Thankfully, there’s a biologist living just a couple of doors down from me who I call upon from time to time to tell me whether the animal in my back yard is either a cat or a dog.
Language is a beast. "Trans" as adjective can be descriptive (a "trans baby" as a baby that is trans) or prescriptive (a "trans baby" as a man who suddenly starts wearing diapers). Mathematically, the first is (as you described) a function from the set of all babies to {0,1}. The second, according to trans activists, is more of a function from the set of all people to {0,1}, and trans babies are the preimage of 1 minus the set of actual babies. Or maybe there are trans adults (babies being mapped to 0)...
Which makes me wonder - did God make man in His own pre-image? 🧐
I think in the case of trans activists they definitely see 'trans' as some sort of inner 'quality' that (can be) present "as if from the womb" - as the spokesperson from Boston Children's Hospital said in a promo video.
Their insistence that some babies ARE trans is really the particular bit of ideology I was trying to attack here.
Oh yes, and the pre-image of woman is a subset (rib) of man...
Btw, your argument was crystal-clear; I sometimes just enjoy picking up some of the wonderful, colourful threads you are laying out, in order to knit something bizarre out of it.
I find maths (phrasing things with math thinking) helps me to 'distil' the core issues in a clearer way. In this article I was mainly concerned with the claim that 'trans' is some innate property that is not influenced by social/parental factors.
We all know that social contagion is involved in the current harvest of trans - but I was hoping to demonstrate that the evidence we have properly supports this view. If 'trans' is innate then the two sets of studies (leave alone/affirm) should have broadly similar outcomes - but they don't. This allows us to cast serious doubt on the 'innate' hypothesis (for most).
Gender and gender identity are, at best, little more than synonyms for personalities and personality types. As such, of course we all have them, we all have personalities.
The issue is largely that many transactivists insist they have gender identities that they're CALLING "male" and "female". But whatever "male" & "female" are as personalities, as gender identities, they're most certainly not what the words mean to everyone else as sexes. Note Merriam-Webster's definitions:
"female: 1a): of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs
1b) having a gender identity that is the opposite of male"
Circular Definitions R Us; absolute flaming idiots there at Merriam-Webster.
There's no content to the words as gender identities, there's no there there, there are no objective correlates to the words as such. Not at all the case with their definitions as sexes where they're anchored in objective facts: producing large or small gametes.
🙂 Apropos of which, you might enjoy this article at Law & Liberty on that "age-old question" -- i.e., "What is a woman?" -- which includes a painting from 1365 of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib:
Interesting bit on Dictionary Dot Com's rather wooish take on the question, but somewhat more intriguing and relevant is the author's -- Rachel Lu's -- use of a fairly durable philosophical principle:
"In analytic philosophy, a gold-standard definition gives necessary and sufficient conditions for 'being' the thing defined. Definitions of this sort may not always cut to the heart of a thing’s true nature, but they offer a good starting place for dispelling serious confusion. Can we specify necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman?"
However, I'm not too terribly impressed with her conclusions, in part because she doesn't really endorse the standard definition -- i.e., "adult human female" [AHF] -- and because she "leans more heavily on an Aristotelian concept of potentiality".
But there's still some value in her argument, at least for underlining the fact that the definitions are somewhat arbitrary, that, in particular, the standard AHF is anything but gospel truth nor particularly useful, not least because it leaves menopausees out in the cold. Consequently, we COULD define the category as "adult human XXers", though that too leaves some out in the cold as XX and XY aren't exhaustive combinations of human karyotypes. Or -- speaking as a Devil's Advocate ... -- one might suggest "adult human vagina-haver", though I expect many would be less than flattered ... 😉🙂
Big part of the problem is that many people simply don't realize that there's no intrinsic meaning to any of our words, that Moses didn't bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z. Consequently there are NO definitions that qualify as gospel truth, only those that are more useful in some applications than others.
Kinda think that that is one of the worst aspects of the whole transgender clusterfuck, that it has degenerated into a Lilliputian civil war, a battle between women's vanity and transwomen's envy over who will claim the "golden apple for the fairest". While pretty much everyone more or less loses sight of more important social policy objectives.
