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Post by Harkovast on Jun 8, 2015 12:53:45 GMT
Let me tell a little story about Caitlyn Jenner you may or may not know. Some people (we will call them assholes) mocked the idea that she was brave, since 'true' bravery is shown by soldiers and other macho manly jobs. They accompanied the stories with this super macho image of manly men being brave and macho and patriotic! Oh yeah, that's real courage! So heroic! But before I break into a "USA USA" chant, there was a slight problem with that image. Looking at it more closely you realise that it isn't an image from WW2. You may also notice those aren't real GI's...they are dummies dressed in uniforms and posed. Why was someone posing WW2 dummies like that? The guy who originally posted the image to attack Jenner looked into it further and made an unsettling discovery. I will let him tell the story in his own words- I think that says it all really.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 8, 2015 17:32:04 GMT
I wasn't saying we need less sympathy for transsexuals. I was saying they get the bulk of the sympathy regarding identity issues while these other groups are still treated like sideshow freaks. So, yes, we need more sympathy for them. It's not like it's a limited resource.
I'm trying to raise awareness here.
We have to be careful not to lump transgenders in with homosexuality. I don't think you're trying to do that, but a lot of people are. Just because someone is transsexual doesn't always follow that they are gay. It has to do with their identity preference not their sexual preference.
If we're talking genetics anyway there probably isn't a transgender gene. If you were born a male at no point in your existence was it possible for you to be a female. Unlike the old theory that sex wasn't decided until a month or so into the pregnancy, it was decided at the point of conception. The mother gives an x chromosome and the father gives either the x or y. Once it's given the sex is decided. (of course there is the rare case of both the x and y are given, but that's a totally different subject)
As important as genetics are, humans are much more complicated than our make up. We don't limit ourselves to what our genetics say about us. If we have the gay gene it doesn't necessarily follow that we will be gay. We can say they're in the closet if we want, if that makes us comfortable. We can say someone who is born a male can't possibly be a female if we want. That's our limitation, not theirs. And we can say they can't possibly be a cat because humans have no predisposition to be a cat.
Ah, but that's the thing isn't it? If a cat shits in the street nobody has a big fit about it (except possibly the guy that steps in it). If a man or woman who believes they are a cat does the same thing we're going to hide our children and call the police. You can be whatever you want as long as we don't see it. No matter how progressive we think we are we will never accept these people as what they believe they are. We might give lip service to it, but in the end we just see them as a crazy person.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 8, 2015 17:34:55 GMT
Damnit! The friggin thing cut off half of my comments!
Son of a bitch!
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 8, 2015 17:49:30 GMT
Are you saying women can't be violent? I think you're underestimating them.
I worked in an office building once where a transgender also worked. She used the men's facilities initially but became more and more insistent that she use the women's. The other women would have none of that. They refused to let her in, even forcing her out physically. (which wasn't terribly difficult, she was in a wheelchair) When she used the men's room there never was an issue. As far as the guys were concerned she was a man wearing a dress so she had every right to be there. They might have been uncomfortable with it but there never were any problems.
But the women were getting ready to lynch her.
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 8, 2015 18:24:04 GMT
Actually, the X and Y chromosomes are not the be all and end all of someone's sex. In a sense being transgender is similar to homosexuality in that both probably have a genetic basis of a kind. Though of course, being trans doesn't make one gay or straight.
The X and Y chromosomes are the ones that, in theory, determine the expression of genes and therefore the hormones that cause the fetus to develop. However, they may cause different/conflicting hormones to be released that could result in a different development path. In fact, other chromosomes may even play a role. The field is still uncertain, but I suspect that once we can pin down the hormones that are released to develop the different intricacies of brain growth we may find some genetic reasons for transgender people. Of course, outside factors may be involved. Even the mother's body may be coded to release differing hormones that contradict or override the child's X or Y chromosome hormones, and that coding could be in the mother's DNA.
At this point it is all speculative, of course, but it seems plausible to me that there is indeed a genetic basis for transgender people. And even if it is not genetic, it is entirely possible that an outside force can cause the same development path, which is, in turn, just as permanent as if it was in the DNA.
But yeah. I kind of heisitate sometimes to use LGBT, because it lumps a gender identity (T) in with sexual orientations (LGB). They're really quite different things.
