Let's start with this: I don't know how I can explain why this kind of discourse opens trans people up to violence if we can't first agree why this is transphobic.
Fundamentally we keep having this conversation in humanity.
"This is wrong (homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist, casteist)"
"No it isn't!"
And over and over and over again. And we look back and think how could it have been possible that we were SO discriminatory in the past, but SO enlightened now, and yet we repeat the same mistakes again.
And you have some feminists that exclude trans women. And you have some black people perpetuating homophobia.
15 years ago we were having EXACTLY the same discourse about gay marriage as we do today about trans rights.
It's exhausting how much some humans are committed to making the lives of other humans on this planet shitty. Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one.
> Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one.
I think this is greatly simplifying the concerns that people have in transitioning minors, the statistically anomalous rise in minors that identify as trans [1], and the safety of puberty blockers. For example, see the data that guided the recent Swedish health board decisions to mostly stop puberty blockers. I'm pointing out "minors", because it's all I see in serious discussions. These discussions, and even Sweden's decision, is labeled transphobic. It's trivial to find news article with the title "Sweden is killing trans people".
The word "minor" appears to be the wedge driving the trans division, where those that don't support know that minors aren't good with permanent decision, and those that do support it know that the permanent decision needs to be made as early as possible. I don't think the wedge will be removed without hard science proving safety, which natures statement can only impede.
As some evidence that 15 years ago was better for LGB than it is now for T:
Did you know that more people came out as left handed when the condition stopped being stigmatized? I don't share your "concerns" about there being more LGBT people in the world because they were always there; now they are just being recognized (by both rights groups and bigots who are currently focusing on them).
I don't see how left and right hand matches the fact that there are 5x more 13-17 than 65 year old identifying as trans, unless you're suggesting that gender is learned, like right handedness was, and like all those older people, who should be trans, are now comfortable the way they are.
But, I'm nobody, looking at numbers I probably don't understand. The problem here is that Nature is saying that these numbers should be considered, but potentially discarded, depending on the conclusion they make.
Trans people are literally being murdered. Kids are kicked out of their homes for being trans. The Republican party is currently centering their platform on hatred towards trans people, blaming them for all societal woes. There are now laws being enacted that ban trans people from public places. Yet you not see how this could discourage people from coming out as trans?
I'm sorry, but it's not that simple. Transitioning should start before puberty, for best outcome. There's no way to not "think of the children" since the best outcome requires children: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31682347/
Delaying puberty isn't "transitioning". You mentioned hormone blockers so you seem to have some knowledge which makes me think that you are intentionally misrepresenting what is happening in order to deny medical care to trans children. Despicable.
How do children who exhibit behaviors that the doctors and parents stereotype as opposite-sex benefit from having their natural development blocked with and/or overwhelmed with opposite-sex hormones?
Most parents are fine with gender non-conforming children (in the parent's mind of course - the kid is just being themselves). It's not a panic for them to ask why modifying their child's body to match their toy choice is so important.
1. Many parents are not fine with trans children. By suggesting that trans children are welcome you are ignoring the very real problems that the Conservative monsters are currently inflicting on them.
2. They benefit from having extra time to make a decision. When you (unnaturally, via the force of law) block children from receiving medical care then you cause them to develop sex characteristics that don't belong to them. If you think about it, you are doing to these children much worse than anything you are suggesting trans advocates are doing.
Most parents are fine with "gender nonconformity". They're not fine with their children being told that they need drugs and surgeries. Read the stories about trans kids. People are reacting to stereotypes like how the child dresses or which toys they play with and they're saying which sex the child should be molded to resemble. Accepting parents let any sex play with any toy without scheduling an intervention.
> develop sex characteristics that don't belong to them
They do belong to them. They're the only working sex organs that child can ever have. Anything else is a non-functional at best.
> extra time to make a decision
This in untrue. puberty blockers can only work safely to delay puberty until the regular time so that it dovetails with other processes. When you delay proper pubertal changes you can never restart the process which cripples a child for life mentally and physically.
> you are doing to these children much worse than
I'm telling the truth. Wild hormonal interventions and genital mutilation surgeries are not healthcare, even if they're performed by people in lab coats.
