I had a discussion with my teenage daughters about this issue (after doing my best to avoid the whole mess for years as it didn't directly affect our life). What I said is that a person can choose to sleep with who they like. Do as you wish, and it's nobody else's business. It's wise to weigh the ramifications of being gay or lesbian if you want a traditional nuclear family, but choose the path you'd like and deal with the consequences. If you're an adult, and want to dress as the opposite sex, that's fine by me as well. Once again, that will have an impact on your day to day life, and you should probably consider the consequences of your choices, but it's your choice. Finally, if you come to me and tell me that because you feel a certain way, you are now a man instead of a woman, that's just idiocy. Your choices are your choices, and I will support them, but reality doesn't conform to your feelings.
The reason there is an exponential backlash building is because the trans movement took over the institutions and went after our kids. The backlash includes the gays and lesbians because the trans movement roped everyone together under the queer banner.
The basic architecture of this discussion is not complex or nuanced. All you need to do is step back and distill it into a few simple paragraphs. The rest is all noise.
Define what you consider ‘reasonable’. To me, several truths are immutable and unchangeable. One is the sex we are born into: with exception of the very very small number of hermaphrodites, we are born male or female. Therefore, ‘affirmation’ of individual sexual identity by definition means ‘encouraging being comfortable and positive within the sex a child has been born into’. Not
‘surgical mutilation and chemical castration’. Or ‘brainwashing’ by a politically motivated special agenda. A corollary to that is the anthropological 101 fact that among the greater primates, not just humans, sexual behaviour and the trappings of identity is more than 50% learned. So: No, kids are not ‘trans’, homosexuals are not just ‘born that way and unchangeable’; even homosexual advocates admit that. Arguing for ‘trans kids rights’ is therefore a complete fiction. Second: the state is not held primarily responsible for children’s’ welfare and education: parents are. Parents are legally responsible until their progeny attains majority age. Therefore parents legally and morally must also be the primary decision-makers for the content of their education and acculturation.
Finally: parents who champion their natural rights and responsibilities to raise their children affirming their born sexual roles, to be happy and well-adjusted in their skins as they are, whole and fertile, hold the future. All the gender ‘pretenders’ will live whatever contrived lives they can manage and if they raise children which aren’t conceived before they embrace the domination of their feelings and physical urgings, they will have to borrow that ability from healthy whole fertile people who either donate eggs or sperm, or sell their wombs, or even more bizarrely, try to claim their leftover hormone-suppressed womb which they’ve implanted someone else’s egg into, belongs to a ‘man’. And then claim a ‘man’ can grow breasts with hormone manipulation sufficient to successfully nurse a baby. Which, when you step back a but, is their ‘prop’ to the whole charade whose well-being is secondary if it counts at all.
And now that I write this all out, behind the legislature after the march: Even to conceive (pun intended) of a solid trustworthy reality as ‘transgender rights’ is to negative reality: this is to endorse insanity. So: No I don’t think ‘reasonable’ entertainment of ‘transgenderism’ especially the notion that kids can be ‘transgender’ can occur. You either accept the hard truths of human biology as expressed throughout the ages, or you stand on lies, confusion, wishful thinking and self-deceit.
The first time I encountered the debate, was when a number of years ago (2014?), I made the mistake of suggesting that people should sleep and use the washroom in a shelter that reflects their genitals. I thought that was a reasonable position for for a shelter where the women being housed had been almost universally been sexually abused and / or raped, especially when the shelter housed both men & women. Men generally care about sleeping next to "someone they trust", so for most men, gender is not a factor. I did not feel that a woman who was highly traumatized should have to sleep next to someone with a penis just because they identified as a woman. Almost instantly, all the female, upper middle class, university educated staff jumped all over me.
I was left with thinking "have these female staff never listened to / watched a woman who has been raped multiple times interact with a man?" Do they have any understanding of / empathy for the most wounded women in our society? As a man, I am very aware when the wrong motion on my part causes a woman to jump, especially when I know that woman is extremely traumatized. Expecting that these women will be comfortable with men who identify as women with open arms is just not realistic.
