Okay, but you imply that anyone opposing trans women in women’s sports or trans women in women’s spaces is doing so for bad reasons. Like I think you think that it just isn’t possible for someone to come to any anti-trans conclusion without being influenced or radicalized or whatever. Or maybe you think that simply coming to anti-trans conclusions is what makes someone a bigot? If neither are the case, how would you persuade such a person that they’re wrong?
Yeah, reading through some of it again, it seems like you and @anonymous45 were trying out something unique in your back and forth, winging it a bit, so I should maybe show more grace (I don’t know if that’s the right word) in your approaches. I just assumed a main goal would be to understand each other’s perspective more.
I don’t think it’s unique to transgenderism, but if I lump them in with the woke left, there was a period of time where it was for sure asymmetrical. I don’t know why it was that way but some of it had to do with their ideology, and they had more motion in academia, media, etc. It was a whole movement that gained popularity.
I purposely asked about the last 10 years or so because I think more recently, it’s started to swing back the other way. It feels closer now with the right gaining ground via government especially. Online/social it seems both sides are active and do it.
I agree. Not just with trans friends but with any trans person. Leave them the fuck alone.
Some of the “questioning” is not in good faith either, it’s straight up harassment or worse. Here’s an example that probably happens more than some would think: https://x.com/latwitchance/status/2060064066354454705?s=46
It’s okay to notice one side is worse than the other, and support the side you think is better.
The things Destiny started to do that turned me off (and these are just “vibes” over an extended period of time) were things like saying terrible shit (whether they were meant to be edgy jokes or not) because Trump and the right were doing similar rhetoric, criticizing dems less and less (it got to a point I stopped seeing him do it at all, even on points I think he would disagree with some dems on publicly in the past), and in some of his debate performances, I noticed more tribalism than before ( maybe I was just noticing it more as it became more important to me overtime. Perhaps he was always like that and I didn’t realize it before).
I think I understand his strategy. If you want dems to win, maybe it’s better to support them publicly and criticize them privately. Play the same games the republicans play, don’t be charitable, do what it takes. But, I’m not even sure that’s a good strategy if winning is your goal. Loyal Dems will vote blue, so you have their vote already. Loyal republicans will vote red. So the ones you want to persuade are in the middle/conflicted. I think if you can criticize your side sometimes, it can actually bring in more of the undecided. They may appreciate the honesty.
Also, I’m a crit rat/ fallibilist, conversations along the party line that have a tribalist agenda are boring to me. It’s not something I want to tune into, even if the strategy is effective.
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So, I think your reply here has some significant comprehension errors. I’m going to start by focusing on a couple of those, because I think if they’re left unaddressed then they are going to cause communication to break down much faster than our disagreements about the actual topic. I will probably insert some content arguments as well along the way.
I think you are a bit confused about what happened there. I’m going to recap.
The statement that you made, that I was responding to, was:
So then when I took possible issue with the word “transgenderism” and said this…
So the implication is that I am taking your same statement unchanged with the one exception of replacing the word “transgenderism”, e.g. it would look like this (editing the quote directly):
And then I gave my opinion about whether this revised guess was accurate with respect to my views. I don’t think you or Asmongold would agree with this sentence. I did not even agree with it, but it avoided the ideological issues I had with the previous sentence.
I am not sure why you thought I was arguing anything about whether or not trans people exist.
For the rest of this post I’ll keep using “transgenderism” to basically mean “people being transgender” the same way I did above.
I don’t really understand your point here, and I think you misunderstood mine pretty significantly. But maybe not, maybe I’m just confused.
You quote my opening sentence but none of the examples I cited of negative consequences. You say you “broadly agree” — with my examples? But then you go on to list a bunch of stuff you think are negative consequences, which I disagree with and think are some mix of 1. rare minority scenarios (unlike the major/prominent/common issues I mentioned), 2. harmful anti-trans propaganda, or 3. confused complaints about a general problem that incorrectly frame it as a trans-specific problem.
