There's this judge where I live who was up for re-election and a gay man was running against him, so the judge held a press conference, with his arm around his wife and his two children by his side, and announced he was bisexual. Perhaps that was to keep the gay man from having a bloc of voters to challenge him so as to divide the vote. I do believe him though that he is actually bisexual.

My thoughts were that I didn't like the timing, as it seemed to be for political reasons, but I was also a bit confused by the monogamy issues that were challenged by the announcement before the wife and the children being a part of dad declaring how he enjoys sex.

I also don't think of bisexuality as an identity issue, but more just something you prefer, although maybe I'm wrong to view it this way. I compare it to a woman proclaiming how much more she enjoys the touch of a vibrator over a man, which likely does describe some women, but it's not really something I need to know and not really something I think affects someone's identity.

A part of it to me is that I don't think how you perform sex acts or who you perform them with is so integral to the person that it ought be who we think that person is. Unless I'm going to be having sex that person, it seems pretty irrelevant whether the person is gay, straight, or anywhere else on the spectrum.

Still overly concerned as to the contents of other folk's underwear, I see.

Odd. — Banno

This is deliberate nonsense. Thousands of young women have had there breasts chopped off a male swimmer has beaten women's records and there are male rapists in female prisons.

Why do they call this a philosophy forum?

There is lots of evidence trans ideology is harmful to peoples minds and bodies. I have posted links on here including a video by a young man who has penis removed because he thought he could be a woman who now regrets it. So Please stop lying by your glib dismissals.

Female genital mutilation is considered a a horror when it happens in Africa but in the west it is now seen as gender reaffirming surgery and the version in the west causes a woman to be come infertile, have an increased of dementia and heartache, lead to complications such as fistulas, adhesions, arterial bleeds. I think people like you in history will be see on the wrong side and accomplices to grievous harm for reasons only you can fathom.

That you are paying undue attention to the contents of other folk's underwear is terse, but right on point. It's not your business.

You might have entered into a discussion of the place of gender in competition, or of medical ethics. And to be sure there are issues to be addressed here.

But instead you demand of other folk that they must conform to your inadequate notions of sex, sexuality and gender.

To which the only reasonable replies are to laugh at you or to ask you to go fuck yourself.

In what way isn't it possible? Are you defining physical gender based on whether or not they have a dick or vagina? — Christoffer

Mm'no...... I think he's talking about all of the differences that we've known about for years and are, similarly, present in all animals. You know, stuff like what is captured here in these kinds of academic sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3030621/
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00185/full
https://elifesciences.org/articles/63425
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00118.2006

You know, what we all know to be true, but for some reason are unwilling to admit. There really should be no issue with admitting that the biological differences between men and women are EXTENSIVELY documented in published research, while also making room for the emergent personality type that is now being colloquially referred to as : Trans. The inclination people have to dismiss scientific understandings that are apparent from the phenotypical level, let alone the genotypical level, is an exercise in political possession, not philosophy.

Nota bene: there are plenty more pieces of research to go around on this subject.

Pft. Not very imaginative.
You can also laugh AND tell them to go fuck themselves. Live a little Banno.

I assumed an inclusive"or". But the possibility of both is worth making explicit.

Female genital mutilation is considered a a horror when it happens in Africa but in the west it is now seen as gender reaffirming surgery and the version in the west causes a woman to be come infertile, have an increased of dementia and heartache, lead to complications such as fistulas, adhesions, arterial bleeds. I think people like you in history will be see on the wrong side and accomplices to grievous harm for reasons only you can fathom. — Andrew4Handel

The question is one of consent, with children being unable to consent to having their genitals removed and adults being able to consent. The distinction between consent and no consent is not subtle, but it is what distinguishes rape from a loving interaction as one example.

Another critical part of consent in the medical context is the information you have available to you, which is why it is often referred to as informed consent. As long as the person understands the various risks you've presented, the decision is then up to him or her to decide how to act. It does seem ethically improper to have you at their decision making table.

More complicated questions arise in the female genital mutilation among adult women to the extent that occurs at a later age. The question that needs to be addressed in those cases is whether the decision is truly with consent or whether it is being forced upon them. It is also important that the woman accurately be informed of the consequences and that she be provided accurate information regarding whether the surgery truly makes one more pure, or whatever its goal is.

To the extent you are arguing that no rational person could ever choose sexual reassignment surgery and that it is per se evidence of mental illness and lack of capacity, I think you have an uphill battle. You'll need to show something more than that you personally find it nuts.