Another great episode Tara, thank you. Inline some of the other commenters here, I do believe that there is a reasonable and nuanced conversation to be had. The closest I have seen is this debate between Diedre McCloskey and Kathleen Stock:
McCloskey transitioned decades ago. She is an economist with very broad interests and a number of influential books. I met her once maybe twenty years ago when she came to give a talk on our department. I think it would be cruel and frankly ludicrous to refer to her as a man. She would prefer to be thought of as a woman without qualification but understands why people might resist this. There is a complexity here that needs to be addressed and it was a bit sad for me to read some of the other comments here, which strike me as very intolerant.
In any case, thank you for addressing this issue, which so many choose strategically to avoid. I've said it many times, yours is my favorite podcast and I admire your work so very much.
"... The whole conversation seems to be avoiding the question of attraction. It was great to hear Herzog talk about her attraction experience. Hooray!
Personally my attraction to one sex is matched by repulsion at the idea of sex with the other sex. I don't care what people do in private, just keep it away from me.
Like use of pronouns, trans talk pushes sexuality up into the public sphere. Do I need to know if you like sex with men, women, both or neither? I do not. And I don't want to know."
This particular battleground in the Culture Wars is predicated on a single idea, that the high incidence of self-harm, depression, and suicide in the trans community is the fault of the outsiders to their worldview. What if it isn't? This is again an issue that comes down to an agreement about the problem and a disagreement about the solution. If it can be empirically shown that affirmation makes a significant difference in that community, let's go with it. Passing bills that insinuate the State into my conversations with friends who have unwanted same-sex attraction, threatening me with 5 years incarceration if I don't toe the party line, is a poor way of helping, in any case.
We have lost just throw in the towel fuck it and them The insane have weaseled their way into power and there is no way they are letting go , they will use any means the can . Since they are now in power how can one fight the courts with gov supplied lawyer after lawyer and bent judges ?
We have lost just throw in the towel fuck it and them The insane have weaseled their way into power and there is no way they are letting go , they will use any means the can . Since they are now in power how can one fight the courts with gov supplied lawyer after lawyer and bent judges ?
I had a discussion with my teenage daughters about this issue (after doing my best to avoid the whole mess for years as it didn't directly affect our life). What I said is that a person can choose to sleep with who they like. Do as you wish, and it's nobody else's business. It's wise to weigh the ramifications of being gay or lesbian if you want a traditional nuclear family, but choose the path you'd like and deal with the consequences. If you're an adult, and want to dress as the opposite sex, that's fine by me as well. Once again, that will have an impact on your day to day life, and you should probably consider the consequences of your choices, but it's your choice. Finally, if you come to me and tell me that because you feel a certain way, you are now a man instead of a woman, that's just idiocy. Your choices are your choices, and I will support them, but reality doesn't conform to your feelings.
The reason there is an exponential backlash building is because the trans movement took over the institutions and went after our kids. The backlash includes the gays and lesbians because the trans movement roped everyone together under the queer banner.
The basic architecture of this discussion is not complex or nuanced. All you need to do is step back and distill it into a few simple paragraphs. The rest is all noise.
Define what you consider ‘reasonable’. To me, several truths are immutable and unchangeable. One is the sex we are born into: with exception of the very very small number of hermaphrodites, we are born male or female. Therefore, ‘affirmation’ of individual sexual identity by definition means ‘encouraging being comfortable and positive within the sex a child has been born into’. Not
‘surgical mutilation and chemical castration’. Or ‘brainwashing’ by a politically motivated special agenda. A corollary to that is the anthropological 101 fact that among the greater primates, not just humans, sexual behaviour and the trappings of identity is more than 50% learned. So: No, kids are not ‘trans’, homosexuals are not just ‘born that way and unchangeable’; even homosexual advocates admit that. Arguing for ‘trans kids rights’ is therefore a complete fiction. Second: the state is not held primarily responsible for children’s’ welfare and education: parents are. Parents are legally responsible until their progeny attains majority age. Therefore parents legally and morally must also be the primary decision-makers for the content of their education and acculturation.
Finally: parents who champion their natural rights and responsibilities to raise their children affirming their born sexual roles, to be happy and well-adjusted in their skins as they are, whole and fertile, hold the future. All the gender ‘pretenders’ will live whatever contrived lives they can manage and if they raise children which aren’t conceived before they embrace the domination of their feelings and physical urgings, they will have to borrow that ability from healthy whole fertile people who either donate eggs or sperm, or sell their wombs, or even more bizarrely, try to claim their leftover hormone-suppressed womb which they’ve implanted someone else’s egg into, belongs to a ‘man’. And then claim a ‘man’ can grow breasts with hormone manipulation sufficient to successfully nurse a baby. Which, when you step back a but, is their ‘prop’ to the whole charade whose well-being is secondary if it counts at all.
