SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" Conversion Therapy is Unconstitutional

[smac97]

52 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

Could you clarify if you endorse what I'll call CB's "Steps (A)-(E)" proposal?

Politics is about compromise, especially when balancing competing interests. I have no issues with CB's proposal.

Okay.

52 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Further (as I said) I have no issue restricting areas where nudity is present to people who have fully transitioned, as long as a different place is offered for people to change privately. I don't particularly care about item 5 as you quoted in your post. You will never please everyone. Some people will complain about everything. 

Indeed. But I'm curious why are you able to depart from trans orthodoxy, since the "complaining" in this context almost reflexively and necessarily includes accusations of . . . bigotry.

For example, differentiating or ranking transgender women based on their medical transition status, such as whether they have had surgeries, taken hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or transitioned at a certain age, is seen as a form of marginalization often referred to as transmedicalism or gatekeeping. Within the LGBTQ+ community and sociological discourse, creating a hierarchy based on medical intervention is widely recognized as harmful.

A summary from Google's AI:

Quote

Why This Differentiation is Considered Bigotry

• Financial Barriers: Medical transition is highly expensive. Erasure of non-medical trans women penalizes those who cannot afford healthcare.

• Geographic and Legal Hurdles: Access to gender-affirming care varies wildly by country and state.

• Health Restrictions: Pre-existing medical conditions prevent some individuals from safely using HRT or undergoing surgery.

• Reductionist Views: Reducing womanhood strictly to medical procedures or anatomical features mimics patriarchal and essentialist definitions of gender.

• Invalidation of Identity: A person's identity is defined by their internal sense of self (gender identity), not their medical history.

 

Common Manifestations of This Bias

• "True" vs. "False" Transgender Ideology: The belief that only those who undergo full medical reassignment are valid.

• Passing Privilege: Weaponizing the ability to blend into cisnormative society against those who do not or cannot "pass."

• Systemic Gatekeeping: Legal or medical systems requiring unnecessary, invasive surgeries before updating gender markers on identification documents.

 

Moving Toward Inclusion

 

True allyship and inclusivity recognize that gender affirmation looks different for everyone. Social transition (changing names, pronouns, clothing, and hairstyles) is just as valid as medical transition. Solidarity involves fighting for the safety, autonomy, and dignity of all trans women, regardless of their medical choices or capabilities.

 

To help explore this topic further, would you like to focus on the historical origins of transmedicalism, the legal impacts of medical gatekeeping, or how to advocate for inclusive policies in the workplace or community?

 

 

I appreciate you sharing your perspective on locker rooms and other places where people are actually undressed.  You would restrict those to people who have fully medically transitioned, and you would provide a private alternative. That is a real line.

It is also a form of "gatekeeping."  That is the piece I want to flag, because it sits uneasily with how this conversation has gone.

CB's proposal openly does not treat identity as sufficient. It treats identity plus medical and other steps (physician care, a year of hormones, a doctor’s declaration, a changed ID) as the price of entry. Many advocates will reject that on principle. In that framework, a “trans woman” is a woman because she says so. Requiring hormones, surgery, or paperwork is itself treated as denying her womanhood. You said you don’t particularly care that some people will object. Fair enough. But that objection is not a fringe footnote. It is the mainstream activist claim.  

You have previously described disagreement with parts of the trans movement as "bigotry."  The difficulty is that the rule you are now willing to accept would, by that same standard, put you in the same category. Distinguishing “fully transitioned” males from males who only identify as women is the differentiation I said would draw fire. If drawing that line is bigotry when I do it, it does not become something else when the line is hormones-plus-ID rather than sex.

I am not asking you to please everyone. I am asking for a consistent standard. Either:

1. identity alone controls access (per standard trans ideology orthodoxy, such as it is or can be), in which case the proposal fails on its own terms; or
2. some objective criterion (sex, anatomy, medical status) can control access, in which case identity-as-sufficient is situated alongside my proposal (biological sex).  It is a difference in degree, not kind.

You can defend CB's version of (2). I think (2) is the only workable rule for single-sex spaces. What I resist is using “bigot” for people who hold (2), then endorsing a proposal that is also (2), just drawn at a different place. The accusation does not travel well if it applies only to the line you dislike.

If your actual position is “identity is not enough where nudity is involved, and private alternatives should exist,” please say that plainly. That is a policy argument we can discuss. It is not resolved by calling one version of gatekeeping compassionate and the other hateful.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Thursday at 09:28 PM by smac97

[Calm]

27 minutes ago, smac97 said:

orthodoxy

Got to say I laughed reading this phrase. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Got to say I laughed reading this phrase. 

I sort of struggled with it, since "trans ideology" is amorphous, and trying to define it with any particular precision is difficult.

Nonetheless, some principles seem to be fundamental to the movement (such that departure from them is generally condemned as "bigotry," "denying trans existence," etc.).  Here is what Grok generated:

Quote

Here is a descriptive list of claims that function as load-bearing principles in much of contemporary “trans” advocacy — especially the institutional/activist version that treats dissent as bigotry or “denial of existence.” Not every trans person holds all of them. The point is which ones are treated as non-negotiable in that framework.

Core identity claims

1. Gender identity is real, innate, and authoritative. A person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither.
2. Identity is sex (or replaces sex for social/legal purposes). “Trans women are women” / “trans men are men” is treated as a literal truth, not a courtesy or a political slogan.
3. Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid.
4. Denial of the identity is a denial of the person. Disagreeing with the identity claim is framed as saying the person “doesn’t exist,” not as disputing a proposition.

