[HN Gopher] It's not Tourette's but a new type of mass sociogeni... ___________________________________________________________________ It's not Tourette's but a new type of mass sociogenic illness Author : mpweiher Score : 241 points Date : 2022-12-06 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (academic.oup.com) (TXT) w3m dump (academic.oup.com) | screye wrote: | I wonder how similar this is to (sexy baby) valley girl upspeak & | vocal fry. | | Many young women picked this up from the Kardashians/Paris Hilton | and now cannot "turn it off". We know this is not their 'natural' | voice because if you ask them to make weird sounds and then a | normal voice, then their normal voice sounds completely different | than the sexy baby voice. | | The weird thing is that the women themselves are surprised by | this sound they're hearing and cannot easily reproduce it because | the sexy baby voice is so deeply internalized. | | Sounds rather similar to these involutory ticks. | dr-detroit wrote: | my-god-hn wrote: | shredprez wrote: | And deprive the world of instant classics like "valley girl | accent considered harmful"? Do you hate joy? | Invictus0 wrote: | Curious: What is the sexy baby voice? And where can I see this | weird sounds and then normal voice experiment? | hotpotamus wrote: | 30 Rock had a good example of the whole act | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm-ZF9AfN40 | throwaway743 wrote: | Off topic, but Hannibal rules | yarg wrote: | Think Marilyn Monroe/Betty Boop. | screye wrote: | This is a good place to start - | https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/from-inside- | voice-... | | Lake Bell asks the person to speak in their highest note and | then their lowest note and then yodel for a couple of times. | Then to asks her to just speak, and the voice that comes out | much closer to what we associate with a 'normal' woman's | voice. | | I guess having to manually change tone to such extremes | resets the body's ability to recover this incredibly specific | learnt behavior, and the person momentarily reverts to a | clean sample of their own voice. | badRNG wrote: | > resets the body's ability to recover this incredibly | specific learnt behavior, and the person momentarily | reverts to a clean sample of their own voice. | | What is one's "own voice?" | | Nearly all speech patterns, dialects, accents, patterns and | phrasing is learned from one's social circle. Speech itself | is "learnt behavior." It makes sense that those engaged in | a subculture or online community may take up the way people | talk in that sphere of social influence. Before hand, | speech patterns evolved apart from one another due to | geographic distance. In the modern era, it doesn't seem | unreasonable that one would have greater influence from an | online community than a local one. | | I don't see any reason to privilege a specific, arbitrary | way of speaking to be "normal" and one's "own voice" and | others to be learnt behavior one "recovers" from. | upsidesinclude wrote: | Perhaps that is a difference of definition. | | Your 'own voice' refers to the unaugmented tone from your | vocal cords. It is distinct to you because that is your | physiology. | | To find the tone you can take a deep breath and sigh. You | can hear your tone. You have to sigh like you mean it | though and relax, let it out. | | Uuuuuuuuhhhhh | | Other than the resonance of you oronasal cavity, all | other aspects are some type of learned | behaviors/impediments | smodo wrote: | Well... In my country there is a well known sociolect | among well educated females. It also involves speaking in | a low register. Doctors have found that this causes vocal | chord scarring for some people. Not all learned behavior | is favoured by the body, shall we say. | jamal-kumar wrote: | That's just like a southern california accent at this point, | even men talk like that somewhat over there [1] | | [1] https://www.spreaker.com/user/7768747/california-accent- | voca... | coding123 wrote: | Probably also, gay voice. I'm pretty sure a lot of young (not | yet gay) men don't have that voice until later in life. | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | I was friends with a nurse who told a story about a gay man | who went into surgery. He had a heavy, stereotypical gay | accent. But when he initially woke up after the surgery it | was gone, and as the anesthesia faded, the accent slowly came | back. | | I'm sure it varies for each individual, but for at least some | gay men, some portion of their accent might be an affectation | (even if it's largely subconscious). | labrador wrote: | I picked up a mental weirdness from the internet and now can't | get rid of it: Trypophobia. I never experienced anything like it | until Trypophobia was trending a few years back. | | https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21834-trypoph... | RankingMember wrote: | It was that awful seed pod boob photoshop image that did it to | you too, wasn't it? | labrador wrote: | Awful doesn't even begin to describe