So what’s the point of that exactly? Now I guess I should argue about your examples, right, since I strongly disagree with them and you’re kind of trying to piggyback them onto my own comments?
Detransitioners are maybe something like 1-2% of trans people. You’re probably going to try to cite a higher number like 10% or 15%, but I promise you that if you’ve seen a number like that it just means you’ve fallen for anti-trans misinformation. The vast majority of technical “detransitioners” are people whose gender identity did not change at all, they just lost access to HRT — so note, with the Trump admin currently attacking trans healthcare very aggressively that number of “detransitioners” will go way up against their will!
The next largest % are people who shifted gender identities without any regret for previous identities. This is a well known thing I’ve talked about before, e.g. many nonbinary people ultimately choose to transition to a binary gender after testing the waters of going against the gender they were assigned at birth by being nonbinary. These people technically detransition and are counted by some stats, but that’s pretty foolish if the goal of the stat is to identify people harmed by gender affirming care.
The only kind you could possibly be discussing here are true “trans regret” detransitioners which are a tiny amount of people. Also, if you look at interviews with such people, many of them still have trans feelings, they just never felt they could actually pass and their dysphoria never went away, so they eventually gave up.
Any trans regret detransitioner is a sad situation but it’s generally a bad idea to condemn an entire category due to an unhappy 1% of that category.
What do you think is the percentage of people who regret surgeries such as LASIK or cochlear implants or skin grafts or organ transplants (edit: or rhinoplasty or labiaplasty or breast implants or gastric bypass)?
It’s not zero.
I don’t think this (kids being groomed into being trans when they weren’t) is happening a significant amount of the time. Can you point me towards some really good argument that it is?
Minors being forced to change in front of each other is a cause of major anxiety and bullying, in cisgendered teens. It is a problematic situation, that I would argue should be reformed totally irrespective of trans teens.
I also take issue with the framing in general. I don’t think this is a common occurrence. I think if you google it you’ll find isolated news stories that have disputed facts, and not much else.
Most trans teens are very anxious about their bodies and strongly prefer to change in privacy anyway. Coincidentally, tons of non-trans teens feel the same way. (Edit: sorry, “coincidentally” was sarcasm here, which I included carelessly without thinking. I don’t actually think it is a coincidence, I think this is a super common and normal feeling in a majority of teens.)
Okay, now that I’ve addressed the problems you added onto what I said, I’m going to refocus.
Given some of the miscommunications, I want to focus in here and make sure we are discussing the same stuff.
When you say:
By “these kinds of things” do you mean your list of problems with transgenderism? Because that would be mistaken. But it kinda seems like that’s what you’re saying, since this question immediately follows your list. That’s why it is such an odd choice for you to see my list of problems, throw on a bunch more controversial problems, then say “I assumed you were fine with this stuff or disagreed” — yeah, I do disagree with your list! That’s why my list was quite different.
Do you think that my list of problems relating to transgenderism somehow implies I would agree with your list? Is that what you’re asking here?
Yes, I am “okay” with “transgenderism”… the “thought?” comment makes me think you are unsure of that now. Why would you be unsure of that?
Did you actually read my list closely? You did not quote it, so here it is again:
One thing to note is that your tacked-on list, that I disagree with, frames trans people as perpetrators of harm against cis people (and against “trans” people who were tricked into it).
My list does not do that. It talks about some of the problems trans people face, and some of the social problems that are caused by bad actors turning trans people into a demonized outgroup.
I don’t really know what you’re saying here. The problems I listed could be slow to be resolved? Backlash from conservative bad actors is predictable? So then what? Does that mean we should bow to the bigots and eradicate transgenderism so that there’s no more demonized other? Or what?
Yeah I would probably recommend not being bigoted towards such a person. Was that your question? Do you remember what your question was, or why that topic came up?
I don’t know. I summarized things a bit in my “big picture post” that still seems relevant.
It seems like you guessed at my views, I told you your guesses were pretty far off and gave lots of clarifications, and now your response has mostly been to argue with my clarifications, kind of treating them like they are new arguments. Does that summary seem about right?