Taking a shit in the street would be problematic for the public health.
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Post by StyxD on Jun 8, 2015 21:39:41 GMT
You're making this hard for me again, Wordweaver. I'd actually be all for that. I also wouldn't mind if shower rooms at public pools offered a little more privacy to the individual rather than whole gender. I feel like those other groups are mostly ignored. There just isn't enough of them to organize into any kind of social acceptance campaign, or on the other hand, to attract significant systemic oppression. At least none that I've heard of. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. Technically, yeah. In practice... hormones received in the womb play a huge role. The presence of the Y chromosome should trigger hormones that make the baby develop male body (we all start female-ish), but the process might not finish (or take place) for some reason... So yeah, without the XX chromosomes you can't have functioning female gonads, but sex as a whole is a tad more complicated. This is... not true, actually. You're conflating attraction and behavior. You don't choose who you feel attracted to. You might never reveal those feelings, if you don't want, but it does not make you have a different sexual orientation. Sorry, I don't understand the point you're making here. This is somewhat disingenuous. If a gay couple starts having sex in the middle of the street, police would also probably get called. And they'd probably be called all the same if it was a heterosexual couple. Because disruptive behavior is disruptive. One's freedom is limited by the freedom of others, remember?
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 16, 2015 0:55:04 GMT
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Post by Horsie on Jun 16, 2015 1:07:47 GMT
I like how her folks are appalled that the novels are available in the college book store. What's the average age of a post-secondary student?
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 16, 2015 1:17:59 GMT
6. Clearly.
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 19, 2015 0:33:58 GMT
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 19, 2015 6:29:05 GMT
I was in Charleston two weeks ago. Drove right by that church.
Right now racial tension in the US is the worst I've seen in my lifetime. It's only just gearing up. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 19, 2015 17:15:13 GMT
Must be absolutely terrifying.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 20, 2015 5:59:47 GMT
Right out in the street only two doors down from where I live a large group of youngsters got together last month. There were black and white and a handful of Hispanic kids, at least fifty of them, and they started getting into a shoving match. I don't know what prompted this gathering, most of these kids were not from the neighborhood. At first I thought it was a party, but it quickly became obvious that there was something wrong. One of the kids told me "They're just fooling around", but I wasn't going to wait until it escalated. I called to police to have them disperse the group and hoped to hell nobody did anything stupid. Luckily it ended peacefully and everyone went home.
But all it takes is one idiot to start throwing rocks and all hell coulda broken lose.
The thing is there's a concerted effort by the press, and the government to some extent, to highlight racial tension. It started with the Trayvon Martin shooting several years ago and continued up through the more recent Michael Brown shooting and Freddie Gray death. There has been huge amounts of misinformation presented ("Hands up, don't shoot") and little to no attempt to correct it. As a result there have been riots and shootings that appear to be push back against the perceived oppression. It was only logical that there would be some push from the other direction. What happened in Charleston is something I've been expecting. Not exactly that, per se, but something.
Very soon this will become self perpetuating. Someone will do something and someone else will do something in response. As far as I can tell nobody is doing anything to stop it. In fact, they're feeding it. Is this on purpose? Good God, I hope not. I hope it's just because they're stupid.
Ten years ago all this would have been unthinkable. Racial tension? Race riots? That's just shit from the 60's, right? I mean, we're all Americans, right? Now there's this giant divide. It's almost palatable. You can actually taste it in the air.
And it taste like shit.
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Post by Canuovea on Jun 20, 2015 6:14:43 GMT
The reason there were riots in the 60s though is because there was systemic discrimination.
Maybe now that reason is the same? The discrimination is less obvious, perhaps, but still systemic and perhaps more insidious because of the fact it is less obvious.
This doesn't mean the rioting is all justified, nor does it mean that the police are all bad people, or that some of the shootings by the police weren't justified. But some of those shootings definitely weren't justified.
It seems clear to me that there is a problem, but nobody is really trying to do something about it. At least, not anything progressive. Shooting police officers? I mean, what? How does that help anyone? Violence and trashing people's property (and therefore, in some cases, livelihood)? Is that the full extent of what people are going to do about this?
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 22, 2015 6:55:40 GMT
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