Heterosexual Men Are Using Grindr To Meet Trans Women

emptiedriver · 2021-02-26T15:09:27+00:00

oh, make up your mind. Either they're women and you're straight and you shouldn't be using a gay dating app, or, actually, you're all gay men after all. Maybe that would make it simpler. Gay guy into femmes. Gay cross dresser who wants to suck other guys off. Is it really so difficult? You tried all the hetero apps and they didn't work, because you don't fit in with real women, because you aren't one and you aren't attracted to them, because you are GAY MEN.

emptiedriver · 2021-11-14T16:03:54+00:00

It's not a "hole", it's a vagina. It's a muscular canal that leads to a cervix, which is part of an organ, connected to tubes which release gametes on a cycle. It's part of an entire system that is regulated by hormones and over time helped to organize a bunch of other elements of the active biological unity that is you.

There are plenty of other things that can be "holes" and if they were all the same, then it wouldn't matter, would it - but somehow, it's not about holes. It's about the whole person, who has a complete body that is not just a generic doll with a random detachable set of "junk." You're a living person. Accept your vagina.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-02T17:26:20+00:00

I don't think you should be worried about reporting this person because they are trans. The information you are stating is specific and would be damning whatever sex, gender or orientation the person was. Use the polite pronouns, refer to the person as a trans woman, use their name and get it on the record.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-24T15:13:58+00:00

I think that poster is just a naive gay activist who has no idea what's going on. It's worth being reminded sometimes that that is how a lot of the "pro trans" people are - it isn't that they've looked at the issue and made a rational decision that gender is more important than biological sex, that male bodied people should be able to get boners in female dressing rooms by calling themselves women, that female bodied people should be able to match with you on grindr by identifying as gay men, that doctors should ignore your reproductive organs, statistics should comply with your fantasies, teenagers should be neutered if they aren't gender conforming, that women's prisons & shelters also house fully functioning males who can cause pregnancy, as long as they change their pronouns ... or any of the rest of it. They just think, oh can't we all just get along, why are they being mean to drag queens.

To anyone who isn't aware, that's not it. Most of us are 100% on board with gender non-conformity. There are plenty of old school trans people who are against the modern trans movement. Go do some research. Look up "gender critical" or 4th wave feminism or Miranda Yardley or Jane Claire Jones or just dig around a bit, there are plenty of perspectives and various degrees of reasonableness, but the current pro-Trans movement has definitely gone off the deep end. You don't want to support it without having a closer look.

emptiedriver · 2020-11-20T15:20:34+00:00

how much has this 'purge of transphobes' (read: homosexuals) been actually successful when it comes to real life and not exclusively online spaces?.... 'TRA in the streets, TERF in the sheets' mentality

I think the public arena is the place to be most concerned about - you may be right that people are TERF in the sheets, and TRA online, but what is really matters to me is what happens in the bars and classrooms and city halls. If people admit to themselves by way of who they end up sleeping with that sex matters, but claim online that TWAW, maybe no one cares. But if they shut down dyke bars, stop students from publishing articles, pass biased legislation, because of what's popular online, then we are in trouble after all. If these things turn around because once it's real people see they don't actually like it, then great, but if the percent of people impacted is tiny compared to the percent of people trying to be woke, you got a problem: basically, feminism and gay rights all over again except this time instead of arguing against the standard male right to authority over social order, it is arguing against the trans woman's right to authority over .. well, basically social order

emptiedriver · 2020-07-30T11:07:03+00:00

I can't even make sense of this

emptiedriver · 2020-10-13T05:59:50+00:00

okay, I mean that was great but also kind of crazy! I feel like if things do turn around it's going to happen sort of suddenly and everyone will be like, "what, who ever said anything about trans women actually being women?? come on! Maybe a few whack jobs on twitter, some people kidding around on the internet, no one ever really meant it..."

There didn't even seem to be downvotes or counterpoints - everyone agreed as if it was obvious and common sense that of course trans women should not be in women's sports leagues, that was reality not any kind of bigotry, & you could fully support trans rights and still understand biological facts. Which, again, it's good to see people making sense, but it does make it feel pretty hard to trust any opinions you hear in the media or online...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-05T13:38:24+00:00

Combine it with the last year of purposively restricting human interaction and it's no wonder that people are living in crazy fantasies. Online no one knows you're an awkward teenager... and you're practically expected to be on a computer most of the time, so hardly a surprise so many people go deeper and deeper into the virtual image they have of themselves. And all those around them support it since it has absolutely no bearing or reality to them anyway, like dying in a video game

emptiedriver · 2020-12-12T07:30:45+00:00

I think it's just more often called a "G spot"

emptiedriver · 2020-08-31T10:13:29+00:00

seriously, it is hilarious they put people down for being "vagina fetishists" but at the same time make such a point of "not kink shaming" - clearly they do not actually believe that a lesbian or a straight man is a "fetishist" since then they would not be so shamed for this preference!

No, it's just for some reason a moral shame they can allow - it's unacceptable to shame someone for rape fantasies, but to shame them for desiring a penis consensually is okay? It's terrible to shame someone for identifying as a person who chokes and dominates but you can shame them if they identify as someone who clitorally stimulates? If they actually listed the facts in their own words and compared ideas rationally they would see how ridiculous it all was but that's not how these things work...

emptiedriver · 2020-08-30T19:17:23+00:00

Even just the idea that the parent is taking seriously allowing a child to change their name to "Star" seems silly to me. Like, even if it were a daughter who was named Susan but wanted to become "Star" from now on, it seems like that's fine if you want to let her tell her friends to call her by a new nickname or whatever, but to officially ask the school and correct other parents and take seriously the idea of renaming your child "Star" ..?

I dunno, not that that's a big deal, but somehow it just accentuates the childishness of the whole thing to me. Just let the kid play around and if they want to have their friends use a nickname fine. But at this age, it's just bath time and personalities - if the kid wants to be "girly" fine, but what makes him a girl? Maybe it's not important now, but not worth causing confusion over.

emptiedriver · 2021-10-04T16:06:54+00:00

Every. Single. Time... Like, is there ever a discussion among TRAs about GC ideas where they don't resort to violence? It is so incredible. They just cannot stand the simple boring truth sitting in front of them. It drives them completely bonkers.

emptiedriver · 2021-06-15T16:58:45+00:00

so maybe that's a plus to lesbians? whatever those distinctions are in your mind, they may be exactly why some women like using a strap on but would not like a transvestite. How is that hard to understand in one direction but not the other?

emptiedriver · 2020-11-24T16:36:46+00:00

The way those are worded and listed makes it seem like everything is self-reported and anything can be labeled as force or violence if someone feels like it should be, which ends up making it all meaningless.

That is not to say that some of these people may not be dealing with abusive relationships but victimhood has become so completely sacrosanct that the slightest and not actually threatening push from a 5ft wife against her 6ft trans soon-to-be-ex could be called physical force at this point...

It sort of reads more like "who's unhappy in their relationship & wants to accuse their partner of being a jerk?" That's not the same as abuse, although maybe it's still interesting.

emptiedriver · 2020-10-31T06:58:04+00:00

The comments all so excited over "sword lesbians" are just bizarre. The phrase itself sounds like a joke, not like something a woman would say, both because it's just silly and due to it presumably having some kind of specific role assignment thing going on... I don't think that is common for lesbians, it wasn't in my experience, and it's never come up in conversations with women I've talked to.

I guess everything could be different now, but - all the same "sword lesbians" sure sounds dumb. Definitely not something meaningful to who you actually are, but something you are playing a game about being for some kicks

emptiedriver · 2020-10-31T06:34:30+00:00

people hanging around the music often got called by the names of the music genres - it was punk, goth, then emo, to describe the more artistic/ costumey fashions...

These days, you don't need the music first to create a community bc you can meet online. Back then meeting at concerts, clubs or record stores was the hub of social life, so the only place to show off your fashions was going out to a show.

emptiedriver · 2021-06-14T13:34:00+00:00

Just because someone can be sexually attracted to both sexes doesn't mean they are. They can still choose to be exclusively interested in one sex. Anyone can do this. It's not just something 'bisexual' people can do.

