Sometimes words fail me to express my appreciation for the clarity of your thoughts and logic of your reasoning. Although I have a deep disdain for transgenderism and related cults, I agree with your assessment that we cannot amd must not ban them. I call myself a "cultural Catholic" because I can't deny how Catholic ritual, the music, the chants, the smells, the processions, the cathedrals, the church-shaped two thousand year history of my home town, the feasts, the chants, and the costumes, have shaped me as a person - not because I'm a Christian or a believer in anything, but because, growing up, it was all around me. Thank goodness, my parents didn't force me to do anything, but left me to make up my own, rather rational, mind. I wouldn't dream of banning any religion. I just don't want to be forced by law to take part. Thank you for making this so clear.
Yes, and no. Of course, I loved the theatre and drama! But saying that's all it was denies a lot of things I got from the believers I wouldn't have got in my family: a sense of belonging, access to books, a sense of life's natural rhythms, and much other stuff. I'm not denying the heap of horror and shit that's going on within any religious community. On the contrary. I've worked all my life on making my surroundings a place where people can have the experiences I had as a kid without being a member of any cult. I think that's the way to go. Admittedly, it'll be painfully slow and a lot of work.
Having said all this - I agree with trudie63's 10 points, which will be a good start.
I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. I LOVE the theater of church -- one of the best examples was Holy Week at Trinity in Boston where the director of liturgy for the Episcopal church was in charge of the services (including a three-hour meditation on the death penalty) -- but I love the sense of the year's rhythm and I love the religious observance.
I'm wary of exposing children to religion in any form, but I know what you mean about the sense of belonging, the sense of structure. A psychological historian who wrote a book about apocalyptic religion said his upbringing in the Episcopal church did a lot for him as a child, and he didn't sound as though he had been religiously abused.
While I would love to accept your argument EX, the trans cult is unable to have a discussion with someone who will not validate their belief system without using slurs and trying, sometimes violently, to stop you speaking, writing, organising against their beliefs. I dont think they are open to any form of discussion at all under any circumstances. I understand that the differences between women and the trans should be able to be discussed calmly (I was going to say rationally) but i do not believe that this can happen when the trans are actively, worldwide, subverting the law, education, government, health etc., to the extent that they are doing. Banning achieves nothing it just makes it a little more enticing to the idiots who think they are subverting society. Trans exist, of course they do, but they cannot be allowed to erase a whole class of people because they wish to be that which they can never be. The harm this ideology is doing is unconscionable particularly to children and is the result of far too much porn and spread because mental health and other comorbidities is not taken seriously nor is the system adequately fu ded to deal with the sometimes psychotic trans activists. Conversation should have a place but I don't think we are at that place in time yet
Hear hear. So the question is; what can we do to accelerate the pace toward the time when that conversation can happen? Are we just waiting for the first round of lawsuits to become common knowledge?
1. Stop gender treatment for children immediately. 2. No trans to use a toilet not meant for their biological sex. 3. Stop changing the law to erase women and girls in sex segregated areas of society. 4. No forced language. 5. No forced sex for gays or lesbians =rape imo, 6. No teaching of children by captured teachers or outside people. 6. Trans already have the same rights as everyone else, they are not entitled to more than anyone else. 7.The public acknowledgement that woman=adult natal human female/girl, man=adulation natal human male/boy and that trans are neither of these. 8. Respect is earned and you cannot demand it. 9. Trans are entitled to dignity to live their lives as they wish within the bounds of all of the above. 10. Same sex carers always if specified by the person requiring intimate care.
I am willing to read your actions on hiw you are going to get the change happening. Im not American but I think you can see that more and more states are stopping the first in my list
#7 is iffy to me. They are indeed one of the two, men or women. Giving them the idea they are neither puts them where? I think anything remotely off the binary they will love. I'm committed to calling them what they were born as.
