Agreed. We need to keep stressing that the TIQA+++ brigade have hijacked most of the gay rights groups and that those groups no longer represent the LGBs. Indeed, most of these groups are actually trampling the rights of LGBs.
Surely most LGBTQ people don't support such discourtesy; at any rate, I have never met one, other than you sir, who does. Perhaps your self-avowed curmudgeonliness makes you take the position you do.....
You're not paying attention then. There are many, many LGB organizations in many different countries who have dissociated themselves with everything T and afterwards. LGB are sexual orientations and have nothing to do with imaginary gender self-identifications. LGB Alliance!
I am well aware of LGB people who are wary of T people. I was questioning your astonishing generalization about LGBTQ people: you seemed unaware of the many LGB people who are supportive of trans people. As for "imaginary self-identification", this is just bigotry. As I mentioned in reply to another anti-trans individual in a different thread above, the major medical and psychological organizations in the U.S. that have taken a stand on transgender identity (plus the World Health Organizations) have affirmed that it is genuine (and not indeed a sign of mental illness). You do indeed sound lost in an angry world, and for that you have my sympathy. But your bigotry is still irrational and lamentable.
MY generalization? Indeed. Just lumping all those people together is a gross generalization and one which many LGB people resent, as one is a sexual orientation (biologial) and not just an aspect of one's personality (mental).
Gender identity has zero basis in biology. I am not sure what you are getting at by saying it is "genuine". Do they believe they are Napoleon? Sure they do. Does that make them actually Napoleon? No it doesn't.
I do not need, nor want, your sympathy because you are one of the angry ones whose world I am stuck in.
Calling names like 'bigot' is an ad-hominem attack and the last resort of a person who has no logical bases for their arguments.
FYI I have friends who are male who like to wear women's clothes and pretend they are women too. However, they acknowledge, like the sane people they are, that they are males and they do not spout nonsense like males can become females. They realize that they are role playing and that they are not females. They respect actual females and do not run around insisting that everyone else participate in their fantasies. They absolutely do not insist on getting naked in female only spaces and calling females who object "bigots". That is all about sick men imposing themselves on women and is, frankly, oppressive and disgusting.
P.S. A few more points: (a) Belief that males become females is only nonsense if you're talking about biological sex rather than gender identity: still a confusion. (b) Accepting the genuineness of trangender identity does not commit one to accepting every demand that any transgender person makes. (c) You're the one who is drowning in anger, not me. I really hope you get the help you need.
I'll show you anger if you or any other male exposes your self in a private WOMENS locker room and or restroom. Hows that for ya! NO I DON'T NEED HELP. I'M CLEAR AS A BELL AND OVER IT!
Gender identity is a fraud. A lie. I’m all for gender nonconformity but humans cannot change sex. You are supporting lies that harm women, especially lesbians, and gay men. And the children caught up in this ghastly cult. “Gender-affirming healthcare” for children means poisoning them, castrating them and sterilizing them before they are old enough to give meaningful consent. It is evil.
Lordy, another tirade. Briefly: (1) There are indeed studies that suggest a biological basis for transgender identity. (2) Transgender identity is genuine to the extent that it's not a pretense nor is it a delusion; that's what my authorities confirm. The point about delusion makes your Napoleon analogy irrelevant. (3) Sometimes charges of bigotry are justified; surely you recognize this concerning homophobia, for instance So they needn't commit the ad hominem fallacy (which involves substituting irrelevant insult for reasoned argument). (4) Of course crossdressing needn't involve transgender identity; but that tells us nothing about the genuineness of transgender identity.
Oh mercy me, another rant! (Do you see how petulant you sound?)
Basics here: gender identity is nothing more than personality. If biological sex is separate from gender identity as you claim, then why must people refer to TIMs as "she". If they are biologically male, then why isn't "he" an acceptable pronoun?
LGBs who support the rest of the alphabet soup are acting against their own interests. Homosexuality (and heterosexuality) is very much about actual sexed bodies. It’s nothing at all like pretending you are something you are not, which is what the cross-dressers are doing. You wouldn’t tolerate a white man in blackface so why would you support a man in womanface? And call those of us who recognize humans cannot change sex bigots? Being a woman is not a suit of clothes a man can choose to wear. If you support this nonsense, know you are trampling the rights of women, especially lesbians, and gay men.