Sex, biology, and language

5. Sex is a spectrum, a social construct, or at least not a strict binary relevant to policy. Chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive anatomy are treated as crude, incomplete, or bigoted ways to classify people.
6. “Assigned sex at birth” is the preferred description of sex, implying a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category.
7. Preferred pronouns and names are morally mandatory. Using sex-based pronouns is “misgendering”; using a prior name is “deadnaming.” Both are treated as harms comparable to slurs.
8. There is no polite way to state the sex distinction. “Biological male/female,” “natal sex,” and similar terms are often classified as hate speech or dogwhistles.

Medical and youth claims

9. Gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation, not primarily explored as a possible misattribution of other distress. “Watchful waiting” or exploratory therapy is frequently labeled conversion therapy.
10. Medical transition (blockers, hormones, surgery) is healthcare, and withholding it is violence. Access is framed as lifesaving; gatekeeping is framed as cruelty.
11. Minors can have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition. Parental or clinical caution is cast as abuse or bigotry.
12. Desistance, detransition, and comorbidity (autism, trauma, same-sex attraction, social contagion) are minimized, treated as rare, or blamed on stigma rather than on the affirmation model.

Social and institutional claims

13. Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Exclusion of males who identify as women is discrimination.
14. Any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.”
15. Lived experience outranks data when studies, crime patterns, or fairness in sport cut against the identity rule.
16. Questions are a form of harm. Asking for definitions (“what is a woman?”), evidence, or tradeoffs is treated as bad-faith or as endangering trans people.
17. Opposition is explained as animus. The admissible motives are hatred, disgust, or religion; safety, fairness, child protection, and definitional accuracy are discounted.

Political enforcement

18. Allies must affirm publicly. Neutrality (“I don’t care what adults do privately”) is often not enough; failure to repeat the slogans is coded as hostility.
19. Conflicts with women’s rights and gay rights are denied or inverted. Sex-based rights are reframed as bigotry; same-sex attraction is pressured toward “attraction to gender identity.”
20. The category must expand, not contract. Nonbinary, genderfluid, xenogender, and similar identities are folded into the same moral protection as transsexualism; limiting the category is betrayal.

Items 3, 4, 13, and 14 are why I think CB's hormones-plus-ID rule will get condemned from inside the movement. The ideology’s public rule is not "serious medical transition." It is identity alone. Consequently, endorsing medical gatekeeping for bathrooms is departing from 3 ("Self-identification is sufficient") and 14 ("Any line among 'trans women' is itself bigotry"). In that framework, CB's departure from "orthodoxy" sure seems to be the same kind of offense he and SU have called "bigotry" when I do it.

I propose to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on biological sex, and such differentiation is "bigotry."

CB proposes to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on a fairly detailed hormones-plus-ID rule.  Is that differentiation "bigotry" too (per trans "orthodoxy")?  If not, why not?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Thursday at 10:54 PM by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

Okay.

Indeed. But I'm curious why are you able to depart from trans orthodoxy, since the "complaining" in this context almost reflexively and necessarily includes accusations of . . . bigotry.

You really out to get out more and maybe actually talk to trans people. I'll let you know if the trans-mafia knocks on my door though.

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

For example, differentiating or ranking transgender women based on their medical transition status, such as whether they have had surgeries, taken hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or transitioned at a certain age, is seen as a form of marginalization often referred to as transmedicalism or gatekeeping. Within the LGBTQ+ community and sociological discourse, creating a hierarchy based on medical intervention is widely recognized as harmful.

I'm not ranking anyone. I think all people deserve to be addressed and treated with respect. That their lived experience should be respected as long as that lived experience doesn't impinge on the rights and freedoms of others.

Quote

 

Why This Differentiation is Considered Bigotry

• Financial Barriers: Medical transition is highly expensive. Erasure of non-medical trans women penalizes those who cannot afford healthcare.

• Geographic and Legal Hurdles: Access to gender-affirming care varies wildly by country and state.

 

I think that any legislation to address this, should include stipulations that require health insurance to cover transisitions as well as increase access to gender affirming care. Including with tax payer subsidies if necessary.

Quote

 

• Health Restrictions: Pre-existing medical conditions prevent some individuals from safely using HRT or undergoing surgery.

 

 

I am happy to entertain exceptions. But honestly I expect this situation to be vanishingly small. In talking with family and friends who are trans, including in reading on trans forums on reddit, most people just want a safe place to pee. And most people want to choose the gendered bathroom where they will be noticed the least. 

Quote

• Reductionist Views: Reducing womanhood strictly to medical procedures or anatomical features mimics patriarchal and essentialist definitions of gender.

 

These are not my views. Those are explicitly your views. I think people's lived experiences ought to be respected and acknowledged. 

Quote

Invalidation of Identity: A person's identity is defined by their internal sense of self (gender identity), not their medical history.

Invalidating someone's identity is entirely your schtick, not mine. We are explicitly talking about some type of bathroom or lockerroom standard. In that limited context I am happy to support CB's proposal as outlined. 

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

CB's proposal openly does not treat identity as sufficient. It treats identity plus medical and other steps (physician care, a year of hormones, a doctor’s declaration, a changed ID) as the price of entry. Many advocates will reject that on principle. In that framework, a “trans woman” is a woman because she says so. Requiring hormones, surgery, or paperwork is itself treated as denying her womanhood. You said you don’t particularly care that some people will object. Fair enough. But that objection is not a fringe footnote. It is the mainstream activist claim.  

Identity is sufficient lol. My aunt felt was a girl her entire life. That was her lived experience. She didn't transition until she was in her forties. She's lived openly as a woman since then. She passes. I asked a coworker that was her age (the coworker didn't know her trans status), and he said she was more attractive than my mom. Restricting her access to women's private spaces until after she transitions does not deny her womanhood or her identity. 