Good point; exactly right -- more or less in any case 🙂.
Male and female may well constitute polar opposites, at least in isolation, as cases of concave and convex mating surfaces -- as with plumbing and electrical connectors. I'm rather "amused" that Wikipedia uses "gender" to describe those two types when it is more traditional to use ""sex":
However and as you suggest, our sexes are only one part of our "identities" which, as such, makes us more "complimentary" than opposites. But I think that underlines a major part of the problem with the whole transgender clusterfuck: pretty much everyone -- women in particular -- has turned the sexes into "immutable 🙄 identities" based on some "mythic essences". Instead of recognizing that, as per standard biological definitions, "male" and "female" are JUST labels for rather transitory reproductive abilities -- like "teenager".
A great many "cognitive distortions" on virtually all sides of that clusterfuck. ICYMI, see my attempt to elucidate some of those "distortions" and to, thereby, bring some "balance to those forces" -- so to speak 🙂:
It's a pet peeve of mine (or OCD) to get annoyed at false opposites or false dichotomies as some call it.
I mean, lots of people would agree if you called dogs and cats "opposites" or salt and pepper, or hot and cold. Sure, language being as malleable as tin one can create opposites of anything easily enough, but that doesn't mean the things in themselves are opposites.
Up can be viewed as the opposite of down, but it can just as easily be seen as a different direction, instead making a complimentary couple rather than conflicting opposites.
Goethe wrote: "Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen: redet man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsobald ganz etwas anders."
("Mathematicians are like the French: if you talk to them, they will translate it into their own language, and it will immediately become something entirely different.")
Somewhat of a forced analogy, though there may be some value in emphasizing the "choice" between "affirmation" -- turning kids into sexless eunuchs -- and "conversion".
But pretty much of a medical scandal that "affirmation" is any sort of a go-to policy of far too many "doctors" -- most of whom should lose their licenses if not be strung up by their nuts and left to twist in the wind. Figuratively speaking of course ...
Reading your 2 options, it struck me once again just how perverted the appropriation of the word “affirming” is in this context. (Like “literally,” it has taken on the meaning of its antonym. Gender “affirming” care is conversion therapy.)
How can people who so believe in the primacy of the mind that they provide surgery and medication to align one’s physical body with one’s thoughts about oneself not exploit the mind’s powers to release people from their delusions?
Yes - I deliberately didn't make that point, but the evidence we have demonstrates that 'affirmation' is a kind of conversion therapy.
The whole question of the mind/body thing, as it applies to 'trans', is also fascinating. The claim is that, unlike *every* other kind of body dysmorphia, trans is 'natural' and 'innate' and is not a mental illness/condition or delusion.
Whilst that may be 'true' for some, it is unlikely to be true for the majority of the current crop of transitioners.
A danish "artist" who's been sentenced to prison for vandalism (claiming his act of vandalism was performance art) has set off a controversy among swedish wokesters, trans-istors and feminists.
This artist, calling himself Ibi-Pippi as a stage name, is legally a woman. In reality he is obviously a man, but reality and law has about as much to do with each other as truth and journalism, and we all know how acerbic and bileful divorced concepts like those are to each other.
The controversy among the most obvious proof Sweden never should have closed its mental hospitals is should he go to women's prison or not? The mental gymnastics, the rethoric and the semantic contortionism on display is like manna to Moses.
Oh, for the days when the skit about Stan wanting to be called Loretta and having the right, in principle, to become pregnant was all fiction, not affliction.
The entire postulate that trans is a position in its own right is wrong. You are male or female. If you undergo hormone therapy, surgery and the rest, you have not become the other sex; you have undegone surgery et c to look like the other sex.
The period during hormone therapy, surgery et c is the transitioning period only, not an identity in any way shape or form: as such, "trans" is just shorthand for all of that.