You're entitled to your opinion, Theresa, though it's still very much a minority opinion in my life. The real issue of course isn't numbers: the issue can't be settled by counting heads. Here's hoping that you don't share Robert's transphobia....
I share Robert's (and author Laureen Boll's) firm grip on the truth. It isn't “phobia” trans or otherwise, to recognize that sexual orientation and gender identity are entirely separate things. Also that same-sex attraction central to homosexuality and the deconstruction of sex in favor of some inner gender identity (the thrust of the transgender movement) are clearly at odds. If gender matters more than/instead of sex, gays and lesbians are erased. As one might imagine, we cry foul. Gays and trans folk no longer want the same things, nor are we moving in the same direction.
Final point to my adversaries: I've made my case and stand by it. I hope you'll reconsider your hostility to and misunderstandings of transgender people, but whether you do or not, I'm going to move on. For the record, I am a cisgender straight man with gay friends and relatives and with trans friends; I defend them when the opportunity arises and need demands it. Cheers.
Reply to Reese (I couldn't do so directly below for some reason). (1) Of course sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct concepts; whoever denied this? But admittedly some trans people may use "same sex" to mean "same gender", which can cause confusion about the aforementioned distinctness. (2) Likewise for the centrality of same-sex attraction to sexual orientation (subject to the qualification just made). (3) So far as I am aware, nobody is saying that in general gender identity does or should matter more than sexual orientation. Again, it matters more to some transgender people, but they're not telling other people what should matter to them. Anyone who did such a thing would indeed be arrogant and presumptuous. (3) Transpeople people played an important role in the Stonewall riot that sparked the gay-rights movement. The hostile rection to the "gender bending" they do is related to the hostile reaction to those gay people ("effeminate" men and "butch" women) who do their gender bending. It saddens me that some gay people want to separate from transgender people, but I can understand why they might. Personally as an LGBTQ ally I don't have a problem with this separation as long as it doesn't involve antitrans bigotry. It's that very bigotry that I have been criticizing in this thread.
The FAIR organization has a lot of chutzpah claiming to "stand up for speech rights" when your fearless leader is eviscerating CBS news and murdering 60 minutes as offerings to Donald Trump.
Are you seriously asserting that your organization was not founded by Bari Weiss and pursues her partisan MAGA interests? If you are correct and Weiss has no association, I will admit my error and will apologize. In the meantime, it's hard to take you seriously when you lie.
So, because the United States was founded by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Donald Trump is following all the same tenets as they did? Is that your "logic", Charles?
Just because Ms. Weiss was one of the founders of FAIR, that does not mean that FAIR has anything whatsoever to do with what is going on at CBS. Your logic is incredibly faulty.
Do not accuse me of lying just because you can't reason logically.
"Though Weiss helped fundraise and attract talent to FAIR, even she eventually distanced herself from the group, saying in June 2021 that she considers the organization “not straightforward” and “not muscular enough,” particularly on issues like trans women in sports."
This attempted reductio (that is, reduction of my position to absurdity) seems to fail in multiple ways. First, your belief in your multiple personalities is quite possibly a recognized mental disorder; it used to be called multiple personality disorder and is now called dissociative identity disorder. Second, so far as I know none of the medical and psychological organizations which I mentioned treats your belief as a reflection of psychological reality. Third, mental illness aside, nobody with a belief like yours transforms their life in anything like the way that transgender people transforms theirs in transitioning to a gender identity different from the biological sex they were assigned at birth.
Sad to see the complainant and FAIR perpetuate the confusion that in general transgender people claim to change biological sex rather than gender identity. That confusion vitiates her argument as it stands. Could she revise it to focus on gender identity? Then her claim would presumably be that transgender identity doesn't exist and that she shouldn't be expected to talk as if it does. However, every major medical and psychological organization in the U.S. that has taken a stand on this issue contradicts this claim about transgender identity. So her position would seem to be pure prejudice, analogous to the racist view that black employees, as members of an inferior race, needn't be treated with the same courtesy as white ones. I think FAIR has chosen the wrong side in this dispute.....P.S. About the speech issue I would add that the complainant isn't required to use the chosen name or gendered pronouns at all. So the complaint about forced speech is nonsense on that ground as well.
