Oddbean

Hey Julian. I want to emphasize that I’m not attacking you, or trying to say “you’re bad for your views”. That would be presumptuous, and it would defeat the purpose of my initial post. I entirely agree that the law should not punish someone for their view. Hope nothing I wrote suggested otherwise. Also, I’m not making a “prescriptive” for how our society’s doctors, parents, teachers, or therapists should approach transgender individuals. Any one-size-fits-all approach would be the wrong one. But the blanket statement that “there are only two genders” strikes me as closed-minded, un-empathetic, and generally contrary to “don’t trust verify” as a principle. The neuroscience is starting to catch up, and my (limited) understanding is that it’s more natural than the traditional “fear of the unknown” point of view would have us believe. Our society has historically been terrible at supporting minority groups, and it usually comes from a place of ignorance, not hatred. But ignorance and fear can lead down some very ugly paths.

the problem comes when the laws meet science here. law is being used to enshrine these new scientific discoveries or THEORIES as fact, when even the gender+ theorists know themselves it is all new and subject to change/evolve. from my perspective I have never seen a transgender person or new gender theorist speak out against draconian speech laws like the ones in Ireland or Canada's C16. Despite me loving Bitcoin and believing it is the only form of money rooted in objective truth and not theft, it would be completely hypocritical of me to advocate the arrest or ban of any proponent of fiat money, or anyone who said Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme. that type of introspection, at least in the present, seems void in any of the gender theory circles or mainstream proponents.

We share a distaste for the speech police, and most controversial sociocultural discussions seem to lead to the opposing sides cutting corners (philosophically, morally, or legally) in the interest of meeting their own needs. It’s nuanced, and complicated, and fraught. Anti-trans rhetoric (the really nasty bigoted stuff) is directly correlated with instances of anti-trans violence. But where do you draw the line? These are lines that I’m vary wary of any government getting to draw. Because that kind of power is an inevitable slippery slope. The intention of my original post was to (vehemently) disagree with the caricature of bitcoiners being closed to the idea that our society and the humans who comprise it are actually far more complicated than it appears. How many other times has science revealed insights about humanity and the universe that was not visible to the naked eye? In this way, I think the anti-trans view is incorrect (and will be proven such in time), and the marginalization of individuals in our society which results from such a viewpoint is more damaging than simply keeping an open mind and listening to people around us.

I just *personally* don't think these things are too complicated. When your body is dug up ~300 years from now, the amount of gender affirmation or surgery done will more than likely not be traceable - and the details pertaining to your gender will be evident from your skeletal structure as either man or woman. I don't see this viewpoint as stoking anti-trans rhetoric.

Eh. I think it sidesteps the actual questions at hand, while maintaining a structure of marginalization against a minority. I sincerely appreciate the civil discourse here. Not a lot of places on the internet where this👆exists. Especially not when the conversation gets started by a note like mine 😉