MMX2010

Right. But now I point out that I, as a non-transgender male individual, am also unable to dress up like a woman and board a plane in Canada. Again, that's not what happens. What happens is, "If their ID matches their face, but says a biological sex different from how they look, they can' fly. So, again, gender isn't sex and sex isn't gender.

According to the article, you have no complaints. The article says: "Well, in order to change the ‘sex’ designation on a Canadian Passport, the federal government requires proof that surgery has taken place, or will take place within one year. So for non-operative transgender persons, for gender nonconforming (genderqueer) persons, and for the vast majority of pre-operative transsexual persons, it is literally impossible to obtain proper travel documentation marked with the sex designation which “matches” the gender identity in which they live." The person you've described, by having undergone gender re-assignment surgery, will be issued a government ID that reads "Sex: F". And because her appearance matches the sex-label on her government ID, she'll be allowed to board without incident.

This is wrong for two reasons: (1) I'm not transgender. I'm not allowed to self-identify my gender as female when getting my ID. (2) On my New York State driver's license, it says "SEX: M". Since transgender people are the loudest advocates of "Sex isn't gender, and gender isn't sex.", then they (and you) are wrong to assume that "This is disgusting example of the state enforcing gender." It's actually an example of the state enforcing biological sex when flying planes, and ONLY when flying planes. Everything else, you're free to do/dress/be however you like.

Josh, Do you (or do you not) want everyone who flies a plane to reliably look like their IDs? If yes, explain how enforcing this desire on transgender people is wrong. If no, explain why you don't want everyone who flies a plane to reliably look like their IDs?

Are you still living with (or in close proximity to) the people who traumatized you?

Agreed. After reading them, I noticed my enthusiastic appreciation for this video was sagging a bit just by reading the Youtube comments. So now I'm going to avoid doing so. It's possible for me to develop emotional strength which allows me to focus solely on the comments that ask serious, curious questions, so that I can direct people to Stef's answers. But that's the only reason I can see myself ever perusing Youtube comments in the future.

Thanks so much for this one. Very powerful for me.

I can't comment on whether you erected a strawman, but I will say that the people most critical of the reputation system have trouble trusting the community aspect of FDR. The downvotes you mentioned do exist (and I've had my reputation fall 15 points based on one thread alone), but the community aspect of FDR ensures that such negative votes are, at minimum, cancelled out by the community. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I agree with jpahmad's post above.

If you think that's bad or weird: don't. Have you heard Stefan's recent call-in show stating something like, "If you want to live like your parents did, there's no trial: you can just follow your instincts. But if you do want to live like your parents did, then there must be a trail. And philosophy is the tool by which you must acquire either a confession or a conviction-in-absentia."?

Incentives and making public knowledge the identities of people who haven't vaccinated so that individuals can decide whether to hang out with them.

It always is. Because you're feeling scared, I'd advise writing down what you need to say, and then practicing it multiple times in front of a mirror. Always, always, always remember the difference between "saying what you feel" - (honesty, good thing) - and "trying to impose your conclusions on others" - (manipulation, bad thing). (I've noticed that the majority of RTR screw-ups happen when someone tries to express their feelings, but what comes out is NOT a feeling; it's a conclusion, or a thought.) If your fear suddenly turns to anger, just remind yourself that practically zero percent of people have been taught how to RTR. So if they lash out, it's 99% likely to be society's fault, or their parent's fault, but only 1% likely to be your fault. Imagine that you're trying to lead her into some foreign and frightening territory. --------------------------- The only sentence I'd recommend you tell her is, "I felt abandoned and insulted when you cancelled our date to spend time with girl-engaged-to-Cuban-dude."

Here you go, tjt. Rollo, blogger at The Rational Male, gets it so perfectly that I have nothing to add. http://therationalmale.com/2011/10/20/alpha/

I don't really agree with the, "Drop her, she may be dangerous!" advice. I think it's best for creakins to practice some very simple RTR here: "I felt abandoned and insulted when you cancelled our date to spend time with girl-engaged-to-Cuban-dude."

How old is the woman you're dating, and how long has she been friends with the chick-engaged-to-Cuban-dude?