Edit: And until a person has undergone the whole regimen, increasing their overall cancer-risk by more than a factor of 50, have had their parts cut up and moved around and so on - basically, only after they have passed a point of no return - can they be called transsexual, and then only when referring to them in relation to the procedure.
Have you considered that this might be an explanation for gender dysphoria? Maybe you have covered this in another posting. If so sorry that I missed it.
I don’t think we can really attribute hormone levels to “gender identity”, which is a social construct. (No, a real one.) I am a female not because I feel or act any certain way— and certainly not because I’m something called cisgender, which is a made up word meant to suggest that other people possess a feeling of being in the right body— but simply because I’m of the type that produces a relatively large, nonmotile gamete. Even women with genuine hormonal conditions don’t think themselves men, despite facial hair and bald spots. (And I absolutely blame hormone disrupters for doing many bad things, but you could pump me full of testosterone— as I do feel after a good weight lifting session or an hour at the range or during a moment of road rage— and I still possess common sense and reason enough to know I am not and will never be a man.)
It's hard to know what 'causes' this phenomenon - and probably many factors go in to it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that one factor is external and chemical in nature.
The missing element in your analogy of Trans or Covid is the that the real reason behind both is hidden. Who was/ is driving it is another missing piece of data. I can answer the why? It is the destruction of current society and the collapsing of economies in order to create the Problem.. Reaction.. Solution opportunities “They” require to issue digital ID and a one world electronic currency. Sanity in society is a barrier, critical thinking is a barrier, close families with father figures are a barrier, the middle class are a barrier.. you can add more to the list, just add anything wholesome and traditional. It’s all got to be undermined and taken down before society is weak enough, fractured and confused enough to be forced into compliance with the plan of global communism. Once you see the underlying plan, then and only then does the apparent insanity make any sense.
As for who, there are the banking families, the true owners of the Fed, ECB, BOE, IMF etc and other hidden players. A small band of power crazed psychopaths intent on you all becoming as small as possible, so they can be Gods. When money is meaningless… which it is to those who own the printing press, then the only game left to play is global domination.
People who imagine these people care about greed just don’t understand, they don’t have that game, they already own everything. They want more than anything to own your soul, to take away your choice and your freedom.
I recommend doing a Google search for "phalloplasty failures" and having a look at the images. That will graphically inform you about the catastrophic things that so-called "doctors" are inflicting on deluded young women in pursuit of this transgender idiocy.
You know, that's not bad advice. Anyone with a woke person in their closer circuit might consider showing them such pictures.
Har to argue against too, yes? No-one seems bothered by the disgusting pictures plastered on all tobacco-products. Why not do it with all products, like sodas or candy?
"Consumtion of [insert brand soda] may cause inordinate obesity, shot joints and diabetes" with some suitable pictures of a belly-wheel bearer's gangrenous foot or something.
Also, if protesting at a genital mutilation clinic consider bringing placards with such pictures blown up to A0 landscape size - "This could be you!", kind of.
Do you have any thoughts on Quantum Gravity. I'd certainly be interested in your comments on this exchange between Joe Rogan and Eric Weinstein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76fjTNGbtI) in a future post.
The panicdemic has caused a significant increase in bizarre behaviour as well as a significant reduction in IQ. In America, the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party thinks that the invader is no worse than the invaded and that vacuums are not inevitably filled.
Language is a beast. "Trans" as adjective can be descriptive (a "trans baby" as a baby that is trans) or prescriptive (a "trans baby" as a man who suddenly starts wearing diapers). Mathematically, the first is (as you described) a function from the set of all babies to {0,1}. The second, according to trans activists, is more of a function from the set of all people to {0,1}, and trans babies are the preimage of 1 minus the set of actual babies. Or maybe there are trans adults (babies being mapped to 0)...
Which makes me wonder - did God make man in His own pre-image? 🧐
I think in the case of trans activists they definitely see 'trans' as some sort of inner 'quality' that (can be) present "as if from the womb" - as the spokesperson from Boston Children's Hospital said in a promo video.
Their insistence that some babies ARE trans is really the particular bit of ideology I was trying to attack here.
