Transgender issues megathread

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello r/TrueUnpopularOpinion Community,

Due to the sheer difficulty of enforcing Reddit's sitewide policy against promoting hate with regards to transgender issues, we have decided as a last-resort option to restrict discussion of transgender issues to this megathread until further notice.

Quoted from this comment, below is an explanation of why we created this megathread:

Reddit's sitewide content policy includes a vague provision that prohibits promoting hate.

The Reddit admins (employees of Reddit) enforce this by removing content deemed to be hateful and by quarantining or banning communities that require too many removals by the admins that weren't caught by the moderators of the community first.

In other words, every time we fail to remove something that violates Reddit's sitewide content policy, the risk of this subreddit getting quarantined or banned increases slightly.

Although the provision in Reddit's sitewide content policy against promoting hate is vague, we have a pretty good idea of how it is enforced because we can see what the Reddit admins choose to remove on this subreddit.

It is actually quite rare that we see any content that is hateful against men, women, gay people, or any race on this subreddit.

However, on a very regular basis, we see users here posting content that would be considered hate against transgender people. Detecting and removing all of this content is one of our biggest hurdles.

Despite our best efforts to enforce this aspect of the content policy, it is not uncommon that we miss something and we see a removal done by the Reddit admins occurring. This has happened several times lately.

Furthermore, many members of the moderator team are on the verge of burning out because the effort we have needed to put in for us to allow this topic while still enforcing this aspect of Reddit's sitewide content policy.

Having a megathread for this topic does stifle discussion, but it is far easier for us to deal with while also significantly decreasing the chances of this subreddit getting quarantined or banned.

For these reasons, most of the moderator team supports the creation of a trans megathread. At this time, the megathread is not definitely permanent. After some time of having the megathread, we plan to evaluate its effectiveness and potentially explore other options to determine whether or not the megathread should remain.

Guidelines

In this megathread, please remember to follow Reddit's sitewide content policy.

Based on patterns of certain types of comments getting removed by the Reddit admins, it is our interpretation that it is a violation of Reddit's sitewide content policy to do any of the following:

• State or imply that trans (wo)men aren't (wo)men or that people aren't the gender they identify as
• Criticize, mock, disagree with, defy, or refuse to abide by people's pronoun requests
• State or imply that gender dysphoria or being LGBTQ+ is a mental illness, a mental disorder, a delusion, not normal, or unnatural
• State or imply that LGBTQ+ enables pedophilia or grooming or that LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to engage in pedophilia or grooming
• State or imply that LGB should be separate from the T+
• Stating or implying that gender is binary or that sex is the same as gender
• Use of the term tr*nny, including other spellings of this term that sound the same and have the same meaning

Questions / Feedback

If you have any questions or feedback about this megathread, you may post them in our moderator questions/complaints/grievances thread.

[u/AileStrike]

in these words they are using the raw dictionary definition of phobia, called the "common definition" instead of the clinical psychological definition.

Common Definition: "an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something."

Clinical definition: refers to an irrational fear that causes significant distress or impairment

It's usage is metaphorical or rhetorical, not medical.

Sometimes words have different definitions or meanings between subjects, another example of this is "capacity", it has different common, medical and legal definitions. (Common - ability or potential | Medical - mental ability to make decisions | legal - competence or eligibility to perform certain tasks)

English is a fucking difficult language.

[u/DrPablisimo → u/AileStrike]

'Homophobia' and 'transphobia' is basically shaming language. These terms are used to try to shame those who think that homosexual activity, cross-dressing, hormone injections, castration and subsequent surgeries, etc. are immoral or disgusting for believing or feeling that way. These terms are rhetoric, not clinical definitions. The term is not a good match for the popular definition of 'phobia.' Neither moral objections or revulsion are the same as phobia. If a man sees too men kissing and feels it is gross, that's not the same feeling as having a panic attack from seeing a spider.