You realize you are making the same claim that people used to make against gay people, before the gay liberation movement, right? Think about it. Obviously there are people who have no choice. How else can you explain the gay rights movement, the need to live in the closet, the attempts at conversion, the underground movement and all the rest?? Why would so many people have suffered exile and social strife if they could have just chosen to be straight?

I am also bisexual, and at first I vaguely assumed that everyone must feel variations of attraction for people of different sexes, and have a fair share of flexibility in the sort of relationships they want to have. But you have to listen to what people tell you. Your experience is not universal. I think the idea of the Kinsey scale is sensible - for some people it's possible to make a choice even if their first instinct is clear, for some people the choice is wide open, but there are people who really are tied to one side.

There may be more people these days who could be convinced to choose to be homosexual and only choose hetero due to tradition. The percentage of people who are bisexual may be higher than has been presumed in the past. Plenty of guys have been known to find "romance" in situations of convenience (prison etc), and it seems like more young women "experiment" in college or whatever every generation, so I don't think what you're trying to say is completely uninteresting. But, it doesn't apply to everyone and it's not cool to make that claim when a lot of people have dealt with personal pain and social injustice to make that explicit that for the last 50+ years.

emptiedriver · 2021-05-29T14:23:56+00:00

While one person always has a hard time speaking for a larger group - what an individual woman experiences isn't necessarily true of all women - we can say that it's pretty widely agreed that fancy lingerie, uncomfortable corsets and straps and garters and all that, are almost always bought by women who are trying to please men. Women who are happily single (cat ladies and such) or long married (mothers or dusty old wives) or lesbians aren't stereotypically known for those kinds of male-pleasing gear. To females, it's not necessarily what makes a woman attractive, and that cat lady in sweat pants may be super hot if you'd just engage with her. But males seem to get caught up in shiny pink bras.

That makes me wonder what skimpy clothing women are getting excited by while staring at themselves in the mirror. Sitting there, talking to themselves in boxers and a tee shirt, enjoying the way the light falls against their own clavicle? I'm not buying it.

It's more akin to the female version of men flexing in the mirror.

If you're talking about getting dressed up to look hot for men, yes, even to a further degree. There's very little female-female sexuality that is based around pole-dancing, heel-wearing, frilly satin leotarded ladies. That's just a male fantasy...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-14T14:54:21+00:00

Here's the thing... when I was 14, I would've been okay with this

isn't that the point? That what you're ok with when you're 14 shouldn't be made into law...

Or are you saying that you would have been ok with being counseled into getting medical intervention at 14 in order to try to fix the mental health issues you were going through? Many teenagers go through a rough period during adolescence - when I was a kid we all became moody, black-wearing, Smiths-listening, boot stomping, weird hair cutting types for a while. And some people did use "medical substances" but most didn't have permanent effects at least.

Not saying either answer is good - being a teenager shouldn't have to be such an ordeal, and I do think unrealistic expectations, limiting roles, and all sorts of things that make people think they just don't "fit in" need to be worked on so that growing up can be less stressful. But, offering an easy answer in a hormone shot to a kid who is still growing, without every concerned party agreeing that it's an emergency and the only door left to try seems crazy.

I get that some parents are worse than others. I don't know exactly how to handle that, how to judge it and who gets to make the call, but putting parents in jail for wanting to halt non-necessary experimental medical procedures on their kid is going overboard.

emptiedriver · 2021-02-08T09:57:21+00:00

it's helplessly being used - crossing its arms, unhappy face, and stepped on directly by the T as the Q holds it up to make a platform for the T, and the A both holds it up and sort of hangs off it precariously for balance. I really think it's well done.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-22T11:09:48+00:00

Yeah, it's active - you want to do something sexual with someone of the same sex. What is the activity of being female? Wanting to have your period? I don't like having mine, plus I had no idea what it would feel like before I had my first one, plus they don't always feel the same, really. Wanting to have boobs? This just seems like getting confused with "wanting to touch boobs".. It makes no sense to say it's an inner feeling. It's a physical fact. You're homosexual or bisexual when you want to do things and especially when you start doing them due to the physical fact of your bodies. You're male or female based on those bodies. None of it is internal knowledge in a void.

emptiedriver · 2020-08-27T07:15:28+00:00

The truth is, it's not the dick - if they chopped it off tomorrow that wouldn't solve everything, right? There are plenty of other reasons.

but I broke up with her a couple of times because I couldn’t handle it. But stupid lonely attached lesbian that I am, I started dating her again.

You know how to do this. Just do it, be clear, and don't drift back.

emptiedriver · 2020-07-11T09:13:32+00:00

I'm afraid pretty much everything you've said is very standard TERF nowadays. Even the acronym is not claiming some kind of hate, but just being an "exclusionary feminist", so if you are going make a distinction between trans women and women, then that's the TE right there... and I think plenty of them think they're being too nice to give us the RF at all. Any distinction is hatred, which really does end up meaning recognizing sex is real is hatred, so when they come back saying "oh of course sex is real, jeezus" the conversation becomes very belabored. But, I'd be willing to have it if people would engage!

emptiedriver · 2021-09-01T15:00:26+00:00

This is fantastic work, thanks for putting it together.

emptiedriver · 2021-09-01T10:57:46+00:00

Part of what makes this hard is having to accept that people are legitimately stupider than you expect. Then, you do try to get across to everyone? Or just write off some portion as maybe-laters and try to figure out who to talk to... It's frustrating.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-31T14:25:36+00:00

But I'm the only one who really suffers, the pain of everyone else is just a joke!

Take out the canned laughter, and why is uncontrollable erections or underwear sizing or bad skin so much easier than being jealous of girls? Maybe you're not the only one who hates their clothes or is worried about being labeled a freak? Maybe everyone is dealing with a mutating body and who they're attracted to?

Obviously there are plenty of other issues people face, but the way this was set up just seemed so unthinking. It made it look like two kids were trying to laugh things off, make lemonade out of lemons life throws your way, and then the third one whined about stuff and made things awkward not bc he was dealing with anything worse but bc he was a big annoying baby.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-05T17:22:32+00:00

Who writes for the "Trans History Month" account? When was this posted? It's just such a jaw-dropping thing to say I can barely process it. Does anyone know how other trans supporters responded...

emptiedriver · 2021-05-19T07:27:47+00:00

For every [male] wanting access to woman's facilities (bathrooms, locker rooms), there is a [female] wanting access to men's facilities.

Not sure that that is true, but even if it is, who would you expect women to be concerned about?

Trans men are not infringing on women's rights. They're annoyingly ditching the fight for women's rights and trying to opt out of a material problem by proclaiming themselves to be men, but they aren't causing a material problem, or at very least not one for women, which is who feminists are fighting for. If anyone needs to be worrying about the direct impact of trans men, it's not other women. For us, the worry is their indirect impact of giving up on womanhood altogether, and there's plenty of discussion about that.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-09T13:04:59+00:00

It's offensive to tell people they are walking gametes, and sex organs.

You're not telling them they're "walking sex organs", you're just telling them their sex is based on their sex organs. Their personality and their interests and their self identity is not. What sex you are does not define you. It just defines what sex you are.

Your sex is not the most fundamental component of everything about you. It can have a lot of influence - you may discover over the course of things why those sex organs are pretty important if it seems incidental to you now - but it does not define you absolutely, and if you want to be different than what you see as the standard expectations of your sex, go for it. All the same, you can't escape the fact that you have a certain reproductive system and not a different one. Whether you are male or female is just material reality. What your preferences or personality is like is a much more complex and unique set of details.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-13T12:05:36+00:00

I think it's because one way or the other, they're "gay". Either they're biologically a gay couple or they can identify as a gay couple, so some portion of people are going to see them as gay regardless. Since more people are oriented as straight to start with, more trans people will probably identify themselves as gay, but the ones who don't will probably be considered gay by acquaintances...

emptiedriver · 2022-02-05T17:44:21+00:00

Courage begets courage.

I do think this is the key thing. There are probably more people who don't believe this crap than who do, but the ones who do are more fervent. They have scared a portion of those who disagree from speaking up, and then another percentage of people think it's a side issue that doesn't matter much. It's sort of a scale from those who feel frustrated by a fear of social ostracism to those who are just trying to avoid conflict - who cares if it's true, let's not fight over it, kinda thing.