I don't think it's either right or fair that Liberalismus was asked a question, but Lucas takes it upon himself to answer it. (Except he doesn't really answer it, he only says, "this may be what Liberalismus is responding to....") I, also, don't think it's right or fair that Lucas claims (or strongly asserts) that I violated the NAP, but never explains why. I, also, don't think it's right or fair that Lucas claims (or strongly suggests) that either "calling someone delusional" or "strongly implying that someone is delusional" is automatically abuse. It's not abuse when a strong case can be made that the person is, indeed, delusional. More importantly, my reference to being delusional refers to a very specific statement that Laci Green made. Calling Laci Green delusional because her statement is wrong is not abusive. Calling someone else delusional because they believe what Laci Green said is not abusive.

I would only provide supporting evidence for his argument by asking a rhetorical question, "If race and gender are indeed social constructs, and if homosexuality and transgender are indeed natural, biological states - then why do homosexuals voluntarily classify themselves as Butch and Femme?"

Their self-description isn't accurate, though. If they really wanted "to have a baby without a man", then they wouldn't acquire human sperm to fuse with an egg to produce a baby. What they really want is "to have a baby without risking rejection from men", which is really "to have a baby without appealing to male sensibility, male standards of morality and attraction, or male-opinion of any kind", which is really "to have a baby by 100% disempowering men". ----------------------- This post is seemingly unrelated, but I have difficulty refraining from injecting Rollo Tomasini, the author at therationalmale.com, into gender-discussions. His most recent post was brilliant, and this was my favorite line: "Besides the fact that she’s had multiple “relationships” at age 23, I find it interesting that she’s recognized this ‘openness’ as a mistake. Not a mistake with regards to her own choices, but rather a mistake in feeling comfortable enough to lay bear her sexual strategy for a guy who should expects should already be “accepting of who she is.” My comment: "In order for her to recognize her openness as a mistake with regard to her own choices, she must have actual empathy for what a man needs, wants, and cares about. Instead, she recognizes her openness as a mistake with regard to getting what she wants from him - which means she possesses no empathy for a man's needs, wants, and desires; she only, instead, has a selfish sense of cause-and-effect: 'If I say X, he gets mad, and I don't get what I want when he gets mad, so I shouldn't say X.'" http://therationalmale.com/2014/08/07/open-hypergamy/

How does IFS typically handle powerful sub-personalities, like protectors?

If you look to the eighth post in this thread (which is my post), I've linked to a whole bunch of information that answers your questions. Women in this culture are actually "programmed" to have an alpha male's children while trying to sucker a beta male provider into raising them. (It's called "Alpha Fucks, Beta Bucks" in the Manosphere.) ("Programmed" is placed in quotes, because every individual woman has the power to resist her biological and cultural programming.)

