What is a woman

[Yidaki]

Maybe many of you have already watched this film. It can have many layers of analysis.

In my view it shows the pathetic epistemic madness running amok in western culture.

Matt Walsh asked to a wide range of people the question "what is a woman?" and almost nobody could come up with an answer that at least was not self-contradictory.

Ken Wilber and others have pointed out the limitations of Green when it comes to a higher narrative to define reality, because the dogma is that there is not ultimate truth, but they act out that idea as if it were the ultimate truth.

In one of the interviews he conducts during the documentary, he asked a chief professor of an american university if he could define what the word woman means, without using the word woman in the very definition, and he reacted as if that was the first time he had ever thought about it.

Ideological possession is rampant.

Some may consider this content as Spiral Dynamics stage blue, but I don't think so. It is not even conservative. It is an attempt to get to the truth and point that the emperor is walking without clothes.

 

[Tyler Robinson]

Why the need to know what a woman is? 

 

[Romanov]

6 hours ago, Tyler Robinson said:

Why the need to know what a woman is? 

 

Why not need to know what a woman is? 

[DrugsBunny]

Can we stop pretending that there's even a modicum of intellectual merit in denying trans people their identities just because it makes you uncomfortable?

Asking "What is a man/woman?" is like asking "What is a name?"; a name is that which one goes by, same with gender.

If your name is @Yidaki, what's to stop someone from saying "Hey, you're name is self-referential! That means it's invalid because definitions can't be self-reflexive." Hopefully you can see why this is just asinine. Nobody would claim that names are contradictory because they rely on self-reflexivity. The reason why this is the ONLY way to consider gender is because it provides the most utility, and very obviously so. For instance, if someone is born with a woman's brain, but has a male body, such a person has to live up to incompatible gender expectations, which leads to isolation and suicidality. Therefore instead of having strict rules limiting gender to one's biological sex, we can accommodate those with gender dysphoria by defining gender as that which one goes by, so we are instead saying gender is that which you are internally, and disregarding external physicality.

Unwillingness to take one's word for what gender they are is simply bigotry, and people like yourself need to take a serious introspective look into why conceding this obvious courtesy makes you so uncomfortable. 

I'm curious, since this transphobia is popping up more often on this forum I'm curious if you actually believe it's even possible for people to have a female's brain structure in a male body. I'd be willing to bet you don't actually believe gender dysphoria is real, which would discredit this whole "ideologically neutral" facade of intellectualism you're going for. 

[thepixelmonk]

Ugh not more of this transphobic bullshit -__-

[Yidaki]

On 8/14/2022 at 3:18 AM, DrugsBunny said:

 we can accommodate those with gender dysphoria by defining gender as that which one goes by, so we are instead saying gender is that which you are internally, and disregarding external physicality.
 

Ok, so if external physicallity is something to be disregarded, why is so important to intervene on that level, so that people with gender dysphoria find a solution to their predicament, through the modification of their physicality?

I am trying to make sense of some things that don't make total sense to me (such as the question above mentioned).

I think it is legit  to question any given narrative and argument, and inquire into the axioms it is based on. Bigotry is attachment to a particular creed, opinion, practice and intolerance of the opinions of others. So questioning and bigotry are opposite to each other. 

 

[DrugsBunny]

4 hours ago, Yidaki said:

Ok, so if external physicallity is something to be disregarded, why is so important to intervene on that level, so that people with gender dysphoria find a solution to their predicament, through the modification of their physicality?

Can you think about what you just asked for even a second? Gender dysphoria means your body doesn't match your internal identity. There is no more dysphoria if your new body matches your identity sufficiently. We wouldn't gatekeep the right for them to identify as their internal identity behind the paywall of affording an expensive surgery... 

What exactly do you want us to do with the information provided in this "What is a woman" documentary? Do you actually have any prescriptive actions we should commit to on the basis of your position? Would you prefer that all trans people be forced to identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, and have more of them commit suicide because you won't afford them the courtesy of addressing them as their preferred gender?

5 hours ago, Yidaki said:

Bigotry is attachment to a particular creed, opinion, practice and intolerance of the opinions of others. So questioning and bigotry are opposite to each other. 

Matt Walsh is undeniably a bigot, and I assumed those credits transfer to those who bolster his messaging. If this was a faulty assumption I apologize, but frankly I don't think it is. The questions you're asking would be obvious if you actually had any sincere concern for these people.

