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  • I would prefer it if gender was just left out of official documents and policies, and rules would just focus on medical situations. This would leave space for everyone to be who they are while still allowing for specific care for people who menstruate, get pregnant, have a prostate etc.

    We don't have separate rules or bathrooms for people who wear glasses or are redheads, but somehow this archaic binary distinction is so ingrained in our society that people feel the need to categorize them in almost every domain of our lives.

    I say this as a cis man so if my opinion sounds stupid I am willing to learn. I do have some close trans friends and what I feel is that they just want to be allowed to be themselves. Like, their search and discovery of their identity is of course super important to them, but at the same time they are just people. I discuss them now because of the topic, but in my head they are no different from any other person I know. Just let people be themselves and don't force boxes where they aren't needed.

    • just focus on medical situations

      Well, there is this "transgender lunacy"... bet he wants to "cure" people.

      Let's remember some reasons used in the past to cure people:

      • Also, I looked up that list you posted, as some of the entries seemed very strange to me, even for the time.

        https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/reasons-admission-insane-asylum-1800s/

        In general, this document might be more accurately described as "a list of some reasons why people were believed to have eventually developed illnesses that led to their being admitted to the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane" and not a list of "symptoms" or "reasons" why people were admitted to that hospital.

        It's an extremely funny list, but shows more that psychoanalysis in that time was pretty stupid, not that people were being put in an asylum for showing these behaviors.

        • "Psychoanalysis" is a word coined by Freud in 1896, just after the period on that list.

          The problem with the fact-check, is that back then, they didn't care much about what was a "symptom" vs a "cause", they called everything an "illness". To be fair, there also was little in the means of therapy; for reference, some "therapies" that were invented afterwards to try to fix that: Incandescent light therapy (1893), Psychoanalysis (1896), Lobotomy (1935), Electroshock (1938). Instead, in the 19th century they used stuff like: moral therapy, hydrotherapy, abstinence, opium... and simply confinement.

          "Lunacy" is a very dangerous word when used by a politician towards any group of people.

          • Lunacy

            Awoo.

            It really shouldn't be. Yes we've been raised on slasher cinema in which madness justified the bogey man's capacity to kill in grisly or creative ways, but in reality victims of mental illness who are dangerous are extremely rare, and most of us are more likely to get gunned down by law enforcement for failure to understand conflicting orders.

            Curiously, the precursor to slashers, the whodunnit presupposed that anyone could kill if motivated enough to do so. In reality about 20% of soldiers make around 80% of the kills, with the remaining troopers unable to do so, even when faced with a mortal threat. In the old days, such soldiers were branded or executed for cowardice. Modern armies move them into the immense supply line that keeps our front lines running.

            These days, politicians discrediting lunatics are the same ones that can't tell the difference between trans folk, drag queens and furries, and are simply capitalizing on fear and hatred for social media likes. Whilst unfortunately, they are seizing power from more reasonable candidates, they will just as quickly target the sane when it suits them, based on race, religion, counter-culture or even the inability to keep up with labor requirements while malnourished.

            Before NSDAP came for the communists, socialists and trade unionists, they cleaned out the crazies, including the gays and trans folk. Ultimately they would feed everyone to the fire if the Allies didnt overrun Berlin.

            • True.

              Just a correction: the NSDAP first went for internal political oppositors Night of the Long Knives, what in modern US they're calling "RINO" Republican In Name Only... I've already seen literal calls to kill them! (on X)

              The new poem might as well go like "First they came for the RINO, but I wasn't even Republican and didn't like them anyway..."

        • Although, novel reading was a problem attributed to Satan and has been a subject of moral panic. Like violent movies and video games, editorialists and ministers suggested women who read novels — especially romance novels such as those by Jane Austen — would confuse women who are unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and might be driven to act out these stories in real life.

          Yes, that trope is centuries old.

      • I don't mean focus on medical situations as a wildcard to just practice any sort of (pseudo) medicine on people. It's about rights being given, not taken away.

        The reason I mentioned this, is that the erasure of gender from official status might have as a side effect that rights related to gender (for example pregnancy leave) have to be defined in a way that doesn't link it to gender. By no means do I want some sort of medical laws or such that force things upon people, it's more about rights linked to a person's medical conditions.

        In that sense, I see having a penis, or a uterus, or something else as just one of the medical characteristics of a person, just as for example their blood sugar, eyesight or mental state. Rights and care should be based on that, and not on a F/M on an official document.

        • All logical and fair... but you can already see the POTUS calling it a "lunacy". That defines it as a state of mental impairment, which leads to restricted personal liberties, and is just a step away from forced "therapies".

          Gender agnosticism should've been codified a long time ago, but it wasn't, and now they're planning on codifying the opposite.

    • This is the ideal, but there are still people walking around who can't get past the idea that skin color doesn't dictate how human you are. These same people are also prone to thinking that anyone with a vagina is inherently less intelligent... followed by gay people are bad..... for some reason? Now trans people are also bad... for reasons? Then they justify it with outdated and/or straight up pseudo science so they feel good about their beliefs.

      Trying to communicate complex issues with people who think like that is very difficult since they aren't functionally operating from a foundation of reason or logic to begin with. It takes immense amounts of patience and grace to get through to even a few people like that and it's not something many people have.

53 comments