Church's Policy on Surrogacy - Looking for Input

[smac97]

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Why should I believe you have transcended your cognitive biases and I have not? 

It isn't that I have successfully transcended my cognitive biases and you have not. I haven't transcended cognitive biases. That isn't my claim. My claim is that I am at least trying. 

That's not much of a difference.  You're mindreading and imputing motives either way.

Why should I believe you are trying to transcend your cognitive biases and I am not?  

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

I read books like Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, and The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t by Julia Galef. 

The core messages of those books are the polar opposite of how Mormonism teaches to gain a testimony through faith-based "experiments" (e.g. Alma 32, Moroni 10), praying, listening to testimonies, faith-promoting stories, daily scripture study, etc. One set of methods is based on trying to see the evidence clearly. One set of methods is based on trying to be successful at getting and strengthening your testimony. Two different goals. Two different methods. You have to choose one or the other.

Sean Carroll talks about this in detail, of course. Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know some things. There just isn't going to be a journal in Nature that says, "New Discovery! The Heliocentric Model of the Solar System is Disproven! The Earth Really IS the Center of the Universe!" And just because something seems not only plausible but actually intuitive doesn't mean it's plausible at all.

Well, no.  The Church would not sponsor its institutions of higher learning if principles of science, mathematics, and other inquiries were "the polar opposite" of how the Church teaches us to pursue knowledge and truth.  This is just a lazy caricature, and a further demonstration of why you are not a reliable narrator relative to the Church.  You just can't allow yourself to let the Church speak for itself, or to avoid glosses and disparaging terms.  It's strawmen and "Bigot!" all the way down.

I have read fairly widely, though with different emphases (I hew more toward jurisprudential lenses). Scout mindset, Sagan’s candle, Pinker on rationality: do not protect a conclusion from disconfirming evidence; do not treat intuition as a demonstration; do not confuse “I don’t know everything” with “I know nothing.” That is good advice. It is not a proof that Alma 32 and a lab notebook are two religions and you may belong to only one.

Two goals is a smear of one of them.

“See the evidence clearly” is a goal I share. “Get a testimony no matter what the evidence does” is a goal I reject, and not one the Church teaches, and yet that is how you characterize us . Those are not the only two programs on offer. A third is the Church's non-caricatured position: take historical, textual, and scientific questions as real questions, and also treat prayer, covenant, and moral experiment as real tests of a different kind of claim. You can botch the third program. People do. You can also botch scout mindset by deciding in advance that the only admissible evidence is the kind that already fits naturalism. That is not scouting. That is a filter.

Alma 32 is not “ignore the control group.”

The chapter is an analogy: plant a word, do not cast it out on unbelief, see whether it enlarges and enlightens. That is not a Nature protocol. It is also not “repeat the slogan until you feel it.” It is closer to try living under this claim and watch what it does to mind and life than it is to “choose feelings over facts.”

Moroni 10 is a request for confirmation of a specific book, not a ban on asking where the plates were, what the text looks like, or what 19th-century context can explain. If someone uses those chapters as a reason never to read an awkward document, that person is misusing them. Misuse is not the official method.

A few years back I introduced my wife to a phrase I had encountered on a blog: "Let us embrace the healing power of 'and.'"  There are a lot of people, including yourself it seems, who are prone to present false dilemmas.  An either/or choice when there are more options available.  Here, you say intellectual and scientific inquiry are "the polar opposite of how Mormonism teaches."  Again, that's just a lazy caricature.

Daily scripture, meetings, and faith-promoting stories are formation. Every tradition forms people: journals, labs, conferences, and “here is how a rationalist talks” form people too. Formation is not automatically self-deception. The live question is whether you will let a contrary fact in. I have already said prophets have been wrong about some sexual folklore, that Miracle of Forgiveness is not the current handbook, and that descriptive history is not a standing commandment. That is not the profile of “protect the testimony at all costs.”  

You do not have to choose one instrument.

Historians use documents. Chemists use assays. Juries use testimony plus physical evidence. People decide whom to marry with more than a regression table. “Only one method, ever” is itself a philosophical claim, and an unserious one. Pinker and Galef are not doing particle physics when they write about meaning and bias. Sagan was not doing particle physics when he wrote about wonder. They are arguing for a stance. I can take the stance—don’t lie to yourself, don’t confuse hope with a footnote—without granting that the only thing that exists is what an academic journal will print.

Carroll’s line is right and is being overworked.

Carroll is right when he says that we can know some things without knowing everything. The earth is not about to be put back at the center of the solar system. Granted.

Restoration claims are not in that bin. “Joseph was a prophet” and “the Book of Mormon is historical” are not heliocentrism. They are historical and theological claims with arguments on both sides. “There will never be a Nature article reversing Copernicus” does not mean “therefore Moroni 10 is intellectually disreputable.” It means physical cosmology is settled in a way that 1820s New York is not.

Intuition is not plausibility. Agreed. A burning spiritual impression is not a carbon date. I have not said it was. I have said that if God is involved and sends messengers, those claims are doing work in the argument. You say those premises are false. That is the disagreement. Quoting a style of rationality does not make the premises disappear, and it does not make “scout vs testimony” a forced choice.

If the books taught you to prefer clarity to slogans, use them that way here: state the claim, state what would count against it, and stop treating every religious practice as a plot to avoid the data.  Stop caricaturing people and ideas with which you disagree.  Stop with coercive "Bigot!" pronouncements and other logical fallacies.  Speaking of which...

Fallacies

• False dichotomy. Evidence-seeking vs testimony-seeking as the only two goals.  Again, we can and should "embrace the healing power of 'and.'"
• Straw man. Alma 32 / Moroni 10 as “succeed at feeling certain.”
• Category error. Settled cosmology used as a template for historical-theological claims.  Remember our discussion about Caesar (or perhaps that was not you, I can't recall)?
• Motivated-reasoning special pleading. Formation on your side = rationality; formation on mine = bias.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The gender of the participants is not what marriage is. Your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says it's important, but that is not "reasoned”, it's declared and accepted.

You can say that. You have not shown it.

“Race is not what marriage is” is a description of the pair: a Black husband and a White wife are still a man and a woman. The color is an extra and irrelevant fact because they still have procreative capcity and can still provide a mother and father to raise children. “The sex of the spouses is not what marriage is” is not the same sentence. It is a redefinition. You are asserting that marriage is, at bottom, a romantic contract between adults, and that male and female are decoration. That is a view. It is not a discovery that my last reply was a sermon.

Declared vs reasoned.

If the only thing I had offered was “a prophet said so,” you would have a point about authority. But I haven't, so you don't. The public reason is this: marriage, as a social institution, grew up around the one sexual pair that produces children and attaches those children to the two people whose bodies made them. Sex is the feature that makes that pair that pair. Race is not. You can prefer a different institution—companionate licensing of any two adults. Preferring it does not turn sex into skin.

Every sexual ethic has a declared core. Yours declares that consent, love, and legal recognition are enough to make a marriage. That is not read off a telescope. It is, instead, a moral choice about what the institution is for. Calling my core “declared” and yours “reasoned” is just self-flattering branding.

Leaders and God.

Yes: I also think living prophets teach that sexual relations belong in a marriage of a man and a woman. That is not a secret. It is also not the only sentence in the argument. If God does not exist, the prophetic piece drops out and we are still left with the institutional and biological and sociological and legal pieces. You still have to say why the pair that can be mother and father is morally idle, and why a color bar is a good analogy for that claim. “Your church talks about God” does achieve that.

What would make the parody work.

It would work if I had said: people with trait T may not marry, and T had nothing to do with the kind of union. Black skin is that kind of trait. Being two men is not. Two men can love each other. They cannot procreate, nor can they be husband and wife in the sense the older institution named, nor can they be a mother and a father to the child they raise. You can call that unimportant. You cannot call it “because they have an arbitrary surface trait” without smuggling in the conclusion that sex is arbitrary.

If marriage is only a private meaning two people assign, then yes, sex drops out—and so does almost every public reason to have the institution at all, including the reasons the state used to give (which were centered heavily on marriage's association with procreation and child-rearing). That is a larger rebuild than “I don’t like your prophet.” Own the rebuild. Do not pretend it is the same move as Loving.

Fallacies

• Question-begging. Assumes marriage is already sex-neutral, then calls the older definition “unreasoned.”
• False analogy, second pass. Still treats sex as an add-on like race.
• Special pleading. Their declared goods count as reason; yours count as dogma.
• Straw man. Reduces the whole case to “my leader’s God.”

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

We've determined that procreative capacity has nothing to do with it,

Procreative capacity has nothing to do with marriage?  Are you sure you want to go with that?

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

because it doesn't matter if the couple engages in procreative sex, is past menopause, uses birth control etc. What is important to you, is your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

We have not determined that procreative capacity has nothing to do with it. We have determined that this particular act need not conceive. Those are different sentences.

A husband and wife past menopause, or using contraception, are still the kind of pair whose sexual union is the generative kind. The institution is built around that pair: the two sexes, the possibility of a child who has that mother and that father, and the same bond when a child does not arrive. Birth control and age limit an instance. They do not turn the pair into two men.

Two men never were that pair. There is no generative kind sitting underneath that is merely blocked this month.

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Skin color is not a constituent of the act or of the two parental sexes. Banning marriage “because they have Black skin” is picking a trait that has nothing to do with the kind of union. That is prejudice wearing a rule.

So is the reproductive status, acts and genders of the participants. Except, your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

No. Those are not the same kind of fact as skin color, and they are not the same as each other.

Skin color is not a part of the sexual act and not a part of “mother and father.” A Black husband and a White wife are still a man and a woman. The color is an extra trait. Using it to ban the marriage is prejudice wearing a rule.

Reproductive status of this couple (menopause, contraception, no ovaries) is a fact about an instance. It tells you whether a child is likely this year. It does not tell you what kind of pair they are. I have already said that.

This or that act tonight (whether it can fertilize) is also a fact about an instance. Union in a husband–wife marriage does not have to conceive that hour. I have already said that too.

The sexes of the two people are not a third extra trait like color, and they are not “reproductive status.” They are what makes the pair a husband and a wife rather than two men or two women. You can say that difference should not matter to the civil institution. That is a moral claim about what marriage is for. It is not a finding that sex is as idle and irrelevant as melanin.

You keep running the same collapse: because I allow sex when this couple cannot conceive, generation “has nothing to do with it,” so the only leftover is my prophet. That only follows if the ethic was “a baby must result from this act.” That was never the ethic. The ethic is: the union of the two sexes, institutionalized as marriage, ordered to children and to the bond, including when this household has no child.

Declared and accepted.

Yes, prophets teach that. I have not hidden it. It does not follow that there is no public reason left. “Marriage names the pair that can be mother and father” is a reason you can argue with without opening Genesis. Your counter is also declared: marriage is the legal recognition of a loving adult bond, and sex is decoration. You did not derive that from a lab. You chose what the institution is for. Calling your choice “reasoned” and mine “accepted” is just a compliment you are paying yourself.

If sex is as arbitrary in marriage as race, show why a child having a mother and a father is like a child having two parents of the same skin color. Until you do that, the parody is still a parody.

Fallacies

• Equivocation. “Reproductive status,” “this act,” and “sex of the pair” treated as one idle trait.
• False analogy. Sex still treated as skin.
• Non sequitur. Non-fertile marital sex → generation irrelevant → only dogma remains.
• Special pleading. Their definition of marriage counts as reason; yours counts as a sermon.

 

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Sex is not like that. “Man” and “woman” are the two halves of the kind of pair the rule is about. Two men are not “the same marriage plus an extra adjective.” They are not a husband and a wife, and a household of two men is not a mother and a father. That is the claim you have to answer. Swapping in race assumes the claim is already false.

I have yet to see a distinction made that doesn't boil down to "your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry." It doesn't matter if the couple can have kids, wants to have kids or anything else. 

You have seen the distinction. You are restating and recharacterizing it as a sermon so you do not have to answer it.

Here it is without a prophet in the sentence:

Marriage, on this view, is the institution that joins the two sexes and attaches children to the mother and father whose union can produce them. Two men can have a household, a license, and a deep attachment. They cannot be that pair. An opposite-sex couple who cannot or will not have children is still that pair. Fertility this year, desire for kids, and use of contraception are facts about a household. They are not the definition of the pair.

That is a claim about what the institution is. You can reject it. You can say marriage should be only a companionate contract. What you cannot do is pretend the claim was never made and that the only words on the table are “my leader’s God.”

“It doesn’t matter if the couple can have kids” is my point about instances, which you are using as if it were a confession that generation never mattered to the kind. I have said the opposite several times. Repeating “I have yet to see a distinction” after that is not scout mindset. It is a decision that the only distinction you will count is one that does not mention sex.

If your test for “reasoned” is “does not treat male and female as the two halves of the union,” then of course every argument I give will fail the test. That is a filter for your position, not a rebuttal of mine.

I also believe prophets teach this. That is an additional warrant for me. It is not the only sentence I have offered you. If you want to debate authority, say the premises in Proposition 1 are false and we will have that argument. If you want to debate the institution, answer why a mother-and-father pair is as arbitrary as a color bar. Those are two conversations. Collapsing both into “you were told” is how you avoid both.

Fallacies

• Straw man. Every institutional argument flattened to “prophet said.”
• Goalpost. Instance-level fertility treated as if it were the whole theory.
• Question-begging. “Reasoned” defined as already sex-neutral.
• Repetition as refutation. “I have yet to see” after the distinction was stated.

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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“Children should be raised by non-Black people” is an invented end. Nobody is required by biology or by the structure of generation to believe it. “A child has a mother and a father” is not an invented end. It is a description of how children come to be. You can say that description should not control marriage law. You cannot pretend it is the same sentence as a color bar.

We've already demonstrated that you don't actually care about this. If science tomorrow created a way for gay people to have biological children it wouldn't change a thing. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

You have not demonstrated that I do not care about mother and father. You have demonstrated that generation is not the only thing in the ethic, and that a science-fiction patch on one fact would not automatically rewrite the rest. That is ordinary. It is not a confession.

If tomorrow two men could mix their own gametes and produce a child, one sentence of mine would have to change: “same-sex unions are a biological dead end.” I have used that sentence. I would stop using it in that form. What would not automatically disappear:

• The child would still not have a mother and a father. It would have two fathers, or a lab and two fathers. “Biological offspring” is not the same fact as “this child has a mom and a dad.”
• The pair would still not be husband and wife in the sense the institution named.
• The Law of Chastity would still limit sexual relations to that marriage. For me that is an independent warrant, not a leftover after biology is exhausted.

Caring about an end does not mean it is a single lever that, if someone imagines it away, proves you never cared. A ban on sibling marriage is not shown to be “only religion” because gene editing might one day fix the medical risk. The medical risk was a reason. It was not the only reason. You do not get to delete every other reason and then declare the first one was theater.

“We’ve already determined” is doing too much work. What was determined is that I will not move sexual behaviors between two men from Y into X solely because a lab gave them a baby. That is consistent with an ethic that has more than one pillar. It is inconsistent with your test, which is: the only honest reason I may have is the one that, if hypothetically canceled, would flip my conclusion. That test is designed so that any second reason counts as proof the first was fake.

Yes, prophets teach man–woman marriage. I have said that in the open. It does not empty the mother-and-father description, and it does not make a color bar a good analogy. If you want to argue that God has not spoken, argue that. If you want to argue that a child having two fathers is as complete as a child having a mother and a father, argue that. Do not treat a thought experiment that leaves the mother out as a demonstration that I never meant the sentence.

Fallacies

• False dilemma. Either one fact flips the whole ethic, or you never cared about that fact.
• Moving the goalposts. “Biological children” swapped in for “mother and father.”
• Motivated inference. Extra reasons treated as evidence the first reason was a cover.
• Restated question-begging. Still “only the prophet,” still unshown.

 

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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The “I have Black friends” line is doing smear work. I have not claimed same-sex attracted people are less human. I have claimed a kind of sexual pair is not a marriage of husband and wife. If that is wrong, show that the kinds are the same. Do not swap the trait for one that is irrelevant and call the result a confession.

I don't think the genders or the race of the participants are important. They are on the same level to me. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

"I don't think the genders or the race of the participants are important."

"They are on the same level to me."

This is good.  That is the actual disagreement.

You think the sexes of the spouses and the race of the spouses are the same kind of fact about a marriage: extra adjectives, morally idle, interchangeable. I do not. On your view a color bar and a man–woman rule are cousins. On mine they are not, because only one of those facts is what the pair is.

Saying they are “on the same level to me” is honest. It is also a declaration. You have not shown they are the same level in the structure of generation, in the words “mother” and “father,” or in the history of the institution. You have reported your sorting. “To me” does not make sex into skin.

It still does not “boil down” to a prophet. A secular person can hold that male and female are the two halves of the marital pair and that race is not. Many have. A religious person can hold the same thing and also believe God has said so. Adding the second sentence does not delete the first. Refusing to hear the first because the second exists is your filter.

If sex and race are truly on the same level, then “the child has a mother and a father” is no more structural than “the child has two parents of the same complexion.” That is the claim you now need to defend. Repeating that my leader talks about God does not defend it.

I do not think same-sex attracted people are less human. I think you have put the wrong two traits on the same shelf. That is the argument. The parody only works after you win that argument. You have asserted it. You have not won it.

Fallacies

• Assertion as proof. “On the same level to me” offered as if it settled the analogy.
• Question-begging. Same-level claim assumes the conclusion the parody needs.
• Red herring. Prophet sentence used to avoid defending the leveling.

 

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Loving struck down a rule that used race to stop men and women from marrying. It did not hold that every restriction on which pair counts as marriage is the same as a racial ban. Treating sex as legally interchangeable with race is the move you need to justify. The parody assumes it.

