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Except one thing is real and the other is not. There is no god, but there is definitely sexual attraction in forms beyond heterosexuality and gender expressions outside the heteronormative form. So there is a difference between spreading misinformation in form of religion or quite useful information on gender and sex.
I'm not religious and I'm not lgbtq either, but I will fight for either's right and freedom to practise their beliefs. I'd be more careful in calling one side "misinformation", when you have just spent decades being on the receiving end of that cruelty.
Telling people that your make believe fantasy story is true, is fundamental different from acknowledging existence or expression of non heterosexual sex and non heteronormative gender expression/identity. Especially since people tent to create moral norms for others, based on the particular fantasy story they happen to believe in.
Saying God isn't real is kinda like saying santa claus isn't real, and to those kids that desperately needs a santa, Santa is real to them, and that's all that matters..
"people tent to create moral norms for others" As long as those norms are not forcefully applied, it's fine.
"based on the particular fantasy story they happen to believe in." I would hope you were more self aware because not too long ago lgbtq's were dismissed as "fantasy" or some kind of medical diagnose. Just please be more considerate before throwing those types of accusations around.
So, what you are saying is - we should treat religious people like children? Not sure, that is what you intended - but for sure an interesting example to chose, to make your point. Also at no point did I argue for people not be able to practice their religion, in fact I have no problems with peoples personal spirituality as long as it does not negatively effect people around them.
But the forceful part is kind of what organized religion tends to be all about. Religious majorities tend to demand conformism even from people not following their religion.
Except LGBTQ people are real, you can go outside and talk to them, they will talk back at you. If god is talking back at you, I have bad news for you my friend. What are we even talking about?
Are we not all just children stuck in adult bodies. /end cringe philosophy. I wrote it in this context because I hoped it would be easier to relate to for someone, clearly, not religious. Religious freedom is not a blanket "do whatever you like" free-card. I believe RF is covered under Freedom of Expression, at least in most European Contries. It's limited to not infringe on other people's freedom of expression.
Your next paragraph is also best answered with; their freedom of expression is limited to not infringe on other people's freedom of expression. And this is what makes this so hard.
"Except LGBTQ people are real, you can go outside and talk to them, they will talk back at you."
Again, I know lgbtq is real, if god is real or not doesn't matter, that's not relevant, the actions of those convinced he is real, those actions are real.
"What are we even talking about" I was trying to have a discussion about that, in my view sexual freedom and religious freedom are very similar. They are both the fight for freedom of extression.
And my other thought (not so popular thought, so you better not air it) was that recently this fight for lgbtq feels inorganically amplified by legacy media. It makes me suspicious about if there might be a divide and conquer agenda behind it.
It's fun to discuss with you, you seem like you argue in good faith. Managed to slip in a semi-dad joke too.
You got me there. Can't ague with that - and my point was unnecessary provokative. Sorry.
It kind of matters a lot, since people justify their action by the fact that god is real and therefore their morals are absolute.
I think, I can see your argument - maybe on a philosophical level I even agree with you. But I just realize it's something I have to think about for my self for some time.
I don't consume legacy media, so I can't really argue on that one.
Dang, I don't even have kids, it's just getting old.
We started on opposing sides and reached a kinda agreement and hopefully, we both grew as a result of it. I like you.
Thanks, you gave me an argument to think about - I'm just a slow thinker. If I reach something that sounds reasonable but contradicts with my view on a topic, I need first to unwind my own argument and how I arrived there, takes some times - but helped me extremely to take heat out of conversations.
Likewise, thanks for the conversation.
The way I see it, Religion and Gender are both social constructs that exist to make life easier for people who need it (or, at least that’s what the original purpose of religion was).
There’s no definite, set-in-stone proof for either being true (as far as I know, do correct me if I’m wrong), but as long as they make someone’s life better without making others’ life worse, I see no issue with either existing.
It’s not really a fair comparison to say “God doesn’t exist, LGBTQ people do”, when one is a concept and the other is people. Religious people do exist, and the concept of “Gender” is just as vague and undefined as the one for “God”.
The reason why LGBTQ people are (rightfully) seen better than religious people is that they don’t force people to “join” them and don’t treat different people as the scum of the earth.
To be clear I'm not the one bringing up comparison of religion and LGBTQ. I'm pointing out the absurdity of that comparison.
