https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern

Labour prime minister of New Zealand. She was great, I was sad when she stepped down.

Pandering to the right, yes - but this is just how coalitions work. Obama’s ability to appeal to rank and file white workers in places like Michigan is part of how he won. A lot of Obama voters in those states voted for Trump.

Not everyone on the right is an ideological zealot (even if those are the most visible and make up the base). Being able to pick up some votes among “center-right” voters is a long-standing electoral strategy for the Democrats.

Yeah, though supposedly SEO could actually penalize articles for something like this, the SEO requirements keep changing but I bet there is a balancing act between keeping SEO happy and keeping up your ad impressions.

Articles are often made intentionally too long (ever notice recipes that force you to scroll through loads of irrelevant copy about the ingredients before you can get to the ingredients list and directions at the bottom?), this probably has to do with advertisements which will fire off when you scroll far enough down the page, it counts like an additional page view and the site makes more money.

There has been plenty of research into the etiology of gender dysphoria, but the current science considers gender identity as fixed and biological, which makes sense of why conversion therapies have been so unsuccessful (otherwise the conservative medical establishment would be more likely to recommend conversion therapy to solve the “problem” of trans people, as talk therapy is much less intervention, much cheaper, and much more socially acceptable than medical transition).

Here is a relatively accessible paper on the topic by esteemed endocrinologist Joshua Safer: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31027542/

It’s behind a paywall, but that can be circumvented if you know how.

More interesting than whether mental illness is more common in trans people because of how they are treated by society (which seems almost obvious, though worth confirming empirically) is whether mental illness might be more common for trans people because of the biology, such as from having the “wrong” sex hormones in their body.

Gay men who were forced to take estrogen in the UK experienced symptoms like depression and suicidal ideation, and lots of the same things trans people report (there is speculation whether Alan Turing being forced to take estrogen may have contributed to his suicide).

There is also the famous case of David Reimer whose penis was accidentally amputated during circumcision as a baby. Under the direction of the psychologist John Money, who believed gender was entirely determined by environment / social programming, was raised as a girl. Reimer consistently struggled being raised as a girl, eventually decided he was a man, and struggled immensely with mental health struggles before his suicide.

Suicide seems to be a common thread among those suffering from gender dysphoria, with over 40% of trans people reporting having previously attempted suicide and over 80% having considered attempting suicide (source), and it’s not surprising cis people when forced to take cross-sex hormones also seem more likely to commit suicide (though we don’t have as much evidence about this in particular, so take that as speculation on my part).

All this to say, religious trauma and sexual abuse certainly can and do complicate someone trying to figure out whether they are suffering symptoms of gender dysphoria or not, but the current evidence points to gender dysphoria not being caused by environmental factors (like sexual abuse) and likewise not being reversible with any kind of known treatment other than transitioning.

Furthermore, there have been autopsies of trans and cis brains that have found parts of the hypothalamus in trans women match cis women’s, even if not taking hormones. Here is a relatively accessible overview by neuro-endocrinologist Robert Sapolsky about those autopsy studies which were high quality and confirmed with follow up studies several times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QScpDGqwsQ

Being trans cannot be adequately theorized in merely biological terms, so please don’t mistake me for implying there are no social aspects to being trans, but I do think there is sufficient evidence that gender identity and dysphoria have biological components that aren’t influenced by environment.

Regarding trans women and plastic surgery: many trans women transition before puberty and thus look and sound pretty much like cis women, i.e. they develop as cis women would. Obviously even in those cases some trans women opt for surgeries, and while neo-vaginas have some differences, they are more like natal vaginas than most people realize (both in look and function).

In that sense, it doesn’t sound like being trans is what you don’t like in a woman, but rather certain body features that might be more common in trans women who have transitioned as adults (breast augmentation, facial feminization surgeries, narrow hips, etc. are more common in trans women who went through male puberty). But there is a huge variety of trans women, even those who transition as adults don’t necessarily get breast augmentation or facial feminization surgery, though narrow hips are obviously more common still.

Perhaps this seems like nitpicking or like I am making an irrelevant or theoretical distinction, after all if most trans women you know look a certain way, is it that wrong to generalize this way. The problems of stereotyping aside, part of the problem is that trans people in general are under a lot of pressure to conform to cis-sexual norms, and those who can go “stealth” typically do. That means, a bit like sexual minorities, it can be an invisible identity, but where a subset of adult trans folks especially early transition are more likely to stand out as trans. What we think of as a paradigmatic “trans woman” is someone who doesn’t conform that much to our cis-normative notions of a “woman”, and that is because of that unintentional sampling bias.

I acknowledge this is a lot, so let me stop here and see what you think so far.

Interesting. Well, first - thanks for being an ally!!

It does seem like trans folks have a pretty rough road in most societies, and predictably that leads to poor mental health outcomes. The statistics about how well a trans person does post-transition has a lot to do with whether they are accepted by their family and friends. (Mental health issues are also common before transition while closeted, or not-yet aware of being trans, which might have biological as well as social / psychological reasons behind it.)

It also makes sense you might not personally know trans women you are attracted to as there are far fewer trans folks compared to cis folks; though, it sounds like you were even able to list a trans woman you do find attractive.