[Yidaki]

Yes, I do have a concern for these people.

However, "these people" is not a uniform category. Many of them are not feeling right after surgery and many commit suicide anyways (about 40% in the 7 year period after surgery).

I don't oppose those who go through the process of surgery and hormonal procedures. Nevertheless, there are cases when they jump into the process and it doesn't have a happy ending. I question the fact that it is often presented as a safe and effective solution to the gender dysphoria problem, and that is not quite true. 

Some people have severe complications after the transition, causing extreme unhappiness to them and their families.

Puberty blockers have long term effects, that are not transparently explained by the doctors that say "it just puts a pause to the development, while the teenager is in doubt, and they can resume normal development as soon as they quit the puberty blockers". That is a lie, and in the cases where the individual doesn't want to continue with it, and they no longer identify themselves as someone of the opposite sex , the damage is done and normal development does not resume smoothly.

I question the fact that a 13 year-old girl can go through hormonal therapy without the consent of their parents , while at the same time you need to be 18 to drive or use alcohol or to tattoo yourself. I am concerned of the lack of balance in the implementation of public policies that can have good intentions, but can cause damage in the long run to people that can change their mind and find it is too late.

This is not being bigot , nor trans-phobic . I am sick of name-calling just because one dares to ask questions that have not been sufficiently addressed.

 

[hoodrow trillson]

Have any of you ever befriended a trans person in your life?  They are literally just like every other person.  You won't think twice about it when they open up to you just like another human being.

Some people need to leave their bubble and experience more walks of life because these threads just reek of someone who is terminally online, most of the time.  No offense OP.

Edited August 17, 2022 by hoodrow trillson

[Razard86]

I love transsexuals' because they opened my eyes to the fact that I was missing something. If it wasn't for them my eyes would still be closed so I thank them for that. They were a key part of my world view developing. 

[Danioover9000]

@Yidaki

On 8/13/2022 at 8:12 PM, Yidaki said:

Maybe many of you have already watched this film. It can have many layers of analysis.

In my view it shows the pathetic epistemic madness running amok in western culture.

Matt Walsh asked to a wide range of people the question "what is a woman?" and almost nobody could come up with an answer that at least was not self-contradictory.

Ken Wilber and others have pointed out the limitations of Green when it comes to a higher narrative to define reality, because the dogma is that there is not ultimate truth, but they act out that idea as if it were the ultimate truth.

In one of the interviews he conducts during the documentary, he asked a chief professor of an american university if he could define what the word woman means, without using the word woman in the very definition, and he reacted as if that was the first time he had ever thought about it.

Ideological possession is rampant.

Some may consider this content as Spiral Dynamics stage blue, but I don't think so. It is not even conservative. It is an attempt to get to the truth and point that the emperor is walking without clothes.

 

   I'd like to comment on what the video is, but it's not available on YouTube due to a copyright claim, so I'll just address on what you've written. Shows you how shady the show might be.

   I wouldn't trust a film, from a biased show like Daily Wire, from a guy who has this cocky attitude about his beard and glasses. I'm conservative, but even I know that his selection of people he interviewed is biased and based AF. Why not go to, like, Ken Wilber and Daniel Schmachtenberger to get a much better and well informed answer, then, like,  look like you're randomly interviewing a bunch of people who're stage orange/green to stage green?

   What's nice about understanding, is that you can also attempt to understand the other side of a subject. I can play this game too. What's a real man? Also, what's a human being for that matter? Depending on how I ask, controls and influences the answers based on my preferences, biases, worldview, stage of development, cognitive and moral development, personality typing, life experiences, and other lines of development. There's also biases from religious/political/cultural beliefs that distorts, generalizes and deletes information that's contradictory to one's meta programming. Basically there is a lot of hidden assumptions and problems to Matt Walsh's approach. He's capped as hell dawg if he thinks his little series would leave a positive impact on society.

   

[Raptorsin7]

@Razard86 What did you learn

[Loba]

I've tried offering my opinions on this in the past, but it's one of those hot button topics that no one can really agree on, and when I do offer my opinion on it, I don't know if I have all the facts to really know what I am talking about.  It's kind of like, I would offer my opinion on this, that I have currently, of which my opinions are always evolving and shifting depending on new information but at the same time, if it comes at the cost of making someone uncomfortable or feel unseen, then my opinion automatically doesn't matter - their lived experience matters more and we should listen and take that into account.  That's the middle ground that I stand on.  I simply don't know what it is like to be in their shoes, so whatever flippant thing I have to say on the topic is always going to pale in comparison to someone's genuine experience.  I think that we have to learn to adjust to people.  If our opinions come at the cost of someone else's mental health, their feeling of belonging and safety, then it should be more important to try and include them and to try and see them the way they want to be seen.