But instead you demand of other folk that they must conform to your inadequate notions of sex, sexuality and gender. — Banno

Trans rhetoric makes disputable claims which are open for public scrutiny. I can't control what people think but I can assess the truth value of what they say.
Nevertheless what has happened is to try and redefine sex and identity and the truth of biology and psychology for everyone, so you damn well better think I am going to be concerned.

Affirming gender nonsense is harmful it is not just about the content of one persons mind but how society must be structured so as not to upset this person. You can convince a vulnerable person that they have a gender identity they don't such as claiming there is such things as a hundred genders and they might have been born in the worn body.

More debate and scrutiny is desperately needed so people undergoing gender affirmation are truly well informed on what is entailed.

We are being told mixed messages. First that trans identities are not a mental health issue but then that surgeries and hormones are urgently needed or said person will kill themselves.

This seems to be one of almost the only instances I can think of where someone's belief has to be affirmed by others. It is the equivalent of religious compulsion. You have to act as if you truly think a biological male is a female and if you read posts on this you know that even trans people can sense when you are just pretending to believe they are the opposite sex.

The question is one of consent, with children being unable to consent to having their genitals removed and adults being able to consent — Hanover

Female genital mutilation is called mutilation so that is not a question about consent. This issue is not consent because children don't consent to numerous things. The issue is the surgeries are harmful and stop proper function of a body part and can cause chronic pain. Early transition leads to infertility and patients are even told that.
I mentioned Jazz Jennings earlier whose penis was shrunk by puberty blockers and they needed to do several surgeries with lots of complications to try and turn it into a pseudo vagina because they usually do the surgery on fully developed males.

A woman in her early 30's said she was allowed to consent to gender affirming treatments that could cause infertility but when she desisted and wanted her tubes tied she was told to wait because she might regret it and want children.

As long as the person understands the various risks you've presented — Hanover

This can be impossible for various reasons. 1. The person can easily be said to be mentally disordered often suffering gender dysphoria and other mental health conditions including severe depression and even schizophrenia and psychosis
2. The surgeries are highly experimental.
3. Some of the risks are so severe or have a high probability of happening so that you would have to be mad to consent to them.

Still overly concerned as to the contents of other folk's underwear, I see. — Banno

One of the functions of gender/sexual identity is that categorizing people based on it should provide a modicum of safety in certain settings where people are highly vulnerable, such as schools, hospitals, prisons.

A part of it to me is that I don't think how you perform sex acts or who you perform them with is so integral to the person that it ought be who we think that person is. Unless I'm going to be having sex that person, it seems pretty irrelevant whether the person is gay, straight, or anywhere else on the spectrum. — Hanover

For you as a man it probably matters little whether you share a hospital room with a man or a woman. Or whether the person in the dressing booth next to yours is a man or a woman.
Perhaps you also wouldn't mind peeing while standing next to a woman, the way you don't mind peeing while standing next to a man?

Clearly categorizable gender/sexual identity (ie. a person is either male or female) provides a modicum of shared privacy in public spaces occupied by more people. Arguably, this shared privacy is important to many people for a general sense of safety.

What do you suppose “choose reality”’ refers to? Just the issues that are highlighted of aggression toward women by men deliberately masquerading as females? Or do you suppose this includes a denial of the idea that psychological gender doesn’t necessarily match biological sex?

Arguably, this shared privacy is important to many people for a general sense of safety. — baker

But there are gay people who I am sure would love to jump on top of me and have their way with me while I'm standing at the urinal, but I have no way of distinguishing the gay from the straight, so I stand there vulnerable, hoping to have uneventful toilet experience.

Whatever will they do for me?

The general trend has been to create bathrooms only with stalls or to provide a separate bathroom that can be accessed only one person at a time. That seems a reasonable accommodation. It's pretty rare in any event for rapes and sexual assaults to take place between transsexuals and CIS males in public restrooms. Maybe it's a thing where you live I don't know.

My point here is that all the concerns for safety and whatever other issues you wish to throw out seem pretextual, meaning I really don't think you have these concerns as much as you have a desire not to accommodate people who you believe are irrational and cuckoo.

I mentioned Jazz Jennings earlier whose penis was shrunk by puberty blockers and they needed to do several surgeries with lots of complications to try and turn it into a pseudo vagina because they usually do the surgery on fully developed males — Andrew4Handel

So, all things considered, you wouldn't have done as Jazz did because she's had complications from her surgery that you consider worse than the advantages she gained from the surgery. Why is your assessment of any value to Jazz? If she believes all the surgeries she's been through are worth it and she's happier as the result, why should your concerns be her concerns?