So what matters now is to make it clear that both a) it is important and does have serious consequences especially for women's and LGB rights, as well as many individuals' health and well-being; and b) there are plenty of people who agree on the basic facts at hand here, and we should all be speaking up more often in more places so that it's more evident to those nearby that it's a common, established, politically variable, simply fundamental position to hold. Anyone can say "there are two sexes" and "men cannot be women" - we've got to remind people those are ordinary things to be stating, and that we are not taking the nonsense seriously, by being clear about it whenever there's a chance.

emptiedriver · 2021-06-15T17:10:00+00:00

One mimics male anatomy...The other is a handed toy that won’t affect the appearance of female anatomy

But I sure would rather a woman handing a toy that resembles a human penis on me while I can see her womanly body and the beautiful female anatomy

have you ever actually tried a strap on? You have a lot to say about how things visually appear, but when you're in the moment all that really matters is how things feel, and if she has the skin, smell, touch, lips, body, eyes, back... of a woman, and you're climaxing, you might take advantage of technologies now and then. No one needs to use vibrators, but, on the other hand, sometimes they're fun. That's how most people who've used strap ons feel about them. It just gives you another option.

emptiedriver · 2020-11-18T13:20:51+00:00

"...that says trans women are just men in dresses.."

dingdingdingdingding

emptiedriver · 2020-09-01T15:37:05+00:00

This really is worth watching all the way through. At some point I was thinking, funny thing is, this kind of sounds like it could be any unhappy marriage, isn't it awful how our society so often allows women to get stuck in these kinds of situations - but then she did address this, and talk about how it's more the support and network now available to AGP men who can often be the oppressors in marriages like that, or even how men in abusive positions now have access to a "get-out-of-jail-free-card" by making themselves the victim or oppressed or brave & stunning one.. This is not about people with body dysphoria. It's about men with an extreme focus on objectifying women...

emptiedriver · 2020-09-01T12:34:36+00:00

I have been GC for easily five years now, but I recently found an old online comment I had made during the 2nd Obama election that now sounds pretty TRA, just because back then I did think, "being trans is like being gay" and I just kind of went along with what that would then mean. I think I always had a mild dissatisfaction about it but I considered that my problem, a bigotry rather than a worthwhile rational issue, so instead of allowing myself to open my mind, I insisted on following the established belief.

For me, it couldn't last because feminism had always been based on embodiment and this system just wasn't going to make sense, but I tried to stay quiet and on the fence in public forums... women's sports really made it impossible though. If you read 4th wave from the start you can see a bit of a story of feminists who change their minds. Or any of the peak stories on the GC sub. People do change their mind, especially if they haven't been supporting it a long time, don't have something to gain from it, have someone close to them who can share rational viewpoints with them, and/or don't spend all their time online.

emptiedriver · 2020-07-23T12:29:30+00:00

got laughed off the face of the earth in like

No one is laughed off the face of the earth anymore, you can identify any which way you want - the only thing you can't do is be aware of empirical reality, attracted by physical bodies, or comfortable with your embodied self.

Basically people are acting like they live in a video game and we all have to respect the avatar they're playing. You can pretty much constantly expand the world and create new forms but you can't be a bummer and point out that actually they're just a lazy kid on the couch...

emptiedriver · 2021-08-28T08:01:25+00:00

This is a confusing study. It says "of your preferred gender" who is transgender, so does that mean if you're a lesbian would you date a trans man? Or is it asking if you'd date a transbian? Given that the numbers are so similar between whether you're okay with GNC and whether you're okay with trans, it seems like many may have just thought that was basically the same thing.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-23T10:09:13+00:00

It's interesting you give the power of the "feminine" angle of gay spaces to bisexual women - I would have assumed it was due to gay men, who have commonly (at least in the past) been dominated by feminine men. Lesbians and bisexual women have been more likely to lean toward a "butch" sensibility, and at least in the 90s/00s, places specifically designated for dykes or drag kings tended to have more of a biker bar vibe or be cheap hole-in-the-wall/ get a beer joints, whereas the money making clubs and big time event spaces that were all glam and shazaam were being run by the queens, which is to say, the men. I don't think women started that...

emptiedriver · 2021-06-07T07:46:21+00:00

If children are essentially sexless, then there is no such a thing as a girl or a boy, because there is no such a thing as a male or female child.

I'm sorry I made this so ridiculously confusing for you. You asked why children aren't sexless and I said, sure, maybe they are since they haven't sexually developed yet. I shouldn't have indulged you. I think that in its strictest, most complete, fully functioning form, sex is evident in healthy adults. In children, unhealthy or other cases of abnormal, altered or degraded physical bodies, sex can be non-functioning or somehow incomplete. It is usually still recognizable. Fundamentally, it does not change to a different sex. Even if you argue that some people do not have a sex if they lose some parts or haven't developed them yet, so what? What difference does that make for trans people?

It's the difference between adult men and women that has caused women's oppression. That is why it does not matter to me whether girls and boys are sexed - they are physically comparable in size and strength, and do not deal with pregnancy and the division of labor issue, so it's largely bc girls will become women that they deal with expectations and different treatment. If we could ignore their sex as children, I can imagine it being a positive. The same cannot be said for adult women, because the physical realities need to be taken up communally.

or so you believe, police would have to record the incident as "sexless creature got molested".

What are you talking about? Do you think if people are not categorized by their sex they are no longer people? How do you even deal with non-binary or asexual people in the trans movement... Maybe the police could record it as "child got molested"? or "young human being"?

emptiedriver · 2021-04-12T09:47:53+00:00

I guess I would ask-- is she forceful about her beliefs?

I think part of the problem/ frustration with gender ideology is that since it is a socially supported system, one almost has to be forceful in order for it to hold any water. If you can't get other people to acknowledge and validate you as your chosen gender, what does it even mean? Could anyone be trans alone on a desert island? You'd just be a person with a body. Maybe you could obsess over it and alter it as you stared at your own reflection but really you need other people to use your pronouns and your new name and complement you or give you a pass in accordance with the gender you're trying to attain.

I know a trans man who always posts the most ridiculous "dude" type of posts that no one I know would respond to if it was actually someone's brother, but bc it's someone showing what a guy they are, anytime they post something like "just having a beer and watching the game!" like a dozen alternative-artsy-lesbian type people write things like "right on, my man!" It's a complete farce as far as I can tell, all done in hopes of helping this person feel they are correctly achieving manliness.

Someone can be religious without external support. They can talk to their pastor or congregation about it and not with you, they can pray or write about it for themselves but consider it private, they can even have a fairly public religious worldview, but agree to disagree about some fundamental issues as long as you're respectful. But in trans ideology, it is automatically disrespectful to not already support the facade, and while this can work when it's a rare thing, it's more cumbersome when it's regular. I used to just use preferred pronouns when they only came up on the odd chance I'd be having a conversation that referenced a tiny handful of trans people in my circle - like bowing your head at the occasional ceremony where someone else leads a prayer.

But if it starts to be the case that everywhere you go starts and ends with prayers, and you're now required to say "amen" and if you don't you're called a bigot, your atheism starts to seem more important - or at least your right to it. And people who aren't seeing any problem are definitely frustrating...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-11T08:26:50+00:00

I saw something like that the other day too. I don't even understand the argument - what is the role model if not to fight hard in a fair competition? To just be genetically better endowed? I understand one can claim that is what happens in sports but I do not understand how that is a role model. The whole point of good sportsmanship is to do our best to make it fair.

The part that makes it most frustrating for me is how this is not even a topic of debate. It's an automatic "with us or against us" attitude. When I was growing up we had debate teams, we had to play devil's advocate, we had to learn the views of the opposing position, for all sorts of strongly held beliefs - I remember arguing over abortion, gun rights, the death penalty, gay marriage point by point, not dismissing the alternate idea as "bigotry" and looking askance at anyone who would dare! to suggest such a thing... But trans rights have become entirely enshrouded in mystery, everything they want unquestioned, no discussion, no back and forth, even when they are self-contradictory or just ridiculous. So men who identify as women playing on women's sports teams does not even get debated: either you are a right wing nut job or you embrace it.

emptiedriver · 2021-02-28T11:03:40+00:00

It truly is amazing that every single thing he tweeted which they accuse of being offensive is the most simple straightforward fact. How can we possibly go on like this? How can people continue to pretend that it is bigoted to state the most obvious things, like that women can menstruate but men can't? It's insane. Are we really going to keep this up?

