I'm probably gonna hop all over and restate some stuff that has been said already, so sorry. First there are a few forms of equality, the main two in today's society is equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. They deal with the different parts of life. Equality of opportunity is the idea that everyone has their fair chance to use what they have to better their life and rise up the ladder. Equality of outcome is the idea that you get things handled to you, to make sure everyone is on the same level. The problem is how do we accomplish each, and which makes more sense in Americas laws that are already here. See this is the issue with the welfare thing that was people wont work, but will get paid, get food, and be babied for the rest of their life, because, they need equality of outcome. This link here talks about both of these equalities, but in the form of education. It still is a good reading to buff up on your knowledge on the two equalities. Now your last paragraph, like I said in my above paragraph, the issue is that you are asking for the american people, pretty greedy people, to go and give stuff away to make it be all one middle class basically. That sounds like hella communism. And I dont think people will like it. Your last sentence. It might not be what the average people want, but it's what the loudest people want, and that makes a big difference.
I'm aware that there're different kinds of equality and I would never advocate for equality of outcome because it's unachievable (and not an ideal in the first place). I took social studies classes and got a decent grade, so I'd like to think I'm not completely retarded and ignorant. But whether you come from a well-off family or a couple of gutter rats makes a huge difference for your opportunity. Is it possible to overcome that hurdle? Yes. Is it easy? No. Is it equality of opportunity? No. A person with two good legs can walk a mile. As can a person with just the one leg. Both can do it, both have the opportunity and means to do it. But it's a lot harder for the one legged person to do so. In the same way, it's possible for someone born into poverty in a shitty, torn family to climb his or her way up. But it's far from easy, especially compared to others with more means. We all have different ressources, inherent in ourselves and supplied to us from our networks. The idea behind free healthcare and tuition for all is that everyone has genuinely equal opportunity. Whether they pull through the studies and whether they make something of themselves, that onus is still on them. But they will have a greater chance to do so. Welfare is a mixed bag. Some will make a living from leeching off the system, others will use it to support themselves only until they can go out to work again. I don't think there's an ideal implementation that prevents leeching but ensures a safety net for people. /shrug On the final note; a person screams fire and everyone panics. That doesn't mean the building is actually burning. Just because some fanatic goes out in public and says the world is ending, that doesn't mean we'll all die tomorrow and go to hell. Someone saying they're being oppressed and can do nothing to help themselves isn't necessarily right. The people who wallow in self-pity will always be there and moan loudly about how unfairly they're being treated by everyone and everything. Most people don't do that and don't want to do that. Loud people will always make mountains of molehills, but them making it a mountain doesn't mean there's no molehill.
It is the product of one of the most intelligent and industrious of creatures, whose miniature society is one of the most sophisticated in the animal kingdom. It's been used in religious and Pagan celebrations, and it's medicinal qualities have been known for centuries. It all begins in a field where worker honeybees suck nectar from flower blossoms, such as clover. They store it in their honey sack, then return to the hive where other worker bees suck it out and chew it, breaking down the nectar's complex sugars into two simple sugars called glucose and fructose. The bees then deposit the nectar into the cells of the wax honeycombs they've built. They fan it with their wings until most of the water content evaporates in the warm air of the beehive.
I don't care for politics, but can we agree that calling a National Emergency to fund a wall makes the U.S. look stupid?
You think we care what all those virgin countries see us as. We're more Chad than the fucking country Chad.