The parody does assume they are interchangeable. Because they are.

Sex and race are "interchangeable" "because they are {interchangeable}."

I would have a hard time formulating a better example of begging the question than this.

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Marriage serves the exact same role for married lesbians as married straight people. It serves the same role for infertile and fertile people. It serves the same role for black and white people. It serves the same role for people that participate in reproductive sex acts and non-reproductive sex acts. Except for you because your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

Same for whom, and same as what?

If the role is “two adults get a license, companionship, hospital rights, and a public name for their bond,” then yes: a lesbian couple, an infertile couple, and a Black couple can all occupy that role. That is the companionate definition. Once you adopt it, every further distinction looks like a sermon. You have built that result into the word “role.”

If the role is the older one—joining the two sexes and attaching children to a mother and a father—then a lesbian marriage does not serve the same role. It serves the companionate role. It does not serve the generative role. An infertile husband and wife still occupy the generative kind of pair; they may fail at the fruit. Two women never occupied it, ever. A Black husband and wife occupy it the same way a White husband and wife do. Race never left that role. Sex is the role.

So the list you offered is not four examples of one fact. It is one real parallel and three lumpings:

• Black and White spouses: same kind of pair. Race is idle.
• Fertile and infertile opposite-sex spouses: same kind of pair; different fruit this year.
• Reproductive and non-reproductive acts in that marriage: same pair; union as well as generation.
• Two women and a husband and wife: different kind of pair. Same companionate goods if you only count those goods.

“It serves the exact same role for married lesbians as for married straight people” is true on your definition of the role and false on mine. That is the dispute. It is not evidence that sex and race are interchangeable. It is you using the companionate definition as a measuring stick and then declaring that whatever does not fit the stick was only ever a prophet.

Loving fits the first three lines and not the fourth. It stopped the state from using an idle trait to block a man and a woman. It did not hold that every use of sex in the definition of marriage is a cousin of Jim Crow. Obergefell did treat the companionate role as enough. You are with that opinion? Say so. Do not treat “same role” as a neutral observation that my side has to swallow before the argument starts.

I also think prophets teach man–woman marriage. That does not make “same companionate role” into “same institution.” If the only role you will count is the one two lesbians already fill, then of course you will find no distinction except religion. You have defined the others out of the room.

Fallacies

• Equivocation. “Role” as adult companionship vs “role” as generative institution.
• Question-begging. Measures every couple by the companionate role, then calls sex idle.
• False grouping. Race, infertility, technique, and two women treated as one list.
• Restated dogma charge. Still used as a substitute for defending the leveling.

 

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

Again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got.  I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. 

Still waiting to see it.

Go back a few pages.  I laid out 7 propositions.  I don't think you have addressed them.  I invite you to do so.  Please lay out which ones you accept and which you do not, and why.

20 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Here is what I see. You believe in God. God said each kid needs a Mom and a Dad and marriage and sex are only for opposite gendered people who are married. That's it. I mean we tried to go back and forth on the biology one. You said "as a reproductive act, it does not cohere" but apparently you have no problem with opposite gendered people participating in sex acts that are non-reproductive even if they do so exclusively. Further post menopausal woman still get to have sex even though as a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. Your fine with Jackie having sex even though she has XY chromosomes and as  a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. So what's left? Your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

You have seen a reasoned basis. You have a "No True Scotsman" rule that the only basis you will count is one that (a) never mentions God and (b) treats every non-fertile night as if it canceled the kind. Under that rule, of course nothing remains but a prophet. That is your filter.

Here is the basis, restated and clarified in pieces you can reject one at a time instead of flattening.

1. Kind of pair.

Marriage, on this view, joins a man and a woman. Two men are not that pair plus an adjective. Race is an adjective. Sex is the pair.

2. What the institution is for.

It grew up around the sexual union that can generate a child and attach that child to a mother and a father. That is a description of generation, not a verse. You can say the civil institution should no longer care. You cannot say the description was never offered.

3. Instance is not kind.

A postmenopausal wife, contraception, and oral sex in a marriage do not “fail to cohere” as the pair. They fail to conceive this time. The pair is still husband and wife. I said generation and union are both ends. You keep quoting only the first half of that sentence and then declaring a contradiction.

4. Jackie / CAIS is not your template.

CAIS is a 46,XY disorder of male development with a female-typical body. In ordinary and legal speech she can be a wife and a mother. That is a very rare edge case in the binary, not proof that sex is idle, not proof that two men are a mother and a father, and not proof that “reproductive coherence” was my only test. Rare DSDs are why we keep layers. They are not a warrant to treat sex like race.

5. The sci-fi baby does not erase the rest.

If two men could produce a child in a lab, “dead end” would possibly need a rewrite (not sure about that, actually, since "in a lab" is not necessarily "natural"). The child would still not have a mother and a father. The pair would still not be husband and wife. More than one reason can be real at once. A second reason is not evidence the first was fake.

6. God and prophets.

Yes. I believe God has taught that sexual relations belong in a marriage of a man and a woman. That is an additional warrant. It is not the only sentence above. If you want to argue that God has not spoken, argue that. Do not use it as a delete key for 1–5.

What is not a reasoned rebuttal: “still waiting,” “that’s it,” and “Bigot!” Those are ways of announcing that you will not count a distinction unless it already uses your definition of marriage (companionate contract, sex and race on the same shelf). Under that definition my view will always look like a sermon. That is not a finding that I never gave reasons. It is a finding that you only score reasons that concede your premise.

If you want to continue, pick one of 1–5 and say why it is false. Do not run them all back through “your leader’s God” and call the thread finished.

Fallacies

• Straw man. Multi-part case reduced to one verse.
• Equivocation. “Doesn’t cohere as an act tonight” vs “doesn’t cohere as a kind of pair.”
• No true reasons. Any non-theological reason disqualified for not being your reason.
• Jackie as wedge. DSD edge case used to cancel the ordinary pair.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Friday at 08:42 PM by smac97

[smac97]

14 hours ago, california boy said:

Curious.  Do you see any benefit at all for same sex marriage either to the couple or to society in general or both to their marriages?

Yes. There are benefits.

For some couples: legal tools (hospital access, inheritance, tax and immigration status), public recognition of a committed bond, and the ordinary human goods of companionship and care. Those are real for the adults in the household. I am not going to pretend a same-sex spouse never visits a hospital or never keeps a promise.

That is not the same question as whether those private goods are enough to redefine the institution for everyone, or whether they cancel the costs.

What I think the costs are

1. What the civil institution is for. The state got into marriage largely because the sexual pair that can generate children is the pair that most needs a stable assignment of responsibility. After Obergefell, the public meaning of marriage is much closer to “two adults who love each other and want a license.” Companionship was always in marriage. It was not the whole of it. A 5–4 Court, using 14th Amendment unenumerated-rights analysis and a companionate definition, treated sex as idle. I think that was a weak account of both the clause and the institution. 
2. Children. Williams Institute: about 18% of married same-sex couples (about 14% of same-sex couples) are raising children. Those children do not arrive as the fruit of that pair. They arrive by prior opposite-sex relationship, adoption, foster care, or third-party gametes. In a two-man or two-woman household the child is, by design, without a mother or without a father in the home. You can say love is enough. You cannot say the child has both a mother and a father. That is a cost I will not score as a wash because the adults are happy.
3. Norms inside some of those marriages. I am not saying every same-sex marriage is open. Lesbian couples are not the same data set as gay male couples. What the research does show, repeatedly, is that consensual non-monogamy is far more common as an explicit feature of male same-sex relationships than of husband–wife marriage. Hoff’s San Francisco State work on Bay Area gay male couples found on the order of half with an open agreement. Lowen and Spears’s Couples Study is a convenience sample of long-term male couples, not a census of all same-sex marriages. A marital culture that treats sexual exclusivity as optional is a qualitatively different institution than the one that treated exclusivity as part of the vow. That difference matters if marriage is supposed to train people toward a closed sexual bond.

So the answer is not “zero benefit.”

It is: private legal and emotional goods for some adults do not tell you whether the law should treat two men as the same kind of union as a husband and a wife. Benefits to the couple can be real and still be the wrong reason to rewrite the public meaning of marriage, especially where children are placed in a household that cannot be a mother and a father.

If the only test is “does this couple feel better with a license,” almost any arrangement wins. That is not the test I have been using.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

In the ethic I have been defending, sexual acts between a husband and a wife that do not conceive—and that cannot conceive this time—are still inside X.  Those acts do not become Y because a child is not possible in that hour.  They do become Y if the act is not procreative or not strengthening the union between husband and wife.

Here is the relevant line correct: "They do become Y if the act is not procreative or not strengthening the union between husband and wife."

I suppose I did not phrase it as well as I should have.  The correct sentence is: an act is outside X if it serves neither end — it is not an act of the generative kind of pair and it is not ordered to the union of husband and wife. Oral sex in that marriage can serve the second end. Two men cannot occupy the first pair, so there is no marital union of that kind for the act to serve. “Or” was, perhaps, a wording error. It was not a secret fertility-only test.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

And it's just circular.  Your interpretation of your church leader's interpretation of gods will says opposite gendered marriages are ok and same gendered marriages are bad. It doesn't matter if particular sex acts are procreative. It doesn't matter if the couple can have kids. So appeals to biology are specious. All that matters is that the sex acts occur between married opposite gendered people because god said so.

And the caricature continues.

Circular?

It would be circular if “strengthening the union of husband and wife” meant only “whatever God already allowed.” That is not how I am using it. Generation names a fact about the pair (the two sexes, the kind of union that can produce a child with a mother and a father). Union names the same pair staying sexually exclusive and bonded, including when a child does not arrive this hour. Those are reasons you can reject. They are not a loop that says “allowed because allowed.”

“Appeals to biology are specious.”

They would be specious if I had said every licit act must conceive. I have not said that. Biology is in the argument as kind of pair, not as a pregnancy test. Sharing the negative “this act did not mix gametes tonight” does not make two men an infertile husband and wife. You keep treating that as a trick. It is the distinction.

“All that matters is God said so.”

Prophets teach man–woman marriage. I have not hidden that. It is not the only sentence, but you keep treating it like it is.

A person who does not share my premises can still ask whether marriage is the institution of the two sexes or a companionate license. If you will only count a reason that never mentions sex as the pair and never mentions God, then yes: everything I say will look like a declaration. That is your filter. It is not a demonstration that I offered no public reason.

If the act is in a husband–wife marriage and serves their bond, it can be X though it does not conceive. If the pair is two men, it is not that marriage and not that bond.  It is a qualitatively different relationship.  A difference of kind.  No procreative capacity.  No husband-wife pair.  By design exclusion of a mother or a father to a child in the home. Technique does not erase the pair. Neither does repeating “God said so” after the pair has already been named.

Fallacies

• Circularity charge that redefines “husband and wife” as “whatever the handbook blesses.”
• Straw man. Biology = each act must fertilize.
• Delete key. Extra religious warrant treated as proof there was no other warrant.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

Latter-day Saints are fortunate, in a sense, to have all sorts of people going out of their way to tear down our faith.  To that end, I have spent many, many years listening to such voices, and then re-checking re-assessing what I believe and why.  The Restored Gospel still requires faith, but it holds up remarkably well.

One of the less appealing attributes of our critics is that they characterize themselves as being earnest in their pursuit of truth, but then deny that same zeal to the Latter-day Saints.  As an attorney, I have had ample opportunity to observe how different people, having had different experiences and made different efforts and reached different decisions about what to emphasize and de-emphasize, and having different aspirations and motives and such, can then look at a set of given facts or postulations and reach very different conclusions about them.  Both parties can be seeking the truth and yet still reach very different conclusions.

For example, you find my beliefs patently absurd.  Not just a difference in taste or preference, but patently and obviously false and incongruent with reality.  You attribute this to cognitive biases, me reflexively accepting what I was "taught from the cradle," and so on.

I find your ideological position on some matters patently absurd. 

That "science" has or can disprove the existence of God. 

A man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one. 

That a person of your obvious intellectual rigor can affirm that not only with a straight face, but with earnestness, is baffling to me. 

Your utter refusal to articulate any limiting principles as to entry into sex-segregated spaces is less baffling because a man "becoming" a woman is wholly incongruent with reality, not even a close call (just as incongruent as "a man can 'become' a {space alien} by 'identifying' as one" or "a man can 'become' a {six-year-old by} 'identifying' as one." 

You being an unreliable narrator (overstating/misstating Carroll, profoundly misrepresenting and misapprehending Givens) is also less baffling.  Where you think I am in the thrall of a religious tradition "taught {to me} from the cradle," I think you are in the thrall of ideological capture and obligation.  As an outside observer, I find the trans movements "you're either with us or your a bigot" schtick to be pretty off-putting.  This thread, as with so many other examples, has once again demonstrated the intellectual paucity of that ideology.  Yet again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got.  I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position.  I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable.  So you and yours retreat to name-calling.  You guys often even begin with name-calling out of the gate.

As a Latter-day Saint, I have had all sorts of opportunities to re-examine what I believe and why.  There are certainly some things I struggle with, but nothing that I can say is demonstrably incongruent with reality.  God's existence is not empirically testable, for example, so I am at liberty to reach a conclusion on grounds other than (or in addition to) empirical inquiry (such as the Spirit).  In contrast, whether a man can "become" a woman is empirically testable.  It can never happen.  And yet you, the self-proclaimed "I'm squarely on the side of 'empirical reality'" guy, not only declare this, you seem to be entirely genuine and earnest about it.

Prompt:
On this page, Smac97 has summarized several beliefs he claims that I hold which he finds, to different levels, "absurd." Please review what I have said in this thread and the other related ones, and from that determine what my beliefs actually are. Without evaluating the alleged absurdity of these alleged beliefs, is he representing my beliefs accurately?

ChatGPT-6 Luna Max

The relevant posts contain direct corrections of Smac97’s claims, Analytics’s qualification of what he believes about God, and a detailed explanation of his restroom policy. www.mormondialogue.org

Smac97’s portrayal of Analytics’s views is partly accurate in broad outline, but several of his specific claims overstate or misstate what Analytics has said.

Analytics argues that evidence and reason favor naturalism, and he expresses very high confidence that the specific God and supernatural claims of Mormonism are false. But he has also said that he does not claim to know that no conceivable deity exists, and he distinguishes “implausible” from “impossible.” So the claim that Analytics says science has proved that God does not exist is too broad.

The claim that Analytics believes a man becomes a woman simply by identifying as one is directly contradicted by his posts. He distinguishes biological sex from social or legal uses of terms such as “woman,” and he supports ordinary public restroom use consistent with a person’s sincere gender identity.

It is also inaccurate to say Analytics has offered no limits on restroom access. He describes a policy for ordinary public restrooms, with intervention based on conduct such as harassment, voyeurism, or threats; he does not propose the same rule for locker rooms, sports, or prisons. At the same time, he acknowledges that his policy would not reserve women’s restrooms exclusively for people who are biologically female. That is a fair description of a real disagreement with Smac97’s stricter definition of sex-segregated access, but it is not the same as saying there are no limits at all or that the rooms cease to be designated for women and men.

Analytics has strongly criticized the LDS Law of Chastity, describing it as culturally inherited and harmful. But he explicitly denies that he considers the LDS sexual ethic uniquely objectionable. Smac97’s account is accurate that Analytics objects to aspects of that ethic; the claim of unique objectionability is not.

Finally, Analytics acknowledges that people, including himself, have cognitive biases. He does not claim to have transcended them. It is fair to say that he believes his reasoning favors naturalism and that cultural influences affect religious belief; it would not be fair to portray him as claiming complete impartiality.

In sum, Smac97 captures some of Analytics’s broad positions, especially his naturalistic conclusions and his support for restroom access based on sincere gender identity. But several of the specific formulations—particularly that science has disproved every possible God, that Analytics believes identity changes biological sex, that he has no restroom limits, or that he calls the LDS sexual ethic uniquely objectionable—do not accurately represent what Analytics has said.

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

I have an ideology.  Informed by my personal observations and experiences, training and education (particularly in the law), and so on.  I am not in the "thrall" of it, though, as there are all sorts of ways a person can set it aside.  You have done so.  Many of my friends and relatives have done so.  Had I not had the experiences I have had with the Restored Gospel, I may well have left also.  My religion is, to me, too high-demand for me to stay with it for the sake of comfort or familial obligation.  I also feel a moral obligation to myself to set aside falsehoods and bad ideas when I discern them.  I stay, though, because I have had experiences that have persuaded me, many times over, that the Gospel is what it claims to be.

I think trans ideology is vastly different.  It operates by compulsion and coercion and control.  It has no choice, really, because its fundamental tenets are incongruent with reality....

I have no idea what "trans ideology" is. My position is based on basic empathy, a libertarian view of government, and a belief that people are of good will.

If somebody says they'd prefer to use a certain set of pronouns, I'll try to grant them the courtesy of using those pronouns. I think the purpose of restrooms is to pee, that people should use the restroom that would make them and others feel less uncomfortable, and that the decision about which restroom will best accomplish that is best left up to individuals--no need for the government to be involved. I think sports leagues should have discretion on who should be allowed to participate, and that safety and fairness are valid concerns they should take into consideration. I think those decisions are best made by leagues and not the government. 

That's pretty-much it. Empathy. Libertarian view of government. People are of good will. I've repeated my position over and over and over again. You don't need to agree with me, but since you are so interested in talking about this one would think you'd at least acknowledge what other people say. 

 

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

But several of the specific formulations—particularly that science has disproved every possible God, that Analytics believes identity changes biological sex, that he has no restroom limits, or that he calls the LDS sexual ethic uniquely objectionable—do not accurately represent what Analytics has said.