So maybe I should decide to use "we" since a single pronoun doesn't capture the full and true essence of one's personality. We shall do so, and if you disagree you're stifling the full expression of our multifaceted personality. We certainly hope you will respect and honor our desires in this area. Also, organizations that take stands are often expressing ideological positions. We feel this alone undermines your position to some degree. Finally, we feel that mandated "pronoun statements" are both unnecessary and work to undermine workplace cohesion and enforce conformity with societal norms we find obnoxious or at least disturbingly reminiscent of the colored triangles a particularly odious regime used to identify its opponents. Thank you.
Oops, seem to have lost my initial reply. Let me try again.
This attempt at reducing my position to absurdity seems to fail utterly, and your other arguments have further defects as well. Let me explain. (1) Your belief in your multiple personalities sounds a great deal like a documented mental disorder that used to be called multiple personality disorder and is now called associative identity disorder. But transgender identity is not a mental disorder at all, according to the same professional organizations I mentioned before. (2) You have provided zero evidence that those organizations are merely expressing ideological positions. Here they are, by the way: the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (the World Health Organization is relevant but not purely American). They are highly respected in many contexts, though of course not infallible. It's your own position that seems to be based on ideology rather than evidence. (3) You seem to have overlooked my point that policies discouraging misgendering with pronouns (and proper names) don't mandate pronoun statements; you are entirely welcome not to use gendered pronouns at all in connection with trans people. Oops, out of space?
If I may, two more points: (4) Surely it's discourteous misgendering of trans people that would undermine workplace cohesion. And again, you don't have to misgender them in order to comply with policies against misgendering (5) You've also ignored my racial analogy. A white racist might well find antiracist social norms to be both obnoxious and disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi impositons on gays and Jews. The absurdity of your analogy here is transparent.
So if someone then claims to have been born in the wrong color body, are we to honor that belief too? Or how about the people who feel they should have an amputation, but don't? Should we go along with that belief and cut off body parts? Maybe you'd like to affirm an anorexic person by letting them have bariatric surgery and ozempic? Do you see the parallels to the belief of a gender identity?
And just to address your appeal to authority logical fallacy of all the "associations": They all claimed that the C jab would prevent transmission. Lies. So why should we trust them about this?
First, I think you're still confusing gender identity with biological sex, for all but your racial analogy clearly involve biology. Second, race is a very tricky concept: in the current debate it can be biological, sociological (involving social construction), or nonexistent. How racial "pretenders" are treated depends on the case. Self-professed native Americans are rejected when they can't show ancestry in recognized tribes; black race seems to be a matter of skin color, African ancestry, and social recognition (so both biological and sociological). Racial/ethnic identity isn't just a matter of personal declaration. Third, appeals to authority are common in science and not generally fallacious (I taught logic for several decades). Finally, the only organization I mentioned that could have taken a stand on vaccine prevention of covid transmission is the American Medical Association, and I don't think even they did. You may be thinking of the CDC, which isn't relevant to the issue we're discussion. But even if the AMA made a mistake, all authorities are fallible, and one error proves nothing about general reliability. With all due respect, you got nothing.
So in one thread, you claim transgender has a biological basis. And now in another, you discount an analogy to race as irrelevant because its a biological thing and that doesn't apply to trans because it "isn't a matter of personal declaration". Which, I can only conclude, trans identity is? Your words, not mine. You need to get your stories straight. If one of us has nothing, it appears to be you, chum.
Well said. One quibble. This is not an LGBTQ issue. It has nothing to do with L or G or B. It is a TQ issue. L’s, G’s, and B’s support you.
Agreed. We need to keep stressing that the TIQA+++ brigade have hijacked most of the gay rights groups and that those groups no longer represent the LGBs. Indeed, most of these groups are actually trampling the rights of LGBs.
Surely most LGBTQ people don't support such discourtesy; at any rate, I have never met one, other than you sir, who does. Perhaps your self-avowed curmudgeonliness makes you take the position you do.....
