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  • Also the distinction is "no uniforms, no guns" off duty police are still served. It's actually a little closer to "no shoes, no shirt, no service".

    As listed in the article some of the employees and regular customers come from war-torn places or have histories of traumatic interactions with police. Hence the ban comes from a place of limiting PTSD reactions.

  • It's a non-binary so neither male nor female aligned and it's basically not something someone who is not of the tribes where it's a thing can use the label. So that's basically the cliff notes.

    To get more granular it's a partially ceremonial category of gender that is neither male nor female. Culturally this third gender has unique cultural and social roles similar to how male and female do that are unique to that culture. It's a social category that has it's own modes of dress, rituals and social expectations applied to it. Western culture doesn't exactly have a rigid third gender classification in this way so there's not much that two Spirit can be easily compared one to one with making it difficult to explain. Two Spirit people are sort of formally recognized by their people and assume the cultural trappings of this third gender role.

    It's not linked to a specific tribe and is kind of an umbrella term, these third gender roles are a feature of a lot of different tribes that all call them something specific in their own languages so "two spirit" is just an English speaker's short cut to referring non-specifically to a person occupying one of potentially dozen different varieties of these different culture's third gender categories.

  • Two Spirit is a non binary identity with a specific cultural context within the history of indigenous peoples. In Canada, due to the increased focus on dealing with the reconciliation of Indigenous peoples the current Acronym is 2SLGBTQIA as it sort of symbolicly puts precedent on amplifying indigenous voices in the movement.

  • There are a fair number of Democrats who think abandoning trans issues is the right path to take to make themselves more acceptable to "centrists" reasoning that the democrats will make things better in the long term when they have the safety to do so...

    But they have no idea how much damage can be done. How many people in that time will give up hope that things will be better or who will be driven to that point by feeling alone and weird because they don't see themselves reflected anywhere and there's no one out there to tell them that people like themselves exist and that their lives are not always defined by pain, loneliness and want.

    When people act like it's something that should just be put off so some bigots feel like maybe they might halfway consider voting democrat (which they usually don't. Even some of my trans accepting friends who agree with all the leftist talking points still self identity as conservative in their heart of hearts in part because they've been brainwashed to equate the word "conservative" with "reasonable" ) they forget that so many of us are down to clinging to the very bricks by our fingernails. It's quite in character for the Democrats to shelve trans issues to try and appease Republicans by trying to wheedle and play nice to encourage them not to be horrible by trying to become some sort of model of respectable comprise instead of finding new ways to defend against and fight the systemic prejudices and correct the disinformation surrounding trans health care... News flash to Democrats. Republicans will never wake up and see you as the model Paladin of democratic dignity and process. They will never be courted to be better if you compromise now so they might owe you one later. They don't ever pay back those favors for the compromises you make. They will just take every concession and compromise and turn around and call you obstructionists. You just will lose more ground until eventually there's none left to hold.

  • So you are afraid of doing any mental work. Not surprised. Also this particular person, Elliot Page, is one of the most famous trans men out there and even if he weren't famous you are grandstanding about how you want to call trans people whatever you feel like.

    When you are nasty behind someone's back it's still you showing off how much of a mean killjoy you are practicing up to be to somebody's face someday and that you are proud of being a mean ass killjoy. Then you get upset because ta da - people treat you like a mean killjoy. How unpredictable!

  • So you are saying you must constantly remind yourself and everyone you are talking to of someone's genitals at birth in every conversation you have constantly or else what - you'll forget?

    Are you a goldfish?

    People aren't asking you to ignore your eyes dude. They are asking you to allow people space to use their mental tools so they can more easily get through their day. They are legit telling their friends and the people they are around most what way to treat them will make them happiest to make them the most comfortable to be themselves. When you present yourself as a obstacle to someone else's joy and/or wellbeing yeah, people treat you like an ass. You are not the arbiter of truth here. People know that trans women were born phenotypicly male. They are just able to prioritize more than "monkey see, monkey speak".

  • It's easier to understand homophobia not from the perspective of being afraid of gay people but being afraid of what would happen to society if being gay were not considered a failure state lesser to being hetero and treated as such.

    Hence why they keep talking about "cultural Marxism". It's supposed to seem like a threat posed to "Western Civilization" they are VERY afraid of what happens when being gay is considered normal. "Cultural Marxism" actually doesn't have any clear definable meaning aside from a vague implication that any form of socially accepted equality is dangerous to society, and cause for dissolution of the "traditional family" and so on. They absolutely DO frame these subjects in the context of fear. That's why they keep evoking communist wording ( the Nazis used the term "Cultural Bolshevism" for the same purpose) You are already conditioned to be afraid of Communists so you are supposed to draw an emotional parallel. There really is no other purpose for using that term as while Marx himself did have some vague stuff about women's role in society and that they were equally human as men but his works really were more gender blind and focused on how capitalism effects people's lives. Calling him feminist is a bit of a stretch. But the point is to make you scared so you really stop thinking about it in any terms other than "Very bad society destroying thingy".