Well, okay.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I have no idea what "trans ideology" is.

No idea at all?

Here's something I generated a while back using Grok:

Quote

Core Claims (Frequently-stated propositions by advocates of the "trans" community):

• Proposition 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.
• Proposition 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.

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:

“[T]his 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.  ”

• Proposition 3:   Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid.

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:

“[T]his version of the SOC recognizes and validates various expressions of gender that may not necessitate psychological, hormonal, or surgical treatments.”

“[A]ccess to transition-related health care should be based on… informed consent… not on what words TGD people… use to describe their identities.”

• Proposition 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.

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.”

Sex, biology, and language

• Proposition 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.
• Proposition 6:   “Assigned sex at birth” is the preferred description of sex, implying a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category.

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.”

• Proposition 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.

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.”

• Proposition 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.

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.

Medical and youth claims

• Proposition 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.
• Proposition 10:   Medical transition (blockers, hormones, surgery) is healthcare, and withholding it is violence. Access is framed as lifesaving; gatekeeping is framed as cruelty.

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:

“[G]ender 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.

• Proposition 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.

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.

• Proposition 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.

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.

Social and institutional claims

• Proposition 13:   Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Exclusion of males who identify as women is discrimination.

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.

• Proposition 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.”

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.

• Proposition 15:   Lived experience outranks data when studies, crime patterns, or fairness in sport cut against the identity rule.
• Proposition 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.

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.”

• Proposition 17:   Opposition is explained as animus. The admissible motives are hatred, disgust, or religion; safety, fairness, child protection, and definitional accuracy are discounted.

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.”

Political enforcement

• Proposition 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.

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.

• Proposition 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.”

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.”

• Proposition 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.

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.”

Have you ever heard of any of these propositions?

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My position is based on basic empathy, a libertarian view of government, and a belief that people are of good will.

So is mine.  But also logical reasoning, biological and empirical reality, and divinely-revealed precepts.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If somebody says they'd prefer to use a certain set of pronouns, I'll try to grant them the courtesy of using those pronouns.

If using correct pronouns will cause a person afflicted with a mental condition some distress, I might as well.  It would be exhausting otherwise.  My reservations arise from this being presented as a requirement, not a request, and from the use of the coercive power of the State to compel use of incorrect pronouns, and so on.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I think the purpose of restrooms is to pee, that people should use the restroom that would make them and others feel less uncomfortable, and that the decision about which restroom will best accomplish that is best left up to individuals--no need for the government to be involved.

No limiting principles.  

Eradication of sex-segregated spaces.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I think sports leagues should have discretion on who should be allowed to participate, and that safety and fairness are valid concerns they should take into consideration.

I don't.  Title IX, various state statutes, common law, and common sense all militate very much against letting boys/men compete in girls'/women's sports.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I think those decisions are best made by leagues and not the government. 

I don't.  I think "leagues" are as susceptible to ideological capture as Academia, most of Hollywood, a lot of politicians, and more.

Moreover, leagues need to more or less have the same ground rules.  California girls compete against Idaho girls.  What if Idaho does not want to let boys compete against girls?  Who breaks the stalemate?  The government.  I think it is unfortunate that we are compelled to have the State step in and tell citizenry the logical equivalent of "dogs aren't cats" and "circles aren't square."  Boys are not girls and girls are not boys.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

That's pretty-much it. Empathy. Libertarian view of government. People are of good will. I've repeated my position over and over and over again. You don't need to agree with me, but since you are so interested in talking about this one would think you'd at least acknowledge what other people say. 

Feel free to articulate the limiting principles you have laid out.

My recollection is that you have acknowledged that your proposal would eradicate sex-segregated spaces, and that you are entirely fine with that.

As for "a man can 'become' a woman by 'identifying' as one," I admit it is hard to keep track of all the various iterations and extrapolations of mouthed repetitions of the trans movement's talking points and propositions.  Maybe we could start there.  I have laid out 20 propositions above.  Which of them you agree with, and with which do you disagree, and why?

That sure would help me better understand what you are thinking.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

The Church would not sponsor its institutions of higher learning if principles of science, mathematics, and other inquiries were "the polar opposite" of how the Church teaches us to pursue knowledge and truth.  This is just a lazy caricature...

No, this is just a lazy caricature:

 

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

You just can't allow yourself to let the Church speak for itself, or to avoid glosses and disparaging terms. 

Prompt:
Please make a list that describes how to get, keep, and strengthen a testimony of the Mormon Church. Keep it brief, and quote authoritative sources as much as possible. Make sure it reads in a way that a faithful, conservative Mormon would agree with.

GPT-6 Extra High
To gain, keep, and strengthen a testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored Church:

1. Begin with a desire to believe. Alma taught: “Even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you.” Act on that desire and exercise faith. —Alma 32:27. churchofjesuschrist.org

2. Study the Book of Mormon daily. “I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.” —President Thomas S. Monson. churchofjesuschrist.org

3. Pray for a personal witness. Ask God “with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ.” Moroni promises that the Holy Ghost will reveal its truth. —Moroni 10:4–5. churchofjesuschrist.org

4. Live the commandments. Spiritual knowledge grows through obedience: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” —Jesus Christ, John 7:17. churchofjesuschrist.org

5. Stay active in worship and covenant keeping. Elder Dallin H. Oaks counseled members to “partake of the sacrament each week.” President Russell M. Nelson also encouraged temple attendance and family history work. churchofjesuschrist.org

6. Follow the prophet with patience and faith. “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” —Doctrine and Covenants 21:5. churchofjesuschrist.org

7. Bear your testimony. “We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it.” Share your growing conviction of the Savior and the Restoration. —Elder Dallin H. Oaks. churchofjesuschrist.org

8. Seek answers from sources that nourish faith. President Nelson counseled members to “seek answers with the fervent desire to believe” and warned against “the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women.” churchofjesuschrist.org

9. Remain faithful while working through questions. “First doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” Continue seeking understanding without abandoning the spiritual knowledge you have already received. —President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. churchofjesuschrist.org

Prompt:
Now, make a commensurately brief list of how to figure out the truth, according to Carl Sagan’s Boloney Detection Kit.

GPT-6 Extra High
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit,” from The Demon-Haunted World, offers nine tools for evaluating claims, summarized here. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

1. Seek independent verification. Check whether other investigators can corroborate the claimed facts.

2. Welcome informed disagreement. Examine the evidence with knowledgeable people representing competing viewpoints.

3. Require evidence, regardless of authority. “Arguments from authority carry little weight.” Even respected experts make mistakes.

4. Consider competing explanations. Develop several hypotheses and test each against the evidence, actively trying to disprove them.

5. Challenge your own beliefs. “Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.” Look for reasons to reject your preferred explanation. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

6. Quantify wherever possible. Measurements and numerical comparisons help distinguish explanations that vague descriptions leave unresolved.

7. Check the entire argument. Every logical step must hold up, and the starting assumptions must also be sound.

8. Prefer the simpler adequate explanation. When competing explanations account for the evidence equally well, use Occam’s razor.

9. Require testability. Ask what evidence could show that a claim is false. Others—including skeptics—must be able to examine the reasoning and repeat the tests. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

Prompt:
Is the goal of strengthening a testimony in tension with the goal of detecting baloney? If so, how big is the tension?

GPT-6 Extra High
Yes. The tension is substantial—and becomes fundamental when you are deciding whether the Church’s central claims are true. The two approaches have different criteria for success: strengthening a testimony aims at greater conviction in a particular conclusion; detecting baloney aims at greater accuracy, including abandoning that conclusion if necessary.

The strongest conflicts are:

• A preferred conclusion versus competing hypotheses. President Nelson encourages seeking answers “with the fervent desire to believe.” Sagan encourages developing alternatives and actively testing whether your preferred explanation is wrong. Wanting something to be true does not automatically invalidate an inquiry, but it creates a bias the inquiry needs to control. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Protecting belief versus exposing it to criticism. Counsel to avoid faith-undermining philosophies can conflict with Sagan’s encouragement of informed disagreement. Rejecting a source because its claims are demonstrably false is reasonable; rejecting it because it threatens your testimony prejudges the issue. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Giving faith preferential treatment versus evaluating explanations fairly. “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith” gives existing religious belief a privileged position. Sagan’s approach requires examining the weaknesses of your own hypothesis and comparing it fairly with alternatives. Prior evidence can justify confidence, but the belief’s religious importance cannot establish its truth. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Increasing conviction versus independently verifying a claim. Bearing testimony is recommended as a way to strengthen it. But becoming more certain through repeatedly expressing a belief does not itself provide independent evidence that the belief is correct. www.churchofjesuschrist.org

There is room for compatibility. Studying carefully, asking sincere questions, practicing patience, and testing teachings through experience can contribute to inquiry. Finding that a practice improves your life, however, does not by itself establish the Church’s historical or supernatural claims.

The decisive distinction is whether losing your testimony is permitted to count as a successful discovery of truth. If sincere investigation must ultimately preserve the testimony, its conclusion has been prescribed. If either strengthening or relinquishing it can be justified by the evidence, the investigation is much closer to Sagan’s method.

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

Carroll is right when he says that we can know some things without knowing everything. The earth is not about to be put back at the center of the solar system. Granted.

Restoration claims are not in that bin.

Actually, they are. Things like the physical existence of a spirit ("ghost in the machine") and communication through revelation, spiritual promptings, and the like are in the the dead-center of what Carroll was specifically referring to. Below is how Pinker uses Carroll. Spiritual communication has an "infinitesimal prior probability" for exactly the same reasons that "precognition and other forms of ESP" do. And in Carroll's book, the entirety of chapters 26-27 are about why the existence of a soul is "incompatible with the known laws of physics".

"The issue hit the fan in 2011 when the eminent social psychologist Daryl Bem published the results of nine experiments in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which claimed to show that participants successfully predicted (at a rate above chance) random events before they took place, such as which of two curtains on a computer screen hid an erotic image before the computer had selected where to place it. Not surprisingly, the effects failed to replicate, but that was a foregone conclusion given the infinitesimal prior probability that a social psychologist had disproven the laws of physics by showing some undergraduates some porn. When I raised this point to a social psychologist colleague, he shot back, “Maybe Pinker doesn’t understand the laws of physics!” But actual physicists, like Sean Carroll in his book The Big Picture, have explained why the laws of physics really do rule out precognition and other forms of ESP."

Pinker, Steven. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (pp. 159-160). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

[smac97]

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

No, this is just a lazy caricature:

We can embrace the healing power of "and."  Both your cartoon and your characterization of the Church's teachings as being "the polar opposite" of scientific thought are caricatures.

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Prompt:
Please make a list that describes how to get, keep, and strengthen a testimony of the Mormon Church. Keep it brief, and quote authoritative sources as much as possible. Make sure it reads in a way that a faithful, conservative Mormon would agree with.

And the caricature continues.

Science and human knowledge answer some things.  Revelation answers some things.  Both overlap with each other on some things.  

There are all sorts of Latter-day Saints in the hard sciences.  They don't have to abandon their faith or check it at the lab door.  

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

GPT-6 Extra High
To gain, keep, and strengthen a testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored Church:

1. Begin with a desire to believe. Alma taught: “Even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you.” Act on that desire and exercise faith. —Alma 32:27. churchofjesuschrist.org

2. Study the Book of Mormon daily. “I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.” —President Thomas S. Monson. churchofjesuschrist.org

3. Pray for a personal witness. Ask God “with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ.” Moroni promises that the Holy Ghost will reveal its truth. —Moroni 10:4–5. churchofjesuschrist.org

4. Live the commandments. Spiritual knowledge grows through obedience: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” —Jesus Christ, John 7:17. churchofjesuschrist.org

5. Stay active in worship and covenant keeping. Elder Dallin H. Oaks counseled members to “partake of the sacrament each week.” President Russell M. Nelson also encouraged temple attendance and family history work. churchofjesuschrist.org

6. Follow the prophet with patience and faith. “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” —Doctrine and Covenants 21:5. churchofjesuschrist.org

7. Bear your testimony. “We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it.” Share your growing conviction of the Savior and the Restoration. —Elder Dallin H. Oaks. churchofjesuschrist.org

8. Seek answers from sources that nourish faith. President Nelson counseled members to “seek answers with the fervent desire to believe” and warned against “the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women.” churchofjesuschrist.org

9. Remain faithful while working through questions. “First doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” Continue seeking understanding without abandoning the spiritual knowledge you have already received. —President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. churchofjesuschrist.org

Prompt:
Now, make a commensurately brief list of how to figure out the truth, according to Carl Sagan’s Boloney Detection Kit.

GPT-6 Extra High
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit,” from The Demon-Haunted World, offers nine tools for evaluating claims, summarized here. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

1. Seek independent verification. Check whether other investigators can corroborate the claimed facts.

2. Welcome informed disagreement. Examine the evidence with knowledgeable people representing competing viewpoints.

3. Require evidence, regardless of authority. “Arguments from authority carry little weight.” Even respected experts make mistakes.

4. Consider competing explanations. Develop several hypotheses and test each against the evidence, actively trying to disprove them.

5. Challenge your own beliefs. “Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.” Look for reasons to reject your preferred explanation. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

6. Quantify wherever possible. Measurements and numerical comparisons help distinguish explanations that vague descriptions leave unresolved.

7. Check the entire argument. Every logical step must hold up, and the starting assumptions must also be sound.

8. Prefer the simpler adequate explanation. When competing explanations account for the evidence equally well, use Occam’s razor.

9. Require testability. Ask what evidence could show that a claim is false. Others—including skeptics—must be able to examine the reasoning and repeat the tests. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.doc

Prompt:
Is the goal of strengthening a testimony in tension with the goal of detecting baloney? If so, how big is the tension?

GPT-6 Extra High
Yes. The tension is substantial—and becomes fundamental when you are deciding whether the Church’s central claims are true. The two approaches have different criteria for success: strengthening a testimony aims at greater conviction in a particular conclusion; detecting baloney aims at greater accuracy, including abandoning that conclusion if necessary.

The strongest conflicts are:

• A preferred conclusion versus competing hypotheses. President Nelson encourages seeking answers “with the fervent desire to believe.” Sagan encourages developing alternatives and actively testing whether your preferred explanation is wrong. Wanting something to be true does not automatically invalidate an inquiry, but it creates a bias the inquiry needs to control. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Protecting belief versus exposing it to criticism. Counsel to avoid faith-undermining philosophies can conflict with Sagan’s encouragement of informed disagreement. Rejecting a source because its claims are demonstrably false is reasonable; rejecting it because it threatens your testimony prejudges the issue. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Giving faith preferential treatment versus evaluating explanations fairly. “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith” gives existing religious belief a privileged position. Sagan’s approach requires examining the weaknesses of your own hypothesis and comparing it fairly with alternatives. Prior evidence can justify confidence, but the belief’s religious importance cannot establish its truth. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Increasing conviction versus independently verifying a claim. Bearing testimony is recommended as a way to strengthen it. But becoming more certain through repeatedly expressing a belief does not itself provide independent evidence that the belief is correct. www.churchofjesuschrist.org

There is room for compatibility. Studying carefully, asking sincere questions, practicing patience, and testing teachings through experience can contribute to inquiry. Finding that a practice improves your life, however, does not by itself establish the Church’s historical or supernatural claims.

The decisive distinction is whether losing your testimony is permitted to count as a successful discovery of truth. If sincere investigation must ultimately preserve the testimony, its conclusion has been prescribed. If either strengthening or relinquishing it can be justified by the evidence, the investigation is much closer to Sagan’s method.

Actually, they are. Things like the physical existence of a spirit ("ghost in the machine") and communication through revelation, spiritual promptings, and the like are in the the dead-center of what Carroll was specifically referring to. Below is how Pinker uses Carroll. Spiritual communication has an "infinitesimal prior probability" for exactly the same reasons that "precognition and other forms of ESP" do. And in Carroll's book, the entirety of chapters 26-27 are about why the existence of a soul is "incompatible with the known laws of physics".

"The issue hit the fan in 2011 when the eminent social psychologist Daryl Bem published the results of nine experiments in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which claimed to show that participants successfully predicted (at a rate above chance) random events before they took place, such as which of two curtains on a computer screen hid an erotic image before the computer had selected where to place it. Not surprisingly, the effects failed to replicate, but that was a foregone conclusion given the infinitesimal prior probability that a social psychologist had disproven the laws of physics by showing some undergraduates some porn. When I raised this point to a social psychologist colleague, he shot back, “Maybe Pinker doesn’t understand the laws of physics!” But actual physicists, like Sean Carroll in his book The Big Picture, have explained why the laws of physics really do rule out precognition and other forms of ESP."

Pinker, Steven. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (pp. 159-160). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

You are treating a discipleship list and a lab-methods list as if both were complete theories of knowledge, and you then claim (or heavily imply) that the Latter-day Saints are obligated by their faith to rely on the former to the exclusion of the latter.  That is the caricature and falsehood.

Scientific inquiry and religious inquiry are in tension if and only if you have already decided that the only respectable way to know anything is Sagan-plus-Carroll naturalism. That is not a finding. It is the premise, and one I do not share.

The testimony list is not a protocol for discovering whether God exists from a standing start, with every hypothesis weighted the same. It is counsel to people who already take God, Christ, and revelation as live options, and who want those convictions to survive contact with ordinary life. Alma 32 is an experiment that can fail to “swell.” Moroni 10 is a request, not a rigged verdict. “Doubt your doubts first” is pastoral triage, not a claim that religious importance manufactures or trumps truth. Using a list written for keeping a faith as if it were the Church’s official epistemology textbook is a category error.

