is she a proponent of McHugh?  I don't know the answer.  Is she trans-phobic?  I see no evidence of that, and just the act of disagreeing with some community positions doesn't make her so.  It is a charge that should not be thrown about without serious evidence.  Evidence, of course, being the hallmark of science.

Carolyn Marie

 

[VickySGV]

6 hours ago, Carolyn Marie said:

Is she a proponent of McHugh?  I don't know the answer.  Is she trans-phobic?  I see no evidence of that, and just the act of disagreeing with some community positions doesn't make her so.

Replace McHugh with Zucker, and the items she has quoted do match up to him.

[Guest]

On 02/10/2017 at 5:30 PM, Annutty said:

This is why we need to, as a society, move towards including people of all possible genders and stop worrying about what sex people are (i.e. What chromosomes you have or how your brain is organized). I admit it's possible I'm male, although I've never done a chromosome test and my veins are filled with estrogen instead of testosterone, but I'm not a man. Not like cis men. Maybe I'm not a woman, but I'm sure as hell not a man. Maybe there's nothing biological that indicates I'm trans, but it's real enough for me. I'm transitioning because I want to, not because some test they could run in a lab says I'm likely to. I'm all for science. We need more info on trans people and gender and sex. But no amount of science could convince me to detransition. I'm happier this way. It would be so special to me if there was some sort of chromosome difference that proved I'm not 100% biologically male, like if I was xxy or part xy and part xx. But maybe it's just a preference to be feminine and to have a feminine body. Lots of girls grow up wanting to be beautiful... Why can't I?

I don't really see these as different sides, either. Gender, meaning the grouping of different traits and acceptable expressions associated with said gender, by our culture, is a construct. The physical reality that some people are born with penises and some with vaginas and some with neither or both or some other combination of gonads and genitals is not. They tend to correlate together (vagina = female = woman, and penis = male = man), but there are exceptions. After you do all the science, we still have to ask ourselves if we want to be a part of a society that polices gendered expression. If some, or even most, non conforming kids end up desisting and return to the gender they were assigned at birth, should that rule out the idea that trans kids do exist? Should we not allow any trans care for kids under 18, because some desist? They would have an easier time desisting if we were more open about gender and less concerned with sex and chromosomes. And the kids that want to transition would have an easier time doing so.

We can have science and we can make all people equal in our culture. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Applause light and standing ovation here!!!

[MarcieMarie12]

Problem with Zuckers reasearch as I recall, was he also included in desisters those boys with feminine traits or girls with masculine traits as desisters not necessarily those kids that identified as the opposite sex. The other question, could those kids be non-binary and not realize it? Also, for total accuracy of such a study you would need to know if they didn't transition later in life as well. It was thouroughly noted that most desisted as the entered adolesence. Did they detreansition because of how they really felt or because they were tired of being bullied and or not fitting in. The other question of course was the fact there was 25 kids in the study, how were they selected. Not knowing the study she referenced makes me skeptical.

In the end I do thing gender is hardwired into the brain. It certainly was not nurture for me to identify as female. I was raised boy, if nurture had any impact it was to deny who I really was and suppress my trueself. There is something innate in me that is female. Psychological or neurological, really it does not make a difference to me.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Tejana said:

Hhmmm... Since .I have been chuckling to myself every time I passed over the title of this thread, I thought I would respond.

I'm reminded of a quote by Thomas Paine, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."  Sometimes, I feel we are approaching a time when it is no longer the occasional individual who has renounced the use of reason. {Maybe I'm wrong?  Hope I am.]

Great share! Seems to me if the information is over their heads they are forced to self rightously dismiss all logic as untruth. That is sad and at times I'm guilty of the same flawed thought process.

[Guest Kaylee]

Funny,  my experience (and  correspondence)  contradicts some  statements made in the article. 

I am fully aware that there are some children that will grow out of their "dysphoria". That leaves the question,  were they grouped/diagnosed appropriately? (thus the "")  A child drawn to typical "girl"  toys,  does not make them a girl (regardless of designation at birth). Clothing choice... is not proof of being transgender. All of the reasons that people generally use to suggest that gender is a "social construct"...  Simply don't make a person transgender. They really only suggest that the child likes what they like,  and reject social  norms. When a child insists over and over they are a specific gender,  (or in my case,  wishing for decades) that's what makes the difference.  

The article didn't state how the children were gathered for the study monitoring the change,  nor who diagnosed them as trans . I have seen too many studies where inconsequential things like toys and clothes lead to a diagnosis of GD,  and the diagnosis was simply wrong. There are more than a few stumbling blocks when gendering a child.  So many children simply cannot articulate what they feel,  but it doesn't mean we should short change them. 

From age 3, I didn't like my parts.  From age 7, I knew I was different,  and from 17 wished every day that things were "different".  My feelings never changed despite all the butch "male"  interests I had from an early age. The fact is,  no matter your choice to transition,  you will miss out on certain parts of life. Ex.  Had I transitioned young,  I may not have had the experiences I did,  but would have had other "gender based"  experiences that I very much regret missing out on. How do you weigh that,  even as an adult? 

Knowing my feelings over 35 years never changed, knowing  the same about so many of the woderful people I have corresponded with here and on other sites,  collectively,  we have a first hand knowledge,  numbers,  and a history that others simply don't.  That makes a huge difference as well

 

 

[Guest]

I personally don't buy the nurture argument myself. In fact, the general argument of nature vs nurture for me was closed when my wife and I put up an unborn baby for adoption when my wife and I were young.

We used open-adoption and met and chose the parents. She did not grow up with us, around us or our family. The parents are a couple of physicists, not much sense of humor and don't really understand sarcasm.

Their adopted daughter is totally like me, sarcastic, a clown, and they don't particularly like it...

[Jani]

That's funny and a great example.  Thanks