all 8 comments

[–]onenaivecanary 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There is certainly a radical detachment from material reality that is necessary to process all the different gender "identities".

[–]Datachost 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Even just at its most basic there's a religious element to it. Try to get one of them to define man or woman and it either ends up coming down to a collection of sexist stereotypes or belief in what amounts to a gender soul. Consider the common "born in the wrong body" mantra, what's born in the wrong body? You are your body.

[–]IridescentAnacondastrictly dickly 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you have a belief in reincarnation (as popularized among most 20th and 21st Century sources, much less so the classical Eastern sources) then I would say there is some coherency to the idea of having a gendered soul. The problem is that if you sign on to any solid/traditional dogma that embraces reincarnation (or even any of the deeper esoteric modern treatments) then you would find that there is virtually no support for the kind of sexual obsession that is characteristic of the trans community. Much of that philosophy (both Eastern and Esoteric Western) would embrace something much more like the Roman Catholic position on homosexuality: yes it is a real and probably immutable condition, but it is your cross to bear in this lifetime, something to be transcended, not something to be celebrated.

[–]reluctant_commenter 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I completely agree; gender identity theory closely resembles a religious belief system. (We've had a few other threads discussing this; if you're interested, I can go try and dig them up.) It's worth emphasizing that by almost all people's definitions, the concept of "gender identity" is defined as an entirely subjectively experienced sense of one's "gender" (definitions varying), which cannot be observed by anyone from the outside, an individual can only experience their own and can only experience it subjectively. Gender identity literature suggests that it is NOT true that "appearance and bodily characteristics are linked to gender identity."

If you can't see, smell, hear, taste, or touch something that another person is trying to tell you exists... then you have to rely on faith alone in order to hold any belief that that thing exists. Sometimes that faith is warranted, sometimes it's not. In the case of gender identity, believers of the theory claim that it will never be possible to objectively observe gender identity. That means that "gender identity" is right up there with the Christian "Holy Spirit" and other faith-alone concepts.

So yeah, many of the beliefs that are commonly held in TQ+ communities-- such as the belief in "gender identity"-- are essentially superstitious/religious/spiritual. That's fine if people want to hold those beliefs, but my rights as a same-sex-attracted person are NOT contingent upon whether I hold these beliefs-- as Allison Bailey recently put so eloquently.

[–]ChunkeeguyTeam T*RF Fuck Yeah 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the trans ideology is almost a “cult mentality,”

It's 110 per cent a cult mentality.

[–]Socialjustus 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

The only other time I have seen anyone react with such revulsion/hysteria when their beliefs were confronted, was when I got in an argument with a Scientologist in college.

TQ+ is absolutely a cult.