Ok new no 7: trans identifying males are a subset of males they are not and never can be women of any type ever, maybe that might be better, I think it is
Bravo Ex, I often wished that I could speak clearly and succinctly. Today you gave me hope real hope, that a middle ground can be reached. Funny side note on acceptance, I was ready to get a reaction of surprise from my husband when I told him about a catholic priest in Ireland that is sharing part of the church for an Imam to lead prayer. Wow how crazy right.? My husband just looked at me and said, so what, are they not all praying to same God? After a slight pause of confusion I said, Good point!
I agree with what you're saying 100%. I've expressed the same position to my husband many times, when this topic has come up in conversation. However, his response is never what I hope it will be. That's true because this is my default position. And his response reminds me that I am, at heart, an idealist.
So here's what he reminds me: about half of the men who are engaging in the practice of transgenderism are engaging in an activity that falls somewhere within the category of rape. They are forcing everyone around them to engage in their fetish by participating in social society. We have to look at people, we have to talk to people, and unfortunately for us, in the case of an Autogynophile, that is enough to give them sexual satisfaction. My husband calls it rape behavior. He says this because it reminds him of his many years in the NYC art scene where gay men assumed they had the right to come on to him because he is slender, tall and attractive in the way ballet dancers are attractive. He was harassed. He didn't like it. He developed a strong sense of when someone was preying on him sexually. And unfortunately, he was not wrong. (it still happens at gallery openings and charity receptions with both men and women.)
Of course there is nothing anyone can do about what someone else finds arousing. What I'm addressing here is the fact that our chances of getting people to have this conversation are limited by the fact that the autogynophiles have the reins of power. As long as that is the case, they will be continually lobbying to expand on the religious rights for trans to practice publicly. And for some, those tights include the right to commit acts that we would otherwise see as criminal.
A sincerely held belief is no more provable than the existence of fairies. So we are facing a choice, in my opinion, either adopt the philosophy France has adopted, which embraces symbols worn like jewelry and rejects overt displays of faith such as the hijab. France, and Quebec, rejects any display of religious faith in any public place. Jewelry notwithstanding,. France bans the display of devotion in public. Period. So does Quebec. Most countries don't have to go that far because most countries are either religious dictatorships or are not so attractive to religious zealots that they need laws governing overt displays of religious fervor.
So we can do that or find another way. I don't know what that other way is right now. I hope I can help to figure that out. I do know showing overt respect for religion has resulted in events like the National Prayer Breakfast and Christmas and participation by evangelicals in national politics and neither one of those aspects of American life are safe or okay in a secular society.
Oh, and I should also mention, I know from my own, (suppressed) research in virtual reality that cross dressing as a sexual fetish is far more common than anyone seems to understand.
Fully 1/3 of the men in virtual reality are using female avatars for the sexual thrill of vicarious cross dressing. From 2010 until recently, it was considered good practice for psychologists to send gender questioning adult clients into Second Life, a virtual reality program, to "live" as a woman for a few months before trying it out in real life.
I've interviewed hundreds of men, interviewed dozens of psychologists and observed many more. I wrote the research up, got paid for it, and watched as it was spiked. So there's that. I'm not speaking frivolously here.
I've remained friends with around half a dozen autogynephiles most closeted, some not. They are some of the sweetest, dearest people I know. And honestly, that's a big part of the problem.
Just one more thing: Knowles, like Jon Stewart, is not responding to the substance of the debate, rather he is responding to the public perception of the substance of the debate.
If you look at the Arkansas "Ban on Drag" it's not actually that. It's a law banning sexually explicit performances in places where children are likely to be in the audience.
Same is true of DeSantis "Don't Say Gay" law. The law has nothing to do with talking about being gay, it states that children won't be exposed to instruction on sexuality or gender identity in public schools.
(I loathe DeSantis btw, but that law is a good law.) Both of these laws have been widely attacked by the left using the flimsiest logic. On MSNBC last night, Jonathan Capeheart interviewed a drag queen that I know I wouldn't want my 8 year old to watch, (if I had one at home) and in the same interview he quoted Stewart about the leading cause of death for children, gun violence. As though a failure to address gun violence means that we should overlook the social trends harming children until gun violence is resolved.
