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polymathwannabe comments on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? - Less Wrong
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Sexual diversity is real; creation science is not. Schools must teach what is true.
In what sense? It's real in the sense that there are people who engage in gay sex and people who claim to be "really" the opposite gender. There are also people who rape, people who believe in creationism and people who believe themselves to be "spiritually" some animal.
That doesn't mean we should endorse their behaviors or take their claims at face value.
People who sleep with their same sex do not necessarily identify as homosexuals, and definitely not all homosexuals identify as transgender. They are not the same phenomenon, they must not be confused, and the fact that you confuse them reveals a lot about your suitability to have this discussion.
No valid argument exists to equal homosexuality per se with, respectively, violating others' autonomy, being ridiculously misinformed, or having a psychiatric disorder.
Sorry if my wording wasn't clear.
I don't see what argument you can possible make for why say transsexuality shouldn't be considered a psychiatric disorder but being an "other kin" should. Today people who call transsexuality a psychiatric disorder are labeled "evil trasphobes", the way progressivism is going in a couple decades people, like yourself, who call other-kinness a psychiatric disorder will be labeled "evil other-kinphobes".
Again, you are confusing homosexuality and transgenderism.
Same-sex attraction is not classified as a mental disorder and does not require any medical intervention.
On the other hand, gender dysphoria is classified as a mental disorder in the DSM, and the treatment is helping your body match your brain, not the other way around. "There is also evidence that transsexuals have parts of their brain structure that is typical of the opposite birth-assigned gender." That's why in another comment I said it's firmware: your gender identity cannot be 'repaired' because it's wired in your brain, and that's why the treatment is modifying your netherparts instead.
The problem with otherkin is that they deny their own humanity, which is in a completely different category than denying one's femaleness. (However, if future surgical advances allow anyone who wants to get functional hooves and wings implanted, I say let them be happy.)
Um, you do realize the DSM's contents is massively influenced by politics?
It's also listed in the WHO's ICD, if you prefer that source.
I'm not as familiar with WHO's ICD; however, I'd expect the process that produces its contents to be similar to the one for the DSM.
Neither Bryan Caplan's post at the other end of that link, nor the Wired article he in turn links to, appears to me to be saying that the contents of the DSM are "massively influenced by politics".
[EDITED to add:] For the avoidance of doubt, I agree that both make a lot of criticisms of the DSM. I just don't see that "massively influenced by politics" is what they're complaining about.
How about the fact that everything we know about ontogeny suggests that gender of a child of human parents should be more fluid than its species, since the determination and development of gender-typical physiology in utero is complex and multivocal? There are ontogenetic factors (insufficient uptake of testosterone, for instance) that might lead to a child with male-typical sexual organs but more female-typical neurological features. There aren't any analogously complex species-determining processes involved in the development of a child.
Why would this effect the neurological and only the neurological features? On the other hand the example of other-kin shows that it's possible for a human brain to identify as something it isn't.
Just noticed this clause. Then which of the two is the thing that is supposedly 100% innate?
Nothing prevents a straight man from having a night of experimentation, and he may or may not end up liking what he finds.
I couldn't care less whether sexual orientation is innate or a choice. If it's innate, the debate is over. If it's a choice, you're free. In both cases, nothing wrong has happened.
s/homosexuality/other-kinness in that paragraph. Do you still agree with it? If not, what's the difference?
EDITED: It took me several minutes to guess what the s/ syntax probably meant.
Otherkin (or transgenderism, as discussed in previous posts) is an identity. It refers to who you are. Homosexuality is an orientation. It refers to whom you desire. They are different categories, but they can and do intersect (for example, if a person was born with lady parts, and only finds feminine people attractive, and identifies as male, that person is a transman, and not homosexual).
Can you taboo those italicised phrases? Or to put that differently, write it in E-Prime?
(Short version: No obligatory link ties a particular set of body parts with a particular set of personality traits.)
I cannot claim to know firsthand the experiences of a transgender person, but I will attempt to do it justice. What we call "gender identity" describes a subjective sense of alignment with a set of traits that our culture tends to associate with a biological sex. Every culture assigns its own sets of expected roles, rights, privileges, and allowed emotional range to people of each biological sex, and at its core individualism begins by questioning the validity of those expectations. Just like the shoemaker's son should not have his life options limited to shoemaking, a child born with lady parts should not have to perform only a nurturing, submissive role. But gender identity covers more than socially approved roles; it involves the way you present yourself to society, the language you choose to use, the clothes you feel comfortable with, the type of personal ties you prefer to establish, the virtues you embody. No obligatory link exists between a particular set of body parts and a particular set of personality traits. We also need to remember that gender identity does not necessarily follow a binary pattern; as intersex people exemplify, not even biological sex does. Evolution may have given us a very specific procedure for reproduction, but it says nothing about the way we should structure our society, and you cannot try to derive cultural norms from it without falling into an is-ought fallacy.
That all makes good sense, but to me it leaves two issues unexplained. The first is that for all the fluidity and conventionality claimed for the things summarised as "gender identity", it is still treated as a package deal even by transgender people: you perform either the standard male package or the standard female package, however those are defined by the culture around you, with no more variation from that standard than cis people show. The very names "trans" and "cis" embody the practice. Meanwhile, some cis women just get on with being assertive, and some cis men bring up children themselves.
The second is that many (most? I don't know) transgender people seek hormones or surgery to modify their bodies so as to more closely resemble, at least outwardly, the biology of their desired sex. Apparently, they desire not merely to perform that gender role, but to have that sex. Something more than gender roles is going on. That is also indicated by self-reports of gender dysphoria, where the sufferer experiences acute discomfort with the physical sensations of their own body's sex.
And this distinction is relevant because?
I covered that in my responses to RichardKennaway in this same thread. I can see you're refusing to understand this issue. I'm done discussing with you.