    If they said "Gay people will kill you because they are all great at jujitsu and you should run!" people would think you're a complete moron but "Their existence will erode the nuclear family and cause us to be weak as a society so that our enemies will take us down!" is a more nebulous fear that doesn't stem from any specific completely harmless individual. It makes the existence of them at all as a whole a threat. Or they cam be treated as a threat to one's personal perception of being masculine if ones entire premise of masculinity operates on the nessesity of being perceived as not being desired or desiring men. Hence homophobia - a fear of being perceived as gay.

  • In bisexuality there is the idea of "compulsory heterosexuallity" where a lot of people look at themselves and identify as straight because they have been trained to ignore their attraction to same sex partners because to chose otherwise is punishable. It's theorized that bisexuality might actually be more common than heterosexuallity and lead to the idea that geing gay is "a choice" because for a bi person it kind of is.

    But for gay or hetero folk it is like trying to eat a food your palette finds disgusting. Like if you absolutely hate olives and keep forcing yourself to eat them you might get better at ignoring your sense of taste while eating them... But you will never get to the point where you initiate the neurological flip to where you actually enjoy it. While enjoying more bitter foods is just a function of aging up at some point certain things unique to you are hardwired in.

  • I mean for a lot of people it's pretty easy to understand once it's someone they care about.

    If a random salesperson calling your friend ma'am makes her whole damn week why wouldn't you do that for someone you care about?

    I feel like half the issue with a lot of advocacy is we go a little too far into the intellectual stuff? I mean it definitely helps to know that the ethical underpinnings of the movement are epicurean but like... You go over someone's head you rarely get em in the heart.

  • Rings pretty true in the face of trans advocacy. In our case it's really hard to fight a very simple take on something that seems like an easy "fact" because to do so depends on an understanding of a pretty specific psychological condition that dovetails into some complex social and philosophical principles and a history of how we got medically to the place we are in regarding treatment that really weren't mainstream knowledge... And still kind of aren't because people are more easily sold 90's mad scientist logic over the structures that exist.

    Like trans folls and their loved ones often become versed in psychology, phillosophy, history and sometimes endocrinology as a matter of survival. It's way more efficient for most people who don't need to constantly defend their quality of life to just shut it all down and repeat the thought terminating cliches, feel like they are the arbiters of truth while leaving damn near everything on the table untouched.

    I relate very hard to it being like fighting the gravity of low mental resource allocation. It can feel like being crushed.

  • It would be really funny if they started paying more attention to the context surrounding the different books in the bible. Like how all Leviticus is canonically the laws of the tribe of Levi and give context for Jewish laws and how Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were all written by an asshole who already enjoyed telling people what to do who never met Jesus - just hit his head on a rock and said he hallucinated him but went on to become his own cult leader.

  • I think my fav is Abagail's stuff because at some level I never got over being a theater nerd and she places all her citations on screen! It is more heart wrenching in this video though because the UK is an extremely rough place to be trans. Jaime's stuff is more scattershot so I picked a slightly more random vid.

    I must say it is extremely refreshing to see anyone be willing listen. The people using trans people as an example of "how the left are insane/misguided " and often a lot of folks on the left themselves are usually more used to treating our advocacy like some kind of shuttlecock in badminton. It becomes more about who is factually ir ethically right in some kind of 2 dimensional sense than focusing on the actual nuance of living with what is a pretty complicated psychological condition where experts have drawn conclusions for treatment that can seem counter intuitive from the way we handle other psychological conditions.

    I really want to thank you. It gives me a lot of hope when someone just shows some actual curiosity. Advocating for my community's quality of life is kind of like fighting a hydra and 9/10 times people just want to rip a chunk out of you about their singular beef instead of taking the time to see how it all ties together.

  • If you are interested in specifically long term prospective effects of puberty blockers the reason we had support for the trials on children is because there are naturally occuring conditions like Androgen insensitivity syndrome where people grow up with the chromosomes of a male person but their body develops as phenotypicly female because their body chemistry cannot read their horomones. These and other intersex conditions meant we weren't going in blindly because we studied adults into advanced ages who never actually went through a regular puberty so we have a raft of information of different forms of naturally occurring puberties outside of the male and female binary. In the case of blockers the idea is not to use these measures very long term because there are escalating side effects for folks once they hit their mid 20's but nobody is advocating for anybody to mimic intersex conditions artificially for that long. Sixteen- seventeen is considered the upper end and those are the ages kids with the signoff of their adult guardians can start making decisions about HRT.

    The book A Comprehensive Guide to Intersex by Jay Kyle Peterson is a good place to start if you want to understand the various forms of conditions that contribute to our understanding of sex development.

    Getting into the weeds of the history of Transgender DSM and puberty blocking treatment trials is not the easiest to do because there is a lot of politically motivated hijacking of the algorithm but here is an early documentation from an early trial in 1998 and a guide developed for paitent selection criteria from 2001. You will notice some outdated nomenclature and the DSM has since been refined and updated since :

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9879847/ http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/hbsoc_2001.html

    Anecdotally it's not a bad idea to get to know some trans folks who share their experiences about going through the system to get a sense of what the system is like and what the problems experienced by the people in the system are.