If they 'feel' like a woman, take steps to look like a woman.  Then let's call them women.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Loba

[DrugsBunny]

38 minutes ago, Loba said:

I think that we have to learn to adjust to people.  If our opinions come at the cost of someone else's mental health, their feeling of belonging and safety, then it should be more important to try and include them and to try and see them the way they want to be seen.

Followed by:

38 minutes ago, Loba said:

If they 'feel' like a woman, take steps to look like a woman.  Then let's call them women.

*Face-palm*

First of all, most do take these steps, but what if altering ones physical appearance falls slightly out of an individual's range of comfortable activity? Your moral prescription here would have us deny their identity simply because YOU are uncomfortable accepting that gender is internal and not necessarily external. If they are truly the gender they describe themselves as, it will surely show up in their speech patterns, and other behavioral traits. My boyfriend (I'm a guy) is a trans guy who still has gorgeous boobies and a cute feminine face. I am physically attracted to females, but sentimentally fascinated by male energy, which is what my boyfriend provides for me flawlessly. I can tell they are a guy inside, yet their physical appearance could leave one guessing. If this makes you uncomfortable, that's not because of their flaws, it's due to your own closed-mindedness. I don't want to be abrasive but there's no other words to properly address your position here.

7 hours ago, Yidaki said:

This is not being bigot , nor trans-phobic . I am sick of name-calling just because one dares to ask questions that have not been sufficiently addressed.

Get used to it.

Edited August 17, 2022 by DrugsBunny

[Loba]

@DrugsBunny Oh, it's you.  You're cynical and try to run people over with your own opinions and you've spread a toxic, bad attitude all across this forum, to be honest.  I would look into that.  You can actually be informative and work with people without needing to be a complete cu**.  I feel bad for you, it must be so exhausting having such a dry view of the world and the people in it.

When someone is trying to change their beliefs to include others - why do you think this chronic abrasive tactic is going to work?  You intellectually bowl right over people, again, without even taking their own experiences into consideration.  This makes you "smartly stupid" in that it is a huge character flaw that is glaringly obvious.

I don't like you.  At all.  Our energies do not match.  Don't comment on my stuff because it's clear that you're not someone who views other people in good faith, you're here to spread an obnoxious attitude of superiority over the other members here.

"I don't mean to sound abrasive."

Get real.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Loba

[DrugsBunny]

@Loba You'd likely be devastated by the epiphany of how sheepishly hypocritical you are if it ever somehow occurred to you.

[Loba]

@DrugsBunny Have you ever, genuinely looked into your own attitude?  Your posts are pocked, not with genuine reflection on yourself, your attitude, but a dry, rude, abrasive manner in how you speak to, and view everyone here.  I know that I have this at times, but I actually work through it, you don't know how unhypocritical and self-reflective I am - but I don't see that coming from you at all.  You don't meet people where they are at, you jump on them, force your opinions down their throat in the name of social decency and then pat yourself on the back for it.  It's like, if you genuinely wanted to make a difference and use your obvious intellect for good use, you would ditch the attitude and actually try to see where people are coming from without the snark.  That isn't something that can be argued.  You freaking do it.  Stop it, look into it, or fine, never grow.  Turn into an abusive grouch for all I care.

Later.  I'm done.

[Pavement]

Maybe better question would be what does it mean to be in feminine (yin) essence ? The problem is assigning the yin/yang essence to physical gender. Another question is why can’t a human flow freely in whatever essence they want without societal pressure?Why does it matter what people want to do with their own personal lives? I don’t buy the ‘I’m concerned about them’ story.  If that were true then you would let them be and relax your judgement. 

[Loba]

^ I have little judgement, I was just raised in a different era, the one right before a lot of this became mainstream, and need to adjust my views.

"Why does it matter what people want to do with their own personal lives?"
This.  I agree with this so much, that this is a huge mantra of mine that I fall back on when I worry about what other people are doing.  I don't think that it does, which is why I am actively trying to change my stance on transgender issues, but it takes time to educate one's self about such things.  It doesn't happen overnight.

