Do you generally go out of your way to interfere in people's personal lives? If the answer is no, then don't worry about it.

Oh, psychology. How does it work?

If the answer is yes, then you should probably find a hobby or something to occupy your time so people don't think you're a pest.

@leon, first i take it you are cis (and male identified) Second, how would you feel if people constantly refered to you by a female name, and pronouns, expected you to fill female stereotypes and dress in whatever your cultural norms for feminie are?

Also, it is not 'an idea' which you thinks is stupid. It is the experience of other which you are dismissing because you don't understand or appreciate it.

This is comparable to saying 'rascism' is stupid, i don't experience discrimination based on the colour of my skin, and i don't believe the experience described by others is real, because it is not my experience.

What the 'left' is pushing is about gender roles.
A modern userstanding of gender has three parts:
Gender identity, which is you internal feeling of your gender (and most likely neurological/biological).
Gender roles - which is the social expectations placed on people based on culture - some cultures have had more than two gender roles in the past, including native american 'two-spirit' and Indian 'hiajra' (sp?) - but modern western culture has a strict male/ female dichotomy (this is socially constructed).
Gender expression - which is the only bit you really get a choice about, how do you express your gender, whether through clothes, behaviour, makeup, or anything else.
This is often a result a mixture if gender identity and gender roles.

It is only gender roles which the 'left' are advocating for abolishing - that is forcing men or women to do certain things segregrated by gender. Like only men being allowed join the army, or you could see the clergy as an all male social institution which the modern secularist would oppose...

By the way, deciding that you know better what other people are experiencing than they know themselves is rather insulting.

What differentiates a male and a female. According to the left, nothing. So then, how do they identify with one sex or the other?

I would hardly care if an individual wishes to cut off or grow on a penis. However, now they wish to enter bathrooms for their biological opposite. So how do they differ mentally from their gender? Is there a voice in their head saying, "You are a X"?

Here you go, leon. And don't worry, no one is so stupid as to take guidance from you on what ideas are or aren't stupid.
https://www.quora.com/What-causes-a-person-to-be-transgender/answer/Ariel-Williams

The quora answer you cite says that transexuals "know" they are of the opposite sex from birth and most transition during childhood. That is clearly not what the statistics show. https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/age-of-transition.png

And don't worry, I know that liberals tend to be narrow-minded and slow to accept facts rather than emotions as the truth.

@Leon - you're building a strawman, and then attacking it. Whule ignoring what somebody on the 'left' is tellig you.

The left are against forced gender roles controling how people are allowed behave.
They are not against gender identity or freedom of gender expression.

Similarily, you could look at sexual orientation, sexual expression, and socially expected sexual roles.

Sexual expression, like fucking another man in the ass doesn't make you gay, which depends on your sexual orientation (ie your identity).

Similarily, being a catholic priest and sworn to celibacy doesn't stop you from being straight/gay/bisexual. Not expressing you sexual orientation (celebacy) doesn't make you asexual. Just as a bisexual man who only has sex with his wife doesn't magically become hetrosexual.

Sexual roles could include the expectation that a man initiates sex, and dominates in the bedroom. The left could well be said to be against strict social rules on what sex we can have, while not being against sexual orientation/identity.

And there is nothing hypocritical or self-conflicted about the left holding this position.

"What differentiates a male and a female. According to the left, nothing."

i think there lies your mistake. i believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that "the left" doesn't claim there's no difference between genders, they just say that the differences are a social construct.

This is an issue I couldn't care less about. Transgendered people have rights.
I don't care if they feel oppressed because they can't enter the other bathroom. There are much more important things out there to worry about like stopping child trafficking, helping refugees from other countries (where they are so focused on surviving they don't have time to get offended about whether they were addressed by the wrong pronoun), etc.
I know, I'm a bad person.

"The quora answer you cite says that transexuals "know" they are of the opposite sex from birth and most transition during childhood."

No, that's not what the answer says. You could, y'know, read it.

@"would hardly care if an individual wishes to cut off or grow on a penis. However, now they wish to enter bathrooms for their biological opposite. So how do they differ mentally from their gender? Is there a voice in their head saying, "You are a X"?

It appears Leon not even reading my replies, but i'll post this for anyone else.

Trans people didn't just magically appear in the last 3-ish years of media coverage, they have always existed. They have been using public toilets for centuries without any trouble. Or at least without the status quo being upset.

However trans-activists are pushing a political agenda because use of public toilets (which all members of te public should be able to safely use) has traditionally been an issue ofgreat stress and anixiety for trans-people (not to mention gender queer people).

They fear getting verbal abuse from women if they use women's toilets and physical assault/rape if they use men's.

So they are pushing for laws to protect them in public places where everyone else is able to be safe.

It is not as if trans-woman who pass as female haven't been enjoying their passing priviledge for decades and using women's toilets. They may still be a little worried if they had many negative experiences while transitioning.

@Kasimax: "i think there lies your mistake. i believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that "the left" doesn't claim there's no difference between genders, they just say that the differences are a social construct."

No. I helieve most mosern gender studies accept the difference between gender roles (which are socially constructed) and gender identity (which is biological).

@Fulminator: "There are much more important things out there to worry about like stopping child trafficking, helping refugees from other countries "

Are you saying that we can't stop child trafficing because we're too busy talking about trans-rights?

That it is one or the other?

How then can you justify playing diplomacy?? Shouldn't you be out building homes for refugees?

@Leon's quote "leon1122 (125 D)
12:22 AM
+1
The quora answer you cite says that transexuals "know" they are of the opposite sex from birth and most transition during childhood. That is clearly not what the statistics show. https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/age-of-transition.png"

Your statistics are mistaking gender expression - which is how you dress, or present your gender to the world. And gender identity.

For example Robin Williams played Mrs Doubtfire and was presenting as a woman; that doesn't change his gender identity. It means he was playing a female character.

What age someone who identifies as a trans identity and the age they start to transition are equally seperate things. One is identity, the other is expression.

And understanding your identity is not necessarily easy, i have trans friends who were raised by fundamentalist christians; and while they still believed in their parent's religion there would have been no way they could admit their gender identity even to themselves - that would have been understood as being devilish or some other spiritual mumbo jumbo, and any thinking about it would have been repressed.

So they may have felt their true gender, but not have been able to think about it, acknowledge it, nevermind expressing it. (They are fortunate to now be in their 20s, and surrounded by friends who support and re-affirm their gender identity and expression.)

It's basically my way of calling the issue not important to me at all.
I'm not interested in pushing the idea you can be whatever you want and to encourage people having surgeries to add penises or add breasts.
I fully support them being themselves. If that means putting on dresses or doing stereotypical girl or boy things, go for it.
I've talked to one person who gave a story how they struggled to go to the grocery store because they couldn't handle having people call them a "she" over a "he" while they were there.
I think society is going about this the wrong way and in their effort to help them by allowing them to demand what they want, no matter how inconvenient it is, is hurting the people who identify as transgendered, the very people they want to help.
So I guess I do care about this issue in a sense. Just not the bathroom issue specifically because it's all private anyway.

It's worth noting that no one is addressing leon1122 's point.

You point out the allegedly unaddressed point, I'll point out where it was addressed.

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