People all around me either ignore or shake their heads and dismiss the terrible discrimination of people who make these kinds of comments - people like JK Rowling or Rand Paul who do not seem to be asking terrible questions when you listen to them, but who are spoken of like heretics. This guy can't be rejected in the same way, right? These statements are so simple, so uncontroversial...

emptiedriver · 2021-01-05T09:45:42+00:00

"I like to objectify myself sexually"

emptiedriver · 2021-01-03T10:46:39+00:00

yeah, I'm bisexual and have lived with but not married people of both sexes. At a certain point after paying rent together, buying furniture or a car or a house, moving, going to family things together or hosting them, caring for a pet (or a child!), or generally sharing life for a long enough time it just starts to feel awkward to say boyfriend or girlfriend. "Partner" is the best option, and in some countries is recognized as a legal status. You might just be noticing it more because you're getting older and more people have settled down.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-04T16:34:16+00:00

I'm older and not at all familiar with anime/ trans related art, and I have to say this would have gone completely over my head. They just look like random cartoons to me and I would not have noticed whether they were male or female or meant to represent someone who had mastectomy scars. It's intriguing that it stands out as so glaring and upsetting to people more involved. I think if I decide on the sex of a cartoon, it's based on the voice... though generally, cartoons are just sexless.

It is still sad to see mastectomies normalized or made to seem like a symbol of power. Breasts should be normalized, not seen as any more or less sexy than men's nipples. Not wearing bras, not wearing tops if you don't want to, should be normal. Men sometimes have more shoulder muscle, women sometimes have more chest flesh. Cosmetic surgery isn't brave.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-01T08:40:25+00:00

I thought he was in a couple episodes and never understood if he was meant to be a man or woman, or some weird memory of the main character's, or what. It distracted me a little bit, since it seemed sort of out of place in the time period, but the whole series was slightly surreal or at least unrealistic in its presentation so I just attributed it to that.

But yeah, it was certainly obvious.

emptiedriver · 2020-11-17T09:21:48+00:00

so over 60% of identical twins do not have the same gender? That seems to be strong evidence against it being "real" to me...

The most common "GC" theory I have heard is that there are two branches of being trans, at least for men - homosexual or autogynophile. Those could have genetic roots without it having any impact on the GC attitude, which is simply that it doesn't make them women. It can still make them trans women and they can still be welcomed into women's circles in various social settings that want to share space, but in political matters, physical matters, and simply on a factual level, it doesn't change biology.

They are born with male bodies, and then it makes some difference whether they are continuing to live with male bodies or getting medical changes (maybe we need a 3rd category here), but psychological feelings are not what the categories are referring to. Man and woman are physical sets.

emptiedriver · 2020-10-12T09:05:28+00:00

geez, my 6 year old sometimes "misgenders" both me and his dad - has called me "daddy" or his dad "mommy", who knows why. He's done it at random times over the years and we have casually corrected him or laughed it off. All that matters is that he knows we love him and that he loves us. We let him call us by our names if he wants, which he sometimes thinks is fun, but also seems to think is sort of awkward/silly, so only does as a kind of joke. I don't think I hear him talk about me in the third person all that much so can't say for sure if there's a lot of pronoun mix-up, but hardly worth worrying over!

I mean really, this kid will continue to perceive what he perceives, but the parents can nudge their preferred address if that's the etiquette they want to instill. Just because a two year old isn't using the right fork for salad yet doesn't mean he'll never be able to engage in modern polite society... There's plenty of time to teach him how to perform the new century's norms.

emptiedriver · 2020-08-13T14:10:31+00:00

I think it makes just as much sense to want to opt out of either gender as to want to transition to the other gender, when all that "gender" means is the stereotypical role of the sex. No one is actually going to change sex. They are just changing what stereotype they play, so a non-binary is choosing to not follow the pre-defined A or B, pink or blue, lipstick or facial hair, and instead mix it up.

Obviously that should just be called "personality". Having a cervix doesn't indicate whether you like high heels or boots or flip flops or nikes. It's not non-binary to dye your hair green or wear one earring or black lipstick or whatever.. (we used to call it goth) - it's not an identity, just a style.

emptiedriver · 2020-08-05T17:08:08+00:00

I mean, it makes sense - a man in the real world and a woman in the matrix is exactly what trans women are. They are trying to create a matrix version of life for themselves...

I guess the claim they would make is that I have which world is the matrix backwards, but how do we determine that? Is it the place you can be anything you want once you know, or the place where there's a basic reality you have to accept, but at least it's the truth...

Yeah, I feel like they have completely forgotten the meaning of their own movie

emptiedriver · 2021-09-24T13:34:08+00:00

but it's inaccurate. it's claiming people are attracted to what kind of haircut you have not which body, and yes people like trans to avoid thinking of their kids as having sex, but that isn't making the whole thing healthy, it's making gay kids hide in a trans closet that is more dangerous than the old fashioned version bc now you are getting meds and surgeries not just being quiet... I don't see the benefit

emptiedriver · 2021-08-09T14:21:09+00:00

Too bad, it's still associated. LGB is not invited or given a voice anymore... but no one is going to suddenly think there is whole other history, movement, set of organizations, pride events, flags or agenda in general that is completely separate. This began as gay rights! Even if they cut out the official naming of LGB in every organization, if they do so much as having the events in June, or rainbow colors, or reference Stonewall, people will remember where it began, and assume that it evolved from gay rights into its true full form as trans rights, and that there's just no need to reference gay rights anymore bc that was basically just a mini larval version of what was really important.

To separate the two, there has to be a break, an explicit disassociation, and a large enough group of people making it clear...

emptiedriver · 2021-06-13T08:54:53+00:00

Taking prescribed doses of T for the purpose of transitioning is not "substance abuse".

If getting prescriptions is easy, you can abuse prescribed meds. It's a common issue. Hormones have been prescribed incredibly easily.

Again, T requires a prescription.

Again, look at opiates, valium or xanax, or various kinds of methamphetamines.

But if they are doing HRT they would have low testosterone. Which proves testosterone did not cause this man's violence.

Males get regular testosterone every day for their entire lives. They don't get sudden injections once a month, but their bodies have been built out of it since they were little boys, and even more so after they hit puberty. Even most men who have replaced T with estrogen still have higher testosterone than women just due to what their body naturally produces, but even if they didn't they have the lasting effects of what was already made.

There are cis women who commit violent acts, as well as cis men. Why did this case stand out?

I don't think people are saying this case stands out against some other case of a non-medicated woman attacking a woman, but just that in this case, a woman who is being violent should not be prescribed testosterone. This is a bad treatment plan. I would not think someone would encourage an abusive "cis man" to take steroids either. Rage and violence are well known potential side effects so if they seem to be manifesting, the prescription should be reconsidered even if your position is that the drug can be beneficial.

emptiedriver · 2021-06-07T10:38:08+00:00

I thought it was obvious I was talking about pre-pubescent children if I was suggesting we could speak about sexlessness. This is all so ridiculous, I should clearly never have entered this topic. It was just an abstract possibility.

emptiedriver · 2021-06-06T10:46:11+00:00

Bioessentialism, a shorthand for biological essentialism, is the idea that we are born with specific, immutable traits by virtue of our sex.

Can you define what "sex" is? We do not have to have specific traits by virtue of our sex in order to have a sex. Things like having XX chromosomes and a female reproductive system are not by virtue of being female. They are the reason someone is defined as female. They are the same as being female. It is an a=a situation.

You can say it is essentialist to suggest that just because someone is female, they will naturally want to wear dresses. But it does not make sense to claim it's essentialist to say that just because someone is female, they will be female. Wearing dresses is a flexible social role. Having a vagina is a material reality that defines the category. Not all cats are necessarily sweet and cuddly, but all cats are felines - which means they're 4-legged mammals of a certain type, etc. Certain characteristics are just part of the definition. It will usually be physical facts.