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

You have previously described disagreement with parts of the trans movement as "bigotry."  The difficulty is that the rule you are now willing to accept would, by that same standard, put you in the same category. Distinguishing “fully transitioned” males from males who only identify as women is the differentiation I said would draw fire. If drawing that line is bigotry when I do it, it does not become something else when the line is hormones-plus-ID rather than sex.

Your denial of their lived experience is your bigotry. You call their names fabricated. You want to humiliate them by forcing manly men into women's bathrooms. You want to send passing females into mens spaces. That is horrifying.  You want to deputize the general population to openly harass and sue them. This is what makes you a bigot. You aren't protecting women in their spaces (since you literally want to force passing men into the women's bathroom). You are explicitly forcing your religious world view on others. This is what makes you a bigot.

 

Edited Friday at 04:31 PM by SeekingUnderstanding

[smac97]

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You really out to get out more and maybe actually talk to trans people. I'll let you know if the trans-mafia knocks on my door though.

I just wonder if you, having publicly endorsed a proposal that conflicts with so many tenets of trans ideology, might end up being targeted for the same sorts of invective that you so frequently dole out to others.

From a previous post:

Quote

Items 3, 4, 13, and 14 are why I think CB's hormones-plus-ID rule will get condemned from inside the movement. The ideology’s public rule is not "serious medical transition." It is identity alone. Consequently, endorsing medical gatekeeping for bathrooms is departing from 3 ("Self-identification is sufficient") and 14 ("Any line among 'trans women' is itself bigotry"). In that framework, CB's departure from "orthodoxy" sure seems to be the same kind of offense he and SU have called "bigotry" when I do it.

I propose to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on biological sex, and such differentiation is "bigotry."

CB proposes to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on a fairly detailed hormones-plus-ID rule.  Is that differentiation "bigotry" too (per trans "orthodoxy")?  If not, why not?

I am curious about how you reconcile your willingness to stray from "trans"-related presuppositions that are rather vigorously enforced.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

For example, differentiating or ranking transgender women based on their medical transition status, such as whether they have had surgeries, taken hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or transitioned at a certain age, is seen as a form of marginalization often referred to as transmedicalism or gatekeeping. Within the LGBTQ+ community and sociological discourse, creating a hierarchy based on medical intervention is widely recognized as harmful.

I'm not ranking anyone.

You are endorsing a proposal that differentiates and privileges (which I think is pretty much what "ranking" means in this context) one set of "trans" persons (those who meet CB's A-E criteria) over others (those that do not).  One group gets access to women's bathrooms, the other - presumably much larger - group does not.

And your response to complaints about bestowing this differentiated privilege is (A) state that "Politics is about compromise" and (B) make sarcastic comments about "the trans-mafia" knocking on your door.  Nobody is suggesting that would happen, but what I think would happen is that you would be subjected to the same vitriolic anonymous online condemnation that you so regularly dole out here.  The shoe would be on the other foot.  

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

For example, differentiating or ranking transgender women based on their medical transition status, such as whether they have had surgeries, taken hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or transitioned at a certain age, is seen as a form of marginalization often referred to as transmedicalism or gatekeeping. Within the LGBTQ+ community and sociological discourse, creating a hierarchy based on medical intervention is widely recognized as harmful.

I think all people deserve to be addressed and treated with respect.

So do I, and yet you regularly accuse me of "bigotry" despite the absence of any hateful/intolerant commentary from me, and despite the presence of numerous affirmations of what you state above.

As long as the knee-jerk and first-out-of-the-box response to effectively any form of disagreement with trans orthodoxy is unreasoned and unsubstantiated vitriolic denunciations (e.g. "Bigot!"), advocates for trans folks are signaling that their position is weak, that it cannot withstand scrutiny or even civil discussion, such that any departure from orthodoxy - from without or within - must be immediately shouted down.  And the longer this goes on, the less potent the denunciations become.  They are presented to silence and squelch and intimidate and coerce, not to contribute to reasoned discourse.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

That their lived experience should be respected as long as that lived experience doesn't impinge on the rights and freedoms of others.

I agree.  The challenge with your endorsement, though, is that a large portion - perhaps a substantial majority - of the "trans women" folks are going to be legally excluded from women's bathrooms.  And because "trans women are women," their "rights and freedoms" are being trampled on.  And because of that, those endorsing the differentiation between these folks and those relative few who have the desire and opportunity and financial resources to complete Steps (A) through (E), may well end up being the target of the same sort of accusatory ugliness that they utilize against others.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I think that any legislation to address this, should include stipulations that require health insurance to cover transisitions as well as increase access to gender affirming care. Including with tax payer subsidies if necessary.

I would be interested in the justification for that.  

And that doesn't really resolve the issue, as any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.”  Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid.  Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Ipso facto, exclusion of males who identify as women - and your endorsed proposal  is discrimination.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

• Reductionist Views: Reducing womanhood strictly to medical procedures or anatomical features mimics patriarchal and essentialist definitions of gender.

These are not my views. Those are explicitly your views.

Not at all.  I reject the foregoing perspective, which I understand to be an important tenet of trans ideology.

Per trans ideology, any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.”

The proposal you are endorsing differentiates between "trans women."  Some of them are sufficiently "women" so as to be allowed entry into women's bathrooms, and that sufficiency is explicitly connected to "medical procedures," rather than "identity."  Meanwhile, huge swaths of "trans women" will be excluded under the endorsed proposal because they are not sufficiently within the ambit of "woman" to be allowed into women's bathrooms.  This, per trans ideology, mimics patriarchal and essentialist definitions of gender, and negates lived experiences, negates "identity" (which is supposed to be sufficient), and erases trans women, and discriminates, and so on.

These ideological tenets are not mine, and I feel no obligation to align myself with them.  Candidly, I am surprised and impressed to see that you are willing to step apart, violate some of these tenets, and risk the sorts of denunciations that others have been receiving for so long.  