It's worth mentioning that De Santis, like most Republicans, is thinking about this from a purely financial perspective. Trans kids cost taxpayers a ton of money. Children who die by gun violence? Not so much.
I'm not saying that's a healthy perspective, or even accurate. Trauma is expensive in the long haul, but it's a mistake to assume policy is ever made on the basis of compassion. That is not how governments are run. The fulcrum is cost. Ask any lobbyist.
That objection also raises the obvious counter point: if the biggest cause of death in children is guns, why are we so hyperfocused on preventing trans kid suicides?
I'm going to resist the temptation to use it with the trans supporters because it assumes I accept their claims that trans kids are facing an epidemic of suicidal ideation and I don't believe that's true. Unless you count the kids who think about suicide because they've destroyed their health through trans interventions, that's a plausible premise, imo.
That would be a good way to go, but STILL doesn't answer the main problem to your argument against Knowles. He IS protected under Freedom of Religion, but Trans folk are not, AND (as you said) Church & State should be separate (but they're not. And they're not in the UK either)
Homosexuality can never be protected as a Religious Freedom, it's a complete Oxymoron. Also pretending to be Religious when you are a staunch Atheist is .... something. Mocking God comes to mind..
Exulansic ! you came with a rich understanding on this issue! thank you ! Are planning to write something about it? I would love to have it and translate it into Spanish.
Thanks as always for your analysis. If we can't even define transgenderism how can we ban it? That is not a solution. Don't give men unfettered access to women's spaces and don't force your religion on children. And I'm not interested in playing their tiresome parlour games about "what is a woman?"
My chief weapon is fearlessness and lack of surprise. My two weapons are fearlessness, lack of surprise, and an unwavering devotion to rationalism. Damn.... AMONG MY WEAPONS...
Transubstantiation....the true believer swallows the pill, has the surgery, and becomes a woman, or becomes a man...it is a divine transition, a holy thing.
I don't care what they believe; they are welcome to believe whatever they like -- but when they are medically altering children's bodies in the name of their religion, when they make laws enforcing their beliefs, then we have a problem. Historically, religions have often promoted violence towards non-believers, another problem we need to avoid. I'm against making transitioning illegal, but we do need to be aware. We no longer allow the Catholic church to burn heretics, so I bet there are ways to stop the Church of Trans from it's worst tendencies without making it completely illegal.
Sometimes I think the best way to stop all this woke nonsense is to stop paying attention to them!
Your reply is excellent, states what needs to be stated up-front. Knowles' entire approach is wrong-headed and illegal under our legal framework. But I gotta say I wonder: how the hell do you even "ban transgenderism"? Any more than you "ban" any human behavior? Realistically? You can use punishment, criminalize certain practices and forbid others in public, and drive some behavior "underground", but that's not "eradicating" anything. It's not just wrong it's really dumb!
Practices or rites can be banned. My understanding is that those here viewing and commenting are in agreement about drugs, surgeries, and harmful prosthetics for minors being banned. For adults, since these practices are cosmetic and do not increase health but damage it, perhaps banning insurance from paying for it, because it isn’t any kind of “healthcare.” The beliefs cannot be banned and so therefore no attempt at banning should be made.
Thanks for such a concise response to that man’s panicky call for banning beliefs!
Sometimes words fail me to express my appreciation for the clarity of your thoughts and logic of your reasoning. Although I have a deep disdain for transgenderism and related cults, I agree with your assessment that we cannot amd must not ban them. I call myself a "cultural Catholic" because I can't deny how Catholic ritual, the music, the chants, the smells, the processions, the cathedrals, the church-shaped two thousand year history of my home town, the feasts, the chants, and the costumes, have shaped me as a person - not because I'm a Christian or a believer in anything, but because, growing up, it was all around me. Thank goodness, my parents didn't force me to do anything, but left me to make up my own, rather rational, mind. I wouldn't dream of banning any religion. I just don't want to be forced by law to take part. Thank you for making this so clear.
What you liked was the theater!