Oh yes, and the pre-image of woman is a subset (rib) of man...
Btw, your argument was crystal-clear; I sometimes just enjoy picking up some of the wonderful, colourful threads you are laying out, in order to knit something bizarre out of it.
Mathematizing this silly trans nonsense makes it even more obtuse.
Is that the objective?
I don't get it. ;)
😂
Yeah - it's not to everyone's taste, I grant you.
I find maths (phrasing things with math thinking) helps me to 'distil' the core issues in a clearer way. In this article I was mainly concerned with the claim that 'trans' is some innate property that is not influenced by social/parental factors.
We all know that social contagion is involved in the current harvest of trans - but I was hoping to demonstrate that the evidence we have properly supports this view. If 'trans' is innate then the two sets of studies (leave alone/affirm) should have broadly similar outcomes - but they don't. This allows us to cast serious doubt on the 'innate' hypothesis (for most).
It's OK.
Sometimes, people don't get my jokes either. ;)
This gender politics fad is a major overload of totally obsessive and manufactured nonsense.
This too, shall pass.
Gender and gender identity are, at best, little more than synonyms for personalities and personality types. As such, of course we all have them, we all have personalities.
The issue is largely that many transactivists insist they have gender identities that they're CALLING "male" and "female". But whatever "male" & "female" are as personalities, as gender identities, they're most certainly not what the words mean to everyone else as sexes. Note Merriam-Webster's definitions:
"female: 1a): of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs
1b) having a gender identity that is the opposite of male"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female
You might be amused to note that if one searches for their definition of "male", MW gives:
"male: 1b) : having a gender identity that is the opposite of female"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/male
Circular Definitions R Us; absolute flaming idiots there at Merriam-Webster.
There's no content to the words as gender identities, there's no there there, there are no objective correlates to the words as such. Not at all the case with their definitions as sexes where they're anchored in objective facts: producing large or small gametes.
Entirely different kettles of fish.
And to pile on, how do they reckon that man/male and woman/female are opposites?
We're not opposites! We're complimentary!
Adam was made from Eve's rib.
They are partners.
Equals.
Side by side.
Sez so in the Bible. :)
Nah, Oden, Höner and Lodur found two trees floating in a river. One was ash and of it they made a man; one was elm and of that they made a woman.
Oden gav them spirit, Höner gave them judgement and Lodur gave them blood and the colour of living beings.
Thus teaches Voluspá.
🙂 Apropos of which, you might enjoy this article at Law & Liberty on that "age-old question" -- i.e., "What is a woman?" -- which includes a painting from 1365 of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib:
https://lawliberty.org/woman-defined/
Interesting bit on Dictionary Dot Com's rather wooish take on the question, but somewhat more intriguing and relevant is the author's -- Rachel Lu's -- use of a fairly durable philosophical principle:
"In analytic philosophy, a gold-standard definition gives necessary and sufficient conditions for 'being' the thing defined. Definitions of this sort may not always cut to the heart of a thing’s true nature, but they offer a good starting place for dispelling serious confusion. Can we specify necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman?"
However, I'm not too terribly impressed with her conclusions, in part because she doesn't really endorse the standard definition -- i.e., "adult human female" [AHF] -- and because she "leans more heavily on an Aristotelian concept of potentiality".
But there's still some value in her argument, at least for underlining the fact that the definitions are somewhat arbitrary, that, in particular, the standard AHF is anything but gospel truth nor particularly useful, not least because it leaves menopausees out in the cold. Consequently, we COULD define the category as "adult human XXers", though that too leaves some out in the cold as XX and XY aren't exhaustive combinations of human karyotypes. Or -- speaking as a Devil's Advocate ... -- one might suggest "adult human vagina-haver", though I expect many would be less than flattered ... 😉🙂
Big part of the problem is that many people simply don't realize that there's no intrinsic meaning to any of our words, that Moses didn't bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z. Consequently there are NO definitions that qualify as gospel truth, only those that are more useful in some applications than others.