I remember someone asking about gender dysphoria being considered a mental illness and/or disability in the U.S. This may be a long post depending on how you look at it. When I last checked the American Psychological Association classified it as one; I think for good reason. I like to read up on this stuff and my conclusion is that it is not normal to "be as sex a man but 'genderly' a woman". Gender dysphoria is caused usually by the person's childhood and how they were brought up, along with the differences in the brain. This can possibly due to, again the childhood of someone. Not only this, it is largely due to the public outcry about such a "problem" First, the genetics behind this. From what I read and reviewed (along with info from my mother's hospital psychiatrists) this isn't the main cause rather a player in causing someone to be "transgender", there are detected differences in alleles and genotypes of transgenders and regular people. From Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling (https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-pdf/104/2/390/27201987/jc.2018-01105.pdf) published on September 21st, 2018 "... Long CAG repeats reduce AR signaling (43–45). Similarly, long repeats in ERβ have been associated with decreased ERβ signaling (36), potentially reducing the influence of ERβ on the defeminization of the male brain (46). In combination, both genotypes appear to have additive effects on the development of gender dysphoria". With genetics being a factor, it can be drawn that it is a genetic disorder. This is a long study, and I only kept it short as to not make such a big post. Please read into this study to learn more if interested. Secondly, we see high rates of an inability to control one's emotions, especially around the presence of regular people who don't suffer from gender dysphoria. Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports by Lisa Littman (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330&type=printable) published on August 16th, 2018 provides insight into the behavioral aspect of gender dysphoria and transgender. The study addresses the two types of gender dysphoria "Two types of gender dysphoria studied include early-onset GD, where the symptoms of gender dysphoria begin in early childhood, and late-onset GD where the symptoms begin after puberty [6]. Late-onset GD that occurs during adolescence is now called adolescent-onset GD". The first table below shows the symptoms that occur prior to when someone experiences gender dysphoria Spoiler: Data Such high numbers are not commonly seen anywhere else. Furthermore, we see that many do not cope with emotions well listed by this table below. Spoiler: Data Finally, we see the public. The public commonly says that this mental illness with the disabilities it brings with it is ok and is to be accepted. With this, people with gender dysphoria are "empowered" and the public tell them that they are ok if they experience these "thoughts of being a different gender". Such a thing was never experienced on such a grand scale in the past with many people saying that they are a different gender UNTIL we, the public, bring such a discussion the forefront where people then begin to make such claims that they are a different gender. These people then experience the problems of depression and other items (refer to my second supporting paragraph) and yet we tell them that they are ok "identifying is a different gender". Because of this, we think that since it can't be a disability, we throw the blame somewhere else; the "transphobic people" instead of actually classifying this is a disability and looking into why these people experience the symptoms of suicide and anxiety. The only major research shows the genotypes responsible and not why and how to prevent such a problem. Such data, the studies provided here and others that can be researched, show a strong connection between a genetic defect in alleles and genotypes of these people. We also see the horrible symptoms of the mental illness of gender dysphoria yet we say that its ok, and direct the blame on other people rather than doing proper research. Mob mentality also plays a role as when we bring such a hypothetical situation to the major discussion, people start to believe they are "gender dysphoric" and then the symptoms of their genetic defects begin.
That was a lot of reading, 2nd journal was humongous TL;DR at the bottom Previously named gender identity disorder, diagnosis was based on identity - so identifying as male when born female, or vice versa. This was changed to gender dysphoria by the APA (as of the DSM-5, 2013 source), thusly diagnosis is based on dysphoria - the mental anguish of the condition - and not the experience of being the opposite of your biological sex, though it remains classified as a mental illness in the DSM. Gender incongruence was previously listed as a mental illness by the WHO in the ICD-10. As of 2018 with the ICD-11, it is classified as a sexual health condition (source). In regards to genetics, it is a factor, to be sure. The study you linked also mentioned monozygotic twins often having both experience it, though this was "only" the case for up to 33%, so there is obviously more factors to consider than genetics alone; What I think we can reasonably conclude from this, is that being transgender may be linked to a genetic predisposition toward it. In other words, you may be born with a brain that is more likely to experience incongruence between your physical body and your perceived gender. What triggers those feelings is hard to tell and is not conclusively found by any study I know of to date. There are things that suggest certain things, like genetics being a factor, or peer contagion. Speaking of which: The 2nd paragraph, which is about cluster outbreaks of gender dysphoria in pre-established friend groups. The first issue I noticed in this, which the journal itself also brings up, is that it does not have any measure of prevalence of this phenomenon, not relative nor absolute. They targeted people in which these phenomenons occured and researched for trends between these groups. And it is a very interesting study, though parts of it seem to hint more at it being a shared delusion than individually experienced transgenderism. As, among other things, it brings up posts from reddit which try to attribute unrelated experiences to a transgender identity, which may confuse adolescents and youth into believing their experiences are spawned from gender