Whenever I speak with someone religious, I usually point out faults in their argument and explain that their extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However, I would occasionally get hit with a response that goes something like this:
You like to bring up science, physics, and biology, to demand proof of God’s existence. Yet you call yourself a woman and identify yourself in documents as “female”, can you prove that? In biology, female is the sex that produces eggs (ova) and bears young, a characteristic found in every human woman and girl. Do you have these eggs? What are your genetics, sir? Don’t you produce sperm cells before you decided to defile your own body? Do you think that going to surgery, cutting off your genitals, and dressing up like a woman somehow makes you one? And we are the ones who are deluded? Who are you to demand proof from us?
Honestly, I can’t answer this kind of question.
I could explain that scientific discussions around proof of God’s existence and gender identity are two very different things. Science is focused on empirical, observable phenomena, whereas belief in God touches on personal, spiritual, and often subjective experiences. Asking for empirical proof of God’s existence is not the same as asking for proof of someone’s identity.
But I would just receive responses that I am merely bending reality based on my feelings.
Before we proceed, have ever made those demands? If not then tell them to present the best reason they have, but if it doesn’t allay your doubts tell them so. No one is obliged to accept anyone else standard for personal credulity.
Gender is not just a biological fact, it is also a social construct, and a psychological identity, it is a mismatch between these that is defined by medical science as gender dysphoria.
Then they haven’t addressed the criticisms of their superstitious beliefs being unsupported by sufficient evidence, they are just deflecting with whataboutism
I think that is the crux of the matter. Spot on. Whether Natasha is “deluded” on a different topic is entirely a separate matter and beside the point. And of course the reality is that, as usual, this is pure projection: it is they who are deluded about gender dysphoria and the distinction between biological, social and psychological realities.
I will admit in the interest of transparency that I had more practical difficulty at first accepting transgender than homosexuality and I have more difficulty with “gender fluid” than with transgender. I question whether deciding on a whim each morning whether you’re male or female is optimal (although obviously it’s entirely within people’s rights to do so, and none of my business if they do). But my stepdaughter for example (age 32) has gender-fluid friends and thinks nothing of it.
It seems to me that a lot of this is what you are exposed to and when you are exposed to it. For a greybeard like myself, it’s more work to flex around these things when my entire formative years followed a simpler model – even if it had not been fundamentalist. You view the world through a set of simplifying rules of thumb and then something violates that, unless you are committed to be open minded even when it’s challenging, I can see why people dig in. This is not an excuse for them digging in, but maybe allows some understanding of why it happens and allows people who challenge the set societal molds (gay, trans, neurodivergent, chronically ill or whatever) to set more realistic expectations around society’s responses at this stage of society’s development. Not to normalize anything, just to accept that the struggle exists and isn’t going to evaporate tomorrow. I wish life weren’t always such a struggle or that it was not a disproportionate struggle for some of us … but alas and alack, so it is.
First off, aside from this place, why are you looking to find answers in a community that fosters such derision and malice? Two words come to mind…Fuck Them
Faith is similar to feelings. They influence behavior and helped us develop instincts. There is a line where that process become a cognitive distortion or cognitive bias.
I wouldnt worry about these types of arguments. for one, they are violating the law of identity, in which a=a. for them to say that biology is the factor of identity is not only stupid but shows incompetence
The point is they are using a false equivalence, gender identity can be biological, but it is also a social construct, and a psychological state, these can differ, as is the case with gender dysphoria.
This question demonstrates the “excluded middle” fallacy.
As I have said many times, gender and/or biological sex is sometimes a grey area.
I have often mentioned Kleinfelter Syndrome as an example, as a person with Kleinfelter’s has an XXY chromosome arrangement, while a man has XY and a woman has XX sex chromosomes. Sometimes, a person may have an XXXY arrangement. The 80s era supermodel Tula is a person with an XXXY arrangement, and Tula appeared in Playboy and was also a James Bond girl.
This means that a man with Kleinfelter’s will often have feminine traits, and if such a person is in a grey area and needs medical help to become more physically male or female, then medicine should do everthing to help such a person.
Or to put it in another way, if a girl was born with a penis growing out of her forehead (and things like this can happen with a drug called thalidomide if a pregnant woman takes it), then nobody would bat an eye if it was removed as soon as possible.
What, then, is the difference (in principle) if a person is in a grey area between male and female and chooses to become more physically female through surgery?
When people insist on denying gender-affirming care to minors, then this situation is not much different than a Jehovah’s Witness denying their child a medically necessary blood transfusion.
I guess another reason why I’m so pro-LGBTQ+ is that I believe that LGBTQ+ people may have actually become more common than in Biblical times.
This is because modern medicine and a better understanding of genetics, nutrition, exercise, and so forth prevents a lot of miscarriages. Also, a recent study from a Scandinavian country (I forget which one) analyzed tissue and biological remains from early miscarriages, and discovered that a disproportionate number of miscarriages carried genetic abnormalities like Kleinfelter’s and Down’s syndrome.
So, I believe that a much greater proportion of people with chromosome abnormalities survive to birth when they would have miscarried three thousand years ago.
I get very, very angry because there is a religious underground of dexamethasone use, as this drug supposedly prevents a girl from becoming a lesbian if the drug is used by the mom during pregnancy.
So, we have women endangering themselves and their daughters by using a perscription drug during early pregnancy, and without a reputable doctor’s oversight and involvement.