Except you can study one empirically and not the other. Want to take a guess wich one?
Religious people will easily tell you God can be empirically studied. The creation of the world, the forming of consciousness, and so on. They’re not proof in any way but imo it’s not much far off from “some (but not all) trans people have different brain waves than cis people” (at least that’s the most common thing I’ve heard about “objectivity” in gender).
To me the comparison was kinda fair, if not for the underlying conspiracy theory that “the ownerclass” is trying to turn people gay for some reason.
But that does not make it true. And by the way the whole point of believing is that you don't need actual proof - if you have evidence you don't need to believe, you know.
Yes and when we study those empirical we come op with rather different explanations than offered by religion. The "God of Gaps" is getting smaller.
But again. I can go outside an meet trans people. You can have different explanation to why there is such phenomenon as trans people and come up with different explanations and mechanisms. You can't do quite the same thing with god. But sure you are welcome to propose an empirical experiment on nature of god.
Isn’t a major talking point in LGBTQ culture also that asking for “proof” of being trans is rude and you only have to “feel” like one to be one? I’m not that informed in the culture but I know there’s a subset of “Transmedicalists” that are usually shunned because of that.
Afaik we still didn’t find any possible explanation for either that doesn’t just bring up more questions. It got smaller for a long time but we’re at a point where we’re probably not ever going further unless someone does the biggest scientific breakthrough of history.
Again, you can meet with trans people just like you can meet with religious people. And both have (usually) no objective, biological way to discern them from cis people or atheists. If you want to go further, there’s also people who claim they talked with God or whatever. It’s all claims, as far as I know, on both sides. You can’t empirically test well something that, by definition, can’t have an objective tell.
I'm talking about religion. Also asking people to prove their gender in general is considered rude. If someone says she is a women, you don't normally ask them to prove it - would kind of border on sexual harassment(joke). Not sure why it would be different for trans folk.
What do you mean, we have hypothesis for both. Again the difference is we can actually study those things, we can't study god in the same sense.
You are keep switching between god an religious people. Wich is a bit annoying and makes the conversation less fun. You were saying:
So comparing existence of god and trans people. So which one is it?
To be clear I'm not doubting that Religions people exists, I doubt that god exists in the capacity they claim it to exist. As a psychological ans sociological construct god is real - and I might join the first religion than will come down with such definition of god. But that is far from what religions claim to be.
That’s Sex, not Gender, though. Gender is unrelated to physical appearance, as far as I know (and is thus impossible to prove).
Not definite ones that don’t bring more questions, is what I’m saying. We have the Big Bang, but how did it happen? What caused it? That’s a gap that will probably never be filled.
And I don’t doubt Trans people exist, I doubt “Gender” exists as more than a concept. I’m comparing a “concrete” God with a “concrete” Gender, and Religious people with Trans people.
Just like Religious people can exist without proof of God existing, Trans people can exist without Gender actually being a biological, provable and irrefutable thing. You’re saying “one is real and the other is not” because you’re conflating the two.
So you don't even know what gender is, but you chime in anyway - internet discussion at it best.
There are books on knowledge more complex than what we learned in school. If you fit in physics you can make a rather deep dive into all the questions you just asked - it's far more interesting than god just did it for the fun of it.
So by this comparison you think that trans people believe to be trans in the same way religious people believe that god exists? Just need to clarify that I got you correct.
Again, I don't doubt that religious people exist. Not sure why you keep bringing it up.
I’m plastering this discussion with “I think”, “as far as I know” and the likes exactly because I’m not fully knowledgeable on the matter. If I’m getting stuff wrong you could correct me instead of simply telling me I’m wrong.
I’m not. I’m saying “one is real and the other isn’t” works only if you compare God to Trans people instead of the concept of Gender.
I’m not Trans and I’m not Religious so I have no actual way to tell. Only someone who is both could actually have a meaningful say in this discussion, and even then it’s just the opinion of one person and it wouldn’t represent the whole group(s). What I personally think (and again, this might be entirely wrong as I have no direct knowledge of it), is that they’re people who felt something wrong with their life and gave it an explanation that lets them live better. That explanation might be true or not, but as long as it makes them live better and doesn’t hurt others (and this is where unfortunately most Religious people fail), it doesn’t really matter for it to work and be accepted as a natural part of society.