Sagan’s kit is good at what it is for: advertising, ESP papers, medical miracles, authority-by-letterhead. Independent checks, rival hypotheses, quantification, testability — we can use those on sloppy history and on fraud. They do not come with a metaphysical appendix that says “therefore only closed physical systems exist.”

That is where Pinker and Carroll are doing extra work.

“Infinitesimal prior probability” is not a measurement. Nobody ran a meter on revelation and got 10−3010^{-30}10−30. A prior that small is assigned by people who have already decided that current physics, read as a complete inventory of what there is, is the whole story. Carroll is explicit that a soul is incompatible with that reading of the laws. Fine. That is physicalism. It is not “the laws of physics forbade God to speak.” The laws describe how matter and fields behave if the system is closed and God is not an actor in it. Whether the system is closed is the question you are trying to settle by quoting Carroll. You cannot use the conclusion as the prior.

The Bem studies are a poor analogy for the same reason. A social psychologist failing to show that undergraduates can see tomorrow’s curtain is evidence against that experimental claim. It is not a demonstration that a Creator cannot disclose something to a mind. Precognition-as-lab-trick and “God speaks” are not the same hypothesis with different branding. Collapsing them is equivocation.

You can say: "I will only count third-person, repeatable, physical tests, so revelation is out from the first move." That is a rule of method. So please say that. Do not say the method discovered that revelation has an infinitesimal prior. The prior was loaded.

On the “decisive distinction”: of course an inquiry that is not allowed to end in unbelief is not an inquiry. Neither I nor the Church has said that a person must keep a testimony whatever they find. I have said that “use only Sagan, and treat Carroll’s physicalism as physics” is not a neutral referee. It is one contestant.

Prayer, sacrament, the Word of Wisdom, paying tithing, or keeping covenants may make someone kinder, stabler, or happier, etc. does not empirically prove a historical claim. Granted. Physics-as-complete-metaphysics does not disprove one either. If you want to argue the Restoration on texts, witnesses, anachronism, and rival origins, that is a different conversation than “Pinker cited Carroll, ipso facto spiritual communication is ESP.”

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Friday at 11:52 PM by smac97

[Calm]

59 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Without evaluating the alleged absurdity of these alleged beliefs, is he representing my beliefs accurately?

Do you see Chat as accurate in summary of your comments?

To the best of my memory, I do if you are interested.  

Edited Friday at 11:58 PM by Calm

[Calm]

51 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Have you ever heard of any of these propositions?

Are you defining such propositions as belonging to the trans community because that is how it appears to me you are.  If so, I would also disagree this is trans ideology as it only belongs to some in the community.  
 

This would be similar to saying radical feminism is feminist ideology meaning belonging to all feminists when it only belongs to a subset.

Perhaps you could come up with a characterization of the trans activists that hold these propositions to differentiate them from the general population.  If you don’t, I suspect confusion and/pr denial these propositions are trans ideology will continue since they are not held consistently enough across the trans community from what I seen and others I know who are more familiar with that community have stated.

One of the best known autistic foundations (Autism Speaks) is now rejected by the majority of online autistics I have come across who talk about it because they disagree with its approach in multiple ways.  Simply because an organization is well known and powerful outside the community does not always mean it speaks for the majority of those it claims to speak for.  
 

https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AutismSpeaksFlyer2020.pdf

Since you are comfortable using AI for analysis, here is its analysis of your claim the propositions are “trans ideology”:

Quote

Not exactly. What you have here is better described as a constructed “gender-identity ideology” or “gender-identity framework,” rather than simply “trans ideology.” The distinction matters because your list combines several different things: definitions of transgender identity, clinical approaches, political/legal positions, linguistic norms, and claims about sex.

The underlying framework is real and can be described neutrally, but the 20 propositions as written are not a neutral statement of what all transgender people believe. They are a synthesis—apparently deliberately constructed from positions taken by particular advocacy organizations and professional bodies.

What I would call it

If you want a reasonably precise, non-loaded term:

“gender-identity-based framework”

or, if you’re specifically discussing the political/activist version:

“gender-identity ideology”

Another useful term is:

“gender self-identification model”

That last one gets particularly close to the central principle running through the list: a person’s subjective gender identity is treated as the authoritative basis for determining their gender, including in social and sometimes legal contexts.

The term “trans ideology” is used in public debate, but it is ambiguous. It can mean anything from simply believing that transgender people exist to the much more expansive collection of propositions in your list.

There really is a recognizable underlying doctrine

The strongest common thread through your 20 propositions is not actually “transgender people.” It is a particular theory of the relationship between sex, gender identity, and social recognition:

Gender identity is an internal characteristic of a person, distinct from biological sex, and a person’s self-identification is normally authoritative in determining their gender/social identity.

That is quite close to the framework explicitly used by organizations such as the APA and WPATH. The APA, for example, defines gender identity as an internal sense of being male, female, or something else, which may differ from sex assigned at birth.

WPATH’s SOC-8 goes further institutionally: it explicitly encompasses binary transgender identities, nonbinary identities, genderfluid identities, and other forms of gender diversity, and recommends that clinicians discuss with patients how they self-identify and what terminology they want used.

So there is a coherent intellectual framework underneath the list.

But there’s an important qualification.

Your list goes considerably beyond the basic framework

I would divide your 20 propositions into roughly four layers:

I corrected its misunderstanding it was my list and it offered this summary, which I think is useful if you don’t want to go through the whole analysis of smac’s list:

”

• GLAAD’s published positions: Many of the propositions in the list can be documented from GLAAD’s own materials, although some of the propositions are stronger interpretations of what GLAAD says rather than direct statements by GLAAD.
• GLAAD as representative of transgender people: That’s a much stronger claim and isn’t established simply because GLAAD is a prominent advocacy organization.
• Online trans commenters: They can provide evidence of what some highly engaged transgender people believe, but they aren’t a representative sample of transgender people.
• The 20-proposition list as a whole: It appears to combine documented advocacy positions with the author’s interpretations and extrapolations. So it shouldn’t automatically be treated as “what trans people believe.””

Edited Saturday at 12:20 AM by Calm

[Calm]

I also asked AI if GLAAD represented a majority of transgender people based off of what is said about it online…also quite long, but informative.  The inclusion of the comparison of Smac’s list was not intended, but assumed by CHAT, but I see the observations as relevant, since not repeating the request independently.

Quote

Does GLAAD represent the majority position of transgender people?

There is substantial overlap between GLAAD’s positions and the views of many transgender people, but we cannot reasonably say that GLAAD represents the majority position of transgender people on the entire package of issues in that 20-point list.

GLAAD is an advocacy organization, not a representative body elected or otherwise authorized by transgender people. Its own materials explicitly promote a particular framework: gender identity is an internal sense of gender; it can differ from sex assigned at birth; being transgender does not require medical transition; and people should use the terminology the person uses for themselves.

Those aren’t merely inventions of GLAAD, either. They are widely reflected in contemporary transgender communities and in professional terminology.

But that does not establish that the broader collection of propositions in the list represents a majority of transgender people.

The survey evidence gives us a better answer

Pew’s 2025 survey is particularly useful because it actually surveyed transgender adults rather than asking advocacy organizations to speak for them.

Among transgender adults, Pew found:

• 91% favored legal protection against discrimination.
• 88% favored requiring health insurance to cover transition-related medical care.
• 84% opposed requiring transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to sex assigned at birth.
• 75% opposed requiring transgender athletes to compete according to sex assigned at birth.
• 75% opposed banning medical care for gender transition for minors.

So on several of the policy propositions in the 20-point document, GLAAD’s position is quite close to what transgender respondents themselves reported.

That is significant.

But notice what the survey doesn’t establish. It doesn’t tell us that 75%, 80%, or 90% of transgender people believe propositions such as:

“Sex is a spectrum/social construct.”

or

“Questions about the definition of woman are inherently harmful.”

or

“Opposition to transgender policies is fundamentally motivated by animus.”

or

“Biological sex should cease to be a relevant category for particular policies.”

Those are substantially different claims.

And there is considerable diversity

within

the transgender population

This is especially relevant to the 20 propositions.

Pew’s 2025 demographic research found that among the transgender adults in its sample, 50% identified as nonbinary, while 29% identified as men, 12% as women, and 8% as another gender.

That means “transgender people” aren’t one ideologically homogeneous group. The population includes people whose understanding of their identity and relationship to sex and gender can be quite different.

And GLAAD itself acknowledges that diversity: its definition encompasses people who identify as men or women as well as people whose gender doesn’t fit those two categories.

This changes how I’d evaluate the 20-proposition document

I would not characterize it as:

“Here are the beliefs of transgender people.”

Nor would I characterize it as:

“Here is simply what GLAAD believes.”

Instead, I’d characterize it as something closer to:

“An author’s synthesis of positions associated with contemporary transgender advocacy, using GLAAD, HRC, WPATH, Stonewall, NWLC, and other organizations as evidence.”

That’s an important distinction.

The author appears to have taken actual statements from organizations and then constructed a much larger ideological framework around them. Some propositions are close paraphrases of explicit organizational positions. Others are interpretations or extrapolations.

For example:

GLAAD explicitly says:

Gender identity is an internal sense of gender and may differ from sex assigned at birth; being transgender doesn’t require medical procedures.

That’s a straightforward representation of GLAAD.

But going from that to:

“Therefore sex is a social construct and biological sex should not determine sports, prisons, shelters, etc.”

is an additional argument. It isn’t simply the definition of transgender identity.

Likewise:

“Use the person’s stated pronouns.”

is a documented GLAAD position.

But:

“Questions about gender identity are themselves a form of harm.”

is a much stronger proposition and shouldn’t automatically be attributed to transgender people as a group.

So I’d make one major correction to the way the original list presents itself

The list repeatedly moves between three different levels without clearly distinguishing them:

1. What transgender identity means

“My gender identity differs from my sex assigned at birth.”

2. What an advocacy organization recommends society should do

“Use my gender identity and pronouns when referring to me.”

3. What public policy should consequently require

“Sex-based categories in sports, prisons, shelters, etc. should be replaced with gender identity.”

Those are not the same proposition.

Someone can accept #1 and #2 while disagreeing with some applications in #3.

And the Pew data actually support the idea that transgender people have substantial agreement on some policy questions, but they don’t establish agreement with the entire philosophical and political package in the document.

One more important point about your original question

You asked whether GLAAD represents the majority of trans people’s positions “as represented by responses online.”

I’d actually trust representative surveys of transgender adults much more than online responses for answering that question.

Online discussions disproportionately attract people who are highly engaged in the controversy. A transgender Reddit user who spends hours arguing about sex and gender is not necessarily representative of a transgender person who simply transitioned, lives as a man or woman, and rarely thinks about gender politics.

So if the person who gave you those 20 propositions is using online trans discourse + GLAAD statements to argue “this is what trans people believe,” I’d regard that as insufficient evidence.

If they’re instead arguing:

“There is a recognizable ideological framework promoted by prominent transgender advocacy organizations, and these propositions characterize that framework.”

—that is a much more defensible claim, although individual propositions still need to be checked against the cited sources.

And I think that’s the more interesting question in your case: whether those 20 propositions are a fair characterization of the ideology promoted by GLAAD and similar organizations, rather than whether they’re a survey of what ordinary transgender people believe.

Since it was looong, I asked it to summarize:

”The 20 propositions are not simply a description of what transgender people generally believe. They are an author’s synthesis of positions associated with organizations such as GLAAD, HRC, WPATH, and Stonewall.

GLAAD does represent a substantial portion of the mainstream transgender-advocacy position, particularly on self-identification, recognition of gender identity, pronouns, and opposition to restrictions on transition-related care. Surveys also show that many transgender adults hold similar views on several policy questions.

However, there is no good evidence that GLAAD’s entire ideological and political framework represents a majority of transgender people. The 20 propositions also mix explicit statements from advocacy organizations with the author’s interpretations and extrapolations.

So the most accurate description is:

The list is an author’s synthesis of the contemporary gender-identity framework promoted by major transgender advocacy organizations—not a demonstrated summary of what the majority of transgender people believe.”

Edited Saturday at 12:29 AM by Calm

[smac97]

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Have you ever heard of any of these propositions?

Are you defining such propositions as belonging to the trans community because that is how it appears to me you are.  

More or less.  There is no quantifiable "trans community."  There are advocates and NGOs and activists and such, but it's not like a political party or a church.

That said, I think most or all of the propositions are fairly clear represented in the writings of those who purport to speak on behalf of "the trans community."

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

If so, I would also disagree this is trans ideology as it only belongs to some in the community.  

Okay.  Again, trying to quantify an ideology of an amorphous sociopolitical movement can sometimes be like nailing jello to a wall.  That is why I provided quotes from various advocacy organizations.  I have heard most of these, or variations of them, lots and lots of times.

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

Perhaps you could come up with a characterization of the trans activists that hold these propositions to differentiate them from the general population.  

I'm open to that.  Some trans activists hold these propositions.  

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

One of the best known autistic foundations (Autism Speaks) is now rejected by the majority of online autistics I have come across who talk about it because they disagree with its approach in multiple ways.  Simply because an organization is well known and powerful outside the community does not always mean it speaks for the majority of those it claims to speak for.  

https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AutismSpeaksFlyer2020.pdf

A very fair point.  Amorphous social groups purport to exist (the "autistic community," the "trans community," the "LGBT community," the "black community," and so on), but there is no operative gatekeeping function, so we're often left with generalities.

That said, the propositions I have listed sure seem to be extensively utilized, which is why I am asking folks like Analytics whether he agrees or disagrees with each of them.

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

Since you are comfortable using AI for analysis, here is its analysis of your claim the propositions are “trans ideology”:

I corrected its misunderstanding it was my list and it offered this summary, which I think is useful if you don’t want to go through the whole analysis of smac’s list:

”

• GLAAD’s published positions: Many of the propositions in the list can be documented from GLAAD’s own materials, although some of the propositions are stronger interpretations of what GLAAD says rather than direct statements by GLAAD.
• GLAAD as representative of transgender people: That’s a much stronger claim and isn’t established simply because GLAAD is a prominent advocacy organization.
• Online trans commenters: They can provide evidence of what some highly engaged transgender people believe, but they aren’t a representative sample of transgender people.
• The 20-proposition list as a whole: It appears to combine documented advocacy positions with the author’s interpretations and extrapolations. So it shouldn’t automatically be treated as “what trans people believe.””

Quite so.  It is my conceptualization of what some/many "trans people believe," particularly the loud activist sort. 

I had thought it was a generally accurate recitation of basic tenets, but I am open to correction. 

Do you think there is an underlying ideology?  If there really is a "trans community," what are its parameters in your view?

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Edited Saturday at 01:06 AM by smac97

[california boy]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes. There are benefits.

For some couples: legal tools (hospital access, inheritance, tax and immigration status), public recognition of a committed bond, and the ordinary human goods of companionship and care. Those are real for the adults in the household. I am not going to pretend a same-sex spouse never visits a hospital or never keeps a promise.

That is not the same question as whether those private goods are enough to redefine the institution for everyone, or whether they cancel the costs.

What I think the costs are

1. What the civil institution is for. The state got into marriage largely because the sexual pair that can generate children is the pair that most needs a stable assignment of responsibility. After Obergefell, the public meaning of marriage is much closer to “two adults who love each other and want a license.” Companionship was always in marriage. It was not the whole of it. A 5–4 Court, using 14th Amendment unenumerated-rights analysis and a companionate definition, treated sex as idle. I think that was a weak account of both the clause and the institution. 
2. Children. Williams Institute: about 18% of married same-sex couples (about 14% of same-sex couples) are raising children. Those children do not arrive as the fruit of that pair. They arrive by prior opposite-sex relationship, adoption, foster care, or third-party gametes. In a two-man or two-woman household the child is, by design, without a mother or without a father in the home. You can say love is enough. You cannot say the child has both a mother and a father. That is a cost I will not score as a wash because the adults are happy.
3. Norms inside some of those marriages. I am not saying every same-sex marriage is open. Lesbian couples are not the same data set as gay male couples. What the research does show, repeatedly, is that consensual non-monogamy is far more common as an explicit feature of male same-sex relationships than of husband–wife marriage. Hoff’s San Francisco State work on Bay Area gay male couples found on the order of half with an open agreement. Lowen and Spears’s Couples Study is a convenience sample of long-term male couples, not a census of all same-sex marriages. A marital culture that treats sexual exclusivity as optional is a qualitatively different institution than the one that treated exclusivity as part of the vow. That difference matters if marriage is supposed to train people toward a closed sexual bond.

So the answer is not “zero benefit.”

It is: private legal and emotional goods for some adults do not tell you whether the law should treat two men as the same kind of union as a husband and a wife. Benefits to the couple can be real and still be the wrong reason to rewrite the public meaning of marriage, especially where children are placed in a household that cannot be a mother and a father.

If the only test is “does this couple feel better with a license,” almost any arrangement wins. That is not the test I have been using.

Thanks,

-Smac

Well fortunately legal definition of what a marriage is differs from your opinion.  And the world is a better place for it. Denying citizens of the right to marry is not a good decision for the country or the world.  Keeping a foundation of marriage for all is a strength both to those participating in marriage as well as society in general.  To argue agains marriage for even part of the population is to devalue marriage and its importance in our legal system and the public in general.

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

o you think there is an underlying ideology?  If there really is a "trans community," what are its parameters in your view?

I don’t think there is an ideology beyond the basic assumption that gender identity is not always the same as biological sexual identity.  There is too much variation in how they express this belief to pinpoint something underlying almost everyone’s positions.  
 

There is a saying among some autistics:  

“If you’ve seen one person with autism, you’ve seen one person with autism.”