I genuinely don't think that people should be held back by anything that society does or says, as far as sexuality goes as long as it doesn't hurt children/animals/innocents/disabled/etc. - you know, keep it consensual.  

I actually am concerned about them as a group, because a large percentage of transexual people are suicidal, depressed, lonely - and no one deserves to feel this way.  As for judgement, I've grown on this.  A lot.  Just a few months ago, I felt that they weren't women, that there was a distinction - trans-woman, but a thread on here opened up my eyes and made me realize that I needed to take a different approach.  That my opinions were utter trash and worthless, and that I didn't have the full story.  So I sat with it, and reflected on it and realized that I just needed to sit with an open mind and try to integrate different experiences/viewpoints and personally, I can set an idea aside in order to gain more info on it before coming to any sort of conclusion on anything - this often takes a few years.  If I find my viewpoint is wrong, I want to know why, and I like to discuss those things with people.

Of course, I want to know why in a way that doesn't shame me in reverse.  Like, when you start shaming someone for not having the full story, they're just starting to read the book, it makes more sense to give them pointers.  I tend to be a person who synthesizes new information, but if it comes with jabs and knife cuts, then it's like, little shocks in the system that prevent me from actually getting to sit with what is being said and mull it over.  This is why I strongly believe that if someone doesn't have views that are up to date, but they are wanting to change those views, rather than coming at them with barbs - truly talk to them where they are at, especially if you have experience with this topic, then it means that your life views on the matter are extremely valuable in helping people to understand and change their worldviews.

I don't think that most people, when they realize that their worldview isn't accurate - I don't think most people want to 'stay' in that space.  People evolve, constantly.  I tend to be someone who "feels" first.  I have a feeling on something - it then doesn't match with what is going on, or it seems harmful, and I adjust.  But generally, being a feeler, I tend to start with that first, followed by reflection, introspection and synthesis of different world views.  Generally, being someone who feels first, if I find that something isn't in alignment with what makes another person happy - then I automatically want to correct that - but if someone is scolding me for being in the wrong or not knowing, then my first feeling is to become defensive, even if they are right.

If we want to change how people view one another in a positive way, then we must, at least try, to bring positivity and a well meaning attitude to the table.  If they prove us wrong after reaching out, then a harsher nature could be put into place - but if you start out with that - maybe someone who is especially stoic can look past that to just discuss the issues at hand, in which case, good for them, but for most of the population it puts people off.

And finally, I have had friends who were trans.  One started out as a man and changed into a woman.  I didn't really think anything of it.  It was back when this was something that wasn't done as frequently and the only thing that I really thought was, "Wow, they did a good job on themselves and they have a lot of self esteem that they didn't have when I knew them in school.  Good for them."  And another person I met for a brief time that I had a crush on, actually.  They were a man who was transitioning to be a woman, but liked other women.  I loved their energy and their sweetness, but at the time I could not view them as a woman.  I didn't say this outright, but I knew in the back of my mind that this would not be good for this person and backed off, allowing them to get to know a lesbian girl who had dated someone non-binary who would be able to view them exactly how they felt.  So see, not everyone is trying to cause mischief for vulnerable minorities.  Some of us are just clueless people who come from a period in time where this sort of thing was quite rare and without socialization into understanding what it means - we are left to spend our time learning about it.

[Yidaki]

@Loba Thank you for your post.

It is difficult to address the  open and hard questions I asked above. I don't pretend to have the answers to those questions. That is why I bring this subject to this forum, because it is not something that can easily be discussed without people taking knee-jerk responses. Here there are very intelligent people, many of them may be more evolved, aware or open-minded than I am.

The greeks already pointed the fallacy called Argumentum ad hominem" which means the fallacy of giving validity or discarding an arguement, based on the person who formulates the argument. I see this a lot here. Someone questioned the validity of my concern for the people who are suffering of gender dysphoria. That points to the authenticity of my feelings (I am a random person on a forum and it is impossible to bring witnesses for how real my feelings are.
That misses the point. And what is the point?
1) what to do about teenagers that are allowed to make irreversible decisions at such an early age, in the name of compassion. Is it really the way to go?
2) what to do about the conflation of criminal offense with calling someone else a different pronoun than their chosen one . Who defines the words that are possible to say?
Those are my two most important questions.

Please notice that these questions don't have anything to do with the right of adult trans people to do whatever they want with their bodies and pursue happiness to the best of their ability.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Yidaki