The Rosenhan experiment was extremely important, because it illustrated that clinicians lack an unbiased assessment of schizophrenia. Without this unbiased assessment, ALL of their clinical diagnoses of either schizophrenia or you're-not-schizophrenic are cast into doubt. And once this doubt is established, any individual (even, and especially if they don't have any expertise in psychology) can just "disbelieve" what the psychologists say about any individual WITHOUT being deemed "stupid" or "immoral". And it's the same with transgendered-individuals. Because clinicians haven't subjected themselves to any form of, "Can you use the brain-scans which you've so ardently promoted as scientifically-relevant to differentiate between real-transgendered and phony-transgendered people?" test, clinicians haven't established to the maximum possible extent the scientific-relevance of their brain-scanning technique. Hence, any individual (even and especially those with no scientific intelligence) can just "disbelieve" what the clinicians say WITHOUT being dubbed "stupid" or "trans-phobic". (In fact, to assume that such a person IS "stupid" or "trans-phobic" is just name-calling to censor that person's opinion, simply because it doesn't provide you with the validation you seek. And this is immoral, according to On Truth.) ------------------------- I think you're confusing your own "noble" sense of your own transgendered-feelings and transgendered-identity with other people's "not at all noble" sense of their own transgendered-feelings and transgendered-identity. Identity is composed of "ANYTHING that provides you with validation and self-worth", and most people become angry / violent whenever other people threaten their validation and self-worth. When a Christian asks you, "What's your favorite Biblical verse?", that's usually an anxiety-provoking question because: (1) Christians garner a lot of validation and self-worth through their Christian beliefs, and (2) you know he's asking you this question to determine the degree to which you'll support his Christian beliefs. But whenever a stranger asks, "What's your favorite movie?", that's usually not-at-all an anxiety-provoking question because most people simply don't garner much validation or self-worth through their favorite movies. I've never detected any hint of, "You're transphobic if you disagree with me about transgender!" in your posts, so I've concluded that transgender is not-that-important to your identity. (Not saying it's unimportant, but it's not THAT important.) However, when you analyze Lucas's, Liberalismus's, and (to a lesser extent) Tundra's behavior in this thread, you can see that they're using anger, false accusations, and/or downvoting against me in this thread. (Lucas went so far as to accuse me of "violating the Non-Aggression Principle, without explaining why. And Liberalismus accused me of "abusing her" in my posts, without explaining why.) Even though four is a very small sample size, you're being "out-voted" three-to-one with regard to the question, "Should we use anger, false accusations, and/or downvoting to censor / control those who disagree with transgender?" Which leads me to believe that you're confusing your own "noble attachment" to your own transgendered-feelings and identity with other people's "lack of noble attachment". It also suggests that transgender is, for the most part, NOT an "a-moral, voluntary interaction between transgendered individual and clinician". It is, instead, "either a highly moral OR highly immoral action which happens when transgendered people FIRST attempt to acquire scientific-legitimacy for their transgendered condition and THEN attempt to control/censor the opinions of everyone, based on their perceived acquisition of scientific legitimacy". I dunno if you've read my earlier links to what scientists know about religion, but I posted them to provide a point-of-comparison to transgender. Scientists know that you can electrify specific areas of the brain to produce religious-feelings in NON-religious people. Such religious-feelings include, "a sense of being one with the universe", and "a sense that there's a higher power". (This is the Natural / Biological / Genetic factor associated with religion.) However, because religion offers a myriad of explanations, and because these explanations contradict one another, and because these explanations lack objective scientific-support, religion is almost exclusively social. (If you want to use made-up-numbers, religion is about 3% Natural / Biological / Genetic and about 97% Non-Natural / Non-Biological / Non-Genetic / Social.) Focusing on transgender, have any scientists been able to electrify a NON-transgendered person's brain to produce an, "OMG, I'm totally a woman trapped in a man's body!" sensation? (To my knowledge, they have not.) Now, I understand that there are many ways to produce scientific evidence that "There's a strong genetic component to transgender." - but scientists discovered the strong genetic component of religion through producing religious-feelings in non-religious people. And that specific type of strong evidence isn't present with regard to transgender. Did you also notice that, EVEN THOUGH there's a "strong genetic component" to religious-experience, it's still true that religious-experience is almost exclusively Non-Natural, Non-Biological, Non-Genetic, and Social? If this is true for religious experience, then it's true for all things which have any form of "genetic component", of which transgender is certainly included. -------------------------------- Secondly, Lucas's definition of Gender Identity reads: "In essence, the brain and mind work to establish an inner sense of self as male, female, or other, based on body, on thoughts and feelings, and absorption of messages from the external world, a sense of self that may or not match the sex that is found between one’s legs.” (Ehrensaft, D., 2012, p. 339)." That's a great definition, but the inclusion of "absorption of messages from the external world" raises questions. (1) Does "whether your culture promotes transgender or violently opposes transgender" COUNT as "a message from the external world, which can be absorbed"? (I think it does.) (2) If it does, have scientists compared the existence of transgender in cultures-that-acknowledge-transgender and cultures-which-violently-oppose transgender? (To my knowledge, scientists have not done this.) Homosexuality is a highly natural human condition that equally exists in cultures that acknowledge homosexuality (modern America) compared to cultures which violently oppose homosexuality (Islamic cultures). In fact, because homosexuality equally exists in both types of cultures, it is said to be highly natural. (Now, there's an enormous difference between the degree to which homosexuality is openly practiced in both cultures, but that isn't the same thing as the degree to which homosexuality exists in both cultures.) ------------------------------ Overall, when you combine all of this research, transgender appears LESS natural / genetic than both religion and homosexuality.