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I think people's lived experiences ought to be respected and acknowledged. 

How do you reconcile this with the proposal you are endorsing, which by design and intent excludes likely the substantial majority of "trans women" from women's bathrooms?  How does this proposal respect and acknowledge the "lived experiences" of those excluded by it?

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

Invalidation of Identity: A person's identity is defined by their internal sense of self (gender identity), not their medical history.

Invalidating someone's identity is entirely your schtick, not mine.  We are explicitly talking about some type of bathroom or lockerroom standard. In that limited context I am happy to support CB's proposal as outlined. 

When viewed through the lens of trans ideology, the proposal you are endorsing negates the womanhood of what I think is the substantial majority of "trans women."  You are invalidating their "identity" as women by saying, in effect, "Hey, you're just not enough to qualify as a 'woman,' so I think you should be excluded from women's bathrooms.  Politics is about compromise.  Here, I am endorsing a proposal that compromises your identity so that other trans women who have the desire and financial means to undergo stringent steps ((A) through (E)) can go into women's bathrooms, whereas you cannot."

It's a gutsy thing you are doing here.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

CB's proposal openly does not treat identity as sufficient. It treats identity plus medical and other steps (physician care, a year of hormones, a doctor’s declaration, a changed ID) as the price of entry. Many advocates will reject that on principle. In that framework, a “trans woman” is a woman because she says so. Requiring hormones, surgery, or paperwork is itself treated as denying her womanhood. You said you don’t particularly care that some people will object. Fair enough. But that objection is not a fringe footnote. It is the mainstream activist claim.  

Identity is sufficient lol. My aunt felt was a girl her entire life. That was her lived experience. She didn't transition until she was in her forties. She's lived openly as a woman since then. She passes. I asked a coworker that was her age (the coworker didn't know her trans status), and he said she was more attractive than my mom. Restricting her access to women's private spaces until after she transitions does not deny her womanhood or her identity. 

Well, that is certainly illuminating.  You affirm "her womanhood," but are on board with denying her - and most of those like her - entry into women's bathrooms until and unless they meet the stringent medical and other criteria laid out by CB, which you are "happy to support."

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

You have previously described disagreement with parts of the trans movement as "bigotry."  The difficulty is that the rule you are now willing to accept would, by that same standard, put you in the same category. Distinguishing “fully transitioned” males from males who only identify as women is the differentiation I said would draw fire. If drawing that line is bigotry when I do it, it does not become something else when the line is hormones-plus-ID rather than sex.

Your denial of their lived experience is your bigotry.

If by "lived experience" you mean "identifying as something they are not," then yes, I deny the validity of that identity.

A man does not "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, nor does he "become" a reptile, or a space alien, or a dog, by "identifying" as one.  Even if these identifications are truly and sincerely felt and held - a point I am quite willing to acknowledge - they are not congruent with reality.  Characterizing these incongruent-with-reality notions of "identity" as "lived experience" seems like a semantic trick to isolate these notions from scrutiny and critique, and to fabricate a "Bigot!" accusation against anyone who declines to acquiesce the them.  

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You call their names fabricated.

Yes.  I explained that previously.  I was speaking in a legal sense.  I generally refer to Caitlyn Jenner by that name because of a legal name change.  On the other hand, I generally refer to Michael Sorrentino by his name, rather than his "fabricated" one ("The Situation"). 

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You want to humiliate them by forcing manly men into women's bathrooms.

Yes, but not because I "want to humiliate them," but because biological sex is, in my view, the most reasonable basis upon which to create and maintain sex-segregated spaces.  That you cannot or will not acknowledge this reasoning, and that you instead fabricate an assign a malign motive, is further evidence of how unworkable and irrational trans ideology is.  You can't defend it, so you vilify anyone who reasonably disagrees with it.  To silence discussion.  To squelch expression of reasoned viewpoints.  To distract.  To humiliate.  

Meanwhile, you want to force the substantial majority of trans women into men's bathrooms.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You want to send passing females into mens spaces. That is horrifying.  

And you want to send most "trans women" into men's spaces.  Is that "horrifying?"

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You want to deputize the general population to openly harass and sue them.

I want men to stay out of women's spaces. Not through harassment, but through voluntary compliance with the law and, short of that, enforcement of the law against those not willing to follow it.

Meanwhile, your proposal is going to be far more invasive.  From a prior post:

Quote

“Under physician’s care” and “hormonal therapy for 12 months” are not bright lines.  Which physician? Any willing prescriber, including an informed-consent clinic? What dose, what blood levels, what monitoring? What about people who stop hormones, cycle them, or obtain them outside a licensed physician? A rule that depends on medical details will be litigated immediately as vague, discriminatory, or impossible to enforce without medical-record access that businesses do not have.

Yeesh.  My proposal rests on voluntary compliance and, where appropriate and necessary, showing an ID.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

This is what makes you a bigot.

Most of what you say is slanted and mean-spirited caricature and imputed motives, without a scintilla of supporting evidence or reasoning.  The rest is simple ideological disagreement.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You aren't protecting women in their spaces (since you literally want to force passing men into the women's bathroom).

I think sex-segregated spaces ought to be maintained.  I think the best way to do that is by segregating sex.  Biological sex.  This is based on reasoning and evidence and cumulative experience.

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

You are explicitly forcing your religious world view on others.

I have said nothing which explicitly or implicitly does any such thing.

I am speaking of policy proposals which I find acceptable under the dictates of my own conscience, and based on reasoning and evidence and so on.

You are, I assume, doing the same.  I don't think you are doing it very well, though, since your reasoning begins and ends with the same worn-out contrivance, namely...

42 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

This is what makes you a bigot.

I disagree with you on matters of public policy.  I have itemized the basis for my disagreement, and have done so using reasoning, evidence and explanation.