You're not paying attention then. There are many, many LGB organizations in many different countries who have dissociated themselves with everything T and afterwards. LGB are sexual orientations and have nothing to do with imaginary gender self-identifications. LGB Alliance!
I am well aware of LGB people who are wary of T people. I was questioning your astonishing generalization about LGBTQ people: you seemed unaware of the many LGB people who are supportive of trans people. As for "imaginary self-identification", this is just bigotry. As I mentioned in reply to another anti-trans individual in a different thread above, the major medical and psychological organizations in the U.S. that have taken a stand on transgender identity (plus the World Health Organizations) have affirmed that it is genuine (and not indeed a sign of mental illness). You do indeed sound lost in an angry world, and for that you have my sympathy. But your bigotry is still irrational and lamentable.
MY generalization? Indeed. Just lumping all those people together is a gross generalization and one which many LGB people resent, as one is a sexual orientation (biologial) and not just an aspect of one's personality (mental).
Gender identity has zero basis in biology. I am not sure what you are getting at by saying it is "genuine". Do they believe they are Napoleon? Sure they do. Does that make them actually Napoleon? No it doesn't.
I do not need, nor want, your sympathy because you are one of the angry ones whose world I am stuck in.
Calling names like 'bigot' is an ad-hominem attack and the last resort of a person who has no logical bases for their arguments.
FYI I have friends who are male who like to wear women's clothes and pretend they are women too. However, they acknowledge, like the sane people they are, that they are males and they do not spout nonsense like males can become females. They realize that they are role playing and that they are not females. They respect actual females and do not run around insisting that everyone else participate in their fantasies. They absolutely do not insist on getting naked in female only spaces and calling females who object "bigots". That is all about sick men imposing themselves on women and is, frankly, oppressive and disgusting.
P.S. A few more points: (a) Belief that males become females is only nonsense if you're talking about biological sex rather than gender identity: still a confusion. (b) Accepting the genuineness of trangender identity does not commit one to accepting every demand that any transgender person makes. (c) You're the one who is drowning in anger, not me. I really hope you get the help you need.
I'll show you anger if you or any other male exposes your self in a private WOMENS locker room and or restroom. Hows that for ya! NO I DON'T NEED HELP. I'M CLEAR AS A BELL AND OVER IT!
Gender identity is a fraud. A lie. I’m all for gender nonconformity but humans cannot change sex. You are supporting lies that harm women, especially lesbians, and gay men. And the children caught up in this ghastly cult. “Gender-affirming healthcare” for children means poisoning them, castrating them and sterilizing them before they are old enough to give meaningful consent. It is evil.
Lordy, another tirade. Briefly: (1) There are indeed studies that suggest a biological basis for transgender identity. (2) Transgender identity is genuine to the extent that it's not a pretense nor is it a delusion; that's what my authorities confirm. The point about delusion makes your Napoleon analogy irrelevant. (3) Sometimes charges of bigotry are justified; surely you recognize this concerning homophobia, for instance So they needn't commit the ad hominem fallacy (which involves substituting irrelevant insult for reasoned argument). (4) Of course crossdressing needn't involve transgender identity; but that tells us nothing about the genuineness of transgender identity.
Oh mercy me, another rant! (Do you see how petulant you sound?)
Basics here: gender identity is nothing more than personality. If biological sex is separate from gender identity as you claim, then why must people refer to TIMs as "she". If they are biologically male, then why isn't "he" an acceptable pronoun?
LGBs who support the rest of the alphabet soup are acting against their own interests. Homosexuality (and heterosexuality) is very much about actual sexed bodies. It’s nothing at all like pretending you are something you are not, which is what the cross-dressers are doing. You wouldn’t tolerate a white man in blackface so why would you support a man in womanface? And call those of us who recognize humans cannot change sex bigots? Being a woman is not a suit of clothes a man can choose to wear. If you support this nonsense, know you are trampling the rights of women, especially lesbians, and gay men.
Hi, Steve, my name is Theresa. I stand with Robert. Now you've met more than one. In truth there are a great many of us and more every day.
You're entitled to your opinion, Theresa, though it's still very much a minority opinion in my life. The real issue of course isn't numbers: the issue can't be settled by counting heads. Here's hoping that you don't share Robert's transphobia....