    This is Alexander who went through the US system and describes what it was like. https://youtu.be/a4r0CoXsGmk

    Jamie went through the UK system and now has his PHD in Psychology specializing in studying transgender development and wellbeing. https://youtu.be/lWngA08D9LU His videos center around either information or trans/annti-trans memes.

    And Abagail Thorn has an MA philosophy , is a playwright and actress in the UK who uses the medium of philosophy to expound on many aspects of trans life. She does a very good job citing her sources but is also very entertaining in her presentation on subject matter. This is her video about going through the system as an adult. https://youtu.be/v1eWIshUzr8

  • Well you are in luck on the side of puberty blockers. They were introduced and approved for human use in the early 90's first for precocious puberty but trials for trans kids using them for a longer period was a thing in the early 2000's. Wr definately have our ten years of data. The only thing is that trans issues were not a political talking point at the time. It really is the case of people hearing about this thinking it is new because they just learned it existed. Also it has been demonstrated you can go through another puberty at any age with horomone therapy which we have been refining for trans usage since the 60's so we got some good long data on that.

    There are dimensions of the fight for trans kids that lie in other places. If you do not pass as your gender as an adult due to a society that polices rigid gender expression you face things like soft travel restrictions because someone might harm you abroad or detain you mid transit, you face higher incidences of harassment, assult or exclusion by strangers because your transition is visible at a distance. You have more likely to have higher instances of digestive issues because you can develop massive anxiety around public bathrooms. If you are a woman whose puberty caused you to grow to be over 6 ft and have wide shoulders and a chiseled jaw there is no available elective surgery that takes you out of that box. Overall if you stick out you risk getting hammered down and that is a lot scarier to trans people than a loss of fertility which is the only solid side effect. There is also hope that in the future gender related surgeries will one day support full reproduction capability but nobody is particularly holding their breath.

    If you want to stop the pressures on trans kids to make acceptance of themselves more viable supporting non-binary identities and non-traditional presentations and taking a hard look at the effect of gender policing is a good start. Some trans people are surgery and medical intervention adverse so there are options for those in healthier more accepting societies to find middle ground. A lot of the propaganda totes up the more whimsical non-binary identities as being signs of delusion but the reality is that there are underlying coping mechanisms being used to accept a social and physical half way space. If you can construct social safety for those groups you reduce the overall pressure to physically conform.

  • Agreed. The first Gay and Lesbian liberation groups people operated with aliases because infiltration could mean their persecution under the law. To fight an unjust rule of law anonymity to a degree is needed to shield the just. That someone unjust can utilize that same shield is an unfortunate consequence.

    The difference is if people still think your version of justice is deplorable when you come out from behind the shield then the consequences are yours to reap. In this instance it's not a matter of people wanting to be able to love each other publicly and get married it's people wanting to crush people beneath a boot so the issue is a little less gray. Caveat emptor.

  • You have fallen for propaganda my friend. The first surgery trans people have access to is breast reduction surgery which requires the sign off of a guardian at age 16.... the same time surgery is available to cis kids. You don't get access to bottom surgery options until you are an adult able to sign off or unless you basically have a consensus of desperate need - essentially those who are a high suicide risk and that is where the social workers, therapist, pediatrician and endocrinologist all need sign off on it and in that case the age limit is still 16.

    The problem a lot of people do not realize is how confident the diagnostic and projected outcome needs to be for anything to be done to children. There is solid reason why the system has not faced litigation by a bunch of trans kids who have gone already gone through this system and are now adults.

    A lot of people think transness comes from some sort if woo woo belief but in actuality the diagnosis is based out of consistent reactions to stimuli and often a host of quality of life destroying mental health conditions that arise from being forced to not express their identity. The field of psychology has been obsessed with trans people since the beginning of the field and we are approaching the century mark of the first bottom surgeries. It is a fair constant (that baring a few specific mental disorders) that people do not take medicine unless the side effects and risks are lesser than the pain they are experiencing or will experience.

    We need cis people to stop reacting emotionally to trans health care with some kind of existential terror that there are mad scientists itching to hurt kids and remember for a second what it is like to seek treatment in a healthcare system and the chain of ethics and liability that exists in the field.

  • I know it's useless to try and unbunch the State's underwear outta their ass about taking away their "States rights" but really from the outside there are plenty of places with Provinces / prefectures / states that still have individual character and bylaw WITHOUT binding their citizens by what is in effect the sovereignty of two separate competing countries.

    Folk in the states seem to make it all about how free it makes everyone... But from over here it looks more like some kind of beaurcratic bondage fetish.

  • My move is to go to the library and borrow stuff on DVD. I dunno where you are but up here in Canada you would be surprised what you can find legally for free if you got a library card.