identity, rather than a myriad of other explanations. Many of the teens who experienced this did use social media more than usual prior to their coming out as transgender. For me, that seems to hint that it may be them attributing more or less unrelated symptoms to a phenomenon, then declaring that phenomenon to be the explanation for the symptoms. The parents by and large unanimously stated that there had been no prior indication of being transgender. So the phenomenon may well exist, but I think it more likely that it's spawned from misinformation than it being a contagion as such. By which I mean, I don't think it is actually spread as a result of acceptance of transgender people. Regarding your statistics from the 2nd journal, the first one (Table 4) is misrepresented by you. The table outlines disabilities and disorders diagnosed BEFORE the onset of gender dysphoria. It is NOT symptoms that "occur when someone experiences gender dysphoria". The table outlines the prevalence of certain disorders in the group studied, in which the phenomenon was observed. An inability to handle emotions productively is shared by 58% of the sample, a sample based on a group of people who already have a lot of other diagnoses, such as anxiety and depression. If you examine the ability to handle emotions productively in a group which have these diagnoses, it should come as no surprise that they experience great difficulty with handling emotions. Whether it's due to anxiety or chemical imbalances in the first place, who knows. My point I'm failing to make here is this sample group is not representative of gender dysphoria as it presents normally. It's a group that seems prone to a lot of other negative behaviours unrelated to the fact of being transgender and you cannot extrapolate their experiences to a wider population based on this study alone. For the final paragraph, again, the dysphoria is preceded by the other diagnoses in the study you linked. It is not the cause of them. Any causal link would be from those disorders to gender dysphoria, not the other way around. That said, gender dysphoria may well lead to depression and anxiety in particular, but this is not necessarily the case. The degree to which dysphoria is experienced varies greatly from individual to individual, and is affected by society and social circles. People who meet support and accept in their social circles experience far less dysphoria, despite being transgender. If anything, the lack of accept and the discrimination born from it are the leading causes of the dysphoria associated with being transgender source). TL;DR: All in all, the genetics thing is pretty accurate. For the second bit, you make leaps in assumption and extrapolate data from a sample that is not representative. Additionally for the second bit, there is no data to support the prevalence of the phenomenon, nor are the exact causes of the phenomenon clear. Finally, social rejection and violence contributes far more to the gender dysphoria than the gender confusion itself.
I wasn't planning to post here but you brought up a good point I'd like to focus more on. "A person with two good legs can walk a mile. As can a person with just the one leg. Both can do it, both have the opportunity and means to do it. But it's a lot harder for the one legged person to do so." This is completely dependent on the situation and what you want from the outcome. Money wise A perfectly healthy two legged person gets no assistance from the government for money because they are healthy and have all their limbs, able to work a job of nearly any caliber. A person with a missing leg is considered disabled and get's government funding, the amount you get is dependent on how you found yourself with only one leg, from a workplace incident or a birth defect. May have limits on job selections but may have more open with the technology. (Could go as far as getting paid to test new prototypes of prosthetics that 2 legged people cannot) So off the bat, the disabled one is already at a head start. Personal Life A perfectly healthy 2 legged person can climb, walk, run, work, sky's the limit. A person who is missing a leg can't do as much, they can still climb, walk(or hop, whatever you want to call it) and work most jobs, but now we get to the situation of how they lost the leg, different situations will have different mental strains on said person, but over time, a person can overcome and accept what has happened and become even better, especially now a days where we have technology to replace the missing limb (Which could allow them to do more than when they had two legs Good Read You can now replace those missing limbs with artificial ones that are better. However, I don't recommend cutting off your limbs and replacing them, at least not until we get more advanced in the cybernetic side of things. Sure at first sight, a healthy 2 legged person may be able to run a mile easier than a 1 legged person, BUT when you look into the benefits one side has over the other from different sources, such as technology and government aid, can we still say the two legged person has it easier? can we say they are more equal? or can we say that now the one who seemed to have less advantages, actually has more. (and the same goes for what type of household you're born into, it's up to you to discover what is out there for aid, and it's ultimately up to your willingness and drive to get things done). Oh and as for the ease of each, we all consider different things easier or harder, I find building houses and doing my own renovations as easy, but others rather hire someone else to do it because it's hard for them. Heres a decent read on what some benefits have done to try to "equalize" the "Difference" , "Advantages and Disadvantages", you can do as much googling as you want for the topic as there is a lot out there, just search "Affirmative Action". TL;DR The world is what you make of it, highly dependent of where(3rd world countries, war torn places) you were born. A poor kid can become rich and a rich kid can become poor dependent on drive. Also, the "aids" that exist for certain groups could even be seen as adding a disadvantage to others just because of their skin colour/gender and not on whether they are in need. I'll end it with some food for thought for anyone interested on racism. Where is the blow-up over the the racial, discriminatory words said from the other side? Is this the book 1984? Thoughts are crimes? Has big brother finally arrived? Double standards?