I never said it was. As you probably know, for a minor, transitioning is a process with very real time requirements. For many minors, and > 98% of minors [1] that take puberty blockers, it is the first step, the start, in completing the process of transitioning.
> in order to deny medical care to trans children. Despicable.
See the data backing Sweden's decision. "Medical care" must result in a net positive, by definition. It seems that Natures statement, potentially, makes this more difficult to discover.
You had to cite an obscure Swedish article to characterize medical care for children as negative? Pathetic.
Why not just trust doctors? Let medical professionals make the decision? How about considering the children you want to hurt instead of your feelings about whether trans people are icky.
> And you have some feminists that exclude trans women.
No "trans woman" is ever a woman. They're men, males. You're trying to take women's rights from females by denying them a way to uniquely identify themselves.
This right here is why "trans rights", as activists choose to define it, can never happen. If you can take the words woman and female, Germany could redefine Jew and China can redefine Uighur, and everyone could identify as black-descendant-of-slavery to access scholarships.
You're trying to take women's rights from females by denying them a way to uniquely identify themselves.
Rights are not a zero-sum game or some kind of exhaustible resource; I have no idea what you're getting at with this.
I challenge your contention that "a way to uniquely identify themselves" is a right of biological women or other groups. Never heard of any such right; it sounds totally made up.
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The meaning of words is what all people agree on. In the US, marriage used to mean a legally recognized union between a man and a woman of the same race. Otherwise it was miscegenation, or sodomy. Then as times changed, they added a qualifier: "mixed marriage" or "mixed-race marriage". Same thing happened in the last decade with gay marriage. In both cases, it eventually just turned back into marriage again.
You disagree that trans women are women. Fine. Activists are trying to make the case that they are; that womanhood encompasses more than being biologically female, and same for manhood. A lot of people agree.
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You say that everyone could identify as black-descendant-of-slavery to access scholarships. I say you are making a laughable category error. (Did people start marrying their dogs after Obergefell was decided? They did not.)
The reason someone identifies as something other than their birth gender isn't well-understood, but it is fair to say that hormones and the development of the brain play a significant role in the way people think and behave. Hormones have strong ties to sex and gender. They have very, very little to do with race. Category error.
If non-black people started identifying as black to claim their piece of a societal debt to the ancestors of slaves, they would be (and have been[1]) ridiculed. Most people don't try this, because the vast majority of society agrees that is not acceptable.
> I challenge your contention that "a way to uniquely identify themselves" is a right of biological women or other groups. Never heard of any such right; it sounds totally made up.
And yet you've heard of a right for males to claim female's sex-based rights?
> Rights are not a zero-sum game or some kind of exhaustible resource;
Actually they are. Women have a right to sex-segregated spaces for example, and that doesn't work if they can't claim exclusive use of sex-based identifiers. Women can't have exclusively-women's prisons if men can call themselves women.
> You disagree that trans women are women. Fine. Activists are trying to make the case that they are; that womanhood encompasses more than being biologically female, and same for manhood. A lot of people agree.
You can volunteer to share your spaces however you like, but you can't make that decision for others no matter how many people you claim agree.
Also, you're being disingenuous. Transwomen claim to be female these days - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Levine - which is clearly untrue even to people who might believe in gender identities.
> You say that everyone could identify as black-descendant-of-slavery to access scholarships. I say you are making a laughable category error.
Thanks to the modern intentional acceptance of appropriation and colonization other Dolezals aren't being rejected, leading some to simultaneously claim racial and sexual benefits belonging to others. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Benaway
> I challenge your contention that "a way to uniquely identify themselves" is a right of biological women or other groups. Never heard of any such right; it sounds totally made up.
See, for example, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders. Both entirely meaningless if men can self-identify as women.
Fundamentally we keep having this conversation in humanity.
"This is wrong (homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist, casteist)"
"No it isn't!"
And over and over and over again. And we look back and think how could it have been possible that we were SO discriminatory in the past, but SO enlightened now, and yet we repeat the same mistakes again.
And you have some feminists that exclude trans women. And you have some black people perpetuating homophobia.
15 years ago we were having EXACTLY the same discourse about gay marriage as we do today about trans rights.
It's exhausting how much some humans are committed to making the lives of other humans on this planet shitty. Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one.