Are you much closer to understanding my actual views? I’m skeptical. Was this exercise effective? I’m skeptical of that, too. But I’m open to continuing it if you like.
I guess the main issue I have would be all the dropped arguments. You make a lot of assertions, or heavily imply assertions (e.g. implying that 20 years ago society primarily or exclusively treated trans people like their assigned sex at birth), I give arguments and examples of why you’re wrong, and mostly they just kinda go unaddressed.
Which by itself isn’t necessarily a big deal. You have limited time and you should focus on what interests you. But I think it is problematic when you seem to repeat the assertions later, or a close variant of them, or otherwise repeat arguments that I’ve got an existent unaddressed rebuttal of. And it was a bit strange for me to be characterized (even in a sort of “I could say this mean thing but I’m totally not saying it” manner) as the one who is unable to answer questions.
IMO this is a big issue that could be worth unpacking in greater detail.
From my perspective, you care about the trans stuff a lot. For some context: I have multiple trans people in my immediate family/circle and many more trans people in my extended social circle, who I see harmed by American society & the current US government on a daily basis. And it seems like this is an issue that matters to you a similar amount that it matters to me (maybe slightly more/less, but not by a huge margin).
For you to care that much, but not know why, seems odd. That, more than anything else you’ve ever said on this topic, reinforces my concern that a big factor in your mindset is the consumption of biased and radicalizing social media content.
Like… from my perspective there is this concerning mix of traits: you feel strongly about it, you don’t know why you feel strongly about it, you make lots of controversial assertions about it, you don’t have a ton of time to argue or defend those assertions but keep making them anyway, you continue feeling strongly about it… it seems like a worrisome cycle. And I think you should be really cautious to assert something like this:
This seems like a big leap. In a sense, this is presupposing that your confusingly strong feelings and unargued assertions are all obviously correct, and anyone who disagrees must be detached from reality.
I think claims that other people are detached from reality should be made reluctantly. At minimum, only when you have a very clear idea of what you think, why you think it, what the other people think and why, and you have coherent arguments against them that they consistently fail to engage with. I don’t think you’re meeting that standard.
This seems like an unreasonable standard. If this is the case then grooming is so commonplace I don’t see why you are so concerned about it re: transness.
By this definition most adults are grooming most kids most of the time. That’s a kinda radical TCS assertion that I used to agree with but don’t really any more. But it fits your description above I think.
Yes.
I don’t think we agreed to that. Part of the issue is I’m not confident you are equipped for that discussion yet, I think it will get even messier and more confusing.
B is explicitly one of your goals. You do not want to include trans women under the heading of “biological woman”, right? I feel like you’ve made that super duper clear. So your definition would need to exclude them.
C isn’t circular, if you think cis women are biological women then your definition of “biological woman” needs to successfully encompass them.
If I have the premise that lettuce is a leafy green, then my definition of leafy green better not accidentally leave out some lettuces. And if I have the premise that cabbage is definitely not a leafy green, then my definition had better not accidentally include some cabbages.
The action would be “identify a biological woman reliably according to this definition.” This could be the “compatible with intuition” part. If your definition of biological woman only works if you have access to chromosomal data of a given person, or have conducted an ultrasound to find their ovaries, then real people in regular life will never be able use that definition to identify biological women.
This isn’t even me making an argument, this is me challenging your basic premises. If you can’t meet these basic thresholds then how can you say trans women aren’t biological women? If you put forth a definition of biological woman that does not exclude trans women, then trans women could count and thus you can’t really say they aren’t. If your definition sounds like it excludes them, but then in daily life people using your definition will reliably fail to exclude them, then again… how can you say they aren’t?
This is what I meant when I said:
It also ties into some of the stuff I said earlier in this post.
No problem.
I don’t think I am intentionally playing into your biases to mislead you, for the record. Maybe I did and forgot. More likely it happened by mistake. In general the main reason I hold things back is to try to keep from confusing the issue, adding unnecessary secondary points, or overwhelming you. Even then I think I fail a lot because my replies are still quite long and address lots of disagreements.