This also means not all women have female sex organs and release eggs. Not all men have male sex organs and release sperm

All humans have either male or female sexual reproductive systems (unless perhaps they have some kind of very rare disorder, but as I understand it even most "intersex" individuals have the basis of a male or female system, just with dysfunction).

Why aren't children sexless eventhough they can not release eggs or sperms?

It's perfectly reasonable to consider children essentially sexless. Girls and boys are not yet women and men. They're distinct but until puberty the distinction is minimal.

Sure someone who removes all their sex organs in a surgery once had sex organs, but now they don't, and they don't meet the definition of sex, which requires one to have certain organs and release gametes. So why aren't they considered sexless or less of a sex?

Even in cases where everything has been removed, the other system hasn't been implanted so the most you can claim is that they've been desexed (as people used to say about eunuchs). No one changes sex. Also, it's very difficult to remove everything and not healthy if it's not a last resort. Beyond that, sex is embedded even more deeply than that - the shape of the skeleton, the size of other organs, the space left behind if things are removed, would all give away which sex the body was altered from.

traditional patriarchal structures: “Men are stronger, less emotional and better suited to lead.” It persists today in the form of gender roles, gender-based exclusion, and transphobia... TERFs generalize the “universal experiences” of women, e.g. having a uterus or menstruating.

Do you see the difference? Once you start getting into adjectives and personality traits, likes and dislikes, capacities and preferences, those are things that can change with individuals and which tend to be grouped under stereotypes. But physical facts are easy to distinguish. Having a uterus is just fact. And it's part of the definition of female for mammals. If we want to change the definition of woman from its simple cow/bull, rooster/hen, man/woman version, then we need a new categorization that has some kind of meaning. What does woman mean if it doesn't mean "adult human female"?

emptiedriver · 2021-05-15T10:44:44+00:00

Why is racial segregation discriminatory, while sex segregation is a requirement and not discriminatory?

When women are not allowed into men's clubs, it's sexist. There have never been separate drinking fountains for women. It's just places where men and women undress that are separate, and that's because we have different bodies and there is a risk of sexual assault, right? Black and white segregation was living spaces, buses, shops - black people were not allowed into the white world at all because they were considered lesser. Places where women were not allowed into men's spaces were sexist, and that was fought against in the exact same way. Places where they're separated for physical reasons are because male and female have different bodies.

why should lesbians be allowed in women's spaces

Most simply, lesbians may have unwanted thoughts, but they don't pose as much of a danger. They are less likely to physically overpower, they are less able to sexually violate, and they cannot impregnate other women. In addition most lesbians understand that it's unpleasant to be leered at and will not want to seem threatening. Also, there are just a smaller percentage of lesbians among a group of women than hetero men among a group of men.

Nothing is a 100% solution, but changing with your own sex handles 99% of the problem. You can't really regulate "don't go in if you might do something bad", and where are you going to have lesbians change? But it's a small enough issue to just accept division by sex, although famously that has resulted in male bathrooms turning into gay sex spots in the past... I've never heard of the equivalent issue arising for women's areas though.

emptiedriver · 2021-05-08T13:36:21+00:00

So these trans activists have no trouble understanding, or even expect, that when a person transitions their partner will no longer be attracted to them?

I think for most GC people, the variations of attraction that don't have to do with sexual orientation (whether you feel physically aroused by same sex or opposite sex partners) are basically personality things, the same way all the variations of style, haircut, hobbies, speech affectation, are personality things. Putting it all under the umbrella of "gender" is locking it into a social role. Just be yourself, do what you like, like who you like, but you don't have to define yourself by rules of the culture.

Your sex is a physical fact so you can't "identify" in or out of that, but things like whether you like skirts or dating people with nail polish is just details. If you've got a thing for people who wear skirts, that's a psychological connection you've made somewhere along the way. If you're aroused by chemical reactions, that's an orientation (and if it happens with both sexes, you're bi).

emptiedriver · 2021-04-24T11:20:06+00:00

Basing "male, female, man, woman" on cultural values or stereotypes rather than on biological or material reality means that a)there is no standard definition, ie, what "counts" as a man or woman will depend on personal opinion. Was David Bowie a man? What about all those men in previous centuries who wore wigs and high heels? What about all the ones in hollywood who wear make up all the time? Gay men? Effeminate men? Men who look like hairy lumberjacks but say they feel womanly? Who gets to decide what counts and how long does it count for if the style changes?

and more important, b), there is no definition for the material difference of the sexes, which is a biological reality that we should have a name for the way we have a name for the distinction of the sexes in literally every other species: bull, cow - rooster, hen - the human who can ejaculate, the human who has a uterus? And then they have medical issues and we can't differentiate at all even though obviously they are distinct? It's silliness. Biologically we are speaking of two separable categories. Yes, humans do not follow their instincts in the same way that animals do, but they still have animal capacities that we can't ignore. It's how we reproduce. Our personalities don't fit in categories nearly so neatly. It's like putting everyone into what star sign they are or something. No one's "gender identity" is quite so absolute. But your sex is just a bodily fact, like eye color or foot size. It doesn't have to tell you much, but it may tell you something, at least about how society treats you (as skin color or hair texture often does). Hide it, and you might have a slightly different story, but you won't have a different sex.

emptiedriver · 2021-04-20T10:36:12+00:00

Pitiful. Even after getting she wanted, it didn't solve the BPD, and the suicidal ideation obviously continued... And now the mother will try to erase all the memories from before the transition? It's ludicrous. My kid is only 7 and there is so much to remember already - how would you pretend that just didn't exist or was somehow physically false? It's incomprehensible. Why a trans person will not just be known as trans, I cannot understand.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-30T08:22:45+00:00

However, for the most part I think public discourse is informed by a handful of empty talking points that people just repeat back to each other to sound like they didn't come to their decision emotionally.

But where do the emotions come from - I think a lot of people have very general and therefore malleable emotions, and will be convincible based on how something is framed. A bunch of people may want to do what's fair and good and allow everyone to love who they love, right? If trans rights are seen as another aspect of that, and people against it are seen through a lens of oppressors who are trying to stop trans people from living their happy lives, then emotionally they will want to support Trans Rights! and when the Bad Guys say anything they are presumed to be making it up or skewing statistics or otherwise just lying. But if enough information comes out to show that the view the "Bad Guys" were trying to communicate was actually sensible and irrefutable, and really, to support love and fight oppression you have to fight Big Pharma and not support trans... then the whole perspective has to shift. And people go through that kind of mental switch all the time. Sure, it's all emotional, and people don't do a lot of rational comparison to reach conclusions, but they can switch paradigms.

And I'd think studies like this can make people peak, bc the orthodoxy is that the percentage of detransitioners is incredibly small, a few percent or something, and that those who do are forced into it due to peer pressure and are less happy than they would be if they had been allowed to remain trans. I never looked into it that far since I was mostly concerned with the issue that even after transition you're still the same sex, but, these numbers are way different from what I've heard people claim. So I'd have to think it would be harder to ignore the contradiction.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-24T13:57:45+00:00

I'm not QT, but I think the answer would be that it's not about sex vs gender, but about preferences of the person. It's considered respectful to call them by their gender bc that's what they want (like what name they go by) whereas physical reality is not what they wish it was, not your business, and/or not actually scientifically valid by new science rules.

So it's two sides of a coin - you mis-sex someone if they want you to. Facts aren't the deciding factor, just feelings.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-22T14:40:40+00:00

It means, if we implement suggestions of GC, like: * no hormonal blockers for teens, even if gender dysphoria was proper diagnosted

How can you be sure you "properly diagnose" dysphoria when someone is still developing? There are so many stages people go through and at this point we barely know what the long term consequences of the medical options are going to be, so waiting until someone is 18 is not radical. It's just allowing time to pursue therapeutic, self-affirming, body-positive approaches before turning to serious, lifelong biological alterations. It seems better to allow healthy natural changes to happen and provide psychological support than to support psychological discordance by damaging the body. Or at very least, to try that until the person has fully matured and can take responsibility for the consequences.

change gender markers in the ID cards back to sex at the birth

What about noting FtM or MtF? It seems important in emergencies for doctors to know what the sex of someone is, for example, and lying on historical documents is just strange. I understand wishing for things to be different, but part of mental health is accepting reality.