Kinda think that that is one of the worst aspects of the whole transgender clusterfuck, that it has degenerated into a Lilliputian civil war, a battle between women's vanity and transwomen's envy over who will claim the "golden apple for the fairest". While pretty much everyone more or less loses sight of more important social policy objectives.
Good point; exactly right -- more or less in any case 🙂.
Male and female may well constitute polar opposites, at least in isolation, as cases of concave and convex mating surfaces -- as with plumbing and electrical connectors. I'm rather "amused" that Wikipedia uses "gender" to describe those two types when it is more traditional to use ""sex":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners
However and as you suggest, our sexes are only one part of our "identities" which, as such, makes us more "complimentary" than opposites. But I think that underlines a major part of the problem with the whole transgender clusterfuck: pretty much everyone -- women in particular -- has turned the sexes into "immutable 🙄 identities" based on some "mythic essences". Instead of recognizing that, as per standard biological definitions, "male" and "female" are JUST labels for rather transitory reproductive abilities -- like "teenager".
A great many "cognitive distortions" on virtually all sides of that clusterfuck. ICYMI, see my attempt to elucidate some of those "distortions" and to, thereby, bring some "balance to those forces" -- so to speak 🙂:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman
It's a pet peeve of mine (or OCD) to get annoyed at false opposites or false dichotomies as some call it.
I mean, lots of people would agree if you called dogs and cats "opposites" or salt and pepper, or hot and cold. Sure, language being as malleable as tin one can create opposites of anything easily enough, but that doesn't mean the things in themselves are opposites.
Up can be viewed as the opposite of down, but it can just as easily be seen as a different direction, instead making a complimentary couple rather than conflicting opposites.
Goethe wrote: "Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen: redet man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsobald ganz etwas anders."
("Mathematicians are like the French: if you talk to them, they will translate it into their own language, and it will immediately become something entirely different.")
True. ;)
Somewhat of a forced analogy, though there may be some value in emphasizing the "choice" between "affirmation" -- turning kids into sexless eunuchs -- and "conversion".
But pretty much of a medical scandal that "affirmation" is any sort of a go-to policy of far too many "doctors" -- most of whom should lose their licenses if not be strung up by their nuts and left to twist in the wind. Figuratively speaking of course ...
Figuratively speaking.
Not.
"Language is a beast", indeed.
Reminds me of a favourite quote of Francis Bacon: "shoddy and inept uses of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways."
Reading your 2 options, it struck me once again just how perverted the appropriation of the word “affirming” is in this context. (Like “literally,” it has taken on the meaning of its antonym. Gender “affirming” care is conversion therapy.)
How can people who so believe in the primacy of the mind that they provide surgery and medication to align one’s physical body with one’s thoughts about oneself not exploit the mind’s powers to release people from their delusions?
Yes - I deliberately didn't make that point, but the evidence we have demonstrates that 'affirmation' is a kind of conversion therapy.
The whole question of the mind/body thing, as it applies to 'trans', is also fascinating. The claim is that, unlike *every* other kind of body dysmorphia, trans is 'natural' and 'innate' and is not a mental illness/condition or delusion.
Whilst that may be 'true' for some, it is unlikely to be true for the majority of the current crop of transitioners.
And Denmark takes the ball and runs away with it.
A danish "artist" who's been sentenced to prison for vandalism (claiming his act of vandalism was performance art) has set off a controversy among swedish wokesters, trans-istors and feminists.
This artist, calling himself Ibi-Pippi as a stage name, is legally a woman. In reality he is obviously a man, but reality and law has about as much to do with each other as truth and journalism, and we all know how acerbic and bileful divorced concepts like those are to each other.
The controversy among the most obvious proof Sweden never should have closed its mental hospitals is should he go to women's prison or not? The mental gymnastics, the rethoric and the semantic contortionism on display is like manna to Moses.
Oh, for the days when the skit about Stan wanting to be called Loretta and having the right, in principle, to become pregnant was all fiction, not affliction.
The entire postulate that trans is a position in its own right is wrong. You are male or female. If you undergo hormone therapy, surgery and the rest, you have not become the other sex; you have undegone surgery et c to look like the other sex.