That's definitely part of it. But she's 59, and I'm 38. And I can remember, for the longest time, women (especially in social media articles) explaining that "my personality" and "whether a woman wants to have sex with me" are completely separate. So if I donate lots of time and money to children's charities, have a steady but boring job, and am pleasant conversationally - this all means that I have a wonderful personality. BUT none of this is any guarantee that any woman will want to have sex with me. And if I presume that my personality will automatically lead to women wanting to sleep with me, this is "feeling entitled to sex", which is one step removed from rape. Meanwhile, the woman in the article ran into that same problem: she thought that her wonderful personality would automatically lead men to want to sleep with her. And when she found out this wasn't the case, she proclaimed Dave to be shallow on Huffington Post - a move which caused other older women to complain to their husbands/boyfriends. So the UPB violation is, "No one should presume they're entitled to sex, just because they have a wonderful personality!" - (except women, because it's totally fine when they do so.) That these UPB violations abound whenever a woman is facing an emotional "crisis", no matter what her age, is what I meant when I said that this modern culture is "uniquely horrible" at promoting the non-virtuousness of women.

No worries, I'm working on my word-accuracy, as well. I may not have clarified how much I believe that modern American culture is "uniquely horrible". Whenever a woman is about to make a decision, there will always be a Huffington Post article, facebook article, or something-like-that which encourages women to make an immoral choice and not be held responsible for that immoral choice. Before FDR, I would've found this article to be eye-rollingly stupid. But after FDR, I find it blatantly immoral. Can you catch the immorality - (the UPB violation)? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-korth/sex-over-50_b_5563576.html

I liked this video very much, because I haven't been exposed to "anti-Israel" summaries of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I also think it went much deeper than the "It takes two to tango..." cliché, and actually explained, in gory detail, how insane the Zionist position is. (VICE did a feature on American Christians donating hundreds of millions to Israel, simply because Revelation prophesizes that Israel must be 100% Jewish in order for Jesus to return. So the insanity of American Christianity is largely responsible for the insanity in Israel/Palestine.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQi9kI8TVlc

Yes, but only if you belong to a religion which tells you, from birth, that this is the case. It's not something you would develop either (1) on your own, on a desert island, or (2) in defiance of a culture which says this is impossible. The more I read the responses in this thread, the more inclined I am to view transgender as a religious-idea: (something you need to be indoctrinated into, because you would never develop the idea yourself). --------------------------------- Another confusion: Transgendered people strictly limit their definition of "identity" to "that which is generated by the brain" versus "that which is generated by the body", but Identity (in the psychological sense) is never strictly-limited to those two factors. Your most treasured possessions are part of your identity. So are your religious beliefs - (especially when you're willing to stop being friendly to those who disagree with them). So can your favorite movie - (especially, again, when you're willing to stop being friendly with and/or downvote the posts of anyone who hates your favorite movie). Your clothes, too, are part of your identity. But if your clothes are part of your identity, then why haven't transgendered individuals proposed, as a form of "transitioning", "the wearing of clothing that's strongly associated with your biological sex, while also being friendly with everyone you meet, until your feelings of possessing a mind-trapped-in-the-wrong-gender disappear after forming many good friendships with people who don't view you as gender-confused because you never presented yourself as gender-confused"? In other words, I'm biologically-male. And if I ever felt transgendered, I could simply wear stereotypically-male clothing, make a ton of friends, and wait until my transgendered-feelings disappear. Why is that NOT a valid "solution" to the "problem" of transgender? (Quotes around "solution" and "problem" because those are potentially pejorative words, and I've no intention of being pejorative.)

Something funny. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004. Therefore, the United States has already been, for the last ten years "divided into "states that allow gay parenting" and "states that don't". So, by accusing me of "violating the NAP" - (which you did, without providing any evidence/explanation) - you unwittingly accused all gay-marriage proponents of violating the NAP. (Moreover, one of the chief arguments supporting gay marriage is, "Ever since 2004, when gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, none of the apocalyptically negative predictions from anti-gay marriage individuals have come to pass.")