Disagreement is often just that.  That you are incapable or unwilling to substantively address reasoned argument on these matters is, to me, an indication that you are in the thrall of an ideology that is so internally incoherent that it cannot be defended through reason, and so can only be defended by ad hominem and other distracting tactics.  I don't find that persuasive.

Our prior interactions were more civil, but it seems things have taken a turn.  I am striving to be civil in my comments, but perhaps I have failed to do so in some respects.  If so, please point them out, and I will work to improve myself.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

trans"-related presuppositions that are rather vigorously enforced.

Enforced by whom? Trying to follow your reasoning.  
 

By the transgender community…which has multiple groups with different goals or by some institution?

[smac97]

6 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

trans"-related presuppositions that are rather vigorously enforced.

Enforced by whom?

For starters: trans advocacy groups.

Individuals (such as we've seen in this thread).

Again, here's the basic list of presuppositions:

Quote

Here is a descriptive list of claims that function as load-bearing principles in much of contemporary “trans” advocacy — especially the institutional/activist version that treats dissent as bigotry or “denial of existence.” Not every trans person holds all of them. The point is which ones are treated as non-negotiable in that framework.

Core identity claims

1. Gender identity is real, innate, and authoritative. A person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither.
2. Identity is sex (or replaces sex for social/legal purposes). “Trans women are women” / “trans men are men” is treated as a literal truth, not a courtesy or a political slogan.
3. Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid.
4. Denial of the identity is a denial of the person. Disagreeing with the identity claim is framed as saying the person “doesn’t exist,” not as disputing a proposition.

Sex, biology, and language

5. Sex is a spectrum, a social construct, or at least not a strict binary relevant to policy. Chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive anatomy are treated as crude, incomplete, or bigoted ways to classify people.
6. “Assigned sex at birth” is the preferred description of sex, implying a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category.
7. Preferred pronouns and names are morally mandatory. Using sex-based pronouns is “misgendering”; using a prior name is “deadnaming.” Both are treated as harms comparable to slurs.
8. There is no polite way to state the sex distinction. “Biological male/female,” “natal sex,” and similar terms are often classified as hate speech or dogwhistles.

Medical and youth claims

9. Gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation, not primarily explored as a possible misattribution of other distress. “Watchful waiting” or exploratory therapy is frequently labeled conversion therapy.
10. Medical transition (blockers, hormones, surgery) is healthcare, and withholding it is violence. Access is framed as lifesaving; gatekeeping is framed as cruelty.
11. Minors can have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition. Parental or clinical caution is cast as abuse or bigotry.
12. Desistance, detransition, and comorbidity (autism, trauma, same-sex attraction, social contagion) are minimized, treated as rare, or blamed on stigma rather than on the affirmation model.

Social and institutional claims

13. Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Exclusion of males who identify as women is discrimination.
14. Any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.”
15. Lived experience outranks data when studies, crime patterns, or fairness in sport cut against the identity rule.
16. Questions are a form of harm. Asking for definitions (“what is a woman?”), evidence, or tradeoffs is treated as bad-faith or as endangering trans people.
17. Opposition is explained as animus. The admissible motives are hatred, disgust, or religion; safety, fairness, child protection, and definitional accuracy are discounted.

Political enforcement

18. Allies must affirm publicly. Neutrality (“I don’t care what adults do privately”) is often not enough; failure to repeat the slogans is coded as hostility.
19. Conflicts with women’s rights and gay rights are denied or inverted. Sex-based rights are reframed as bigotry; same-sex attraction is pressured toward “attraction to gender identity.”
20. The category must expand, not contract. Nonbinary, genderfluid, xenogender, and similar identities are folded into the same moral protection as transsexualism; limiting the category is betrayal.

If I were to present these to @SeekingUnderstanding as a set of principles, would he agree that they exist and are broadly accepted in the "transgender community?"  I think he would.

If I were to use reasoning and evidence and analysis, largely free of emotionalisms, logical fallacies, personalized invectives, etc., to critique and disagree with some of these principles (which is what I have been trying to do in this thread and in others), would @SeekingUnderstanding sooner or later repeat his frequently-repeated accusation that I am a "bigot?"  I think he would.  Moreover, I think he would do it not because he reports to "the community" or received specific marching orders from anyone, but rather because "allies" are expected to do "ally" sorts of things, which includes silencing opposing viewpoints.

There is no specific "Manifesto" about what trans "allies" must believe, so it's possible that such "allies" might actually depart from one or more of the foregoing presuppositions, as @california boy has done in this thread by advancing a proposal re: bathrooms that explicitly and necessarily differentiates between "trans women" who ought to be able to go into women's bathrooms, while agreeing that the remaining "trans women" can be legally excluded from women's bathrooms.  And SU has endorsed this proposal, and so is fully on board with this differentiation.  I find this quite interesting.  

In reviewing CB's proposal, a quote from Animal House came to mind, namely, when the Seven Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Now here we have CB and SU, advancing a proposal that privileges some "trans women" over others.  I would be really interested in hearing them present this proposal on a "pro trans" message board.  I think we'd see something like this: "Your proposal differentiates between trans women, and so is essentially 'All trans women are equal, but some trans women are more equal than others.'  Oh, and you're a bigot."

And frankly, I think that critique - from other "trans allies" applying the foregoing ideological presuppositions - would be fair.  Would CB and SU then be derided by their fellow "allies" as "bigots" for advancing this proposal?  I suspect so.