It could lead for millions of deaths. So, we're pathetic. Nobody want to feel that it's they responsibility of massacre.

It is not a massacre, and no one is responsible for someone else's self harm. Everyone agrees that it's important to help people who suffer from suicidal ideation to work toward a more stable and healthy state of mind, but that does not mean caving to their every demand. In fact it often means helping them see why those kinds of dramatic ultimatums are not consistent with a realistic and satisfying way of living.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-16T18:48:02+00:00

exactly... a lot of people suffer from wishing things were fundamentally different than they are. That's the most famous cliche prayer in every bathroom, accept what cannot be changed, strength to change what can & wisdom to know the difference - this is one where you need acceptance not strength. You can't strong-arm how people see you.

emptiedriver · 2021-03-11T07:43:08+00:00

yep, there was an article on NPR's FB the other day that made it sound like being against the "Equality act" was something that conservative Religious organizations had taken it upon themselves to do, and that the only reason Republicans were voting against it was to calm down orthodox jews and crazy christians.

The entire comment section was people shaking their heads about the separation of church and state, a few comments about "just leave people alone", but almost nothing recognizing the real issues at stake. And when it was brought up, people were clueless about facts (believing trans women have no advantage after transitioning, can't compete until they've been transitioned at least a year, etc)

emptiedriver · 2020-12-02T09:38:06+00:00

as they claim that transgenders are the most oppressed of all.

no one really believes that do they. They are using the word oppressed, but they are not fearing the experience of oppression when they transition. They know on a visceral level that transitioning is going to bring them support and accolades from most of those around them. They use the word "oppression" to mean "the bad guys don't like it and it's something we have to rally and chant about and maybe I will meet an old white person I can correct for having it wrong".

They don't mean they're pressed down by the culture, living in fear and loneliness, unable to gain power or confidence...

emptiedriver · 2020-11-20T08:41:21+00:00

You need to start engaging in these threads or responding to people who put time into posting answers to you if you want to get thoughtful and detailed arguments. I am not going to go through every one of these when I expect you will just disappear, but yes, they can all be refuted.

What I will say is that his biggest confusion is 1d, where he says:

"1d. The distinction between the truth and JK's mischaracterisation is important - because no one is arguing that sex is not determined by biology.

This is a common transphobic attack to cast trans (and NB/intersex) rights in an absolutist light to make them seem absurd."

Yeah, no, they ARE absurd. They ARE arguing that sex is not determined by biology. Either absolutely blatantly and literally, or sometimes a little more confusedly by just saying that biology doesn't matter and everything which we have determined by biology in the past such as sports teams, private areas, medical treatments, statistics, sexual attraction and so on, should now be determined simply by someone's claim to identity. If you concede that sex is determined by biology but maintain it is not the difference between men and women then what are you even saying?

This is the key argument and really the issue which can make the rest of them clear. Trans women are biologically men. They may be welcome into women's circles in some contexts, but they cannot be expected to be categorized as women legally, medically, or automatically. That's just not the biological truth, and discussing that or how to handle that should not be a problem.

emptiedriver · 2020-08-12T11:44:20+00:00

I have known a couple of trans men who had been butch lesbians, and I also was bothered by attitude shifts I witnessed. I never knew if it was due to biological injections or social concerns, but those rude, space-taking, presumptuous and non-sympathetic ways of behaving became so obvious.

It did also seem like they were encouraged, though - that it was clear when they were being "manly" and that there was a kind of nudging fist-bump approval to a good performance by a lot of those who wanted to support either the friend or the movement... I mean, despite hating it, I even found myself pushing things along in that direction at times, like just saying "dude" more or giving more chin nods, even when I don't do that with male friends and I didn't think they were male. To be nice I approved the stereotype they were trying to live, to a point.

emptiedriver · 2020-07-12T19:42:14+00:00

Great idea. I'm here from Reddit and some kind of moderate GC. I am bisexual, had a long term relationship with a butch lesbian in my 20s/30s, but had a child with a male partner at 40. I have had a variety of different haircuts including shaving my head a few times, and keeping short buzz cuts, as well as having long hair. I've rarely done anything complicated or overly styled with my hair, worn make up, or worn dresses or skirts - there were times when I was younger when I'd go out for something, usually in a sort of "goth" vein (blue hair, eyeliner, skirt with boots, type thing) but it was never a commitment, and now that i'm in my 40s I probably haven't worn make up in decades, and am the boring jeans/tee shirt mom you don't notice.

I always used to think gender was kind of a fun thing to play with - I used to take photos of myself (and other people) in poses or making expressions to try to make them look more male or female, sort of as a joke/experiment, I think because I have a fairly androgynous face - a strong jaw for a woman, but high cheekbones, so it depends how I lean toward the camera if I look more feminine. The woman I was dating also looking boyish, but clearly womanly, in a different way, and I found it intriguing. And at the time, drag kings were big, but trans identities really hadn't taken over, so it felt like a lot of people who explored gender were doing it theatrically. I love performance so I found the whole genre fun and clever. I thought it was social commentary on the boundaries of gender as the characters performed were so hilariously stereotyped and ridiculous. Then some of those people actually transitioned and I was left confused and disappointed - they hadn't been commenting the way I had thought, anyway... But, not everyone transitioned, life went on, I went back to school for another degree and other things changed and by the time I became aware of the issue again, everything had really started to drift. These days I can't really talk to my friends on social media about it without it making me a lightning rod, which I've done a couple times and generally avoid now.

emptiedriver · 2021-09-29T12:48:25+00:00

First off, no, the word 'European' does not mean I have a European passport.

Well, I'm American but living in Europe and would never call myself European. As far as I understand the meaning of the word, it only refers to people who are citizens of European countries. I have a residence card, but I still have to go to the American consulate to take care of official papers.

Still, that's just semantics - you are saying that you can be European and American at the same time if you have an American passport and live in Europe. Are you then trying to say that you can be a man and a woman at the same time if you are male but presenting as female?

So, that would be a no. Because they are transgender. Exclusionary vocabulary.

How do we know if something is exclusionary when the definitions are so hazy... a transgender female is not a woman because "transgender" is exclusive, but a trans woman is a woman because "trans" is just an adjective, is that right?

I mean, they COULD, but now you're getting into the realm of having multiple words to describe you, and having to pick the best one for any situation. To take from my example from earlier that you didn't understand, I am European, and American (A native of Europe, a permanent resident of America.) The answer to 'what' I am, in this case, isn't a definitive answer, but a social answer, because in most cases, just saying 'both' isn't helpful.

So... you are both a man and a woman but it's "not helpful" to say both? That it isn't really exclusionary vocabulary in any other sense except you deciding to exclude one of the definitions.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-28T15:43:26+00:00

But I thought the clitoris was the mini penis? Do women have both a mini penis and an inverted penis? Maybe everything is actually just some kind of reconfigured penile substance if I smoke enough weed and stare at my dick...

What utter nonsense. The lack of editorial management online is really going to harm the next generation's education.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-28T15:35:38+00:00

What exactly are you asking - why do some people think that they are trans? Or what features should count as trans? Or what...

GC people generally don't believe that being trans is an objective thing. If the person never said anything, they'd be a guy in a dress. To someone gender critical, that is still the case. Stick to reality, not peer pressure.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-09T09:34:44+00:00

how can someone possibly be this upside-down and backwards? It's incredible. What unbelievable narcissism. Unless they're trolling but I've given up trying to determine that anymore, it's just a completely insane world out there and people really have gone mad...

(And people my age and a little further from the most ridiculous claims still support all the general "people can be whatever they want to be" stuff because they vaguely assume that just means "boys can wear skirts" or whatever. )

emptiedriver · 2021-08-07T10:11:14+00:00

what a random assortment of different opinions. And pretty much none of them are the least bit discriminatory? Was the worst something like "they should be nicer"?