  While there are shared characteristics, the combinations of present or lacking attributes is massive in number and then add in the variety of cultures…each expression is truly unique.   For example, besides diabetes, my daughter and I share pretty much all of our disorders.  But except for one, maybe two drugs (and the second is only because it’s subtle so I am not sure if its effect on either of us), we have never had the same reaction to drugs.  What works for me is useless to her.  And the reverse is true as well.  So even though she has had my DNA and we share the same issues, our biology is different enough we often have opposite reactions to drugs.

Once I allowed myself to go back to natural habits, we again only share a few while most are not the same.  I do a lot of repetitive talking now when excited, she does not.  We both rock, but she dislikes spinning.  I love the feel of water surrounding me and light, rough cloth, she feels suffocated by water pressing on her and prefers smooth, heavy cloth.  Our special interests are very different.  I do well with checkoff lists, she can’t stand them.  
 

I suspect it’s much the same thing with those who are transgender.   They are a group of people whose gender identity differs from their biological one with diverse beliefs, positions, and ideals.  They may need different solutions for similar concerns.  Add in the political and cultural context that is today a part of the discussion, what looks like similarities may not be when up close.  

Edited Saturday at 01:31 AM by Calm

[Calm]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

You cannot say the child has both a mother and a father. That is a cost I will not score as a wash because the adults are happy.

This seems to assume that not having a mother and father is always a negative for a child rather than something that is typically not as good as having both mother and father, but still a positive outcome for the child.   Do you actually believe it is a negative (not good) or just not the ideal setting (could be good or better, but never best in that one aspect of their upbringing)?

Edited Saturday at 01:38 AM by Calm

[Calm]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

What the civil institution is for. The state got into marriage largely because the sexual pair that can generate children is the pair that most needs a stable assignment of responsibility. After Obergefell, the public meaning of marriage is much closer to “two adults who love each other and want a license.” Companionship was always in marriage. It was not the whole of it. A 5–4 Court, using 14th Amendment unenumerated-rights analysis and a companionate definition, treated sex as idle. I think that was a weak account of both the clause and the institution. 

While the benefit to the community of children raised in stable families is obvious, do you see that benefit as the only relevant one to this discussion?  If it’s not the only relevant one, is it appropriate in your view to include these other benefits, many existing in childless marriages, as part of the rationale for supporting marriage? 

 Would you please explain why these additional benefits of marriage for the community should not be included in the discussion if you do not believe they belong.

[Analytics]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Have you ever heard of any of these propositions?

I think you've posted this list here before.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

If using correct pronouns will cause a person afflicted with a mental condition some distress, I might as well.  It would be exhausting otherwise. 

Because it isn't about being a nice person and treating others the way you'd like to be treated. It's about how being polite is less exhausting than being a jerk.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Feel free to articulate the limiting principles you have laid out.

Prompt:
Have I articulated limiting principles regarding restroom use? If so, what are they?

GPT:

Yes—explicitly, not merely by implication. On August 15, you wrote:

“The limiting principle should be this: if you need to go to the bathroom, go in to the one you think is most appropriate, take care of your business, and leave.” SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

You subsequently spelled this out in your Q&A post:

Q: “Do we need a ‘limiting principle’ governing which bathroom people may use?”
A: “Yes. The limiting principle is that people should use the restroom that will minimize discomfort to themselves and to those around them.” SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

Across those posts, you articulated four principles:

1. Use the restroom for its ordinary purpose. Your stated purpose is using the toilet and attending to ordinary sanitary needs—not treating restroom access as permission to enter for any purpose whatsoever. You described the ordinary activity as entering, using the toilet, flushing, washing your hands, and leaving. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

2. Exercise individual judgment with consideration for others. You said people should choose the restroom that minimizes discomfort both to themselves and to the people around them, with that decision belonging to the person who needs to use the restroom. That is a responsibility to exercise considerate judgment, not simply “my preferences are all that matter.” You also distinguished discomfort from harm, so your standard is not a guarantee that nobody will ever feel uncomfortable. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

3. Prohibit misconduct regardless of the person’s identity. You specifically identified harassment, loitering, intimidation, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and solicitation as conduct subject to restrictions, with the qualification “where appropriate” regarding existing criminal prohibitions. Your formulation was: “The crime isn’t using the ‘wrong’ restroom. The crime is the underlying conduct.” Elsewhere, you explicitly included assault and said misconduct should be prohibited regardless of who commits it. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

4. Require justification for government restrictions. This limits government rather than restroom users: you have required evidence of an actual problem and a reason to believe a proposed law would do more good than harm. Your opposition to restroom mandates has been framed around those requirements. SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ … SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

The important distinction

You have articulated limits on appropriate use and behavior; you have not, in those formulations, supplied a categorical eligibility rule assigning every person to a particular restroom. Indeed, you expressly said a restroom’s primary purpose is providing a place to use the bathroom—not guaranteeing that everyone present is of the same biological sex. SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

Consequently, someone could fairly argue that your principles leave difficult questions about enforcing considerate behavior or handling a person who chooses provocatively but commits no independently prohibited misconduct. That would be a criticism of their precision or enforceability.

But “you haven’t articulated any limiting principles” is not an accurate account of what you wrote. You literally identified a limiting principle and explained its content. The real disagreement is over what kinds of limits are necessary and which should be enforced by law.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Maybe we could start there.  I have laid out 20 propositions above.  Which of them you agree with, and with which do you disagree, and why?

No offense, but that feels like starting a discussion about Mormonism by having the missionaries tell me whether they agree or disagree with the 20 Propositions of Mormonism as compiled by Walter Martin.

For the list to be valid, members of this alleged group should say, "yes, that is a fair representation of what we believe." Would that be fair expectation?

I've read the analysis that @Calm's AI made on the list, and I think the following emphasizes some important insights that that analysis understated.

Prompt:
Smac and Grok laid out 20 “propositions” of “core claims” of the “trans movement”. Does this present a fair and accurate view of what advocates of transgender rights actually believe and advocate?

ChatGPT:

The list contains genuine advocacy positions, but it does not establish a common twenty-point creed. It repeatedly combines something an organization actually advocates with a stronger claim about what advocates must believe, how they reason, or how they treat disagreement. Those additional claims need evidence of their own.

I read the complete list and Smac’s follow-up compilation of supporting quotations. To represent him accurately, he does acknowledge that not every transgender person holds these views and focuses particularly on institutional advocacy. The problem is therefore not simply that he forgot to say “not everyone.” It is whether his sources support the propositions as formulated. In several important cases, they support something narrower. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Identity and self-identification: propositions 1–4

There is substantial documentary support for organizations treating gender identity as real, personally authoritative, and independent of medical treatment. Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE, describes gender identity as an internal understanding of oneself and says that a person’s dignity and recognition do not depend on legal or medical transition. HRC’s coming-out guide likewise says that hormones, surgery, and a dysphoria diagnosis are not prerequisites for a transgender identity. These are actual positions—not inventions and not merely requests for politeness. A4TE

There is also support for the assertion that institutional advocates mean their recognition of transgender women as women literally. In his 2021 Senate responses, then-HRC president Alphonso David expressly affirmed that classification and defined womanhood by an adult’s understanding of herself as female. Senate Judiciary Committee

But three different questions are being bundled together:

• What makes someone’s gender identity valid?
• What biological characteristics does that person have?
• What criteria should govern a particular medical, legal, or institutional decision?

An answer to the first does not automatically settle the other two. A4TE’s own FAQ distinguishes identity from reproductive anatomy and genes, explaining that transgender people commonly have bodies with typical male or female characteristics while identifying differently. A4TE

Likewise, saying that denying someone recognition is harmful does not, by itself, establish the stronger proposition that advocates regard every conceptual disagreement as denying that person’s existence. That requires a separate argument.

Sex and language: propositions 5–8

Here, the sources show both genuine disagreements about terminology and important qualifications.

On biology, Smac has evidence that some institutional advocates reject reproductive anatomy as the sole determinant of the categories man and woman. David’s Senate responses do that explicitly. But those same responses tell healthcare providers to consider the patient’s actual medical condition, including hormone levels. That is an argument about how to classify people and which biological information is relevant—not an instruction to ignore biology. Senate Judiciary Committee

On sex assignment, A4TE explains that the classification made at birth ordinarily reflects a doctor’s observation of genital anatomy. Its use of assigned therefore does not establish that it considers the classification arbitrary or unrelated to an observed body. The additional interpretation attached to that terminology in proposition 6 is not inherent in the term. A4TE

On names and pronouns, organizations do explicitly advocate using the person’s stated name and pronouns. But A4TE also tells people who accidentally use the wrong pronoun to apologize and move on. That qualification matters when describing whether every error is treated like an intentional insult. A4TE

On discussing sex differences, A4TE’s FAQ openly discusses chromosomes, reproductive anatomy, and typically male or female bodies. Its language preferences plainly do not prohibit every respectful description of those differences. Objections to particular labels or comparisons cannot establish that no acceptable description is possible. A4TE

Healthcare and young people: propositions 9–12

The advocacy for access to transition-related healthcare is real. A4TE describes such care as medically necessary for many people and potentially lifesaving, while also saying that not every transgender person needs medical intervention. A4TE

However, advocating access to treatment is not the same as advocating treatment without assessment or treating all caution as abuse.

WPATH’s 2022 Standards of Care, version 8, provides a particularly useful comparison because Smac includes WPATH among the institutions supporting his description. Its adolescent recommendations call for open exploration without favoring a particular identity, comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment, sustained gender incongruence, sufficient maturity, and attention to mental-health concerns that interfere with diagnosis or treatment. Parental involvement is recommended unless harmful or infeasible. See statements 6.2, 6.3, 6.11, and 6.12. PubMed Central (PMC)

Those recommendations do not establish that every clinician follows them, that they are sufficient, or that every treatment recommendation rests on strong evidence. But they do establish that clinical exploration and eligibility requirements are part of the published framework. Describing that framework as opposed to exploration or caution omits material qualifications.

On detransition, WPATH describes it as uncommon but also acknowledges regret, research limitations, and the need to support people who detransition. It discusses autism and other co-occurring concerns rather than excluding them from assessment. PubMed Central (PMC)

There can be a substantive dispute about whether advocacy communications adequately represent uncertainty or treatment risks. That dispute should examine particular statements and evidence. It is different from demonstrating that disregarding those issues is a required belief.

Restrooms, sports, and other institutions: propositions 13–14

The identity-based restroom position is genuinely documented. A4TE explicitly advocates access according to gender identity rather than the marker on someone’s identification, alongside access to private or gender-neutral facilities. Its stated criterion does not require a year of hormones or surgery. A proposal imposing those prerequisites would therefore differ from its published position. Smac has a basis for identifying that disagreement. A4TE

Similarly, Stonewall’s May 2025 response opposed sporting bodies’ decisions to exclude transgender women. It would misrepresent institutional advocacy to reduce it all to “be courteous and let everyone decide everything individually.” These organizations advocate substantive policies. Stonewall UK

But bathrooms, competitive sports, shelters, and prisons are not interchangeable policy settings. For institutional housing, WPATH recommends considering identity, personal preference, and safety, with placement decisions made individually. That is not an identity-only rule. PubMed Central (PMC)

Proposition 14 also makes a logical leap: equal recognition does not entail identical eligibility for every purpose. Saying that medical treatment is unnecessary to be recognized as transgender does not establish that every distinction involving treatment status, anatomy, or other characteristics is forbidden.

An organization may oppose a particular distinction. To show that it opposes all distinctions, one needs more than its statement that identity does not depend on surgery.

Evidence, questions, opponents, and allies: propositions 15–18

These propositions require a different kind of evidence because they concern how advocates supposedly reason and police disagreement.

For proposition 15, an instruction to report accurately—or a criticism of particular research—does not establish a general principle that personal experience overrides contrary data. A4TE’s bathroom argument expressly appeals to research about safety and assault. Whether that research supports every conclusion it draws is open to examination, but appealing to empirical findings is not the same as declaring them irrelevant. A4TE

For proposition 16, HRC’s coming-out guide explicitly discusses answering questions asked in good faith and helping people who lack information or hold misconceptions. It also says that individuals are not obligated to educate everyone they meet. Those positions distinguish between legitimate inquiry and demands placed on a particular person; they do not amount to a blanket prohibition on questions. HRC Reports

For proposition 17, strong accusations against opponents are certainly present. A4TE’s restroom page describes some opposition in terms of extremism, misinformation, and cruelty. That language can be examined and criticized on its merits. But an organization’s characterization of particular campaigns does not establish that it regards every person with a safety concern, every proposed restriction, or every disagreement as motivated by hatred. A4TE

For proposition 18, the expectation of active allyship is real. A4TE encourages outspoken support and going beyond passive tolerance. Yet the same guide emphasizes differing needs and priorities, says there is no single perfect way to be an ally, and allows room for misunderstanding and mistakes. A description of its expectations should include both parts. A4TE

The distinction throughout is between documenting particular examples of rhetoric and demonstrating a generally binding rule. The first does not automatically establish the second.

Women’s rights, sexual orientation, and additional identities: propositions 19–20

Proposition 19 bundles together several separate controversies. Whether a particular policy creates a conflict between competing interests must be assessed policy by policy. An organization’s assertion that its proposal advances equality does not, by itself, establish that it has resolved every competing concern.

The sexual-attraction component requires especially direct evidence. The quotations Smac supplies under proposition 19 do not instruct gay people or lesbians to change their attractions or accept unwanted partners. They concern women’s inclusion, sports, and opposition to conversion practices. Those are not sufficient evidence for the additional claim about pressure on sexual attraction. This does not establish that no individual has ever applied such pressure; it establishes that the cited material does not demonstrate it as a core organizational principle. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

On proposition 20, inclusion of nonbinary and genderfluid people is clearly documented. Stonewall discusses those identities explicitly, and HRC’s guide includes people whose identities do not fit a fixed set of labels. But recognizing those groups is not evidence of a mandatory rule that the category must expand indefinitely or that every proposed boundary constitutes betrayal. Stonewall UK

The central problem with the list

The recurring pattern is:

A documented position is followed by an additional inference about what accepting that position must entail.

For example, respect without surgery does not logically entail opposition to every eligibility criterion. Supporting healthcare access does not entail rejecting clinical assessment. Calling a particular argument misleading does not entail rejecting evidence. Encouraging public support does not entail requiring agreement with every organizational position.

Those implications have to be established—not supplied by the wording of the proposition.

The sources document an advocacy program involving identity recognition, nondiscrimination, healthcare access, inclusive facilities, and respectful treatment. They do not establish the entire package of claims about rejecting biology, caution, questions, evidence, and all limiting distinctions. Nor does someone’s support for one of those policies establish agreement with the other nineteen propositions.

The appropriate unit of analysis is the specific advocate or organization, its actual statement, and the policy context—not a twenty-point set of beliefs attributed to someone because they support transgender rights.

 

[Analytics]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

We can embrace the healing power of "and." 

Off topic, but I found the following 43-second video the best political short video I've seen in years:

 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Science and human knowledge answer some things.  Revelation answers some things.

There are two problems with this. 

First, everything that interacts with observable reality in any way is within the purview of science. Second, "the rules of physics really do rule out [revelation]."

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

There are all sorts of Latter-day Saints in the hard sciences.  They don't have to abandon their faith or check it at the lab door.  

They can do whatever they want. Compartamentalization is a real thing. Putting things on the shelf is the real thing. Being unaware of some of the extremely strong yet esoteric implications of quantum field theory is a real thing. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing. Not worrying about it is a real thing. Thinking your religion is great culturally but false on a literal level is a real thing.

The fact that there are Latter-day Saints in the hard sciences doesn't change what the laws of physics are and what those laws imply.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Scientific inquiry and religious inquiry are in tension if and only if you have already decided that the only respectable way to know anything is Sagan-plus-Carroll naturalism.

No. Science and religion are in tension when religion makes truth-claims about observable reality that contradict science. 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

The testimony list is not a protocol for discovering whether God exists from a standing start, with every hypothesis weighted the same. It is counsel to people who already take God, Christ, and revelation as live options, and who want those convictions to survive contact with ordinary life.

That's precisely my point. The Baloney Detection Kit is about subjecting your beliefs to the crucible of scientific thinking so that you stop believing false things. If you want your religious convictions to "survive contact with ordinary life", you should do the opposite of what the Baloney Detection Kit prescribes.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Sagan’s kit is good at what it is for: advertising, ESP papers, medical miracles, authority-by-letterhead. Independent checks, rival hypotheses, quantification, testability — we can use those on sloppy history and on fraud....

It isn't just for things that are fraud. It's for any new idea that could be fraud; for all "new ideas that are offered for consideration." In the words of Sagan:

In the course of their training, scientists are equipped with a baloney detection kit. The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

What’s in the kit? Tools for skeptical thinking. 

Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (pp. 209-210). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

“Infinitesimal prior probability” is not a measurement. Nobody ran a meter on revelation and got 10−3010^{-30}10−30.

Tell me you haven't read The Big Picture without telling me you haven't read The Big Picture. 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

A prior that small is assigned by people who have already decided that current physics, read as a complete inventory of what there is, is the whole story. Carroll is explicit that a soul is incompatible with that reading of the laws. Fine. That is physicalism.

No. It isn't a philosophical position about physicalism. It's the laws of physics that have resulted from incredibly detailed and expensive studies that were conducted over the course of decades.

The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find. Crossing symmetry assures us that, if there were any particles lurking around us that interact with ordinary matter strongly enough to make a difference to the behavior of everyday stuff, those particles should have easily been produced in experiments. But there’s nothing there.