Meanwhile, my philosophical and presuppositional position doesn't need to navigate through the minefield of "trans" ideology (that is, its flawed presuppositions as noted above and itemized in further detail below).  Instead, I agree with some presuppositions about trans folks (such as that they are deserving of presumptive measures of respect and civility), but I am otherwise free to critique the foregoing presuppositions, hopefully by using evidence and reasoned discourse, and by avoiding logical fallacies and emotionalisms.  I'll get called a "bigot" anyway, but the baseless accusation has long lost whatever potency it had to begin with.  And the "Bigot!" response will only further inform and validate my sense of things, because if ad hominem distractions are the best that well-informed and intelligent "allies" like SU can do, then reasoned discourse is effectively over.

Here's an interesting thought experiment:

Would CB and SU be willing to have their proposal published, perhaps as a "Letter to the Editor" or other form, in a recognized "trans advocacy" organization media outlet, such as GLAAD, HRC or GLSEN?  

And would they be willing to publish this proposal under their IRL names? 

And would GLAAD and these other groups be willing to publish such a proposal?

Anyway, here are some quotes of advocacy groups referencing the above presuppositions:

Quote

1–2. Identity is real/authoritative; “trans women are women” is literal

Human Rights Campaign (official account):
“Let’s clarify this again for those who don’t get it — trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary people are non-binary.”

HRC president Alphonso David, Senate QFR:
“Transgender women are women and transgender men are men.”
“A woman is an adult who knows herself to be female.”

GLAAD open letter (Women’s History Month / TDOV):
“We acknowledge with clarity and strength that transgender women are women and that transgender girls are girls.”
The same letter treats opposing feminists as promoting “damaging and violent ideas about trans people.”

National Women’s Law Center testimony:
“this statement erases the fact that trans women and girls are women and girls.”
“With our full conviction, we at NWLC know unequivocally that trans women and girls, and intersex women and girls, ARE women and girls who deserve to participate fully in women’s sports.  ”

3. Self-ID / no medical requirement

GLAAD Transgender FAQ:
“But not all transgender people can or will take those steps, and it’s important to know that being transgender is not dependent upon medical procedures.”
“Gender identity is a person’s internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or boy or girl.)”
“Always use the term used by the person.”

HRC definitions:
“One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither… One’s gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.”
Transition “might” be social only (name, pronouns, dress) or medical.

WPATH SOC8:
“this version of the SOC recognizes and validates various expressions of gender that may not necessitate psychological, hormonal, or surgical treatments.”
“access to transition-related health care should be based on… informed consent… not on what words TGD people… use to describe their identities.”

4. Denial of identity = denial of the person / violence

HRC reporting guide:
“Contrasting transgender people with ‘real’ or ‘biological’ men and women is a false comparison. Transgender people’s gender identities are real…”
Misgendering victims “disrespect[s] their identities, causing pain… and reinforcing the stigma at the center of anti-trans violence.”

GLAAD letter: opposition is “anti-transgender rhetoric,” “bigoted governmental policies,” and “assaults (legislative, physical, social, and verbal).”

Vox, summarizing the political fight in the terms advocates use: bathroom bans “reject[] the existence of trans people” and “advance[] a rejection of the idea that trans women are women.”

5–6. Sex as incomplete / “assigned at birth”

GLAAD:
“Transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.”

HRC FAQ:
“both the existence of intersex people and the ability to medically transition show that sex is also mutable and not defined by rigid categories.”

HRC David QFR: genitals “are not defining of maleness or femaleness”; HHS findings that male/female biological differences “matter” are “not true for all males or all females.”

Stonewall staff evidence (Kirrin Medcalf), as reported:
“Bodies are not inherently male or female. They are just their bodies.”
“Biological sex is made up of a multitude of characteristics that change over a person’s life-cycle.”

7. Pronouns/names mandatory; misgendering and deadnaming as harm

HRC:
“Transgender and non-binary people… should always be identified and referred to with their correct pronouns.”
“Misgendering… may lead them to feel distressed, unseen, or unwelcome.”
“be sure to always use them—and to correct others if they use the wrong pronoun.”
Neopronouns (“fae/faer,” “ey/em”) included.

HRC reporting guide: do not publish a prior name “without their explicit consent, which is sometimes called deadnaming.”

GLAAD ally tips:
“Don’t ask a transgender person what their ‘real name’ is.”
“If you happen to know the name someone was given at birth but no longer uses, don’t share it without the person’s explicit permission.”

The Trevor Project: using a young person’s pronouns is “a real life-saving difference” and “a public health issue.”

8. Sex-based language as illegitimate

HRC: contrasting trans people with “‘real’ or ‘biological’ men and women is a false comparison.”

GLAAD “hate and disinformation” guide treats “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” as an “intentionally misleading anti-trans trope” and groups “groomer,” bathroom-predator, and healthcare-as-experimental narratives as coordinated dehumanization.

Wikipedia’s own framing of “adult human female,” reflecting activist/academic usage: the phrase is “described by scholars as a dog whistle for transphobic beliefs.”

The orgs rarely say “hate speech” in a statute sense; they say false comparison, trope, stigma, violence, erasure. That is the enforcement mechanism.

9–10. Affirmation vs exploration; care is healthcare / withholding is violence

Stonewall:
“Conversion therapy is any intervention that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“Gender-affirming therapy and gender transition healthcare are not conversion therapy.”
Affirming therapy “starts from the premise that… the patient has autonomy to explore and know their own gender identity… and to request and seek treatment in line with their own stated needs.”

HRC on the 2025 HHS review:
“gender exploratory therapy” is “a focus-tested and innocuous-sounding name for the debunked, destructive, and dangerous practice of anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.”
West Virginia bill: “restricting life-saving gender affirming care”; “these lawmakers are denying transgender and non-binary youth care that saves lives.”

HRC facts page: “healthcare for transgender and non-binary people, known as gender-affirming care, is best-practice, medically necessary health care.” “Why do some people say it’s life-saving?” — then cites Trevor Project / suicide-risk studies.