I just spent all my energy on my last post so I can't really dignify this with the response it deserves. Much of what you say is a fair point and I am opposed to targeted benefits (e.g. quotas for women, black people, etc.). It's my opinion that all people should have access to free tuition and health care for the benefit of all people. It's not about giving the cripple more benefits than the able-bodied person (in this analogy), it's about giving both an easier time. Not all people from rich households are given the same support by parents, etc. - people are individuals and no situation is 100% the same as another. As such, it only makes sense to treat each person as an individual. Which, oddly enough, is exactly why you offer the same baseline to everyone, instead of trying to account for differences of skin colour or homosexuality and other hot topics. Because it's impossible to account for the differences and you will just skew things in the favour of one group one way or the other. The point of free tuition and free healthcare for all is to make it more accessible and benefit everyone. After all, it's still hard work to study and cover living expenses, at least you won't be indebted for the rest of your life on top of that.
As for the Gender dysphoria talk, I'll be brief. Every creature on this planet is born to do very minimum things, survive and reproduce, the weak die off, the strong pass on their DNA to the next line, rinse, repeat and anything outside of this is Abnormal, that is the basic meaning. However, we are "Intelligent" beings and have added so much more to life, so at what point is the abnormal acceptable? *edit, I have one personal belief on everything, religion, orientation, what have you, Do what you want with your life, but do not have a negative effect on others, Reverse your roles and wear other peoples shoes. And if you think you can do whatever you want, and negatively impact everyone, don't be surprised when you get a backlash of negativity, or question why someone dislikes you.
National emergency declared. Feinstein Being watched in china, days numbered Lawsuits will lose in Supreme Court Circle is narrowing arrests soon hopefully. Those who save tax payers the money can’t escape god. Safety net for deepstate all but gone. Keep an eye out for a false flag in the upcoming 10-15 days or so. Dems pushed to make lynching a federal crime. What’s the punishment for traitors? Lynching. Won’t work. Can’t save themselves.
I don't consider it acceptable to be a transgender (note I didn't say its unacceptable to have gender dysphoria) because of the side effects. Sure, wear someone else's shoes but when you "wear someone else's shoes" and it comes with the mental illnesses of suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and an inability to cope with emotions (which leads to bad interactions with other people and affects the lives of others) then it becomes a problem. We need to help these people rather than telling them they are "being special" and being free to do whatever and have their mental state deteriorate and worsen.