I personally know no Trans person and it’s genuinely hard to talk about this online without being mistaken as one of the thousand different camps who hate Trans people for one dumb reason or another, so my knowledge about the subject is limited to this, unfortunately. If you know/think it’s different I’d be glad to hear why.
That is a fair point. I'm just always surprise how confident people discuss matter they (sometimes they even admit) know little about. So what do you think gender is?
Ok, so you making a more broader almost philosophical point, that religious experience and gender identity different than hetero are both results of people feeling something wrong (in a complex sense) with their life and come up with an explanation (difficult to find the right words), acceptance of which made them feel better. Did I get your point this time?
I'm not trans, but one of my best friends is. I would think that the best way to understand would be to just meet trans folks and talk. You sound like you come from a genuine point of being curious and not understanding something that you don't know which is always ok, and I'm sorry to hear that you had bad experience talking about it online. But that is a nature of a sensitive topic. You can ask me, I might help to clarify some things. But keep in mind, I'm not an expert so verify the things I say and also I don't speak from my own experience.
The idea I got so far is that it's kind of a social construct of "ways to be perceived by yourself and the world" that is, so far, typical of people born (or at least, raised) with a specific sex. If your preferred way of expressing yourself is mostly conforming with what "the world" expects from your biological sex you're cis, otherwise you're trans. That's roughly how I thought of it until now, tell me if I misunderstood something.
Kinda, I guess? It's still not there because I know there's people who don't feel Gender Dysphoria for their current sex but only Euphoria for another, but you could say feeling like something "could be better" is still feeling "something wrong", in a sense.
Yeah, it's definitely the best way, but I don't really know any trans person and I don't think there's any in my area, or at least none who came out. And even if there was one I wouldn't really want to ask them delicate questions like this unless I'm very close to them. I know it's a very delicate subject even to touch online, I imagine irl people would feel even more pressure.
Your concept of gender sounds alright. I would just disagree with the term prefer, if you think about yourself and your gender - there is just a way you express your gender that is no really conscious. So I personally would say: that if your gender expression and identification is closer to your biological sex you that is called cis and if your gender expression and identification is closer to the opposite biological sex that's called trans.
Interesting view. I feel like I'm the wrong person to discuss this with, since I'm also neither trans or religious - so we kind of like two fish talking about the desert in this regard. But from my talks with trans people that is not how they experience their existence. But I might have something to bring the concept of being trans more closer to you - in your thoughts you projection of yourself aligns with your biological sex - imagine it would not. Imagine in your thoughts and dreams you have different gender than the one your biology suggest.
I can recommend contrapoints, she has also a video on trangsgender ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvM_pRfuFM ) and there are interviews out there were she talks more about her personal experience. She is rather philosophical so you might like it.
For me personally, I had no strong opinion on trans people - besides that I didn't really understood it from personal experience point of view, since my gender seems not that important to me - I experience myself mostly just as my self, but I guess that's the cis experience and that everyone should do what they want as long as they are not hurting others. Than I worked together with a trans girl on a few projects and we became friends and the interesting part for me was, that from the beginning I had the vibe with her I have around women. Which helped me to put my thoughts around that topic into places.
I used “prefer” because I figured it’s also a matter of preference in how would you like to be treated (as a male, a female or whatever), but yes, I don’t really “think” about how I want to express myself so I guess that’s mostly subconscious.
I’ve heard about it and tried thinking that way, but I really can’t imagine it from an outside perspective. As you said, I don’t really feel like my gender is that important either, so I guess that’s common for cis people. Like, I’m a male, but if I was born female I think my biggest “annoyances” would be the expectations society would have on me, and it would just be (probably much) harder to go against them. I imagine I would’ve just turned out tomboyish. …or at least that’s what I thought before I learned there’s a lot of trans people who don’t experience Body Dysphoria and/or aren’t interested in surgery, then I got really confused and figured I’ll probably never know for sure unless I meet an alternate universe version of myself or something.
I’ll have a look at it, thanks!
The vibe, you say… that’s interesting, I’d be curious to see if I ever experience something like that.
More or less what I told my friend word for word when we talked about it. There are people out there making a completely different experience in regard of the relation between their biological sex and their gender identity.
An example would be, I'm not very good at making close male friendships since I find it difficult to be open with other dudes and it was really easy to connect with her. But also just the general feeling - at least with me, I have a different one in a purely guys setting, in mixed one or just with women.