Human Rights Watch headline: “Trans Youth’s Access to Lifesaving Care Under Threat.”

WMA: condemns “conversion” or “reparative” procedures / SOGICE as having “no evidence-based background” and being “a serious threat to the health and human rights” of those subjected to them.

11. Minors can have a stable identity justifying social/medical transition

HRC: “Every credible medical organization… calls for age-appropriate gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.” Ban = “dangerous, discriminatory.”

WPATH SOC8: separate adolescent chapter; puberty suppression and hormones “when indicated”; no absolute age floors for surgery in the published version (maturity assessment instead); parental consent “recommended but may be dispensed with if assessed as harmful or not feasible.”

Stonewall after Cass (as reported): hormones and blockers should still be prescribed to children and young people in a “timely manner” if a practitioner supports it.

12. Desistance / detransition / contagion minimized or recoded as stigma

GLAAD: ROGD is an “intentionally misleading anti-trans trope used… to fearmonger.” “Transition-related health care for transgender people, including youth, is supported by every major U.S. medical association.”

HRC: exploratory approaches that might “change… gender identities” are conversion therapy; Kennedy/HHS review is “outright lies and misinformation.”

WPATH SOC8:WPATH SOC8 “acknowledges” social influence and the rise in natal-female adolescents but “stopp[ed] short of endorsing ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria.’”

You will not find these orgs leading with desistance rates, Cass-style evidence reviews, or social-contagion hypotheses as first-line explanations.

13. Spaces and sport follow identity

GLAAD restroom fact sheet: bills forcing “transgender men to use women’s bathrooms, and trans women to use the men’s room” rest on “intentional falsehoods”; trans people should use facilities “that align with who they are.” Cites ACLU: trans people must be able to “use facilities and participate in activities that match who they are.”

NWLC: excluding trans athletes “erases” that they are women and girls; Title IX requires full participation. Inclusive restrooms do not increase safety risk; exclusion endangers both trans and cis women.

GLSEN (via NCTE-style school advocacy): trans students “barred from sports teams that reflect their gender identity” and “forced to use facilities corresponding to their legal sex” as evidence of a hostile climate.

14. No internal line (social-only vs medical)

GLAAD: identity “is not dependent upon medical procedures.”

WPATH SOC8: validates identities that need no medical treatment; access should not depend on the words used.

HRC explicitly includes non-binary and neopronouns in the same pronoun/respect rules.

15–16. Lived experience / questions as harm

GLAAD media program: when media “talks about transgender issues – it is imperative that they get it right” (i.e., the org’s frame).

GLAAD disinformation guide: named research frames (ROGD, “experimental” care, “groomer”) are “false narratives… used to dehumanize trans people.”

HRC to Rowling: “Any questions…?” after restating the slogan.

The phrase “what is a woman?” is treated in adjacent commentary as a “rhetorical strategy in anti-trans discourse.”

17. Opposition as animus

GLAAD letter: dissenters are “self-identified feminists” promoting “damaging and violent ideas”; legislation is “bigoted.”

HRC: sports/care limits are “disinformation,” “extreme elements of their base,” “discriminatory.”

18. Public affirmation; neutrality is not enough

HRC ally FAQ: use the pronouns, “correct others,” learn “gender identity-inclusive language,” oppose “discriminatory bills.”

GLAAD allies page: listen, ask, apologize, never ask the “real name,” don’t share old photos.

19. Conflict with women’s/gay rights denied or inverted

GLAAD: “honoring the diversity of women’s experiences is a strength, not a detriment to the feminist cause”; equal access to “recreation and public accommodations.”

NWLC: exclusion of trans women from women’s sport is sex discrimination under Title IX, not a sex-based protection.

Stonewall conversion-therapy line treats gender identity and sexual orientation as the same kind of trait to be protected from “change.”

20. Category expands (nonbinary, etc.)

HRC slogan includes “non-binary people are non-binary.” Definitions: “a blend of both or neither”; neopronouns listed as valid.

GLAAD FAQ: identity “does not fit neatly into those two choices”; use whatever term the person uses, including non-binary.

WPATH SOC8 title and text: “Transgender and Gender Diverse People.”

These advocacy groups lay out the ideological presuppositions, and self-identified "allies" go around enforcing them by, inter alia, vilifying people who do not agree with those presuppositions (hasty and unsubstantiated leaps into "Bigot!" accusations are a good example of this).

6 hours ago, Calm said:

Trying to follow your reasoning.  

By the transgender community…which has multiple groups with different goals or by some institution?

Well, that's an interesting point.  On the one hand, we are told that there is such a thing as "the transgender community."  But if and when we try to define this "community" or identify its attributes or otherwise quantify it and its ideology, then apparently there is no "community," in that there are no commonly-understood-and-accepted ideological principles.  

Advocacy has institutions. HRC, GLAAD, A4TE/NCTE, Transgender Law Center, Stonewall, WPATH, and the rest publish policy, sue, and fundraise.  So can they speak for the "transgender community?"  If not them, then who?

The "transgender community" is not the only amorphous and seemingly leaderless "movement" out there.  Antifa.  Anonymous.  QAnon.  #MeToo.  Sovereign Citizens.  ELF/ALF.  Manosphere.  Furry Fandom.  "The Right."  "The Left."

These names work as coalition brands. Journalists and pundits and commentators and opponents need a noun. Participants need a flag. Neither fact creates a roster, a budget, or a binding platform.

Here's an interesting test about a "community": Can you resign from it? You can leave HRC. You cannot resign from “the transgender community,” “Antifa,” or “the manosphere.” It does not mean the underlying people or the funded NGOs are imaginary.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited yesterday at 01:29 AM by smac97

[smac97]

On 8/27/2026 at 11:27 AM, california boy said:

So here is my proposal.