I'm on the "worst" possible end apparently simply for acknowledging how human reproduction works, but could move way up the scale if I decided to support them because "it's trendy"... hilarious. I guess it's revealing in its way.

emptiedriver · 2021-08-06T16:40:28+00:00

it really is amazing how people can get so caught in an illusion that a whole new mental category is created - they can see a trans person isn't actually the same as the sex they're trying to be, but still follow the social pressures and currents enough that they become something else than what their physical senses show them...

emptiedriver · 2021-06-07T09:04:05+00:00

don't you think that's due to what is known to be in their future? I have always understood the treatment of girls to be due to the predestination of womanhood rather than the capacity of girls, and my understanding was that girls were fairly equal in sports until close to puberty when the differences became marked. Of course, I may be mistaken and I am not sure there are statistics. It's true that boys tend to be more active on the playground. Perhaps that is just more libfem hearsay I have picked up over the years...

emptiedriver · 2021-06-06T19:28:35+00:00

Would you have sex with a child? A child has an immature reproductive system. They have the potential to become sexual creatures, but pre-puberty, their sex is not yet developed. Does that mean they are sexless? I don't really know, and the point is that it doesn't really matter. You can say they have a sex but it's nascent or you can say they don't have one yet, as clearly it's distinct from once it becomes an active system. I don't think it's terribly controversial to speak that way. But what you can't say is that they'll start as a boy and turn into a woman.

Of course there is such a thing as a girl or a boy - a girl will become a woman and a boy will become a man. What sex you have at some point in your life is inherent from conception. The haggling over exactly when lines are crossed to achieve sexed vs non-sexed seems like a red herring. The fundamental point is still, there is no shift from one sex to the other. The most you can claim, and I'm only offering it to make the point, is that some people could be defined as non-sexed if you like. Sure, call children pre-sexed, even say someone who has extreme surgery is neutered if you like, but you can never get to cross-sexed.

emptiedriver · 2021-05-25T18:21:02+00:00

This alleged straight man allegedly talked to his alleged straight friends too, and they all allegedly agreed with him that they'd all date trans women, so why won't gay bros date trans men? The whole thing seems like a set up...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-23T15:16:18+00:00

When I was in high school "feminazi" was the preferred term for women who took this whole rights thing too far. Comparing people to Hitler when they start being mean or asking you to do stuff you don't want is just how unchallenged overprivileged kids handle the start of a disagreement.

emptiedriver · 2021-02-19T19:18:33+00:00

"men" and "women", as understood under the transgender paradigm, are social categories, not biological ones.

But how do you become associated with either category? For most of us, it is simply a biological fact. Only trans people, and perhaps some limited segment of "cis-identified" people though it can't really be proven, have an inner sense of gender. The vast majority of us know what sex we are based on bodily realities.

Of course, for the purpose of healthcare, biology still has to be adressed, and because the scientific terminology relating to biological functions is often cold, clinical and difficult to understand, language using this terminology is also cold, clinical and difficult to understand.

Well, except that it does not need to be. That's why we have the words "man", "woman", "male", and "female". For the purposes of healthcare, sexual relations, sports and physical events, private issues, and various other situations where our biological realities impact the ways that we interact with the world. If there were no biological difference, there would be no need for the words.

The whole inner identity is a fiction. It is loosely based on stereotypes of how biologically different people behave, but it is meaningless.

emptiedriver · 2021-02-19T08:36:24+00:00

why are there four? (what is the difference between the last two examples.. fauxginas?)

emptiedriver · 2020-12-31T07:46:58+00:00

can I sex genitals? I don't want to gender anything, bc I don't care about gender to start with. I just want to forget about gender. All that I'm concerned about is that we have words to distinguish the two sexes, and that when necessary we can separate or refer to members of different sexes. But they can be whatever "gender" they want in the sense of what they wear and how they do their hair.

That has ALWAYS been my stance. I have always supported drag queens and Prince and David Bowie and tomboys and flannel shirts and every kind of GNC style that is personally or culturally a thing, yes, great, go for it. But it does not make you the opposite SEX. That's all. So stop using our words (calling yourself a woman or a man or she or he) or changing your birth certificate or taking scholarships or joining sports teams...

We're not gendering anyone. You are.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-27T09:59:47+00:00

MarkTwainiac, if you're not interested in the discussion, why not just stay off the thread? It seems it was asked in good faith. It may not be particularly well founded, but there's no reason for ad hominem attacks.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-05T10:10:58+00:00

And it seems male or female only have to do with procreation

Bingo! You got it. Sex is short for sexual reproduction. That is all it is. Anything else you are connecting to it is your own baggage. What it means is which body you got. In the human species, sexual reproduction requires two types - star bellied sneetches, and those without stars upon thars - or however you want to see it. Some people have pods to grow the life form and little seedlings, some people have fertilizers. You need both to make a baby, and you were born with a body that does one or the other. DOn't want to have a baby? Then forget about it and just be a person...

Oh, except people carrying seedling pods do have an extra inner organ system their whole life that takes away some of the power from other parts of their body and makes them a little more vulnerable, and it's pretty evident from the outside which ones they are, so they get taken advantage of physically or even threatened to fertilize their seedlings against their will.

So it doesn't matter if you do or don't procreate or want to procreate. It matters which body you have if you were going to procreate. Which part would you be able to play at any point in your life if someone forced you to help continue the human race by sexual reproduction. That is all that sex is, but it ends up having a large social impact on how we think about power structures. "Might makes right" has been the rule through much of history, the reason wars are won, and certainly the problem women have faced.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-01T16:42:46+00:00

it can only enable and exacerbate a fetish that's already there.

Is anyone claiming that these things force people to become completely different than they would have been otherwise? Everything is enabling and exacerbating. The whole problem is the way the norms of our world push people in directions.

The same way young girls are pushed toward eating disorders or cutting or identifying out of being female, young males can be pushed toward fetishes or identifying as sexualized fantasies. Our weird mental culture has set things up so that too many people are ready to fall into unhealthy escapes or enhancements.

Anyway most people are malleable and if they're pushed in those directions constantly and from a young age, it'll have some amount of impact, which will make it more normal over generations, so the push ends up being powerful over time. "things change", for better or worse, and what is seen as a pretty normal sex scene in today's media would have been taboo a few decades ago - but at the same time, some suggestions, jokes, claims or implications that were normal back then are considered taboo now.

We can all go with the flow, but which direction "the flow" is going has to be chosen by some part of the population. If we want sissy porn to be an accepted part of the sexual norm or if we want it to be seen as a sexist offense is based on how many people react in what way

emptiedriver · 2020-11-28T11:18:12+00:00

and how is the male getting an erection and ejaculating to fertilize the woman? Most people don't get pregnant on the first try either

emptiedriver · 2020-11-25T08:31:44+00:00

Are you sexually frustrated? You don't need to have sex if you aren't enjoying it. Cuddle and spoon, shower together, enjoy each other's warmth, and let it lead to other things if you're in the mood, but you don't need to have orgasms all the time or "do things". Just appreciate you have another human around who will hold you and love you.

Quarantined meaning you can't leave the apartment at all, like even for a walk? Or more like you don't have other inside places to go? If you can go out for a walk in a park once a day for that "me time", make the effort - not to masturbate but to let yourself reflect, work things out a little between therapists, and even more to relax and enjoy the sunlight. Sometimes it can be better not to get too caught in your head about things.

emptiedriver · 2020-10-26T08:32:42+00:00

This is the confusion of sex and gender that is always getting us into trouble. Sex is a technical fact, and it is binary and absolute. Which reproductive role is your body capable of playing (or would it be if its reproductive organs were working properly)? There are only two options, and if neither is more accurate then your body is a very rare case - but it also is technically not sexed. To have a sex, your body was born with the basic reproductive potential of one or the other sex. As a female, you are born with hundreds of eggs inside you.

Gender is the larger category we use to describe sexually secondary features, "typical characteristics", and further identity aspects. It's performative, interactive and social. It can be very important, but it doesn't have to be validated as a sex - some people are perfectly happy to be understood as MiT/ FiT and see their genders as distinct from the biological, and some GC types have no problem respecting gender preference when it is social, so long as it does not overlap the legal or take away rights of women as a political unit.

