The Proclamation and Rugby: Developments in the Latter as a Reality Check on the Former

[smac97]

43 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Can you clarify your argument? If you were arguing, "human sexuality is typically dichotomous," I would be arguing from the margins to point out situations when human sexuality is not dichotomous.

My argument is that human sexuality is inherently dichotomous.  Male and female.  Aberrations and ambiguities do not eliminate the dichotomy.

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But the way I understand your point, you are claiming that "human sexuality is dichotomous, without qualification."

I'm not sure what you mean by "without qualification."

If I say "Dogs are quadrupeds," you can't negate that statement by pointing to this:

Exceptions to the rule do not negate the rule.

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If that is your claim, then pointing out counterexamples isn't arguing from the margins.

You are arguing from the margins.  

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It is providing examples that the unqualified dichotomy doesn't always hold.

By that reckoning, dogs aren't quadrupeds.  

But . . . they are.

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Focusing on my point, either there is a strict, unbreakable rule between the sex of one's spirit and the sex of one's body, or there is not.

Okay.

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If there is a strict, unbreakable rule, then that would indicate that people with intersex bodies have intersex spirits.

No, it would not.  

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But if people with intersex bodies do not have intersex spirits, that proves my point and indicates that the Family Proclamation isn't as universally applicable as some might imagine.

I don't follow your reasoning.  

And it's not just the Proclamation.  The scriptures are replete with references to the sexual dichotomy under discussion:

• Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
• Genesis 5:2 "Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."
• Matthew 19:4 "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female..."
• Mark 10:6 "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female."
• Alma 1:30 "And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need."
• Alma 11:44 "Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous..."
• D&C 20:18 "And that he created man, male and female, after his own image and in his own likeness, created he them."
• Abraham 4:27 "So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them."
• Moses 2:27 "And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them."
• Moses 6:9 "In the image of his own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them..."

 

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In any case, I hope you can at least understand why transgender and intersex people often feel, well, marginalized by the Church.

Sure.  They are in very difficult circumstances, to be sure.  

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To remind you of the context, this is a thread that is using female transgender rugby players to make a point about sexuality in general. Did your extensive research on the topic reveal how many people fit into this category? I'm guessing it is less than four or five worldwide. Talk about arguing from the margins!

Not at all.  I'm not making any argument from the margins (that's your gig).  I'm proposing that the margins, the exceptions to the rule, should not swallow the rule.  Women's sports should be the province of, well, women.  Biological females.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 6, 2020 by smac97

[Calm]

Just to be clear, at what point would you, Smac, see something previously defined as marginal moving into no marginal based on new scientific knowledge. For example, before it became well known people saw Restless Legs Syndrome as unusual, so I think we could call sufferers as being anomalies or on the margins in the past. Since then, it has been found to be the most common movement disorder by some measures, up to 10% of the adult population and 4% of children. 
 

To me, that means it is no longer marginal. 
 

So how do you define marginal as objectively as possible?

Edited October 6, 2020 by Calm

[smac97]

On 10/6/2020 at 2:18 PM, Calm said:

Just to be clear, at what point would you, Smac, see something previously defined as marginal moving into no marginal based on new scientific knowledge.

I'm not sure.  That's a pretty broad question.  And moving away from a binary gender framework is not "based on new scientific knowledge."  

On 10/6/2020 at 2:18 PM, Calm said:

For example, before it became well known people saw Restless Legs Syndrome as unusual, so I think we could call sufferers as being anomalies or on the margins in the past. Since then, it has been found to be the most common movement disorder by some measures, up to 10% of the adult population and 4% of children. 

To me, that means it is no longer marginal. 

So how do you define marginal as objectively as possible?

In what context?

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

Here's an interesting article about this topic: No One Is Born in ‘The Wrong Body’, written by an endocrinologist, an evolutionary biologist and a journalist.

Some excerpts:

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The idea that all people have an innate “gender identity” recently has been endorsed by many health-care professionals and mainstream medical organizations. This term commonly is defined to mean the “internal, deeply held” sense of whether one is a man or a woman (or, in the case of children, a boy or a girl), both, or neither. It also has become common to claim that this sense of identity may be reliably articulated by children as young as three years old.

When my oldest son was three he thought he was was Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty.

He wasn't, though.

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Historical data suggests that about 0.5% of children develop gender dysphoria—distress caused by a perceived incongruence between one’s biological sex and gender presentation. Reinforcing studies in the medical literature show that, as children get older, childhood-onset gender dysphoria resolves (i.e. ends) in most cases. As two authors put it in a 2016 International Review of Psychiatry article, “the conclusion from these studies is that childhood GD [gender dysphoria] is strongly associated with a lesbian, gay or bisexual outcome and that for the majority of the children (85.2%; 270 out of 317 [studied individuals]) the gender dysphoric feelings remitted around or after puberty.”

Yet instead of offering counseling, medical professionals now are commonly telling children that they may have been “born in the wrong body.” This new approach, called “gender affirmation,” makes gender dysphoria less likely to resolve, pushing children down the path toward irreversible medical and surgical interventions. If aggressive transition options are pursued early in puberty, the combination of puberty-blocking drugs, followed by cross sex hormones, will result in permanent infertility.

The growing population of transgender-identifying high school students now is estimated to comprise about 2% of all students—a three-fold increase over the baseline 0.5% figure cited above. Many adolescents now are presenting to gender clinics, with some clinics seeing a 10-fold increase in new cases. Many of these adolescents have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Higher rates of autism-spectrum conditions have been described in many of these adolescents, and the controversial “affirmation model” is being applied to this unstudied cohort as well. Not surprisingly, reports of transition regret, and de-transition, are growing in number.

Wow.

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To summarize, a lack of understanding regarding the distribution of sex-related personality and behavioral differences has led to confusion that impacts children who fall at the extreme tail-ends of the distribution, and who would be statistically more likely to grow up to be gay, lesbian or bisexual adults if allowed to experience uninterrupted puberty. Additionally, telling a child that he or she was born in the wrong body pathologizes “gender non-conforming” behavior and makes gender dysphoria less likely to resolve.

That makes sense.  

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The fact is, no child is actually born in the wrong body. Adults should expand their understanding of what normal male and female behavior and preferences look like—which would lead them to appreciate that being male or female comes with a wider range of personalities preferences, and possibilities than old stereotypes would have us believe.

Interesting stuff.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

55 minutes ago, smac97 said:

In what context?

What percentage of the general population would need to have a condition before you saw it as no longer marginal?