Digging into that more, if there were someone who had the right personality and looked like Jaime Clayton, would being trans be a deal-breaker for pursuing a relationship with that person? I guess I wonder if it’s really being trans that is the problem for you, or if this is just a short-hand for a bunch of other traits that in practice just make you less likely to be attracted.

I ask because at this point it sounds like you would be pretty open to dating trans women who you find attractive (personality and looks wise), but that it is more practical reality that you just aren’t attracted to most trans women (probably for a variety of reasons).

Does that seem right, or am I off base here?

Hi! I know this might just be the wrong context at this point as you are already getting flak, but I was curious and wanted to ask why you have exclusive sexual interest in cis women?

For example I would imagine some heterosexual cis men would have a hard time dating a trans woman who haven’t had bottom surgery or who are early in their transition (in which case sometimes the sexual preference is phrased as a genital preference rather than about exclusively dating cis people).

Some women who for various reasons pass well as cis are not distinguishable from cis women, and in that case I assume based on your statement you still would have a hard time dating that person if you found out they were trans.

For example, based on your statement I assume you wouldn’t date or be attracted to Nava Mau.

I understand if you don’t want to answer, it’s not like this is the best context and it is a vulnerable topic - just wanted to extend an olive branch in case you wanted to talk and think about it with less judgement.

exactly; there will always be piracy as long as piracy is needed, a post-piracy world is a utopia, even in the worst dystopia people find ways to “pirate”

no worries; if you’re ever interested, I personally really enjoyed Susan Stryker’s Transgender History!

interesting, I would definitely love to read about it if you ever find that!

thanks for introducing me to that wikipedia page, it was definitely interesting to me <3

not sure what to take from what you are saying, do you mean they didn’t have hormones, or … that they drank horse urine (like, are you assuming context from the fact Premarin was derived from horses?)

so cool, thanks for sharing - I wonder if there was anything more specifically about the use of hormones? Just wondering how that might have been working in ancient contexts (I can only imagine a few ways it might work, such as by trying to isolate hormones from urine and then taking those orally.)

hey no worries, maybe later if you’re feeling up for it we can chat more - I’m especially interested in any sources you have about the transfeminine horse archers, I’m having trouble finding anything about it from searching online.

Implying money is power isn’t urging assimilationism, why are you so quick to accuse them? Money is crucial to funding militant movements, these are not separate tactics.

So, back in 2001 the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) managed to get weapons inspectors into Iraq which pissed off the U.S. because it undermined their justification of the invasion.

In response John Bolton told the head of the OPCW:

You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you. … We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.

Here’s an article about it.

Sorry, perhaps I positioned myself as more contradicting what you said when I meant for it to be more like a “yes, and” situation. I agree with your point about money, I was just thinking of all the other factors and got a little too excited XD

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply we shouldn’t still appreciate when the president of the United States calls trans people the “fabric of our nation”, I think the words themselves are undeniably good.

I was only trying to say we shouldn’t shut down criticism of those acts as realpolitik, especially if as a community we can possibly leverage that kind of criticism to help accomplish our own political ends.

It is bizarre to me that the UK has somehow slid even further right than the U.S. in some ways, considering the U.S. is somewhat known for that political brand (where our “left” is still right of the conservative Christian Democratic party in Germany).

Yet Caitlyn Jenner isn’t exactly using her money to help the trans cause… It requires more than just money, there has to be a political movement and adherents to that movement who have the money and other relevant resources to effect change.

I’m not sure how much solace we should take from inauthentic political posturing, but we should certainly try to use being a political football to our advantage (since we can’t help that we’ve been victimized this way, but we can try to make something of the national spotlight being put on us).

To that end I think it’s beneficial for us to raise our standards and demand more than just words from politicians claiming to be supportive allies. Biden wants to be seen as supporting trans folks? Well, we demand the VA cover gender affirming surgeries. That’s a specific transphobic VA policy that needs to be overturned, and Biden can show he’s an ally by doing something about it.

I get why people are so freaked out about voting third party, especially when mass political actions like voting don’t seem to handle nuance well. So advocating a simple slogan like “vote third party” might be irresponsible, but people seem almost irrationally afraid of third party voting in contexts where it should be entirely rational to vote third party.

For example, in a swing state it’s clearly useful to vote for the Lesser Evil (in recent U.S. elections that would be the Democrats, of course). But in states where there is a supermajority and there is almost no chance the state will flip, for example California which will certainly go to the Democrats or Arkansas which will go Republican, voting third party becomes helpful because it might enable the third party to receive federal funding.

There are various objections I have considered to this strategy, the one I think that comes up immediately is that if you vote third party it takes a vote that might otherwise contribute to changing the status of a state as stronghold or swing state, basically those margins matter and you should always be pushing the margin even if not likely to make a difference (just on the slim chance it does make a difference).

In that instance I think it’s just a matter of weighing the good: does the good from voting for the third party justify the slight risk of not being part of an unexpected shift in votes? This is clearly contextual, see recent upsets in Georgia (who went to Biden in 2020) and Pennsylvania (who went to Trump in 2016). I think the responsibility is on the voter to research their state demographics and those probabilities and make a decision. If you want to do less work, sure, just vote for the Lesser Evil.

What I don’t understand is the kind of blind dogmatism that refuses to acknowledge that there even could be reasons to vote third party, and that doing so is wrong a priori.