That's why the biological has to be clarified as separate. Women are females, born with eggs, the capacity to menstruate & be impregnated: that's historically, politically, culturally central to our story and our connection to each other. Males who bond with women on a social level can become great friends and for some people the closest "girlfriends" of all, but politically they are allies rather than members of the class.

emptiedriver · 2020-08-19T15:32:56+00:00

Anyone else facing this prob, I think I found it here as well: https://archive.org/details/saturday-night-live-s-19-e-11-sara-gilbert-counting-crows a bit after 7min in.

emptiedriver · 2021-12-28T14:07:39+00:00

I saw it and cannot possibly grasp wtf interpretation this person is trying to project. There's really no trans or gender bendy stuff anywhere & the center story is about the desire of a hetero couple.

emptiedriver · 2021-12-18T17:10:15+00:00

It might have been here a little while back... Unbelievable just how clueless people can be. It is hard to tell if they are living in fantasy or if people are indulging them for the moment or what exactly is going on, but it's hard to imagine that this is a long term plan. It's mostly sad to me just how much lack of bodily self awareness she has.

emptiedriver · 2021-09-30T09:17:36+00:00

well, she looks good and should be respected without wearing a shirt whether she's male or female. Obviously she's female but it's fucked up that women are dismissed with "nice tits" if they go top free while men are seen as hot & handsome in the same scenario. That's exactly the sort of attitude that pushes women to think they need to transition instead of being comfortable in the bodies they actually have.

I hope we can get through this mess to a "post gender" type state where she can be happy like that but not have to betray her sex for it. There are all types of women.

emptiedriver · 2021-05-13T13:16:59+00:00

I am honestly not sure most of the time...

When I have to choose between stereotypically masculine or feminine options, I can go one way or the other but generally neither is my choice. Like:

watch the game or go shopping? watch the game. But really I'd rather take out the board games...
superhero action movie or romantic comedy? romantic comedy. But actually I'm more of a Charlie Kaufman type...
hot dress or cool suit? cool suit. But I'm happy in jeans...
redecorate or get a sports car? redecorate. But why not spend it on travel?

Generally I just don't tend to go for the things people associate with stereotypes that much.

emptiedriver · 2021-04-18T12:36:58+00:00

who later shows love to this other woman, and the viewers' reaction to this drama in the comments was often that lesbians are men (trapped) in women's bodies so the drama accurately portrays lesbians.

If this were true of all lesbians, wouldn't they all be men, and so not be attracted to one another but only to straight women? I don't think this logically works, even if you leave aside the homophobic issues.

And beyond that you have to begin from some pretty unfounded spiritual assumptions, which is fine for your personal beliefs but not reasonable when making a scientific argument. Asking someone to prove why trans men or lesbians aren't "male souls trapped in female bodies" is a useless premise for a debate when you haven't shown that there could be any such thing as a "male soul" to begin with. Answer what you mean by a soul, how does it exist, how is it male, how does it inhabit a female body, and then maybe we can talk about if your theory makes sense. Just using a word and hoping it sort of fills in the blanks through vague metaphors is not science.

It's even more complicated for a "male brain" since that is something that you don't even imagine to exist separately from the body. So why should we consider it to have a sex distinct from the body it spends its entire life as a component of? It's the brain of the body it belongs to, so to say it has a different sex there needs to be a way to explain the way a brain has a reproductive system...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-15T20:56:17+00:00

Amazing... I still use my NPR coffee mug from a decade ago when I used to wake up to them every day and donate regularly to the local station, but I moved to an area where I didn’t find an affiliate, started listening to various podcasts instead, and sort of lost track of how unhinged it’s all become. I still see their headlines around but since it’s not a constant part of my life anymore I’m less aware of this kind of frustration. It’s hard enough trying to enjoy comedy shows these days :(

emptiedriver · 2021-03-12T16:26:17+00:00

wow, this is incredible. I feel like this has not got enough exposure - how did this not scare the bejeezus out of everyone, peak anyone still asleep and bring together LGB movements to ensure they had safeguards and clear defenses laid out? But I guess the big LGBT orgs are already infiltrated by money, happy enough to take up that cause if it's what's next, and people who actually find this sickening have no power.

Still. This could not be acceptable to most people. It's only that it is allowed to be planned in Silicon Valley and people are allowed to be more unwell online or something...

emptiedriver · 2021-03-05T14:01:57+00:00

yeah, not a victory in my eyes - just pushing things further into us vs them. This makes it look like any concerns about the trans issue are confirmed as part of the uneducated christian right. It also shows makes it seem like the attitude is not compassionate or open to figuring out an answer but simply an excuse to punish anyone who's different. Requiring a minimum age of 18, or having malpractice laws, would make sense to me but making it a felony sounds like they're going to send in a squad of police to a doctor's office and then throw you in prison. Maybe it's just the way it's worded - does it just mean they are requiring it by state law?

Anyway, I hope there can be some moderate or progressive politicians to see the other side of this issue before it is completely split as an untouchable, which party are you, position. We have too many of those already.

Sometimes I think we have to just rewrite the constitution to have a parliament democracy, so we have multiple parties. This two party thing is not good for anyone.

emptiedriver · 2021-02-18T14:28:36+00:00

The words "homosexuality" and "same sex" appear not to make sense. How can the word sex be used in "homosexuality" and "same sex" when sex is about reproduction which is done by a male and a female?

Do you not understand that humans have sex for fun? Sex is not "about" reproduction - the sex type of your body is defined by its reproductive system. But having sex does not need to make use of that system's capacity, and that system does not need to work for you to have sex. It is just an organ system that differentiates body types. Exciting those organs is being sexual, which the majority of people are inclined to do with someone of the opposite sex, but some people do with someone of the same sex.

I feel like you must know this, though...

emptiedriver · 2021-01-02T14:57:47+00:00

did these people talk about their experiences as trans (like before times, body stuff, specifically being discriminated for, etc) or were they trying to fit in as just another woman? how much of what they shared seemed relatable to the group and how much of what the group talked was relevant to them?

thanks for sharing. what a strange world...

emptiedriver · 2020-12-27T14:28:53+00:00

You seem to take the raising of a question as in itself offensive. Whatever question is raised, we can assume that the person hasn't worked out the answer or they wouldn't need to ask it; that, or they are trying to trick you into saying something or admitting something you don't want to. If it's the latter, well, hopefully there aren't things you are hiding or avoiding saying. Questions can be raised because they can be looked at and discussed.

If you disagree with the premise of the question you can avoid the thread or say something like "I disagree that Orwell's observations in general were particularly top-notch and I think this is at best a superficial and stereotyping claim about women. Can you provide more specific data or examples?" but I don't see how it helps to tell someone they're lazy and misogynistic for asking a question.

emptiedriver · 2020-12-07T14:12:16+00:00

A lot of women learn that they must take responsibility for themselves

Taking responsibility and taking control aren't exactly the same. Women will often take responsibility - if they make a mistake or something needs to get done, they will make sure things stay afloat, that the minimum is handled. But taking control, getting as far as they can, claiming they're the leader of the pack is not something women are as likely to do. Men are more confident and don't worry as much about their place. If they like skateboarding they start a skateboarding company and national skateboarding competitions and make it a thing but women who like knitting just shrug and say oh it's just a silly little hobby.

But what if...you're not pretty? The part of liberal feminism which acts like all young women are beautiful and sexy is so weird.

THat's not what it says at all. It says it's the first form of power women are introduced to. For women with any kind of beauty - and even very plain women have some kind of beauty just by having female bodies - being sexy is a form of power over men because it allows them to manipulate men, to "turn them on", to lure them or control them in superficial ways. For people with no power in the world, this can be exciting and women can be far too entranced by this very small form of power and get obsessed over it - trying too hard to enhance their sexiness with makeup and heels and pushup bras in order to hold on to that tiny bit of power, which of course cannot last and is never very strong to start with.

And women who lack any kind of traditional beauty, or think they do, can be hugely affected by the same issue! - wishing they had this power but not being able to access it, they get depressed, hate their bodies, develop eating disorders, and all the rest.. - because they don't have ordinary human power in the world, and they don't have this manipulative power either.

emptiedriver