Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

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Sy Borg
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Sy Borg »

Sticking the nose into the business of people you will never know or meet ... a mentally ill concept?

Not mentally ill, no, it's just a bit neurotic to be a busybody, to pry without regard of the hurt that prying may cause. Asking them questions would seem a better way to understand than to make assumptions. Why not ask transpeople what they were thinking if you are curious? What's happening here is a bit like white people getting together to discuss whether black people are fully human.

It always helps to encounter the real thing because the most striking thing that always occurs is you realise that they are just other people.

We are not all the same. Live and let live.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 20th, 2019, 7:01 pm Mental illness has lots of prejudices going against it. If you can deny your illness and say everything is fine then you can escape the prejudices that come along with mental illness.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel here a bit.
I think someone defending the Soviet policy that incarcerated dissidents on mental health grounds used the same argument.
Since you seem to claim to be an empiricist, and assert that sexuality is a choice, I have a proposition for you:

Simply try to be gay for a week. Go out to some gay bars and get laid. You might enjoy it. After a week chose to be straight again.
You shall have proven your thesis.
Let us all know how you get on.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Felix wrote: May 20th, 2019, 8:24 pm Empiricist-Bruno: "So a person can self identify to a gender other then the one in which they physically appear to others at birth." ... "I love people who say that their sexuality is their own choice"

In your first statement, you say that those who exercise free choice by choosing their own sexual identity are mentally ill, and yet in your second statement you say, "you love people who say their sexuality is their own choice."

Does this mean that you love people who are mentally ill? Presumably this includes yourself?
I think what is going on here is more like; "Anyone who diverts from a strict single-gender heterosexuality must be insane.", ignoring the implication that the thesis would have to involve that choice too.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Greta, you seem to have concluded, I don't know how, that I am not a Transexual leaping frog. Good for you. But what if I am?
Watch out for the hidden paradoxes around you!
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

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Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 21st, 2019, 6:25 am Greta, you seem to have concluded, I don't know how, that I am not a Transexual leaping frog. Good for you. But what if I am?
Indeed, and you can't choose to be one either, which is the whole point.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Felix »

Actually, it's not unusual for frogs to change their gender in response to environmental cues or stressors, e.g., exposure to certain pesticides or being kissed by a princess - whom of course is a queen who has not yet been crowned. It appears that the same pesticides can have a similar effect on humans, but the amorous advances of princesses may not - at least not prior to coronation.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

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Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 21st, 2019, 6:25 am Greta, you seem to have concluded, I don't know how, that I am not a Transexual leaping frog. Good for you. But what if I am?
I doubt it. The transsexuals I met at work were bright and would seem unlikely to make a statement that silly. I don't think you are a frog either because the French tend towards sophistication and, again, would not ask such a silly question.

Oh, that kind of frog? Well they can't post on forums due to limiting morphology, so if you claim to be a frog that would be even sillier.

Do you have a non-silly point to make or is this just a spot of kitten-kicking? It's always terrific fun to gang up and attack the powerless and reviled with invalid attacks based on complete ignorance, don't you think?
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Felix »

Greta (to Empiricist-Bruno) - "Do you have a non-silly point to make?"

Apparently not because he has yet to make one, i.e., a sensible point.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Greta wrote: May 21st, 2019, 4:33 pm
Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 21st, 2019, 6:25 am Greta, you seem to have concluded, I don't know how, that I am not a Transexual leaping frog. Good for you. But what if I am?
I doubt it. The transsexuals I met at work were bright and would seem unlikely to make a statement that silly. I don't think you are a frog either because the French tend towards sophistication and, again, would not ask such a silly question.

Oh, that kind of frog? Well they can't post on forums due to limiting morphology, so if you claim to be a frog that would be even sillier.

Do you have a non-silly point to make or is this just a spot of kitten-kicking? It's always terrific fun to gang up and attack the powerless and reviled with invalid attacks based on complete ignorance, don't you think?
In my experience, people who are quick to notice and high light silliness in others glorify silliness. I guess I should thank you but no, I don't think I make silly points, and so I am perplexed. Maybe I should get myself checked? Maybe I am feeding myself from a mentally ill concept? Well, that would explain my interest in that question. Or maybe I am under a gaz lighting attempt? What are you trying to do, Greta?

Animals have spokespersons. As a frog, a leaping frog, I maybe speaking to you through my interpreter who has the required morphology to be online. Why this urge to characterize all that I say as silly? You hate frogs? You eat frog legs?