And now that I write this all out, behind the legislature after the march: Even to conceive (pun intended) of a solid trustworthy reality as ‘transgender rights’ is to negative reality: this is to endorse insanity. So: No I don’t think ‘reasonable’ entertainment of ‘transgenderism’ especially the notion that kids can be ‘transgender’ can occur. You either accept the hard truths of human biology as expressed throughout the ages, or you stand on lies, confusion, wishful thinking and self-deceit.
That was great but I wish you had more time to talk to Katie.
The first time I encountered the debate, was when a number of years ago (2014?), I made the mistake of suggesting that people should sleep and use the washroom in a shelter that reflects their genitals. I thought that was a reasonable position for for a shelter where the women being housed had been almost universally been sexually abused and / or raped, especially when the shelter housed both men & women. Men generally care about sleeping next to "someone they trust", so for most men, gender is not a factor. I did not feel that a woman who was highly traumatized should have to sleep next to someone with a penis just because they identified as a woman. Almost instantly, all the female, upper middle class, university educated staff jumped all over me.
I was left with thinking "have these female staff never listened to / watched a woman who has been raped multiple times interact with a man?" Do they have any understanding of / empathy for the most wounded women in our society? As a man, I am very aware when the wrong motion on my part causes a woman to jump, especially when I know that woman is extremely traumatized. Expecting that these women will be comfortable with men who identify as women with open arms is just not realistic.
We can have a reasonable discussion.
One just needs to suspend reality.
Although you won't be able to suspend the consequences of suspending reality.
I’m disappointed we have yet another American author on your show when our own fabulous Debra Soh gets overlooked. Please have her on soon.
Another great episode Tara, thank you. Inline some of the other commenters here, I do believe that there is a reasonable and nuanced conversation to be had. The closest I have seen is this debate between Diedre McCloskey and Kathleen Stock:
https://youtu.be/_gDIBinDN-o?si=L440-GPpHTOLaAla
McCloskey transitioned decades ago. She is an economist with very broad interests and a number of influential books. I met her once maybe twenty years ago when she came to give a talk on our department. I think it would be cruel and frankly ludicrous to refer to her as a man. She would prefer to be thought of as a woman without qualification but understands why people might resist this. There is a complexity here that needs to be addressed and it was a bit sad for me to read some of the other comments here, which strike me as very intolerant.
In any case, thank you for addressing this issue, which so many choose strategically to avoid. I've said it many times, yours is my favorite podcast and I admire your work so very much.
Excuse the typos... on my phone. *Unlike, not Inline
I posted this to the transcript version:
"... The whole conversation seems to be avoiding the question of attraction. It was great to hear Herzog talk about her attraction experience. Hooray!
Personally my attraction to one sex is matched by repulsion at the idea of sex with the other sex. I don't care what people do in private, just keep it away from me.
Like use of pronouns, trans talk pushes sexuality up into the public sphere. Do I need to know if you like sex with men, women, both or neither? I do not. And I don't want to know."
Trudeau Sr had it right to bad Tru-doh jr has no clue State has no business in your bedroom
This particular battleground in the Culture Wars is predicated on a single idea, that the high incidence of self-harm, depression, and suicide in the trans community is the fault of the outsiders to their worldview. What if it isn't? This is again an issue that comes down to an agreement about the problem and a disagreement about the solution. If it can be empirically shown that affirmation makes a significant difference in that community, let's go with it. Passing bills that insinuate the State into my conversations with friends who have unwanted same-sex attraction, threatening me with 5 years incarceration if I don't toe the party line, is a poor way of helping, in any case.
can't reason with insane people
We have lost just throw in the towel fuck it and them The insane have weaseled their way into power and there is no way they are letting go , they will use any means the can . Since they are now in power how can one fight the courts with gov supplied lawyer after lawyer and bent judges ?
We have lost just throw in the towel fuck it and them The insane have weaseled their way into power and there is no way they are letting go , they will use any means the can . Since they are now in power how can one fight the courts with gov supplied lawyer after lawyer and bent judges ?