Do I?
Just a reminder, here is something I said to you several months ago*:
How does this message fit into your idea that I think anyone opposing those things are always doing so for bad or bigoted reasons?
*: I did edit a typo from the original post of months back, and left out a final paragraph that was less relevant.
I don’t think all anti-trans conclusions are due to any one source. But I do think right now, today, there is a very big concerted effort by ~all conservative/MAGA influencers to push a particular narrative around trans people. It is a major issue. I think they are reasonable successful at this goal. So due to that I think a lot more anti-trans views today are due to stuff like that than they otherwise would be, yes.
Here is another example from 2025 where I talked about this and continued to try to be understanding towards your misgivings, while also being aware of the reality of the world today (once again, cutting some of the message to keep it more relevant):
I don’t think I’ve been as unreasonable and one-sided as you have been characterizing me in this exercise.
Depends on the specific conclusion. The extent to which I’ll bite this bullet is: often times when one comes to conclusions hostile to a persecuted minority group, that could be a bigoted position.
By discussing it with them, ideally. Doesn’t work very often though.
IMO the main thing you are describing here is just the culture war. Trans people are just a vector on which the war has been fought.
I think there is some truth to the idea that it kind of seemed like the left had won the culture war during the Obama administration. I used to think this was the left’s position, but IDK if it was actually an idea also promulgated by right wing alt media in an effort to frame themselves as counterculture.
Either way, yeah, various kinds of lefty ideology (pro LGBT, pro communist, etc.) gained some popularity and traction leading up to that time. And people who fell too far outside of the Overton Window at that time, especially if they were to the right, suffered some social consequences at minimum. Again, how bad those social consequences were, and whether or not that included unjust consequences beyond the social, is something I am less sure of. I used to agree more strongly with your position here, but I’m skeptical now because I think right wing alt media did a good job of framing the discussions at the time.
So IDK how much I got taken in by that. Because even as far back as like 2014-2015, there was a huge explosion of very successful anti-woke, anti-SJW, right wing (or right wing adjacent) media figures popping up all over YouTube and other alternative media spaces. These people weren’t canceled, they were making tons of money and gaining popularity. And I think they played a part in Trump’s rising popularity at that time as well, in the run up to the 2016 election.
So I think the framing that the left was ultra dominant and canceled anyone who disagreed is, at minimum, overstated. But I don’t think it is totally wrong; I find it plausible that e.g. some random college kids who did not have YouTube channels got unfairly ostracized for not being pro-LGBT enough. I’m not trying to discount your perspective on that period entirely.
I think you’re wrong strategically. Getting pre-existing Dems (who would never vote Repub) to vote instead of not vote is a big deal. Lots of political efforts focus on energizing the base and voter turnout rather than persuading independent or undecided voters. I don’t love this (it’s not good for debate, rational persuasion, truth seeking), but I see the logic to it. Persuading someone in the middle can be a lot more work than convincing someone already on your side to care enough to vote.
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I agree.
Another thing Democrats have to contend with is being outflanked on the left. The more liberal non-communist influencers (e.g. like Destiny, the guy Neo mentioned) are typically fighting on two fronts. They are up against the illiberal extreme left that refused to turn out in 2024 and said there was no significant difference between voting for Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump. And they are up against MAGA conservatives.
I think it makes strategic sense to focus their energy primarily on the Democrat-aligned liberals and ensuring they are motivated. Then secondarily arguing against the other groups on the edges. Like you can probably persuade some far lefties that they were wrong, Kamala would have been a lot better, even if they disagree about Israel or whatever. And you can maybe persuade some centrists (or even old school anti-MAGA conservatives/libertarians) that maybe Kamala’s tax policies would’ve been bad but not as destructive as global tariffs and a war with Iran.
In all of these cases I think it makes some sense to focus on the stuff Dems are doing right and not spend much time harping on what they did wrong. I think liberal anti-MAGA influencers may feel like they are currently in a pretty serious ideological fight, and they want to win at the ballot box specifically.
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