My point here is that all the concerns for safety and whatever other issues you wish to throw out seem pretextual, meaning I really don't think you have these concerns as much as you have a desire not to accommodate people who you believe are irrational and cuckoo. — Hanover

Your bad faith is duly noted, as usual.

If she believes all the surgeries she's been through are worth it and she's happier as the result, why should your concerns be her concerns? — Hanover

Jazz was operated on and puberty blocked as a child. Jazz started suffering depression after he went on puberty blockers. This was ascertained in a discussion on the reality show.

By the way it is a lie to call a biological male a woman. Pronouns are intended to reflect some semblance of reality.

Jazz wanted to go to Harvard but the process was delayed due to mental health problems.

He said himself he was fine before he went on puberty blockers. Jazz has also said he thinks he'll never have an orgasm and he knows the surgeries have prevented him from creating children.

This is the highest level of self harm we allow other than assisted suicides.

What do you suppose “choose reality”’ refers to? Just the issues that are highlighted of aggression toward women by men deliberately masquerading as females? Or do you suppose this includes a denial of the idea that psychological gender doesn’t necessarily match biological sex? — Joshs

You'd have to ask the makers of that poster.

Or do you suppose this includes a denial of the idea that psychological gender doesn’t necessarily match biological sex?

Psychological gender is a cluster of traits, but which traits in particular those are for which gender varies from culture to culture, from setting to setting. The same trait can sometimes be considered male, other times, female, or childish.

But there are gay people who I am sure would love to jump on top of me and have their way with me while I'm standing at the urinal, but I have no way of distinguishing the gay from the straight, so I stand there vulnerable, hoping to have uneventful toilet experience. — Hanover

Gay men have been known to congregate in toilets for sexual intimacy. I suppose I feel sorry for the straight men who may have walked in on this.

This kind of sexual practise doesn't happen among lesbians in women's toilets it is the differing sexual persuasions of men and women why we need separate spaces. I admit I went "cottaging" as a young gay man but not in the women's toilets.

I believe men are well of other men's sexual attitudes and behaviours so when they are confronted with the reality of what alterations in the law means for their daughters, partners, and females in general I think they will join the backlash against undermining protections for biological women and sex differences.

If she believes all the surgeries she's been through are worth it and she's happier as the result, why should your concerns be her concerns? — Hanover

There is no society. There are only individuals.
There are no social norms.

Lili Elbe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Elbe

"In 1931, she had her fourth surgery, to transplant a uterus and construct a vaginal canal.[6][7][31][5] This made her one of the earliest transgender women to undergo a vaginoplasty surgery, a few weeks after Erwin Gohrbandt performed the experimental procedure on Dora Richter.[25]

Elbe's immune system rejected the transplanted uterus, and the operation and a subsequent surgical revision caused infection, which led to her death from cardiac arrest on 13 September 1931, three months after the surgery"

Magnus Hirschfeld of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft oversaw her surgeries.

This was some of the institutes prior experiments:

"Working off of the research of Eugen Steinach, who had recently succeeded in reversing the sexual behavior of animal test subjects, the institute began testing whether or not transplanting the testicles from a heterosexual man to a homosexual man would cure homosexuality. This method of "curing" homosexuality more often than not grew necrotized and resulted in the testicles having to be castrated and was abandoned by 1924"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft

Psychological gender is a cluster of traits, but which traits in particular those are for which gender varies from culture to culture, from setting to setting. The same trait can sometimes be considered male, other times, female, or childish.
1m — baker

Let’s take as an example traits within modern Western societies, such as a boy growing up with a constellation of behaviors he has no control over and which causes other boys to label him a sissy. Let’s say he would list these behaviors as including speaking with a lisp, walking and throwing a ball like a girl, playing with dolls instead of toy soldiers and guns. Let’s say he also is attracted exclusively to other males and connects this attraction. with the other behaviors which he regards as feminine. Let’s say further that he does a bit of neurophysiological research and suspects that the constellation of ‘feminine’ behaviors that he was apparently born with are not random or independent of each other but instead are all the result of a kind of brain ‘wiring’ that determines psychological gender (masculine vs feminine behavior and sexual attraction).
This shouldn’t be too controversial since we commonly accept that male and female dogs and cats show recognizable gender-connected behavioral differences.

He could then hypothesize that such biological determinants can interact with culture to produce changing definitions of the masculine and the feminine.

So where does trans fit in here? I think the idea that one must change one’s body to fit one’s psychological gender is only necessary in a culture which
believes that behavior should match genitalia according to rigid norms. In a society which has no such belief , one is free to recognize that body sex and psychological gender are inextricably intertwined such that it becomes incoherent to claim that one was born in the wrong body.