A leaping frog on the internet is unlikely to achieve much in terms of ganging up to attack others whether the attacks are valid or not. All of a sudden, I am picking up silliness from you! But no, that can't be it, it must be something else I don't know.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

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Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 23rd, 2019, 10:35 am
Greta wrote: May 21st, 2019, 4:33 pm

I doubt it. The transsexuals I met at work were bright and would seem unlikely to make a statement that silly. I don't think you are a frog either because the French tend towards sophistication and, again, would not ask such a silly question.

Oh, that kind of frog? Well they can't post on forums due to limiting morphology, so if you claim to be a frog that would be even sillier.

Do you have a non-silly point to make or is this just a spot of kitten-kicking? It's always terrific fun to gang up and attack the powerless and reviled with invalid attacks based on complete ignorance, don't you think?
In my experience, people who are quick to notice and high light silliness in others glorify silliness. I guess I should thank you but no, I don't think I make silly points, and so I am perplexed. Maybe I should get myself checked? Maybe I am feeding myself from a mentally ill concept? Well, that would explain my interest in that question. Or maybe I am under a gaz lighting attempt? What are you trying to do, Greta?

Animals have spokespersons. As a frog, a leaping frog, I maybe speaking to you through my interpreter who has the required morphology to be online. Why this urge to characterize all that I say as silly? You hate frogs? You eat frog legs?

A leaping frog on the internet is unlikely to achieve much in terms of ganging up to attack others whether the attacks are valid or not. All of a sudden, I am picking up silliness from you! But no, that can't be it, it must be something else I don't know.
I'm guessing that your challenge to chose to be gay for a week failed, or you were too scared to try?
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

You find it scary to try to do something you have no willingness to do?

I guess if you did it, it might reveal that you have no choice, you cannot go where you will draws you.

Again, the discussion as to whether we have or do not have freedom of choice is a question that is beyond the scope of what I intended for this thread. So, I won't go into that. Feel free to discuss it with others. There are a number of terrible threads on that subject too. If you look for them, I am sure you will find them.

What I am getting from this thread is that many people feel stongly about their own views and this seems to preclude the possibility of any worthwhile discussion on the topic. They will just egg you, rightly or wrongly. Taboos do exists today, and I am finding that I have touched on such a subject here. Leaving the veil undisturbed may or may not be the right thing to do, I wonder.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Felix wrote: May 16th, 2019, 2:29 am
I think you are giving cultural influence far more weight than it merits, surely biology has a lot to do with whether one is attracted to men or women. If it didn't, I doubt that we'd have a problem with overpopulation.
No, I don't. I clearly stated that this was what gender theory advocates, but that I don't buy it.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote: May 24th, 2019, 9:29 pm You find it scary to try to do something you have no willingness to do?

I guess if you did it, it might reveal that you have no choice, you cannot go where you will draws you.

Again, the discussion as to whether we have or do not have freedom of choice is a question that is beyond the scope of what I intended for this thread. So, I won't go into that. Feel free to discuss it with others. There are a number of terrible threads on that subject too. If you look for them, I am sure you will find them.

What I am getting from this thread is that many people feel stongly about their own views and this seems to preclude the possibility of any worthwhile discussion on the topic. They will just egg you, rightly or wrongly. Taboos do exists today, and I am finding that I have touched on such a subject here. Leaving the veil undisturbed may or may not be the right thing to do, I wonder.
So that's a yes, then. You can't meet the challenge.
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Sculptor1,

You know I am a moderator here? This means I have the capacity to go in any one of your posts and modify it or delete it. I don't have the power to do this however because you follow the rules and I am accountable. But to dare me or challenge me that I can't do it because you think it can't be done since you can't do a similar thing yourself is puzzling to me.

I guess h_k_s has put his finger on the matter when he warned about sophists earlier in this thread.
Watch out for the hidden paradoxes around you!
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Re: Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

Post by Brainologifer »

Bruno, have you taken the time to study mental illness and independently establish the borders of its legitimacy as a category? Have you also consciously rejected alternatives to its legitimacy in application to this subject, or has your perspective - whose political implications are potentially unjustly persecutory on a global scale - been hastily established without diligent adherence to such a process? I believe your view is shared reflexively by those whose independent thought processes are less developed, on account of social pressure to be gender-conforming. How would you distinguish your view from one motivated by social pressure?
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