The period during hormone therapy, surgery et c is the transitioning period only, not an identity in any way shape or form: as such, "trans" is just shorthand for all of that.
Edit: And until a person has undergone the whole regimen, increasing their overall cancer-risk by more than a factor of 50, have had their parts cut up and moved around and so on - basically, only after they have passed a point of no return - can they be called transsexual, and then only when referring to them in relation to the procedure.
Have you considered that this might be an explanation for gender dysphoria? Maybe you have covered this in another posting. If so sorry that I missed it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201911/gender-fluidity-and-hormone-disruptors
I don’t think we can really attribute hormone levels to “gender identity”, which is a social construct. (No, a real one.) I am a female not because I feel or act any certain way— and certainly not because I’m something called cisgender, which is a made up word meant to suggest that other people possess a feeling of being in the right body— but simply because I’m of the type that produces a relatively large, nonmotile gamete. Even women with genuine hormonal conditions don’t think themselves men, despite facial hair and bald spots. (And I absolutely blame hormone disrupters for doing many bad things, but you could pump me full of testosterone— as I do feel after a good weight lifting session or an hour at the range or during a moment of road rage— and I still possess common sense and reason enough to know I am not and will never be a man.)
An hour at the range? The only thing better than that is two hours at the range!
No, I haven't see that.
It's hard to know what 'causes' this phenomenon - and probably many factors go in to it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that one factor is external and chemical in nature.
Thanks for the link - interesting reading.
I’ve read a little about that. It sounds plausible.
The missing element in your analogy of Trans or Covid is the that the real reason behind both is hidden. Who was/ is driving it is another missing piece of data. I can answer the why? It is the destruction of current society and the collapsing of economies in order to create the Problem.. Reaction.. Solution opportunities “They” require to issue digital ID and a one world electronic currency. Sanity in society is a barrier, critical thinking is a barrier, close families with father figures are a barrier, the middle class are a barrier.. you can add more to the list, just add anything wholesome and traditional. It’s all got to be undermined and taken down before society is weak enough, fractured and confused enough to be forced into compliance with the plan of global communism. Once you see the underlying plan, then and only then does the apparent insanity make any sense.
As for who, there are the banking families, the true owners of the Fed, ECB, BOE, IMF etc and other hidden players. A small band of power crazed psychopaths intent on you all becoming as small as possible, so they can be Gods. When money is meaningless… which it is to those who own the printing press, then the only game left to play is global domination.
People who imagine these people care about greed just don’t understand, they don’t have that game, they already own everything. They want more than anything to own your soul, to take away your choice and your freedom.
They are in fact the very definition of evil.
I recommend doing a Google search for "phalloplasty failures" and having a look at the images. That will graphically inform you about the catastrophic things that so-called "doctors" are inflicting on deluded young women in pursuit of this transgender idiocy.
Strong stomach required.
I think I'll take your word on that one. I'm not sure my stomach is up to the job 😃
You know, that's not bad advice. Anyone with a woke person in their closer circuit might consider showing them such pictures.
Har to argue against too, yes? No-one seems bothered by the disgusting pictures plastered on all tobacco-products. Why not do it with all products, like sodas or candy?
"Consumtion of [insert brand soda] may cause inordinate obesity, shot joints and diabetes" with some suitable pictures of a belly-wheel bearer's gangrenous foot or something.
Also, if protesting at a genital mutilation clinic consider bringing placards with such pictures blown up to A0 landscape size - "This could be you!", kind of.
I like your thinking!
Do you have any thoughts on Quantum Gravity. I'd certainly be interested in your comments on this exchange between Joe Rogan and Eric Weinstein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76fjTNGbtI) in a future post.
Great piece, thank you. Clearly stated logical conclusion. Only, some aren't interested in logic, it seems.
The panicdemic has caused a significant increase in bizarre behaviour as well as a significant reduction in IQ. In America, the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party thinks that the invader is no worse than the invaded and that vacuums are not inevitably filled.
Agreed.