He said himself he was fine before he went on puberty blockers. Jazz has also said he thinks he'll never have an orgasm and he knows the surgeries have prevented him from creating children. — Andrew4Handel

Does she say she's fine now and that she wishes she would have never gone down the road she chose? That seems to be the real question, not whether you regret her decisions for her.

By the way it is a lie to call a biological male a woman. Pronouns are intended to reflect some semblance of reality. — Andrew4Handel

The proper referent to a pronoun is however people use it. That's how language works. I use "her" to denote people who wish to be recognized as female. You use "him" as a bludgeon to remind men who wish to present as women that they're full of shit. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I like my way, but you be you.

Let’s say he would list these behaviors as including speaking with a lisp, walking and growing a ball like a girl, playing with dolls instead of toy soldiers and guns. — Joshs

Girls throw like girls because no one ever taught them to step with the opposite leg as the throwing arm. It's a simple correction they teach all little boys in little league. I would doubt it's a mistake any girl who played softball would ever make. The whole stepping and twisting motion that goes into a throw is something that is taught, but not something in the gene pool.

It's also something I notice in many Europeans how poorly many of them throw, constantly trying to use their feet to knock down balls as if playing soccer.

Girls throw like girls because no one ever taught them to step with the opposite leg as the throwing arm. — Hanover

I’m a gay male. Plenty of men tried to teach me to throw like a guy. I spent hours trying to teach myself. I was desperate to get rid of such ‘feminine’ traits but it worked out about as well as that John Wayne scene from La Cage Aux Folles.

The proper referent to a pronoun is however people use it. That's how language works. I use "her" to denote people who wish to be recognized as female — Hanover

Please refer to me as King Andrew now or just your majesty because that is how I prefer to be referred to. I also am a real monarch because that is what my brain is telling me. I can't be wrong about my own intuitions.

So where does trans fit in here? I think the idea that one must change one’s body to fit one’s psychological gender is only necessary in a culture which
believes that behavior should match genitalia according to rigid norms. — Joshs

Then the fault is with the trans people.

In a society which has no such belief , one is free to recognize that body sex and psychological gender are inextricably intertwined such that it becomes incoherent to claim that one was born in the wrong body.

Many people are simply spoiled and want to be speshal, want to be adored. Just before, I saw a feature about a Spanish (?) singer, currently still a biological male who dresses as a woman and who will have his Adam's apple removed next month. Why? He says it's to have a more feminine voice, and then with the hormone therapy, to have long hair, etc.
This is simply vanity and having too much money.

That's why Hitler can come into rule.

Please refer to me as King Andrew now or just your majesty because that is how I prefer to be referred to. I also am a real monarch because that is what my brain is telling me. I can't be wrong about my own intuitions. — Andrew4Handel

This is an equivocation fallacy.

The reason I won't call you "king" is that you don't think yourself a king. Transsexuals are not confused as to what their biology is or in what distinguishes them from other people. There is no delusionary thinking and there is no confusion. They are simply using a word to designate themselves with a full understanding of who they actually are.

So, when a biologically born male who is now presenting as a female uses the pronoun "she," she is not then saying she was born a female. She is using the term for one thing and you for another and then you attempt to use your term on her, thus the equivocation fallacy I've pointed out. Her pronoun use doesn't have ontological impact.

That is, if you called yourself "king" because you used that term to describe being the first born in your family, I could not declare you a liar because you aren't a monarch. You never intended the term to be used that way and didn't try to trick anyone into thinking you were actually a king.

Logic schmlogic though. You have a bone to pick with the transsexuals, so go forth and ridicule them and tell them you must be a sheepdog because you feel it in your heart and soul and so you demand to be called Fido.

lenty of men tried to teach me to throw like a guy. I spent hours trying to teach myself. I was desperate to get rid of such ‘feminine’ traits but it worked out about as well as that John Wayne scene from La Cage Aux Folles. — Joshs

I don't see that as "feminine", but as physically clumsy, perhaps even a neurological problem or otherwise poor eye-body coordination. A problem that is not limited to either sex.

Also, in my native language, an idiomatic phrase like "you throw like a girl" doesn't exist.

Please refer to me as King Andrew now or just your majesty because that is how I prefer to be referred to. I also am a real monarch because that is what my brain is telling me. I can't be wrong about my own intuitions. — Andrew4Handel

You’re making a fool of yourself, and you should be ashamed. This argument has been used a million times and it remains incredibly ignorant. Seriously, I suggest you go educate yourself or at least stop whining.