Yes, and no. Of course, I loved the theatre and drama! But saying that's all it was denies a lot of things I got from the believers I wouldn't have got in my family: a sense of belonging, access to books, a sense of life's natural rhythms, and much other stuff. I'm not denying the heap of horror and shit that's going on within any religious community. On the contrary. I've worked all my life on making my surroundings a place where people can have the experiences I had as a kid without being a member of any cult. I think that's the way to go. Admittedly, it'll be painfully slow and a lot of work.
Having said all this - I agree with trudie63's 10 points, which will be a good start.
I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. I LOVE the theater of church -- one of the best examples was Holy Week at Trinity in Boston where the director of liturgy for the Episcopal church was in charge of the services (including a three-hour meditation on the death penalty) -- but I love the sense of the year's rhythm and I love the religious observance.
I'm wary of exposing children to religion in any form, but I know what you mean about the sense of belonging, the sense of structure. A psychological historian who wrote a book about apocalyptic religion said his upbringing in the Episcopal church did a lot for him as a child, and he didn't sound as though he had been religiously abused.
While I would love to accept your argument EX, the trans cult is unable to have a discussion with someone who will not validate their belief system without using slurs and trying, sometimes violently, to stop you speaking, writing, organising against their beliefs. I dont think they are open to any form of discussion at all under any circumstances. I understand that the differences between women and the trans should be able to be discussed calmly (I was going to say rationally) but i do not believe that this can happen when the trans are actively, worldwide, subverting the law, education, government, health etc., to the extent that they are doing. Banning achieves nothing it just makes it a little more enticing to the idiots who think they are subverting society. Trans exist, of course they do, but they cannot be allowed to erase a whole class of people because they wish to be that which they can never be. The harm this ideology is doing is unconscionable particularly to children and is the result of far too much porn and spread because mental health and other comorbidities is not taken seriously nor is the system adequately fu ded to deal with the sometimes psychotic trans activists. Conversation should have a place but I don't think we are at that place in time yet
Hear hear. So the question is; what can we do to accelerate the pace toward the time when that conversation can happen? Are we just waiting for the first round of lawsuits to become common knowledge?
1. Stop gender treatment for children immediately. 2. No trans to use a toilet not meant for their biological sex. 3. Stop changing the law to erase women and girls in sex segregated areas of society. 4. No forced language. 5. No forced sex for gays or lesbians =rape imo, 6. No teaching of children by captured teachers or outside people. 6. Trans already have the same rights as everyone else, they are not entitled to more than anyone else. 7.The public acknowledgement that woman=adult natal human female/girl, man=adulation natal human male/boy and that trans are neither of these. 8. Respect is earned and you cannot demand it. 9. Trans are entitled to dignity to live their lives as they wish within the bounds of all of the above. 10. Same sex carers always if specified by the person requiring intimate care.
Is that a start?
That's Florida, and Arkansas. Those are goals, not the means to get to them.
I am willing to read your actions on hiw you are going to get the change happening. Im not American but I think you can see that more and more states are stopping the first in my list
#7 is iffy to me. They are indeed one of the two, men or women. Giving them the idea they are neither puts them where? I think anything remotely off the binary they will love. I'm committed to calling them what they were born as.
Ok new no 7: trans identifying males are a subset of males they are not and never can be women of any type ever, maybe that might be better, I think it is
Bravo Ex, I often wished that I could speak clearly and succinctly. Today you gave me hope real hope, that a middle ground can be reached. Funny side note on acceptance, I was ready to get a reaction of surprise from my husband when I told him about a catholic priest in Ireland that is sharing part of the church for an Imam to lead prayer. Wow how crazy right.? My husband just looked at me and said, so what, are they not all praying to same God? After a slight pause of confusion I said, Good point!
What she is doing helps everyone think a bit clearer and more rationally, in order to promote sanity and civility!
This is great! I describe the important distinction you’re drawing as the belief in gender identity versus the institutionalization of the belief.
Well said, and nothing "true trans" about it.