I share Robert's (and author Laureen Boll's) firm grip on the truth. It isn't “phobia” trans or otherwise, to recognize that sexual orientation and gender identity are entirely separate things. Also that same-sex attraction central to homosexuality and the deconstruction of sex in favor of some inner gender identity (the thrust of the transgender movement) are clearly at odds. If gender matters more than/instead of sex, gays and lesbians are erased. As one might imagine, we cry foul. Gays and trans folk no longer want the same things, nor are we moving in the same direction.
Best wishes to you and FAIR. Thank you for your courage.
I have left CO for saner pastures. But I appreciate your voice and your courage!
This is completely about T and T alone. They have become the oppressors who are colonizing women's spaces.
💯
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Loren Bowl!
I appreciate your courage and FAIR's support for you.
Final point to my adversaries: I've made my case and stand by it. I hope you'll reconsider your hostility to and misunderstandings of transgender people, but whether you do or not, I'm going to move on. For the record, I am a cisgender straight man with gay friends and relatives and with trans friends; I defend them when the opportunity arises and need demands it. Cheers.
Reply to Reese (I couldn't do so directly below for some reason). (1) Of course sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct concepts; whoever denied this? But admittedly some trans people may use "same sex" to mean "same gender", which can cause confusion about the aforementioned distinctness. (2) Likewise for the centrality of same-sex attraction to sexual orientation (subject to the qualification just made). (3) So far as I am aware, nobody is saying that in general gender identity does or should matter more than sexual orientation. Again, it matters more to some transgender people, but they're not telling other people what should matter to them. Anyone who did such a thing would indeed be arrogant and presumptuous. (3) Transpeople people played an important role in the Stonewall riot that sparked the gay-rights movement. The hostile rection to the "gender bending" they do is related to the hostile reaction to those gay people ("effeminate" men and "butch" women) who do their gender bending. It saddens me that some gay people want to separate from transgender people, but I can understand why they might. Personally as an LGBTQ ally I don't have a problem with this separation as long as it doesn't involve antitrans bigotry. It's that very bigotry that I have been criticizing in this thread.
Time for us both to move on. Cheers.
Is this a re-post? I swear I’ve read this before.
The FAIR organization has a lot of chutzpah claiming to "stand up for speech rights" when your fearless leader is eviscerating CBS news and murdering 60 minutes as offerings to Donald Trump.
Monica Harris is eviscerating CBS? How? Do tell
Bari Weiss
Ms. Weiss is not the leader of FAIR. Monica Harris is the Director. Hard to take you seriously when you don't know even the basic facts.
Are you seriously asserting that your organization was not founded by Bari Weiss and pursues her partisan MAGA interests? If you are correct and Weiss has no association, I will admit my error and will apologize. In the meantime, it's hard to take you seriously when you lie.
So, because the United States was founded by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Donald Trump is following all the same tenets as they did? Is that your "logic", Charles?
Just because Ms. Weiss was one of the founders of FAIR, that does not mean that FAIR has anything whatsoever to do with what is going on at CBS. Your logic is incredibly faulty.
Do not accuse me of lying just because you can't reason logically.
From a third party news source: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/queer-anti-woke-journalist-bari-weiss-is-now-cbs-news-editor-in-chief-thats-troubling/
"Though Weiss helped fundraise and attract talent to FAIR, even she eventually distanced herself from the group, saying in June 2021 that she considers the organization “not straightforward” and “not muscular enough,” particularly on issues like trans women in sports."
You can admit your error anytime now.
This attempted reductio (that is, reduction of my position to absurdity) seems to fail in multiple ways. First, your belief in your multiple personalities is quite possibly a recognized mental disorder; it used to be called multiple personality disorder and is now called dissociative identity disorder. Second, so far as I know none of the medical and psychological organizations which I mentioned treats your belief as a reflection of psychological reality. Third, mental illness aside, nobody with a belief like yours transforms their life in anything like the way that transgender people transforms theirs in transitioning to a gender identity different from the biological sex they were assigned at birth.