There are probably more particles yet to be found. They just won’t be relevant to our everyday world.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 182-183). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

I understand how you think he is merely saying that science hasn't detected how our spirits interface with our bodies, but if they looked more closley in the right place, they'd figure it out. In theory that could be true, but what you are claiming is 

"that modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed."

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 212). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Of course you are free to believe that God is so powerful that he can make modern physics profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed. Philisophically, anything is possible.

But if you are going to claim that Carroll is wrong about physics, at least have the common courtesy to read his book and not merely declare that he is wrong because the results aren't intuitive to you and contradict your religious beliefs. 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

The Bem studies are a poor analogy for the same reason. A social psychologist failing to show that undergraduates can see tomorrow’s curtain is evidence against that experimental claim. It is not a demonstration that a Creator cannot disclose something to a mind. Precognition-as-lab-trick and “God speaks” are not the same hypothesis with different branding. Collapsing them is equivocation.

You completely miss the point. Before the experiment was done, "it was a foregone conclusion" that psychic powers don't exist because that would break rock-solid laws of physics. Likewise, it is a foregone conclusion that spirits and revelation don't exist, because such things also break the same rock-solid laws of physics. The only reason I brought this Pinker quote up is to quote how National Academy of Science scientists such as Pinker interpret Carroll and the language they use when describing how much confidence science has in their scientific conclusions and what those conclusions imply. They use words like "foregone conclusion," "infinitesimal prior probability," "disproven the laws of physics", and "the laws of physics rule out precognition and [spirits and revelation]."

I understand that you think claiming "God can do anything!" outweighs all this. But God could have an elaborate scheme going on to make it appear that the earth is round when it's really flat, couldn't He? How could scientists possibly know God isn't pulling that trick on us? 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

You can say: "I will only count third-person, repeatable, physical tests, so revelation is out from the first move." That is a rule of method. So please say that. Do not say the method discovered that revelation has an infinitesimal prior. The prior was loaded.

Tell me you haven't read The Big Picture without telling me you haven't read The Big Picture.

 

Edited Saturday at 04:24 AM by Analytics

[Calm]

 Not having a copy of the book and not being able to process it even if I did and not wanting to put myself through the humiliation of trying again (there is something almost traumatic for me to not be able to play in the same sandbox that I used to spend so much time in and anticipated for awhile living my life in), I asked Chat to summarize the book for me.  It is embarrassing just saying this to be honest.

So is this a sufficient very brief analysis of the premise of the book?

Quote

I think the most useful way to understand Carroll is that he is making two different arguments, and they shouldn’t be conflated.

Scientific argument

The physics of ordinary matter is sufficiently well understood that an additional force capable of substantially affecting ordinary physical systems would have left detectable evidence.

That’s a serious scientific argument.

Philosophical argument

Therefore there is no supernatural realm, no soul, no divine intervention, etc.

That’s naturalism.

The second doesn’t follow from the first without additional philosophical premises.

Carroll is quite open about this: naturalism is the worldview he thinks is best supported by the totality of our scientific knowledge, rather than something that was itself experimentally measured in a laboratory. The book is explicitly a defense of naturalism.

One of his additional premises seems to be that every cause of a physical event must be a physical entity participating in the physical laws described by theory.  Is this correct in your view and if so, how does he claim to prove this?  Seems like it can only be assumed.  I believe we have talked about this before and I may have asked a similar question because this feels very familiar.

These are the two other threads where you mentioned him before in the last year.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/113267-lds-church-files-brief-in-trans-supreme-court-case/page/8/#comment-1210267024

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/113267-lds-church-files-brief-in-trans-supreme-court-case/page/8/#comment-1210266543

Found the thread…really don’t like the year limit to this board’s search function.  I will be reviewing the thread and seeing if my brain can come up with anything profound.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75889-we-actually-do-know-that-literal-“spirits”-aren’t-real/

 

Edited Saturday at 07:48 AM by Calm

[Calm]

I found some reviews of the book using the Consensus app.

https://physicstoday.aip.org/reviews/the-big-picture-on-the-origins-of-life-meaning-and-the-universe-itself  makes it sound delightful, if my brain ever shows up again, this is on my reading list

https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/id/14385/.  (Saving here to look at tomorrow)

Sean Carroll's account provides a clear expression of a very influential reductionist tendency in modern thought but also the tools for a way out of this tendency. Physics remains the paradigm example of precisely verified empirical knowledge, and as such it is difficult not to judge such messy fields as moral philosophy negatively by comparison. However, Carroll rightly resists the extreme reductionist temptation, one in which the onlytrue reality is that discovered by physics. It is disappointing then that he does not extend this liberality to moral philosophy, since the only argument for excluding moral philosophy as a form of genuine knowledge is the extreme reductionist view that any property that does not appear at the level of physics cannot be real. But as we have seen, this argument is unsound, for virtually none of the properties of higher level entities appear at the level of physics. Carroll's pragmatic principle—what is real comes down to what is useful in negotiating reality—leads rather to the conclusion that morality should be taken as objectively real. Nor can it be said that any properties posited by moral philosophy explicitly contradict any principles of physics—no one claims that morality requires violation of any laws of physics. In short, Carroll seems to have been unable to fully extricate himself from the reductionist and scientist tendencies that are so prevalent. What we end up with, as so often in naturalistic philosophies, is a form of mind‐body dualism: there is the physical world, and then there is the product of human minds (values, ideas, logic) which exists on a different level of reality. In contrast, a true pluralistic naturalism provides us with a single, coherent unified theory of rational behavior: all rational processes (science included) presuppose norms; the normative is just as real and fundamental as the descriptive. If so, pluralistic naturalism, rather than undermining moral objectivity, provides strong support for it.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaf6858
 

 

 

[smac97]

14 hours ago, california boy said:

Well fortunately legal definition of what a marriage is differs from your opinion.  And the world is a better place for it. Denying citizens of the right to marry is not a good decision for the country or the world.  Keeping a foundation of marriage for all is a strength both to those participating in marriage as well as society in general.  To argue agains marriage for even part of the population is to devalue marriage and its importance in our legal system and the public in general.

Thank you for your comments.

The legal definition is not, I think, an argument. It is the thing we are arguing about.  

“Fortunately the law differs from your opinion” means: five Justices in 2015 wrote a companionate definition into the Fourteenth Amendment, so the discussion is over. Though that is what happened (and I acknowledge that it is the law of the land), that is not a reply to what marriage is for. It is an appeal to a recent judgment. Loving struck a racial bar on men and women marrying. Obergefell held that sex is idle in the definition. Those are not the same holding. Citing the second as if it were accumulated social consensus, or a vote, skips the work.

“Denying citizens the right to marry is not a good decision for the country or the world” is a slogan that does not contain a limit. Incestuous pairs, group marriages, and polygamous households can say the same sentence: we are citizens, we want the license, we would benefit. If the only test is “someone is left out of the current definition,” every restriction fails. The live question is what the institution is, not whether some adults would like a marriage certificate.

“Keeping a foundation of marriage for all is a strength” is asserted, not shown. I already granted private goods for some couples — hospital access, inheritance, companionship. You treated that grant as if I had said “zero benefit,” then ignored the costs I listed: the public meaning of the institution, children placed by design in a home with no mother or no father, and a documented pattern of explicit non-monogamy in a large share of male same-sex relationships. “The world is a better place for it” does not engage those points. It scores only the column you like.

A small share of gay and lesbian adults are in a same-sex marriage. That is not a reason to deny anyone a license. It is a reason to stop talking as if the license were a universal foundation “for all” that the holdouts are tearing down.

“To argue against marriage for even part of the population is to devalue marriage” assumes the conclusion. It assumes marriage is a flexible status whose purpose is adult recognition, so that drawing a line at husband-and-wife is an insult to the institution. On the account I have been using, the line is the institution: the sexual pair that can generate children, and the household that can be a mother and a father. Two men can have a real, loyal, legally useful bond. That does not make the bond the same kind of union. Refusing to collapse the kinds is not “devaluing marriage.” It is refusing to make companionship the whole of it.

If you want to say the costs I listed are overstated, say that and point to the data. “The law already says otherwise” and “denying anyone a license devalues marriage” do not do much to advance the discussion.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

I think you've posted this list here before.

I have.  I don't think you have addressed it.

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

Because it isn't about being a nice person and treating others the way you'd like to be treated. It's about how being polite is less exhausting than being a jerk.

I think it's about addressing or not addressing a falsehood.  A lie.  

If a 90-pound girl asked her friends and neighbors to acknowledge that she's a big ol' fatty, should they go along with it?  Is not going along with "being a jerk?"  Or is it me not wanting to perpetuate a falsehood and delusion?

If I had Rachel Dolezal as a neighbor, and if she were to ask me to voice my support for her as a "woman of color" running for public office, should I go along with it?  If I say no, is that "being a jerk?"  Or is it me not wanting to perpetuate a falsehood and delusion?

If I had a "trans" co-worker, someone I had to interact with every day, I would probably concede the fight and go along with the falsehood.  Both because it would be exhausting to have the co-worker complaint every time someone uses a grammatically correct pronoun and because HR might get involved.  Gotta love compelled speech.

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

Prompt:
Have I articulated limiting principles regarding restroom use? If so, what are they?

GPT:

Yes—explicitly, not merely by implication. On August 15, you wrote:

“The limiting principle should be this: if you need to go to the bathroom, go in to the one you think is most appropriate, take care of your business, and leave.” SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

You subsequently spelled this out in your Q&A post:

Q: “Do we need a ‘limiting principle’ governing which bathroom people may use?”
A: “Yes. The limiting principle is that people should use the restroom that will minimize discomfort to themselves and to those around them.” SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

Across those posts, you articulated four principles:

1. Use the restroom for its ordinary purpose. Your stated purpose is using the toilet and attending to ordinary sanitary needs—not treating restroom access as permission to enter for any purpose whatsoever. You described the ordinary activity as entering, using the toilet, flushing, washing your hands, and leaving. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

2. Exercise individual judgment with consideration for others. You said people should choose the restroom that minimizes discomfort both to themselves and to the people around them, with that decision belonging to the person who needs to use the restroom. That is a responsibility to exercise considerate judgment, not simply “my preferences are all that matter.” You also distinguished discomfort from harm, so your standard is not a guarantee that nobody will ever feel uncomfortable. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

3. Prohibit misconduct regardless of the person’s identity. You specifically identified harassment, loitering, intimidation, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and solicitation as conduct subject to restrictions, with the qualification “where appropriate” regarding existing criminal prohibitions. Your formulation was: “The crime isn’t using the ‘wrong’ restroom. The crime is the underlying conduct.” Elsewhere, you explicitly included assault and said misconduct should be prohibited regardless of who commits it. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

4. Require justification for government restrictions. This limits government rather than restroom users: you have required evidence of an actual problem and a reason to believe a proposed law would do more good than harm. Your opposition to restroom mandates has been framed around those requirements. SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ … SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

Your AI platform is doing well at telling you what you want to hear, but not at identifying limiting principles.

"Use the restroom for its ordinary purpose" is not a limiting principle as to who can enter.  It is a red herring.  Nobody has suggested that restrooms should not be used for their ordinary purpose.

"Exercise individual judgment with consideration for others" is not a limiting principle as to who can enter.  It's "anyone who wants to can go in."

"Prohibit misconduct regardless of the person’s identity" is not a limiting principle as to who can enter.  Misconduct (physical/sexual assault, voyeurism, etc.) is already prohibited, and it happens after the person has already entered the bathroom.

"Require justification for government restrictions" is not a limiting principle as to who can enter.  It's not even trying to be.  It's an argument against limiting principles.

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

The important distinction

You have articulated limits on appropriate use and behavior;

Not really.  And in any event, I was not asking about limiting principles for "appropriate use and behavior."  I have been asking about limiting principles as to who can enter into sex-segregated spaces.  The closest you have come to that is the "Each person uses the bathroom they are comfortable with" (not the exact wording, but you've said this multiple times).  That is not a limiting principle because nobody is limited.  Sex-segregated spaces will no longer be segregated by sex, and will be eradicated de jure and/or de facto.  You have acknowledged this previously.

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

you have not, in those formulations, supplied a categorical eligibility rule assigning every person to a particular restroom.

That's right.  You have not.  You have not articulate any mechanism to differentiate who may and who may not go into sex-segregated bathrooms.

12 hours ago, Analytics said:

Indeed, you expressly said a restroom’s primary purpose is providing a place to use the bathroom—not guaranteeing that everyone present is of the same biological sex. SCOTUS Decision_ Ban on _Talk_ …

Consequently, someone could fairly argue that your principles leave difficult questions about enforcing considerate behavior or handling a person who chooses provocatively but commits no independently prohibited misconduct. That would be a criticism of their precision or enforceability.

But “you haven’t articulated any limiting principles” is not an accurate account of what you wrote. You literally identified a limiting principle and explained its content. The real disagreement is over what kinds of limits are necessary and which should be enforced by law.

No offense, but that feels like starting a discussion about Mormonism by having the missionaries tell me whether they agree or disagree with the 20 Propositions of Mormonism as compiled by Walter Martin.

For the list to be valid, members of this alleged group should say, "yes, that is a fair representation of what we believe." Would that be fair expectation?

I've read the analysis that @Calm's AI made on the list, and I think the following emphasizes some important insights that that analysis understated.

Prompt:
Smac and Grok laid out 20 “propositions” of “core claims” of the “trans movement”. Does this present a fair and accurate view of what advocates of transgender rights actually believe and advocate?

ChatGPT:

The list contains genuine advocacy positions, but it does not establish a common twenty-point creed. It repeatedly combines something an organization actually advocates with a stronger claim about what advocates must believe, how they reason, or how they treat disagreement. Those additional claims need evidence of their own.

I read the complete list and Smac’s follow-up compilation of supporting quotations. To represent him accurately, he does acknowledge that not every transgender person holds these views and focuses particularly on institutional advocacy. The problem is therefore not simply that he forgot to say “not everyone.” It is whether his sources support the propositions as formulated. In several important cases, they support something narrower. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Identity and self-identification: propositions 1–4

There is substantial documentary support for organizations treating gender identity as real, personally authoritative, and independent of medical treatment. Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE, describes gender identity as an internal understanding of oneself and says that a person’s dignity and recognition do not depend on legal or medical transition. HRC’s coming-out guide likewise says that hormones, surgery, and a dysphoria diagnosis are not prerequisites for a transgender identity. These are actual positions—not inventions and not merely requests for politeness. A4TE

There is also support for the assertion that institutional advocates mean their recognition of transgender women as women literally. In his 2021 Senate responses, then-HRC president Alphonso David expressly affirmed that classification and defined womanhood by an adult’s understanding of herself as female. Senate Judiciary Committee

But three different questions are being bundled together:

• What makes someone’s gender identity valid?
• What biological characteristics does that person have?
• What criteria should govern a particular medical, legal, or institutional decision?

An answer to the first does not automatically settle the other two. A4TE’s own FAQ distinguishes identity from reproductive anatomy and genes, explaining that transgender people commonly have bodies with typical male or female characteristics while identifying differently. A4TE

Likewise, saying that denying someone recognition is harmful does not, by itself, establish the stronger proposition that advocates regard every conceptual disagreement as denying that person’s existence. That requires a separate argument.

Sex and language: propositions 5–8

Here, the sources show both genuine disagreements about terminology and important qualifications.

On biology, Smac has evidence that some institutional advocates reject reproductive anatomy as the sole determinant of the categories man and woman. David’s Senate responses do that explicitly. But those same responses tell healthcare providers to consider the patient’s actual medical condition, including hormone levels. That is an argument about how to classify people and which biological information is relevant—not an instruction to ignore biology. Senate Judiciary Committee

On sex assignment, A4TE explains that the classification made at birth ordinarily reflects a doctor’s observation of genital anatomy. Its use of assigned therefore does not establish that it considers the classification arbitrary or unrelated to an observed body. The additional interpretation attached to that terminology in proposition 6 is not inherent in the term. A4TE

On names and pronouns, organizations do explicitly advocate using the person’s stated name and pronouns. But A4TE also tells people who accidentally use the wrong pronoun to apologize and move on. That qualification matters when describing whether every error is treated like an intentional insult. A4TE

On discussing sex differences, A4TE’s FAQ openly discusses chromosomes, reproductive anatomy, and typically male or female bodies. Its language preferences plainly do not prohibit every respectful description of those differences. Objections to particular labels or comparisons cannot establish that no acceptable description is possible. A4TE

Healthcare and young people: propositions 9–12

The advocacy for access to transition-related healthcare is real. A4TE describes such care as medically necessary for many people and potentially lifesaving, while also saying that not every transgender person needs medical intervention. A4TE

However, advocating access to treatment is not the same as advocating treatment without assessment or treating all caution as abuse.

WPATH’s 2022 Standards of Care, version 8, provides a particularly useful comparison because Smac includes WPATH among the institutions supporting his description. Its adolescent recommendations call for open exploration without favoring a particular identity, comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment, sustained gender incongruence, sufficient maturity, and attention to mental-health concerns that interfere with diagnosis or treatment. Parental involvement is recommended unless harmful or infeasible. See statements 6.2, 6.3, 6.11, and 6.12. PubMed Central (PMC)

Those recommendations do not establish that every clinician follows them, that they are sufficient, or that every treatment recommendation rests on strong evidence. But they do establish that clinical exploration and eligibility requirements are part of the published framework. Describing that framework as opposed to exploration or caution omits material qualifications.