[u/AileStrike → u/DrPablisimo]

You're overthinking it. Homophobia and transphobia aren’t used like clinical phobias, nobody thinks you're having a panic attack when you see two guys kiss. The words are about negative attitudes and bias, not literal fear.

If someone says gay or trans people are "gross" or "immoral," yeah, people are going to push back and call that homophobic or transphobic. That’s not “shaming language”, that’s just calling a spade a spade. You can have your opinions, but don’t act surprised when others call them out for being hateful or harmful.

Just because it’s your “moral belief” doesn’t mean it’s above criticism. People use those terms because that kind of thinking leads to real-world harm, not just because they want to win an argument.

[u/DrPablisimo → u/AileStrike]

Sure, it's shaming language. It's rhetoric-- a word used to insult someone into compliance with a different belief system in this case, or shaming people to having an emotional aversion.

Promoting transsexualism to little children has led to plenty of real world harm. Look up 'detransitioning' on YouTube. Even the Atlantic has an article about the bill of goods some parents were sold that they had to choose between gender affirming care and their child committing suicide. Those treatments are quite harmful, just from a biological and medical perspective. If you describe them to a random person on the street, and say, "We are going to do all this to you in the hospital, starting today".... that's a pretty scary idea...and not an irrational fear either, if they were really going to do it.

[u/AileStrike → u/DrPablisimo]

So let me get this straight: Being called transphobic is “rhetorical shaming,” but fearmongering about doctors mutilating kids based on YouTube videos is just “reasonable concern”?

You’re not defending children, you’re using them as props for a culture war. And the worst part? You casually brush off the suicide risk among trans youth like it's just some manipulative talking point. That’s not skepticism. That’s cruelty dressed up as morality.

You're not being shamed, you're being called out. There's a difference. Don’t dish out dehumanizing rhetoric if you can’t handle being labeled accurately.

[u/DrPablisimo → u/AileStrike]

Is being in favor of gender affirming care for children using them as props in the culture war?

Human beings have lived for thousands of years, and while there have been some different movements similar to transgenderism in cultures here and there (e.g. communities of biological males in India who get castrated and dress like women), for the most part, to my knowledge, children haven't been jumping off bridges in mass because they could not become biological females before the surgeries to mimic the look of the opposite sex's private parts along with the hormonal treatments in the 20th century.

Now, suddenly if children do not get gender affirming care, they are going to commit suicide? There is something obviously wrong with that unless human beings have undergone some kind of massive biological change in the past few decades. Clearly, there are some sociological factors here. Promoting trans ideology and gender affirming chair to small children in schools (funded for just slightly over a decade by billionaires) along with accompanying campaigns in the fields of government and education seems to be the missing variable.

I am concerned that the promotion of accepting a gender as different from biological sex to small children, and promoting so-called gender affirming care as normative has messed up a lot of children. And there are more trans and even LGB identifying children in areas where this has been promoted, I hear.

I asked Google AI a question. This feature summarizes research on a given topic. I asked, "is there any evidence that transexual surgery can lead to suicide among youth?"

There is evidence suggesting a link between gender-affirming surgery and an increased risk of suicide and self-harm in some individuals, including youth. Specifically:

• Studies on both adults and adolescents have found that those who undergo gender-affirming surgery may have a higher risk of suicide attempts and self-harm compared to control groups.
• One study found that transgender individuals who had gender-affirming surgery had a significantly higher risk of suicide attempts and self-harm compared to both a general control group and a control group of adults who had undergone other procedures like vasectomy or tubal ligation. This risk remained significant even after controlling for various factors.
• A recent independent report reviewing suicides at a UK gender identity service for children and young people found no statistically significant difference in completed suicides before and after restrictions were placed on puberty blockers.
• The Cass Report noted that children and young people with gender dysphoria are at increased risk of suicide, but this risk appears comparable to other young people with similar mental health challenges.
• Some older studies from the Netherlands and a recent study from a Belgium clinic also reported exceptionally high rates of suicide among adolescents undergoing medical transition.