Sad to see the complainant and FAIR perpetuate the confusion that in general transgender people claim to change biological sex rather than gender identity. That confusion vitiates her argument as it stands. Could she revise it to focus on gender identity? Then her claim would presumably be that transgender identity doesn't exist and that she shouldn't be expected to talk as if it does. However, every major medical and psychological organization in the U.S. that has taken a stand on this issue contradicts this claim about transgender identity. So her position would seem to be pure prejudice, analogous to the racist view that black employees, as members of an inferior race, needn't be treated with the same courtesy as white ones. I think FAIR has chosen the wrong side in this dispute.....P.S. About the speech issue I would add that the complainant isn't required to use the chosen name or gendered pronouns at all. So the complaint about forced speech is nonsense on that ground as well.
So maybe I should decide to use "we" since a single pronoun doesn't capture the full and true essence of one's personality. We shall do so, and if you disagree you're stifling the full expression of our multifaceted personality. We certainly hope you will respect and honor our desires in this area. Also, organizations that take stands are often expressing ideological positions. We feel this alone undermines your position to some degree. Finally, we feel that mandated "pronoun statements" are both unnecessary and work to undermine workplace cohesion and enforce conformity with societal norms we find obnoxious or at least disturbingly reminiscent of the colored triangles a particularly odious regime used to identify its opponents. Thank you.
Oops, seem to have lost my initial reply. Let me try again.
This attempt at reducing my position to absurdity seems to fail utterly, and your other arguments have further defects as well. Let me explain. (1) Your belief in your multiple personalities sounds a great deal like a documented mental disorder that used to be called multiple personality disorder and is now called associative identity disorder. But transgender identity is not a mental disorder at all, according to the same professional organizations I mentioned before. (2) You have provided zero evidence that those organizations are merely expressing ideological positions. Here they are, by the way: the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (the World Health Organization is relevant but not purely American). They are highly respected in many contexts, though of course not infallible. It's your own position that seems to be based on ideology rather than evidence. (3) You seem to have overlooked my point that policies discouraging misgendering with pronouns (and proper names) don't mandate pronoun statements; you are entirely welcome not to use gendered pronouns at all in connection with trans people. Oops, out of space?
If I may, two more points: (4) Surely it's discourteous misgendering of trans people that would undermine workplace cohesion. And again, you don't have to misgender them in order to comply with policies against misgendering (5) You've also ignored my racial analogy. A white racist might well find antiracist social norms to be both obnoxious and disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi impositons on gays and Jews. The absurdity of your analogy here is transparent.
So if someone then claims to have been born in the wrong color body, are we to honor that belief too? Or how about the people who feel they should have an amputation, but don't? Should we go along with that belief and cut off body parts? Maybe you'd like to affirm an anorexic person by letting them have bariatric surgery and ozempic? Do you see the parallels to the belief of a gender identity?
And just to address your appeal to authority logical fallacy of all the "associations": They all claimed that the C jab would prevent transmission. Lies. So why should we trust them about this?
First, I think you're still confusing gender identity with biological sex, for all but your racial analogy clearly involve biology. Second, race is a very tricky concept: in the current debate it can be biological, sociological (involving social construction), or nonexistent. How racial "pretenders" are treated depends on the case. Self-professed native Americans are rejected when they can't show ancestry in recognized tribes; black race seems to be a matter of skin color, African ancestry, and social recognition (so both biological and sociological). Racial/ethnic identity isn't just a matter of personal declaration. Third, appeals to authority are common in science and not generally fallacious (I taught logic for several decades). Finally, the only organization I mentioned that could have taken a stand on vaccine prevention of covid transmission is the American Medical Association, and I don't think even they did. You may be thinking of the CDC, which isn't relevant to the issue we're discussion. But even if the AMA made a mistake, all authorities are fallible, and one error proves nothing about general reliability. With all due respect, you got nothing.
If Eddie Izzard is a woman, then Rachel Dolezal is black.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
So in one thread, you claim transgender has a biological basis. And now in another, you discount an analogy to race as irrelevant because its a biological thing and that doesn't apply to trans because it "isn't a matter of personal declaration". Which, I can only conclude, trans identity is? Your words, not mine. You need to get your stories straight. If one of us has nothing, it appears to be you, chum.