I had never heard that before. That’s a corticosteroid with a broad range of approved applications…but fetal genital manipulation was conspicuously missing from the list.
These must be the same assholes who took ivermectin and chloroquine during COVID.
Another profound intellectual disability proving Schopenhauer’s theory, one true believer at a time…
Fascinating article. The summary in the final paragraph is definitely the main takeaway, which says that the cited cases “reflect an almost desperate attempt by some doctors and scientists to keep their patients from straying from gender norms”. This kind of thing is going to appeal to the conservative mind which is preoccupied with conformity and Not Making Anybody Uncomfortable or Worried.
Why can’t we see, e.g., tomboyishness as just a harmless variation of female behavior? Not even necessarily in the sense of “a phase she will grow out of”? It seems that the parents of a “tomboy” a generation or two ago would wrongly fret that their daughter would not appeal to appropriate male suitors (or, in truth, would never fulfill their fantasy of an eventual wedding featuring a blushing beautiful bride). But today? Apparently there’s a lot of residual angst around that sort of thing.
The other thing that strikes me is the irony: the same people who oppose “gender-affirming care” approve of it in this context. Which tells me that gender affirming care is fine so long as it’s the “right” gender.
I think that a more basic point is that normalcy is valued for its own sake, and I have issues with this.
People like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Leonardo DaVinci, and Louis Pasteur are not normal. Most of these folks accomplished what they accomplished without letting normalcy hold them back.
There more basic point is why normalcy should be valued without being challenged.
I have dated any number of tomboy women (I worked in EMS, and a lot of female paramedics and firefighters seem to be tomboys), and they can be a lot of fun, as we did things like kayaking, hiking, SCUBA diving, and so forth.
One woman I dated for a year worked a side job as a car mechanic when she wasn’t working as a paramedic.
And so what?
My own mother had a tomboy side to her, as she taught me how to work on cars and how to use a chain saw.
Back then, some of my co-workers openly wondered if I was a repressed gay man because I occasionally dated tomboy women, and I would get called into human resources because I told these co-workers to go fuck themselves.
Again, it’s those 290,000+ primitive years in our evolution rearing it’s ugly head again.
We are wired to see anything unfamiliar as a potential threat. Remember how your parents told you to avoid strangers? Well, this is the same thing on a societal level. This hard wiring contributes to viewing any unfamiliar events, environments and individuals as a potential threat…which triggers stress and a vigilant response.
Familiarity creates a sense of safety and security, thereby reducing the cognitive load.
This is an adaptive trait we picked up along the way. This is the wellspring for every cognitive dissonance and distortion we lug around in our heads.
Instincts can be tweaked. I trained horses for 25 years and I realized one thing. You can’t remove the instinct from the animal, you can only teach them a different way to respond. Rather then take off down a trail because they saw a plastic bag blowing in the wind, you can teach them that the bag is not as scary as they thought through desensitization training.
Example? My horse was terrified of just about everything when he was a foal…plastic bags in particular. One day I brought in horse muffins…in a plastic bag. His first response was to want to run as far and fast as he could from it. After his initial reaction I got him over to the bag to see what was so scary. Once he discovered the horse muffins plastic bags were now a good thing. After repeating this lesson a few times he was fine. In fact, he just turned 25 in June and now, when he sees a plastic bag, he needs to investigate it for horse muffins.
Same stimuli, but now a no-stress reaction.
It’s easier in horses, they don’t carry as much baggage as humans.
That sounds like a classical “deflect” to me. They know good and damn well they cannot answer your question in regards to showing how their god might be real. Therefore, they resort to changing the subject and comparing it to something not even remotely related to showing proof of their god. My experience is that people like that are a waste of your breath when trying to have a discussion with them. They DO NOT CARE what rational or logical points you bring to the table, they are programmed to use whatever means necessary to NOT listen to reasonable/rational thinking when it comes to their chosen faith. I have had discussions with Christians who are Olympic level mental contortionists when it comes to defending their All-powerful/All-knowing god. They have never questioned or doubted what they were taught by their preacher, family members, and close friends. Believe me when I tell you: You will NEVER get through to those types of individuals. If anything, whatever you tell them will typically have them digging in their heals and relying even MORE on their faith. It would be nice to think that maybe you at least planted a seed of doubt into their minds, but you would just be deluding yourself. Personally, I save my breath/time for those who are having doubts and asking the right questions. I know all too well how it feels to have those doubts and not have anybody around to express them to without being told, “You shouldn’t doubt god. It’s just the Devil trying to lead you astray.” Therefore, I do my best to make myself available to anybody who is suffering from being trapped in their indoctrination due to fear of Satan/hell.
As far as your personal identity, never let people like that bother you due to their own ignorance. Like I said, that deflection they use is nothing more than admitting they cannot answer the question you asked. Plus, it is a completely non-sequitur comparison. To me it is much along the same lines as when they try to compare their all-knowing/all-powerful god caring for humanity to human parents raising their own children. Makes me chuckle and cringe all at the same time when they bring up that “argument” they believe to be a “Gotchya!” moment. Anyway, to sum it all up, YOU are not the deluded one in that discussion. Put the blame where it belongs, right back on the individual making the outrageous claim. Just because I have no answer to how our universe was formed does not put them even one step closer to proving their god exists. Try to keep that in mind, and maybe avoid (whenever possible) discussions with those who are die-hard faithful. You will not win, I promise.