All people must. used the sex listed on their drivers license or identity card.  A person who is transitioning must be under physicians care and received hormonal therapy for 12 months or longer.  If they have done that, their doctor must fill out a declaration that they are treating their patient who is in transition to their chosen sex.  That document can be taken to the DMV and their license/ identity card adjusted to now meet the sex they present themselves as.

This does a few very important things.  It eliminates the crazy guy who just declares himself to be a woman in order to cruz in the women's restroom.  It also allows those transitioning to not get harassed in the women's room for being in the wrong restroom.  And women feel safer because they are assured that the person using the woman's bathroom is more interested in being a woman than just there to harass them.  In many cases, women may not even realize someone is trans that is using the restroom, unlike current solution that forces masculine people into protected women's spaces.

Out of curiosity, I submitted your proposal (the above wording, verbatim), with the following prompt: "Here is a proposal about a solution to men (that is, 'trans women') having the legal right to enter into women's bathrooms, submitted on an online message board (about Mormonism) by a participant who identifies as gay and as a strong ally of the transgender community. What do you think the response would be from the 'transgender community' in general, and its advocacy groups in particular (HRC, GLAAD, GLSEN, etc.)?"

Here is the response:

Quote

Institutional advocacy would not treat this as a compromise. They would treat it as a bathroom restriction dressed up as a process, and they would oppose it. A minority of trans-identifying people — mostly older “transsexual” / transmedicalist voices — would be closer to it. Those people are not who HRC, GLAAD, or GLSEN speak for.

What the large groups already say

They do not attach bathrooms to licenses, doctors, or a year of hormones. They attach bathrooms to stated identity.

HRC’s model hospital policy is explicit: patients use the restroom that matches gender identity “regardless of whether they are making a gender transition or appear to be gender-nonconforming,” and they “shall not be asked to show identity documents.”

GLAAD’s line is that people should use facilities that match “who they are,” that identity does not depend on hormones or surgery, and that safety arguments about women and bathrooms are a “myth” used to block nondiscrimination laws.

GLSEN (with MAP) calls it humiliating and dangerous to send students to facilities that do not match “the gender they live every day.” No medical checklist.

An older HRC workplace guide already said restroom access should follow full-time presentation, “regardless of what stage” the person is in. Even that is looser than your 12-month HRT rule — and current org messaging has moved away from presentation tests, not toward them.

So the proposal fails their published test on three separate points: self-ID is enough, medicine is not required for the identity, and checking papers at the door is itself the harm.

How they would describe it

Expect some mix of these, because they are the stock frames:

1. Gatekeeping / “transmedicalism.” Requiring a physician, HRT, and a year is treated as saying some trans people are not really trans. GLAAD’s own glossary language is that not everyone can or will take hormones or have surgery, and identity is not those steps.
2. “Trans women are women” with no extra conditions. A license that still says M until a doctor signs is, in that framework, the state refusing to treat the person as a woman. Bathrooms then become the enforcement tool.
3. The predator story is the smear. Your “crazy guy who declares himself a woman to cruise the women’s room” is exactly the claim GLAAD and HRC have spent a decade calling fearmongering. They will not credit the premise and then negotiate the waiting period.
4. Exclusion of people they include in the category. Nonbinary / “X” markers, people who refuse or cannot take cross-sex hormones (health, cost, age, custody, prison), people early in social transition, and minors in schools. GLSEN will not accept a rule that keeps a 15-year-old male who identifies as a girl in the boys’ room for a year of endocrinology.
5. ID checks out people. Advocacy litigation already argues that a license that does not match presentation “outs” someone and is dangerous. Your rule requires the license to be the bathroom ticket, which means a mismatch is visible to a cop, a manager, or anyone who asks. Groups that sue over “wrong-sex” markers on licenses will not bless using those markers as a restroom passport.
6. Ally from the wrong direction. A gay man offering medical conditions so women will “feel safer” will often be coded as respectability politics or as throwing trans people overboard to calm women’s concerns. Institutional messaging treats that split as betrayal, not as coalition-building.

They would not parse your intent (“eliminate the faker, protect the passable trans woman”). They would collapse it into “bathroom ban + medical mandate.”

“The community in general”

There is no roster and no vote. Roughly:

• Advocacy / online / younger cohort: reject it. Any line among “trans women” is “dividing the community.” Lived identity outranks the DMV.
• Clinically transitioned adults who wanted the old transsexual model: some would like a bright line that keeps intact males who have done nothing medical out of the women’s room. They have little institutional power and are often called traitors when they say so.
• Women who are not in the advocacy orgs, including many lesbians: some would still say 12 months of estrogen does not make a male a woman in a sex-segregated space. Your proposal does not answer that group either; it only answers “random man with no paperwork.”

So you would be squeezed from both sides: orgs because you imposed a medical test, and sex-realist women because you still put males in the women’s room after a form and a year of drugs.

Practical holes they will hit — and holes they will ignore

They will hit: who inspects licenses at the stall door; what about states that already issue an “F” on self-attestation (your rule is stricter than current DMV practice in those states); what about “X”; what about someone off hormones after the card is printed; schools.

They will ignore or minimize: male-pattern offending does not vanish at month 12 of HRT; “women won’t notice” is not a safety standard; presentation is not sex; a doctor’s letter is not a forensic screen for intent.

Bottom line

HRC / GLAAD / GLSEN / ACLU-style groups would oppose this. They already have the policy they want: identity, no documents, no hormones, no waiting period. Your post is an attempt to buy women’s security with a medical filter. That is the opposite of their load-bearing claims. A gay ally putting it on a Mormon board does not change the script. It may even sharpen it: they will say the “compromise” proves the bathroom debate was never about predators, because even a gated version is still treated as violence.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited yesterday at 01:40 AM by smac97