I understand completely Ex, yet, at the sane time find myself wondering is there a point of crossing into being 'too nice land'.
Of course I meant the word 'same'-- yet out popped the word 'sane'-- appropriate and applicable I guess!!
Did you know that you can edit comments here? Click on the little dots to the right of the word 'collapse'.
Thank you---!
My pleasure
Thanks, I didn't know that either.
You're welcome
I agree with what you're saying 100%. I've expressed the same position to my husband many times, when this topic has come up in conversation. However, his response is never what I hope it will be. That's true because this is my default position. And his response reminds me that I am, at heart, an idealist.
So here's what he reminds me: about half of the men who are engaging in the practice of transgenderism are engaging in an activity that falls somewhere within the category of rape. They are forcing everyone around them to engage in their fetish by participating in social society. We have to look at people, we have to talk to people, and unfortunately for us, in the case of an Autogynophile, that is enough to give them sexual satisfaction. My husband calls it rape behavior. He says this because it reminds him of his many years in the NYC art scene where gay men assumed they had the right to come on to him because he is slender, tall and attractive in the way ballet dancers are attractive. He was harassed. He didn't like it. He developed a strong sense of when someone was preying on him sexually. And unfortunately, he was not wrong. (it still happens at gallery openings and charity receptions with both men and women.)
Of course there is nothing anyone can do about what someone else finds arousing. What I'm addressing here is the fact that our chances of getting people to have this conversation are limited by the fact that the autogynophiles have the reins of power. As long as that is the case, they will be continually lobbying to expand on the religious rights for trans to practice publicly. And for some, those tights include the right to commit acts that we would otherwise see as criminal.
A sincerely held belief is no more provable than the existence of fairies. So we are facing a choice, in my opinion, either adopt the philosophy France has adopted, which embraces symbols worn like jewelry and rejects overt displays of faith such as the hijab. France, and Quebec, rejects any display of religious faith in any public place. Jewelry notwithstanding,. France bans the display of devotion in public. Period. So does Quebec. Most countries don't have to go that far because most countries are either religious dictatorships or are not so attractive to religious zealots that they need laws governing overt displays of religious fervor.
So we can do that or find another way. I don't know what that other way is right now. I hope I can help to figure that out. I do know showing overt respect for religion has resulted in events like the National Prayer Breakfast and Christmas and participation by evangelicals in national politics and neither one of those aspects of American life are safe or okay in a secular society.
Oh, and I should also mention, I know from my own, (suppressed) research in virtual reality that cross dressing as a sexual fetish is far more common than anyone seems to understand.
Fully 1/3 of the men in virtual reality are using female avatars for the sexual thrill of vicarious cross dressing. From 2010 until recently, it was considered good practice for psychologists to send gender questioning adult clients into Second Life, a virtual reality program, to "live" as a woman for a few months before trying it out in real life.
I've interviewed hundreds of men, interviewed dozens of psychologists and observed many more. I wrote the research up, got paid for it, and watched as it was spiked. So there's that. I'm not speaking frivolously here.
I've remained friends with around half a dozen autogynephiles most closeted, some not. They are some of the sweetest, dearest people I know. And honestly, that's a big part of the problem.
My understanding is that France bans head scarves, for example, but does NOT ban wearing a cross to school.
Just one more thing: Knowles, like Jon Stewart, is not responding to the substance of the debate, rather he is responding to the public perception of the substance of the debate.
If you look at the Arkansas "Ban on Drag" it's not actually that. It's a law banning sexually explicit performances in places where children are likely to be in the audience.
Same is true of DeSantis "Don't Say Gay" law. The law has nothing to do with talking about being gay, it states that children won't be exposed to instruction on sexuality or gender identity in public schools.
(I loathe DeSantis btw, but that law is a good law.) Both of these laws have been widely attacked by the left using the flimsiest logic. On MSNBC last night, Jonathan Capeheart interviewed a drag queen that I know I wouldn't want my 8 year old to watch, (if I had one at home) and in the same interview he quoted Stewart about the leading cause of death for children, gun violence. As though a failure to address gun violence means that we should overlook the social trends harming children until gun violence is resolved.