Gender dysphoria is a mental condition that causes a person to feel uncomfortable in their shoes because of their biological gender. Sex change therapy is a TREATMENT for the illness. Being transgender is not the illness, it is the cure. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria (see treatment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Management (see management) https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/ https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender (is transgender a mental illness?) Your emotional argument bores me. Nobody chooses gender dysphoria, they develop it over time and take practical steps to cope with it (Gender re-assignment therapy, normal therapy, etc). I trust that healthcare professionals know more about this than I do, which is why I refuse to adopt a mindset of "I refuse to accept them because I will not accept mental illness". This line of thinking reminds me of Ben Shapiro. (I would respond to this but I have no fucking clue what you are talking about)
Then do you not accept someone with depression, PTSD, schizophrenia or even OCD? Because they might have suicidal thoughts or anxiety? Saying you don't accept people who are transgender because they usually end up having mental problems is complete bullshit. They're born with a mental problem. They feel physically and mentally uncomfortable in their own body. To say that you don't accept someone who's transgender because they have a mental illness is like being angry when you find out your friend has anxiety. If they could control it, fine then maybe your argument has some ground. But due to Gender Dysphoria being an illness one CANNOT control. Your argument would and has no grounding what so ever. Just like @Pacifist said. Reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, etc. IS THE TREATMENT. There is absolutely no other way to treat it. You cannot force someone to feel comfortable in their own body, that's not how the human brain works. It just isn't. So who are you to say one should not be accepted because they have something wrong going on in their brain? Go ahead and say that you're against mental illness and that you want to help fight it. But do not ever say you're against the PEOPLE with the mental illness. Because that's just completely and utterly bigoted.
Let's not generalize and say that someone who doesn't understand gender dysphoria doesn't accept mental illnesses, its a shallowless and sad attempt at an insult. As for treatment, what should be the correct way to handle it? Is the biology of how your body was born the right one, or the brain telling you what it thinks you are? Why does your brain think that way and when does it develop? Do you know a kid is actually the other gender because they are a girl and likes to play with trucks and boy toys? or a boy who likes to wear girl clothes and makeup? There's a lot more to it and before a person does anything that will alter their body, should think it out as well as looking into if there's anything that is apparently wrong with their brain, and should not be decided on likes and dislikes that we as a society has classified as right and wrong for one gender over the other. Also on this note, having people on the other side saying it's wrong is also good to have as it may challenge how the person was raised and make them question if they are truly unhappy in their body or if they were just told that they should be as they grew up (there have been a few cases where the parents have actually forced hormone therapy on their kids) And I'm 100% against letting kids under at least 16 (18 would be better) to get anything done that would permanently change their body because no one truly knows what they are until they are older, and even then some people still aren't sure.
I admit that I probably misunderstood Dime. My apologies :3 1. I'm not a healthcare provider or anything, but probably the way that gets the best results. If sex change therapy is deemed the best method, shoot for that. If normal therapy works, use that. 2. I think it is kind of both. From the studies put forward it would probably stand to reason that it is both. 3. I believe the consesus is childhood, but I could be wrong. 4. This is actually a pretty common misunderstanding. Being a tomboy does not mean you have gender dysphoria. I believe one of the links I posted above says something like that. 5. I agree to a certain point with your conclusion. Making sure the kid is actually having issues before getting drastic is obviously preferred. I think the most important thing is the person's health. Everything else is not an issue to me. I guess that is why I can't understand people who just say they are against transpeople because it is a mental illness. If that helps them cope, why can't they get a sex change operation? Please forgive me, I am not the most well verse on this topic. I am also horribly biased.
Because, the therapy doesnt fix gender dysphoria, it enables it. It's like saying someone has PTSD so we are gonna put them in a safe space for the rest of their life, and that isn't even a good example. It's more like this kid is a bully, so we are gonna put him with a bunch of the nice nerds and he is gonna become not a bully. That's not what happens 9/10 of the times, instead he bullies the nerds and he continues bullying. There is no room for improvement to what is biologically normal. It isn't therapy it is catering to the mental illness increasing its effect. And once you have the sex change surgery, there is basically no way of going back. Meaning if it did work as a therapy, we cant change them back to their original biological sex. Again disclaimer, I have nothing against transgenders unless you are calling me a degenerate or such things, and that is only to that specific person.
Is there proof of this? I'm gonna do some research real quickly EDIT: My findings https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26835611 (Seems that the research isn't consistent and the methodology was poor in most of the studies conducted) https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/5/13/17938120/transgender-people-mental-illness-health-care I will continue in a bit gotta go eat dinner :3