On detransition, WPATH describes it as uncommon but also acknowledges regret, research limitations, and the need to support people who detransition. It discusses autism and other co-occurring concerns rather than excluding them from assessment. PubMed Central (PMC)

There can be a substantive dispute about whether advocacy communications adequately represent uncertainty or treatment risks. That dispute should examine particular statements and evidence. It is different from demonstrating that disregarding those issues is a required belief.

Restrooms, sports, and other institutions: propositions 13–14

The identity-based restroom position is genuinely documented. A4TE explicitly advocates access according to gender identity rather than the marker on someone’s identification, alongside access to private or gender-neutral facilities. Its stated criterion does not require a year of hormones or surgery. A proposal imposing those prerequisites would therefore differ from its published position. Smac has a basis for identifying that disagreement. A4TE

Similarly, Stonewall’s May 2025 response opposed sporting bodies’ decisions to exclude transgender women. It would misrepresent institutional advocacy to reduce it all to “be courteous and let everyone decide everything individually.” These organizations advocate substantive policies. Stonewall UK

But bathrooms, competitive sports, shelters, and prisons are not interchangeable policy settings. For institutional housing, WPATH recommends considering identity, personal preference, and safety, with placement decisions made individually. That is not an identity-only rule. PubMed Central (PMC)

Proposition 14 also makes a logical leap: equal recognition does not entail identical eligibility for every purpose. Saying that medical treatment is unnecessary to be recognized as transgender does not establish that every distinction involving treatment status, anatomy, or other characteristics is forbidden.

An organization may oppose a particular distinction. To show that it opposes all distinctions, one needs more than its statement that identity does not depend on surgery.

Evidence, questions, opponents, and allies: propositions 15–18

These propositions require a different kind of evidence because they concern how advocates supposedly reason and police disagreement.

For proposition 15, an instruction to report accurately—or a criticism of particular research—does not establish a general principle that personal experience overrides contrary data. A4TE’s bathroom argument expressly appeals to research about safety and assault. Whether that research supports every conclusion it draws is open to examination, but appealing to empirical findings is not the same as declaring them irrelevant. A4TE

For proposition 16, HRC’s coming-out guide explicitly discusses answering questions asked in good faith and helping people who lack information or hold misconceptions. It also says that individuals are not obligated to educate everyone they meet. Those positions distinguish between legitimate inquiry and demands placed on a particular person; they do not amount to a blanket prohibition on questions. HRC Reports

For proposition 17, strong accusations against opponents are certainly present. A4TE’s restroom page describes some opposition in terms of extremism, misinformation, and cruelty. That language can be examined and criticized on its merits. But an organization’s characterization of particular campaigns does not establish that it regards every person with a safety concern, every proposed restriction, or every disagreement as motivated by hatred. A4TE

For proposition 18, the expectation of active allyship is real. A4TE encourages outspoken support and going beyond passive tolerance. Yet the same guide emphasizes differing needs and priorities, says there is no single perfect way to be an ally, and allows room for misunderstanding and mistakes. A description of its expectations should include both parts. A4TE

The distinction throughout is between documenting particular examples of rhetoric and demonstrating a generally binding rule. The first does not automatically establish the second.

Women’s rights, sexual orientation, and additional identities: propositions 19–20

Proposition 19 bundles together several separate controversies. Whether a particular policy creates a conflict between competing interests must be assessed policy by policy. An organization’s assertion that its proposal advances equality does not, by itself, establish that it has resolved every competing concern.

The sexual-attraction component requires especially direct evidence. The quotations Smac supplies under proposition 19 do not instruct gay people or lesbians to change their attractions or accept unwanted partners. They concern women’s inclusion, sports, and opposition to conversion practices. Those are not sufficient evidence for the additional claim about pressure on sexual attraction. This does not establish that no individual has ever applied such pressure; it establishes that the cited material does not demonstrate it as a core organizational principle. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

On proposition 20, inclusion of nonbinary and genderfluid people is clearly documented. Stonewall discusses those identities explicitly, and HRC’s guide includes people whose identities do not fit a fixed set of labels. But recognizing those groups is not evidence of a mandatory rule that the category must expand indefinitely or that every proposed boundary constitutes betrayal. Stonewall UK

The central problem with the list

The recurring pattern is:

A documented position is followed by an additional inference about what accepting that position must entail.

For example, respect without surgery does not logically entail opposition to every eligibility criterion. Supporting healthcare access does not entail rejecting clinical assessment. Calling a particular argument misleading does not entail rejecting evidence. Encouraging public support does not entail requiring agreement with every organizational position.

Those implications have to be established—not supplied by the wording of the proposition.

The sources document an advocacy program involving identity recognition, nondiscrimination, healthcare access, inclusive facilities, and respectful treatment. They do not establish the entire package of claims about rejecting biology, caution, questions, evidence, and all limiting distinctions. Nor does someone’s support for one of those policies establish agreement with the other nineteen propositions.

The appropriate unit of analysis is the specific advocate or organization, its actual statement, and the policy context—not a twenty-point set of beliefs attributed to someone because they support transgender rights.

The Walter Martin analogy is backwards.

Martin compiled a hostile creed and asked members to sign it. I am asking you claims you accept, or reject, as being generally present in and endorsed by the trans movement.  That is the opposite procedure. If the list overreaches or is inaccurate, name the overreach or inaccuracy. “Members of this alleged group should first bless the list” is a way not to answer.

I have already said, more than once, that not every transgender person holds every point. The unit I have been talking about is institutional advocacy: HRC, A4TE, Stonewall, WPATH-as-cited-in-advocacy, school and sports policies. ChatGPT is right that a documented policy plus an inference is not the same thing as a twenty-point catechism. Fine. Then we drop the package and do it the way the analysis itself recommends: one advocate, one statement, one policy setting.

On the twenty points, I will meet the critique halfway.

I will not ask you to ratify a creed. I will ask you to mark five institutional claims that the sources actually support, because ChatGPT already granted them:

1. Gender identity is treated as real and sufficient for recognition without surgery, hormones, or a diagnosis (A4TE, HRC).
2. Institutional advocates mean “trans women are women” as a classification rule, not as a metaphor (David / HRC Senate answers).
3. Restroom and facility access is to follow identity, not the sex marker or surgical status (A4TE).
4. Some major advocacy groups oppose excluding males from women’s sport (Stonewall 2025).
5. Allyship is expected to be active, not merely non-hostile (A4TE).

If you agree those five are fair descriptions of those organizations, we can argue the merits. If you think even those five are caricatures, quote the document that retracts or rejects them. 

You can decline the twenty-point format.  I was not presenting it as a "creed," but as a list of commonly-stated declarations/tenets coming from advocates for the "trans community."  If they are misrepresentative or inaccurate, please identify which ones and why.  I am willing to listen to what you have to say.

If you want a different starting list, feel free to formulate what you see as reflecting the basic tenets of trans ideology and advocacy.  I'm all ears.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Off topic, but I found the following 43-second video the best political short video I've seen in years:

I like it a lot as well. 

John Derbyshire, paraphrasing what Robert Conquest famously observed, said that "Everyone is conservative about what he knows best."  Dern tootin'.  @california boy is, I think, demonstrative of this.  He now wants to "conserve" same-sex marriage.  He wanted the definition of marriage "progress" and be re-defined as to gender, but I think he does  not want it to thereafter "progress" to a re-definition as to number.

Perhaps we could also say: "Everyone is liberal about a good he has seen withheld."

For me, I tend to balance the two by looking at Chesterton's Fence, the rule that you do not pull down a barrier until you know why it was put up.

The original image is a road with a fence across it. The reformer says it is pointless and should go. Chesterton’s reply is that you are not entitled to remove it until you can say what it was for. If you do not know, you do not yet know whether you are clearing an obstruction or opening a ditch. Once you do know — cattle, a boundary, a flood channel — you may still take it down. The point is not “never change.” It is “do not change in ignorance.”

The fence therefore forbids two cheap moves.

• The "progressive" cheap move: “I do not see the use of this, therefore it is oppression.” Not seeing the use is your ignorance, not the fence’s verdict.
• The "conservative" cheap move: “It is old, therefore it must stay.” Age is a clue that someone had a reason. It is not a proof that the reason still holds.

Used honestly, the test is sequential. First state the purpose of the existing rule (conservative work). Then ask whether that purpose is still real, whether the rule still serves it, and whether a different rule would serve the same purpose with less exclusion (liberal work). If you skip the first step, you get vandalism dressed as compassion. If you refuse the second, you get ancestor-worship dressed as wisdom.

Everyone is conservative about what he knows best — he can explain the fence. Everyone is liberal about a good he has seen withheld — he can say who is standing on the other side of it. Chesterton’s rule is the requirement that both speeches happen before anyone brings a saw.

I do find the sentiment in the video you like difficult to reconcile with the well that folks like you and SU so frequently go to, namely, "The only plausible explanation for you disagreeing with me is that you are a bigot."  You seem to genuinely lack the capacity to allow reasonable minds to reach conclusions which diverge from your conclusions.  

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

There are two problems with this. 

First, everything that interacts with observable reality in any way is within the purview of science.

Second, "the rules of physics really do rule out [revelation]."

Two problems with that.

First. “Everything that interacts with observable reality is within the purview of science” is true only if you mean: if it leaves a trace in the world, that trace can be looked at. It is false if you mean: the only legitimate explanation of a trace is a current physical law, applied as if the universe were a closed box with no author.

A signed document interacts with reality. So does a marriage, a crime, a resurrection claim, a translation of a text. History, law, and testimony are how we handle particular events. Physics is how we handle repeatable regularities. Those are not the same toolkit. “Science owns every interaction” is a territorial claim, not a finding. It is also self-undermining: the decision that only that toolkit counts is not itself a laboratory result.

If a prophet claims God spoke, you can ask whether the claim is coherent, whether witnesses held, whether the fruits match the tree, whether rival explanations are better. That is inquiry. It is not the same as saying “unless this shows up as a new force in the Standard Model, it did not happen.”

Second. Pinker and Carroll are not talking about revelation. They are talking about a soul or an ESP faculty conceived as an extra physical widget — a field, a particle, a brain that steers photons without a mechanism. Given that picture, yes: everyday physics is complete enough that you should not expect undergraduates to peek behind the curtain. Bem’s porn-curtain study is a bad analogy for Isaiah or Moroni because nobody in those texts is proposing a fifth force in the lab.

Revelation, as I am using it, is not “the laws of physics failed in the undergraduate basement.” It is: the God who instituted those laws can address a person, or act in a particular history, without the universe becoming a different kind of machine. That is a claim about an agent who is not an item in the inventory. You can reject the agent. You cannot treat “we have mapped the low-energy effective theory” as a demonstration that no such agent exists. That conclusion was loaded into the prior.

“The rules of physics rule out revelation” only works if revelation means a physical leak. I did not mean a physical leak. I meant that some questions — whether we are accountable, whether this record is from God, whether this commandment is His — are not settled by extending the same method that measures a charge-to-mass ratio. Science answers how the furnace burns. It does not tell you whether the owner of the house has spoken.

If your view is that nothing can speak except what the current equations already contain, say that. That is metaphysical naturalism. It is not “science.” It is a philosophy that uses science as its branding.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

They can do whatever they want. Compartamentalization is a real thing. Putting things on the shelf is the real thing. Being unaware of some of the extremely strong yet esoteric implications of quantum field theory is a real thing. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing. Not worrying about it is a real thing. Thinking your religion is great culturally but false on a literal level is a real thing.

The fact that there are Latter-day Saints in the hard sciences doesn't change what the laws of physics are and what those laws imply.

I think "Analytics the ardent anti-Mormon" has given us a menu of ways "Analytics the scentifically-minded 'squarely on the side of empirical realiity'" buy must find defective.

Compartmentalization. Shelf. Ignorance of esoteric QFT. Cognitive dissonance. Apathy. Cultural religion with the supernatural filed off. Those things exist. They are not a proof that they are what is happening every time a chemist who goes to church walks into a lab.  

The fact I pointed to is narrower than you treated it. I did not say “LDS physicists exist, therefore Moroni is a theorem.” I said they do not have to check their faith at the door in order to do the work. That is an existence claim about compatibility of practices. You answered with a compatibility claim about metaphysics: if the current laws are true, revelation is false, so the scientist who believes both is fooling himself. That only follows if “the laws” already include “the universe is a closed system with no speaker.” That clause is not in the Lagrangian.

“What the laws of physics are” and “what those laws imply” are two sentences. The first is: at everyday energies we have an extraordinarily good effective theory; extra forces and extra soul-particles are not sitting in the gap. The second is: therefore God cannot address a person or act in history. The jump is where the philosophy is doing the work. Carroll is entitled to that philosophy. He is not entitled to call it a measurement.

If the only permitted stance is “QFT plus naturalism,” then yes, every believing scientist is compartmentalizing. That is not a finding about them. It is your definition of sanity. A man who thinks the Creator of the regularities can also speak is not required to forget how a semiconductor works. He is required not to treat the semiconductor as a sacrament. Those are different mistakes.

You can still argue that particular LDS historical claims fail on historical grounds. Do that. “There are Saints in the hard sciences” was never offered as a substitute for that argument. It was offered against the idea that walking into a lab is an implicit oath of metaphysical naturalism. It isn’t. The oath is yours.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Scientific inquiry and religious inquiry are in tension if and only if you have already decided that the only respectable way to know anything is Sagan-plus-Carroll naturalism.

No. Science and religion are in tension when religion makes truth-claims about observable reality that contradict science. 

“That formulation still treats the current naturalistic reading of the data as identical with ‘science.’

Science, as a method, is observation, measurement, and the search for regularities. It is silent, or at least underdetermined, on unique historical events, first causes, and whether agency can ever be a cause. Tension appears only after you add the extra rule that the only respectable explanations are those that stay inside Sagan–Carroll naturalism. That rule is a philosophical premise, not a finding of physics or biology.

If a religious claim is about a repeatable, presently observable regularity and it is simply false, then yes, that particular claim is in trouble. Most of the live disputes are not of that kind; they are disputes about what counts as an explanation in the first place.”

"Science" can't establish whether Caesar was stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate.  You are on record as accepting that event as historically accurate even though it is bereft of derived-from-the-scientific-method empirical verification.  

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

The testimony list is not a protocol for discovering whether God exists from a standing start, with every hypothesis weighted the same. It is counsel to people who already take God, Christ, and revelation as live options, and who want those convictions to survive contact with ordinary life.

That's precisely my point. The Baloney Detection Kit is about subjecting your beliefs to the crucible of scientific thinking so that you stop believing false things. If you want your religious convictions to "survive contact with ordinary life", you should do the opposite of what the Baloney Detection Kit prescribes.

The Kit is a good tool for one job: reducing error about repeatable, publicly observable regularities while treating personal, historical, and agent-involving claims as last-resort explanations. That is a legitimate project. It is not the only project.

Wanting a conviction to survive contact with ordinary life is not ‘do the opposite of the Kit.’ It is closer to what every research program and every serious moral commitment actually does: protect a core while letting the periphery be revised by experience. Naturalists do this with the uniformity of nature, other minds, and the reliability of induction. They do not put those on the same footing as ‘this particular UFO report.’

The Kit does not start from equipoise. It already decides that first-person spiritual experience, testimony, and unique historical claims are the kind of thing that must be explained away rather than allowed to count as data. That decision is the premise we were discussing, not a result the Kit discovered.

If the only goal is ‘never believe a false religious claim,’ the Kit is well-designed. If the goal is also ‘do not systematically ignore a class of evidence that millions of people take themselves to have,’ then applying the Kit without remainder is not neutrality. It is a prior restriction on what is allowed to count.”

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Sagan’s kit is good at what it is for: advertising, ESP papers, medical miracles, authority-by-letterhead. Independent checks, rival hypotheses, quantification, testability — we can use those on sloppy history and on fraud....

It isn't just for things that are fraud. It's for any new idea that could be fraud; for all "new ideas that are offered for consideration." In the words of Sagan:

In the course of their training, scientists are equipped with a baloney detection kit. The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

What’s in the kit? Tools for skeptical thinking. 

Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (pp. 209-210). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Sagan says the kit comes out whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. In context those ideas are empirical claims about the world that are being put forward as the kind of thing science should accept or reject: a new particle, a cancer cure, a UFO propulsion system, an ESP result. The tools (independent replication, quantification, rival hypotheses, falsifiability) are built for that class of claim.

That is not the same as saying every conviction a person lives by must enter the same protocol from a standing start. ‘God exists,’ ‘Christ rose,’ or ‘this book is what it claims’ are not being offered to a journal as a new physical mechanism. They are already-live options for people who treat testimony, history, and first-person confirmation as admissible.

Using the kit on sloppy history or fraud is exactly right. Treating the kit as the sole gatekeeper for whether those options may remain live is an extra rule about which kinds of evidence count. Sagan is explicit that he wants that rule. That is the premise, not a finding the kit produced after a neutral inspection of every possible idea.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

“Infinitesimal prior probability” is not a measurement. Nobody ran a meter on revelation and got 10−3010^{-30}10−30.

Tell me you haven't read The Big Picture without telling me you haven't read The Big Picture. 

I am working from the pages you quoted and I have seen elsewhere, not from a pretense of having read the whole book. Those pages say the particle content relevant to everyday matter is settled, and that a soul that made a difference the way extra particles would have made a difference should have been seen. That is a strong experimental claim. I am not disputing it.

What I am disputing is the next step: treating that inventory as a complete list of everything that can exist or act, and then assigning an infinitesimal prior to revelation or a soul. That prior is not a measurement. It is the probability you get once you have already decided that the only admissible causes are items in the Core Theory, coupling the way those items couple. That decision is physicalism. It may be correct. It is not something a detector returned as 10−3010^{-30}10−30.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

A prior that small is assigned by people who have already decided that current physics, read as a complete inventory of what there is, is the whole story. Carroll is explicit that a soul is incompatible with that reading of the laws. Fine. That is physicalism.