It's worth mentioning that De Santis, like most Republicans, is thinking about this from a purely financial perspective. Trans kids cost taxpayers a ton of money. Children who die by gun violence? Not so much.
I'm not saying that's a healthy perspective, or even accurate. Trauma is expensive in the long haul, but it's a mistake to assume policy is ever made on the basis of compassion. That is not how governments are run. The fulcrum is cost. Ask any lobbyist.
That objection also raises the obvious counter point: if the biggest cause of death in children is guns, why are we so hyperfocused on preventing trans kid suicides?
good point, as always.
I'm going to resist the temptation to use it with the trans supporters because it assumes I accept their claims that trans kids are facing an epidemic of suicidal ideation and I don't believe that's true. Unless you count the kids who think about suicide because they've destroyed their health through trans interventions, that's a plausible premise, imo.
I totally agree with you and think Michael Knowles is being FAR too radical and OTT..
It does come down to 'freedom of religion' BUT Trans don't see themselves as a 'religion'.
Trans are protected in Law not under religion, but as sexual/gender identity?
Ergo, they aren't under the same protection as Religion.
If they yank our gay rights we may want to fall back on homosexuality as religious belief.
But they're not yanking gay rights at all.
That would be a good way to go, but STILL doesn't answer the main problem to your argument against Knowles. He IS protected under Freedom of Religion, but Trans folk are not, AND (as you said) Church & State should be separate (but they're not. And they're not in the UK either)
Homosexuality can never be protected as a Religious Freedom, it's a complete Oxymoron. Also pretending to be Religious when you are a staunch Atheist is .... something. Mocking God comes to mind..
I love you regardless ;)
Your reasonableness is poetic.
Exulansic ! you came with a rich understanding on this issue! thank you ! Are planning to write something about it? I would love to have it and translate it into Spanish.
I have two paywalled essays I'll release in a day or two but wanted to get my video out first.
Thanks as always for your analysis. If we can't even define transgenderism how can we ban it? That is not a solution. Don't give men unfettered access to women's spaces and don't force your religion on children. And I'm not interested in playing their tiresome parlour games about "what is a woman?"
"You practice ritual cannibalism and it shows" - my last words to the Spanish Inquisition
How are you so prepared? No one expects the Spanish inquisition!
My chief weapon is fearlessness and lack of surprise. My two weapons are fearlessness, lack of surprise, and an unwavering devotion to rationalism. Damn.... AMONG MY WEAPONS...
Transubstantiation....the true believer swallows the pill, has the surgery, and becomes a woman, or becomes a man...it is a divine transition, a holy thing.
I don't care what they believe; they are welcome to believe whatever they like -- but when they are medically altering children's bodies in the name of their religion, when they make laws enforcing their beliefs, then we have a problem. Historically, religions have often promoted violence towards non-believers, another problem we need to avoid. I'm against making transitioning illegal, but we do need to be aware. We no longer allow the Catholic church to burn heretics, so I bet there are ways to stop the Church of Trans from it's worst tendencies without making it completely illegal.
Sometimes I think the best way to stop all this woke nonsense is to stop paying attention to them!
Your reply is excellent, states what needs to be stated up-front. Knowles' entire approach is wrong-headed and illegal under our legal framework. But I gotta say I wonder: how the hell do you even "ban transgenderism"? Any more than you "ban" any human behavior? Realistically? You can use punishment, criminalize certain practices and forbid others in public, and drive some behavior "underground", but that's not "eradicating" anything. It's not just wrong it's really dumb!
Practices or rites can be banned. My understanding is that those here viewing and commenting are in agreement about drugs, surgeries, and harmful prosthetics for minors being banned. For adults, since these practices are cosmetic and do not increase health but damage it, perhaps banning insurance from paying for it, because it isn’t any kind of “healthcare.” The beliefs cannot be banned and so therefore no attempt at banning should be made.
Thanks for such a concise response to that man’s panicky call for banning beliefs!