No. It isn't a philosophical position about physicalism. It's the laws of physics that have resulted from incredibly detailed and expensive studies that were conducted over the course of decades.

The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find. Crossing symmetry assures us that, if there were any particles lurking around us that interact with ordinary matter strongly enough to make a difference to the behavior of everyday stuff, those particles should have easily been produced in experiments. But there’s nothing there.

There are probably more particles yet to be found. They just won’t be relevant to our everyday world.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 182-183). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

I understand how you think he is merely saying that science hasn't detected how our spirits interface with our bodies, but if they looked more closley in the right place, they'd figure it out. In theory that could be true, but what you are claiming is 

"that modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed."

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 212). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Of course you are free to believe that God is so powerful that he can make modern physics profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed. Philisophically, anything is possible.

But if you are going to claim that Carroll is wrong about physics, at least have the common courtesy to read his book and not merely declare that he is wrong because the results aren't intuitive to you and contradict your religious beliefs. 

I have not read the book. I am answering the passages you quoted.

Those passages are about the particle content of the effective theory that governs everyday matter. Crossing symmetry and the absence of extra light, strongly coupled degrees of freedom are real results. I am not saying the LHC missed a particle, and I am not saying the Standard Model is ‘profoundly wrong’ about the interactions it has measured.

Carroll’s further claim is that a soul (or any influence that made a systematic difference to bodies) would have to be that kind of extra particle, and therefore either it does not exist or physics is profoundly wrong. That ‘would have to be’ is the philosophical step. It assumes that the only things that can act on ordinary matter are items already in the inventory, coupling the way those items couple. That is physicalism: the physical facts, so described, are the complete facts.

A theist can accept the experimental record and reject that completeness rule. God or a soul need not be another field that should have appeared in collider debris. It can fail to be a fifth force, act rarely, or be the kind of cause the Lagrangian was never meant to list. Those options may be false. They are not the same claim as ‘modern physics got the particles wrong.’

So I am not declaring Carroll wrong about physics because the conclusion conflicts with my religion. I am saying the physics he cites does not by itself force the infinitesimal prior. The prior comes after you have already decided that the inventory is the whole story.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

The Bem studies are a poor analogy for the same reason. A social psychologist failing to show that undergraduates can see tomorrow’s curtain is evidence against that experimental claim. It is not a demonstration that a Creator cannot disclose something to a mind. Precognition-as-lab-trick and “God speaks” are not the same hypothesis with different branding. Collapsing them is equivocation.

You completely miss the point. Before the experiment was done, "it was a foregone conclusion" that psychic powers don't exist because that would break rock-solid laws of physics. Likewise, it is a foregone conclusion that spirits and revelation don't exist, because such things also break the same rock-solid laws of physics. The only reason I brought this Pinker quote up is to quote how National Academy of Science scientists such as Pinker interpret Carroll and the language they use when describing how much confidence science has in their scientific conclusions and what those conclusions imply. They use words like "foregone conclusion," "infinitesimal prior probability," "disproven the laws of physics", and "the laws of physics rule out precognition and [spirits and revelation]."

I understand that you think claiming "God can do anything!" outweighs all this. But God could have an elaborate scheme going on to make it appear that the earth is round when it's really flat, couldn't He? How could scientists possibly know God isn't pulling that trick on us? 

Pinker’s language is the point I was already naming. ‘Foregone conclusion,’ ‘infinitesimal prior,’ ‘the laws rule it out’ — that is how you talk once you have read the Core Theory as a complete inventory of causes. I am not missing that. I am saying that reading is the extra step.

Bem-style precognition is a proposed regular, lab-detectable channel from future public events into present guesses. If that channel existed as a natural capacity of undergraduates, it would conflict with the causal structure we actually use in physics. Failed replications are evidence against that hypothesis.

‘God can disclose something to a mind’ is not the same hypothesis with different branding. It does not predict a stable, quantifiable psi effect in a psychology lab. It does not require a new particle that couples like the electron. Treating them as one claim is what I called equivocation.

The flat-earth trick does not follow. ‘God could in principle deceive us about anything’ is true in the thin philosophical sense that global skepticism is hard to disprove. It is not a reason to treat every particular religious claim as equivalent to last-Thursdayism or a fake-round earth. We still distinguish ordinary regularities we have mapped from unique or agent-involving claims we have not. Particle physics tightly constrains extra forces in the everyday domain. It does not, by itself, convert ‘no extra psi particle’ into ‘therefore no Creator can speak.’ That conversion is the physicalist prior, which is why the conclusion is called a foregone conclusion before the relevant kind of evidence is even admitted.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Saturday at 06:13 PM by smac97

[Analytics]

On 9/26/2026 at 1:59 AM, Calm said:

 Not having a copy of the book and not being able to process it even if I did and not wanting to put myself through the humiliation of trying again (there is something almost traumatic for me to not be able to play in the same sandbox that I used to spend so much time in and anticipated for awhile living my life in), I asked Chat to summarize the book for me.  It is embarrassing just saying this to be honest.

So is this a sufficient very brief analysis of the premise of the book?

Do you like audio books? Most of the book is pretty conversational, so if that is a more accessible way for you to ingest information, you might want to consider listening to it.

He says science is based upon "methodological empiricism", the idea that we can learn about reality by empirically observing it. He claims that if we carefully look at reality, a natural world is what we see. Naturalism is a result of the science, not a premise.

Carroll talks about different "domains of applicability" of different theories, and "poetic naturalism" as the license to use things other than particle physics to examine more complex interactions, e.g. chemistry, biology, physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, etc., are all valid ways of looking at the world. It wouldn't be insightful to try to describe the economy in terms of a system of fermions and bosons.

However, if you dive down deep enough,quantum mechanics is how the world works on a subatomic level. Throw in what we know about gravity, and we have the Core Theory. There could be and probably are crazy things going on at much tinier scales. And weird stuff we don't understand happens in, say, black holes. But on the scale of our lives, Quantum Field Theory explains reality very accurately. 

We can be confident that the Core Theory, accounting for the substances and processes we experience in our everyday life, is correct. A thousand years from now we will have learned a lot more about the fundamental nature of physics, but we will still use the Core Theory to talk about this particular layer of reality. From the perspective of poetic naturalism, there is one story of reality we can tell with confidence, in a well-defined domain of applicability. We can’t be metaphysically certain of this; it’s not something we can prove mathematically, since science never proves things. But in any good Bayesian accounting, it seems overwhelmingly likely to be true. The laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely known...

The constraints provided by quantum mechanics and relativity make quantum field theory an extremely restrictive and unforgiving framework. We can use that rigidity to map out how well we’ve tested the Core Theory, the specific set of fields and interactions that governs our local environment. The answer is: really well. Enough to be convinced that we know what the relevant particles and fields are in this regime, and any new discoveries will involve phenomena that only manifest themselves elsewhere—at higher energies, shorter distances, more extreme conditions.

But how do we know, even if we can’t directly see new particles or fields, that they can’t exert some subtle but important influence on the particles that we do see?

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 186). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

That last question in bold is the one @smac97 doesn't understand. We do in fact "know" (Carroll's word) that any "new particles or fields" (which would include spiritual forces and spirit matter as imagined by Mormonism) "can't exert some subtle but important influences on the particles that we do see." 

This is a startling claim. "How do we know, even if we can’t directly see new particles or fields, that they can’t exert some subtle but important influence on the particles that we do see?" Carroll explains in detail how we "know" that.

On 9/26/2026 at 1:59 AM, Calm said:

One of his additional premises seems to be that every cause of a physical event must be a physical entity participating in the physical laws described by theory.  Is this correct in your view and if so, how does he claim to prove this?  Seems like it can only be assumed.  I believe we have talked about this before and I may have asked a similar question because this feels very familiar.

Sure. We can't "prove" that when we aren't looking, the toys don't jump to life and have eventful, dramatic lives, but then run back to where they were and pretend they are dead when we aren't looking. There is no way to prove that. All we have is the evidence based on the experiments. The Core Theory has been "spectacularly successful at accounting for every experiment ever performed in a laboratory here on Earth." (p. 176)  

[Analytics]

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

Your AI platform is doing well at telling you what you want to hear, but not at identifying limiting principles.

It isn't telling me "what I want to hear." It is summarizing what I've already said in these conversations. 

I have limiting principles, but they are intentionally a little bit blurry so that people of good will have some discretion to make good decisions in complicated edge cases. You want not only bright lines but also cops, judges, fines, and jail time enforcing where we pee. I don't think those things are necessary. That doesn't mean I don't have limiting principles. It just means you've failed to convince me that these laws are necessary. 

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

If you want a different starting list, feel free to formulate what you see as reflecting the basic tenets of trans ideology and advocacy.  I'm all ears.

If you want to know what I believe, let's start with what I've already said.

I asked GPT the following:

Prompt:
Go back to the list of 20 propositions. Please steel man each one so that they accurately represent the person or organization quoted. Then search all of the threads on this topic, and see if I have commented on that topic. Then very briefly explain my actual position. Do that for all 20 points. If I haven’t said or implied something on one, say so and move to the next.

GPT:

I kept Smac’s numbering, but separated what the cited source actually maintains from the additional implications in his wording. I searched across the related threads and your available post history, including older discussions of medical treatment, pronouns, schools, biology, and sports. Some pages were inaccessible, so “not found” means I did not locate a stated or clearly implied position—not that you necessarily hold no opinion. Where an original source was inaccessible, I used its quotation reproduced in the thread.

1. The reality and authority of gender identity

Source position — HRC: Gender identity is a person’s deeply felt internal understanding of themselves. That self-understanding should be respected when recognizing their gender. This does not, by itself, establish a particular scientific theory about how gender identity develops. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You use gender identity to mean someone’s internal sense of themselves, distinct from sex recorded at birth. I found no specific commitment to a theory of its innateness. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

2. Recognition of transgender women as women and transgender men as men

Source position — HRC’s Alphonso David: Transgender women genuinely belong to the category women, rather than merely receiving an honorary designation. He defines womanhood through an adult’s understanding of herself as female; that is not a claim that identifying differently changes chromosomes. Senate Judiciary Committee

Your position: You recognize transgender people socially while distinguishing gender from biological sex. You explicitly reject making gender identity replace biological sex for every legal purpose. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

3. Recognition without mandatory medical transition

Source position — GLAAD: Being transgender does not depend on obtaining a diagnosis, hormones, or surgery. People should not lose recognition because they cannot or do not wish to undergo medical procedures. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: For ordinary restroom use, you favor individual judgment and sincere identity, not mandatory medical qualification. You exclude insincere claims made as a pretext. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

4. Identity denial as a personal harm

Source position — GLAAD: Deliberately invalidating someone’s gender identity can attack their dignity and social legitimacy, not merely dispute an abstract definition. GLAAD expressly connects targeted misgendering with denying who a person is and with broader stigmatization. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You advocate empathy and respectful treatment. I found no statement equating every disagreement about gender classification with denying that a person exists. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

5. Biological sex and the limits of rigid classification

Source position — HRC: Intersex variation and medical transition demonstrate that sex characteristics are not perfectly uniform or immutable. HRC therefore rejects describing sex through rigid, exceptionless categories. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You explicitly argue that sex results from biological processes rather than an immutable essence, and that a strict binary model does not fully describe all variations. You expressly say this need not imply a third sex. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

6. The meaning of “sex assigned at birth”

Source position — HRC/GLAAD: The phrase identifies the classification given to someone at birth, ordinarily based on observed anatomy, which may differ from their later gender identity. It does not inherently mean the classification was arbitrary. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You introduced definitions explicitly tying the recorded classification to observed genital anatomy, while recognizing that atypical development can require a more involved assignment process. You have not claimed doctors invent biological sex. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

7. Names and pronouns

Source position — HRC/GLAAD: Use people’s stated pronouns and current names, correct misgendering, and respect confidentiality concerning former names. These are expectations of respectful treatment, not merely optional linguistic preferences in the organizations’ accounts. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You say you try to use requested pronouns as a courtesy. I found no blanket claim from you that every mistake is equivalent to a slur. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

8. Language that distinguishes sex without delegitimizing people

Source position — HRC: Contrasting transgender people with supposedly “real” men or women treats transgender identities as inauthentic. Its objection is to that framing—not, in the quotation supplied, a comprehensive prohibition on describing anatomy or reproductive characteristics. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: You openly use biological-sex distinctions and have supplied definitions involving sperm, ovaries, chromosomes, and anatomy. You do not treat discussing those characteristics as inherently objectionable. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

9. Affirmation, exploration, and conversion therapy

Source position — distinguish the organizations: HRC condemns the model called gender exploratory therapy as conversion therapy. WPATH, however, explicitly recommends open exploration without favoring a particular identity and distinguishes that from efforts predetermined to make someone identify with their birth-assigned sex. These are not adequately summarized as opposition to all exploration. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: No specific position found on affirmation versus exploratory therapy or watchful waiting.

10. Medical transition as healthcare

Source position — HRC: Transition-related treatment can be medically necessary and lifesaving; access should not be categorically denied through legislation. That is a claim about access to indicated care, not proof that every requested intervention is appropriate. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: In October 2024, you explicitly said other people’s treatment belongs between them and their doctors, and whether an intervention is advisable must be assessed case by case. You did not endorse every intervention indiscriminately. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

11. Treatment and recognition of transgender minors

Source position — WPATH: Some adolescents may appropriately receive transition-related treatment, subject to assessment of sustained gender incongruence, maturity, relevant mental-health concerns, and informed consent or assent. Parents ordinarily participate, with exceptions when involvement would be harmful or infeasible. NCBI

Your position: You opposed government micromanagement of these decisions and expressly favored decision-making by parents and children, alongside your case-specific medical approach. No specific age thresholds or detailed eligibility protocol found. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

12. Detransition, comorbidities, and social influence

Source position — distinguish the organizations: GLAAD rejects “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” as a misleading explanatory framework. WPATH describes adult detransition as uncommon but acknowledges regret, uncertainty about youth trajectories, and the need to assess co-occurring mental-health concerns. That is not a recommendation to disregard those concerns. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: No specific position found on detransition rates, desistance, autism, trauma, or social-contagion hypotheses.

13. Restrooms, sports, prisons, and other facilities

Source position — distinguish the settings: GLAAD supports gender-identity-consistent restroom access. NWLC explicitly supports transgender women’s participation in women’s sports. WPATH’s institutional-housing guidance considers identity, preference, and safety—not identity alone. These are substantive inclusion positions, but not one identical rule covering every setting. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You distinguish restroom discretion from sports eligibility and prison security. You favor leagues deciding sports rules and have explicitly objected to claims of an automatic right to women’s elite competition. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

14. Distinguishing people by medical-transition status

Source position — GLAAD: Someone who has not undergone medical transition is not therefore less genuinely transgender or less deserving of recognition. This does not itself establish that every treatment-related eligibility distinction in every setting is forbidden. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: Your restroom rule requires no medical test, but you allow context-specific eligibility rules elsewhere. No explicit position found on “transmedicalism” as a doctrine about who counts as transgender. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

15. Personal experience and empirical evidence

Source position — GLAAD: Reporting should accurately represent transgender people and avoid amplifying claims it regards as false or dehumanizing. The quotations do not establish a principle that personal experience overrides contrary data. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: You demand empirical evidence, attention to limitations, separation of findings from value judgments, and specification of evidence that could change a conclusion. You do not assign personal experience automatic priority over data. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

16. Questions, debate, and harm

Source position — GLAAD: Policy discussion can be legitimate, but GLAAD regards challenges to transgender people’s identities and legitimacy, and targeted misgendering, as potentially dehumanizing rather than neutral debate. It expressly distinguishes legitimate discourse from harassment. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You invite discussion of definitions and evidence. You explicitly oppose disciplining women merely for good-faith privacy concerns or accommodation requests. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

17. Explaining opposition

Source position — GLAAD: Prominent campaigns against transgender inclusion rely, in its account, on stigmatizing stereotypes and misinformation rather than the neutral concerns they profess. That is its characterization of those campaigns—not evidence that every possible disagreement has the same motive. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You have attributed opposition to manufactured fear and political motives, sometimes broadly. But you also recognize good-faith concerns and explicitly say accusations of bigotry require explanation rather than substituting for argument. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

18. Expectations of allies

Source position — GLAAD: Allyship should involve action: respectful language, challenging derogatory remarks, listening, and supporting inclusion. Its guidance nevertheless acknowledges that no single response fits every situation and that allies have limits. All Peoples UU

Your position: You ground your views in empathy, limited government, and goodwill—not allegiance to an activist platform. No position found requiring allies to repeat slogans or endorse every organizational position. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

19. Women’s rights, gay rights, and competing interests

Source position — NWLC: Including transgender women is part of advancing women’s rights, and exclusionary policies can harm both transgender and cisgender women. The supplied quotations do not establish an obligation for gay people or lesbians to change their attractions or accept particular partners. National Women's Law Center

Your position: You explicitly count biological women’s safety, privacy, dignity, and competitive interests, rather than dismissing them. No position found requiring anyone to alter their sexual attractions. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

20. Nonbinary and other gender-diverse identities

Source position — HRC: Nonbinary and gender-diverse people deserve recognition and respectful treatment alongside binary transgender people. That supports including those identities; it does not establish an obligation to expand classifications indefinitely or accept every conceivable identity claim. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: Implied: Your general pronoun-courtesy principle is not restricted to binary identities. No specific position found on xenogenders, an exhaustive gender taxonomy, or mandatory continual expansion of recognized categories. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board