those images. There's a | another phobia transmitted by the internet, but I'm immune to | it: Thalassophobia. There's even a reddit group dedicated to | it: | | https://old.reddit.com/r/thalassophobia/ | | There's a group allegedly devoted to trypophobia. I say | allegedly because I refuse to click on the link: | | https://old.reddit.com/r/trypophobia/ | bythreads wrote: | Reads like ai | Traubenfuchs wrote: | > mass sociogenic illness | | > Over the past 2 years, a remarkably high number of young | patients have been referred to our specialized Tourette | outpatient clinic | | > A large number of young people across different countries | | How many exactly? Without numbers, calling it mass-anything is | blowing this way out of proportion. So called fakeDisorderCringe | has been a thing for a while, thanks to TikTok. But is there any | sign that a) it is seriously widespread and b) doesn't "go away | by itself", when the kids get bored of pretending? | | This appears to be nothing more than a short lived cringy TikTok | / YouTube trend that will be over sooner than later, no different | from goth culture. God I am glad I will never have children that | I need to keep from melting their brains with social media. | HPsquared wrote: | If it's an unconscious thing which transfers into "real life", | that seems potentially important. It raises the question of | what other unconscious behaviours (potentially harmful) are | picked up in a similar way? Definitely an interesting starting | point for further research. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | > If it's an unconscious thing which transfers into "real | life", that seems potentially important. | | Humans of all ages copy behavior they see in (social) media. | Not every unusual behavior should be classified as mental | illness. | | > Definitely an interesting starting point for further | research. | | Maybe, but for psychology and sociology, not psychiatry and | brain science. | AstixAndBelix wrote: | If social contagion can get people to develop serious ticks | imagine how many things we automatically do or feel or think that | are a mere result of random social pressures | dusted wrote: | My main concern is how to induce specifics in people and start | profiting from it :D | | Wouldn't it just be wonderfully dystopic if we could induce | ticks in people that made them clean the streets and do the | grunt work? :D | pjc50 wrote: | > how to induce specifics in people and start profiting from | it | | Have you heard of "advertising"? | kneebonian wrote: | "A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the | main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND | CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's | motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY." - A Brave New World | [deleted] | martyvis wrote: | Is this different from any other learned behaviour? If a baby | hangs around English speaking people they are going to learn to | speak the language with the same accent. Then you see a group of | kids where every sentence is peppered with the F-bomb, it's all | the same right? | t0lo wrote: | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | A sub on reddit has been all over this: | https://old.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/ | pessimizer wrote: | The fact that NXIVM could successfully suppress crippling | Tourette's in a number of cases has to at least mean that | Tourette's itself (or some subset of what is grouped under | Tourette's) isn't strictly biological. | | It seems this was done through Nancy Salzman's application of the | NLP voodoo she had used as a chronic pain therapist, and possibly | boosted by immense pressure to not tic or else be seen as both a | failure and a PR danger to the cult. However it was done, it was | clearly successful. Are there any studies about "actual" (non- | internet video related) Tourette's patients transmitting tics to | each other? | | https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/overthinking-tv/20... | lo_zamoyski wrote: | "they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture- | bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the | uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged | exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and | aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man." | | There is a tendency to reify aberrations and disorders and to | identify with them because it gives you another way of attaining | a _feeling_ of (false) "uniqueness" and exceptionality, or a way | of trying to manipulate people into showing you "compassion" or | pity. It's a disease of our age. "The spectrum" seems to be a | popular example. These are afflictions, not identities. They're | nothing to be proud of when you have them, _if_ you have them, | nor are they things to be desired. | | There may also be passive-aggressive motives. Personal autonomy | and the absolute sovereignty of the individual and his desires | are a superordinate value today. We chafe under any perceived | constraint or restraint on our desires. What do some people do | when they don't want to follow some rule they should, but fear | opposing that rule overtly? They rebel through small, passive- | aggressive ways. Imagine now you are faced with the internalized | emotional compulsion or fear to behave or not behave a certain | way that you don't want to submit to, but fear opposing or | ignoring for whatever reason. Simulating tics could be an | interior rebellion against that undesired compulsion. Repeat | something often enough, and it becomes a habit. | | (Curiously, I would attribute the very cause of this inner | struggle to our disordered attitude toward desire and appetite in | the first place where the tail is essentially wagging the dog. | Putting reason before desire and submitting to the truth | liberates a person from the capricious tyranny of appetite.) | mfrankpb wrote: | Previously discussed here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 (August 2021) | dang wrote: | Thanks! I missed that. Macroexpanded: | | _It's not Tourette's but a new type of mass sociogenic | illness_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725 - Aug | 2021 (80 comments) | monkeydreams wrote: | While this article and many like it suggest a sudden rise in | cases due to a 2021 Youtube influencer, this was already | spreading in 2020. Girls in my daughter's social network were | displaying tic behaviour in the months after the first major | lockdowns. | air7 wrote: | This reminded me of the Dancing Plague[0] that happened in | medieval Europe. | | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania | boringg wrote: | Is this real? That's bananas. | CadmiumYellow wrote: | Wow I thought "choreomania" was just the name of a Florence and | the Machine song...this is crazy... | fullstackchris wrote: | I just experienced this today; I was walking down the street and | a teenager walking by himself abruptly made this sharp random | shrieking sound to no one in particular and then kept walking | along. | | Could he actually have Tourette's by traditional clinical | definition? Certainly. But I'm inclined to beleive that it has | much more to do with this article's definition and how f***d the | youth are against the whole social media scene today. | filoleg wrote: | Could be many reasons, who knows. Maybe they were looking at | something on their phone that evoked their reaction, maybe they | heard something in their earphones, maybe they suddenly saw a | bird nearby that scared them, or maybe they just remembered | something which ended up causing it. | | The latter happens to me occasionally, and I am fairly certain | it has nothing to do with Tourette's. Usually it is me walking | somewhere, then remembering something I forgot that i needed to | do or having some realization, and I just end up going "oh | fuck" or "ooooh". Not loudly like a yell, but definitely | audible to someone within a 5-10 feet range. | | It could also be what you are suspecting as well, but without | actually talking to the person, there is quite literally no way | to know. So imo it is a rather pointless exercise. | emptysea wrote: | I'm guessing they're looking for a reaction. Similar to people | driving by and yelling out the window | Centigonal wrote: | maybe he was going through something | snorkel wrote: | Sounds like the mania over Pokemon flashing induced seizures | werdnapk wrote: | When I was in high school, one of the "popular" kids used to talk | a bit odd on purpose and sure, it generated a bit of a chuckle at | first, but he kept doing it and a lot of kids also adopted a | similar vocal tic to seem like they were part of the cool group | as well. Monkey see, monkey do. | out-of-ideas wrote: | it sounds similar to how catch-phrases like simpsons and other | shows become common things for kids to adopt and (over)use. i'd | say it's hard to break patterns developed when young and seems | to be what others around you are doing... downward spiral? | toyg wrote: | Stop trying to make tourette happen! It's NOT GONNA HAPPEN! | adolph wrote: | _The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a | consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the | late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class | and entertainment industry, which blended together features | regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British | English (specifically Received Pronunciation). It is not a | native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama | professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that | its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it | unless educated to do so". The accent was embraced in private | independent preparatory schools, especially by members of the | American Northeastern upper class, as well as in schools for | film and stage acting, with its overall use sharply declining | after the Second World War._ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent | extragood wrote: | Frasier, the TV character played by Kelsey Grammer, uses an | exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent. | a9h74j wrote: | Not Mid-Atlantic, but I've heard that one way to acquire a | "standard" Mid-Western US accent is to speak along with a | trained speaker, such as a particular newscaster. And "You | are supposed to stop before sounding just like that person." | twobitshifter wrote: | I worked with a couple of college classmates, who when they | were taking to each other would use this hurry up to stop type | of speech pattern. A few really quick words, then a pause, and | a few more words. For autistic people this is called | cluttering, but they talked to clients and others and didn't | talk that way, so I always wondered where it came from. | gtirloni wrote: | _> with considerable impact on health care systems and society as | a whole_ | | (X) Doubt | TechBro8615 wrote: | If you delete TikTok does the illness dissipate? | winReInstall wrote: | Imagine you start the same trend, but everyone tries for once to | contribute something science wise original to society, so the | problem is real, but the potential is greater. | | Now comes the part, were advertisers try to create sociogenic | illnesses that spread theire product/brands information. | | We can also skip directly to the part, were we mourn the youtfull | ideals of a idea, taken over by scammers. | Sebb767 wrote: | > Imagine you start the same trend, but everyone tries for once | to contribute something science wise original to society, so | the problem is real, but the potential is greater. | | I know you aren't totally serious, but this won't work, most | likely. The "advantage" of having a tick like that is not just | that it gives you attention, it's something absolutely low- | effort and instant gratification. Contributing to science is | anything but. Plus, even if individuals tried to do so, it's | quite easy to miss newest research or fall for a fallacy, which | will make for a net-negative contribution if you are not | careful. | dpc050505 wrote: | >were advertisers try to create sociogenic illnesses that | spread theire product/brands information. | | I can think of a lot of advertising jingles that work this way. | riskable wrote: | Plop plop Fizz fizz Oh how like Tourette's it | is | secondcoming wrote: | There was the alcohol drinks company's WASSSUP ad campaign that | ruined everyone's life for a while. | mcphage wrote: | That still lives rent-free in my head, and comes out every | once in a while. | dejj wrote: | Link this with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and | receive prescribed brand candy/placebos for saying "Arr!" too | much. Also prosthetics or an assistance bird. | theGnuMe wrote: | There's a new Netflix series called Hot Skull around this theme. | I haven't watched it yet but it looks like the premise is that a | word virus infects people and they start talking gibberish. | kridsdale1 wrote: | Hey Hiro. You want to try some Snow Crash? | gnu8 wrote: | Does it fuck up your brain, or your computer? | _nalply wrote: | Somewhere I already read about that. It's a fad. A youtuber shows | Tourette's symptoms and people copy them. Perhaps it's like | stimming. And you can't stop fads and stimming. We see that some | people are annoyed. (shrugs) | mcv wrote: | > And you can't stop fads and stimming. | | But if they claim it's a disease, and it's clearly spreading | through social media, then the obvious measure to stop it from | spreading, is to block the channels through which it's | spreading. | lakomen wrote: | You copy what's fun to you. That said, POMMES! | bowsamic wrote: | But when a fad becomes destructive to someone's life to the | point where they can't voluntarily stop it and seek | professional treatment for it, it becomes an illness and is | worth investigating. | | > (shrugs) | | Those affected by it don't seem to be able to shrug it off. | It's having a negative effect on their quality of life | [deleted] | [deleted] | nailer wrote: | Similarly: https://brightonjournal.co.uk/debate-gender-report- | brighton-... | frereubu wrote: | For those who think this is "just" a fad, there are some | descriptions of the emotional harm that that it can cause in this | article from February: | https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/social-med... | The semantics of "mass sociogenic illness" aside, there do seem | to be damaging real-world consequences. | informalo wrote: | For anyone looking to be infected by this mass sociogenic | illness, here is his most popular video: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLhaYHJTXmI | [deleted] | infradig wrote: | I've read this before on HN, even some comments. Getting a weird | deja-vu vibe. | gadders wrote: | I don't think this is the only mass sociogenic illness affecting | young girls currently.... | pessimizer wrote: | > the only mass sociogenic illness affecting young girls | | Is it a mass illness, or a semi-rational reaction to the | prospect of facing life as a female in our society? | mathgeek wrote: | Care to elaborate? As written, your comment can come off as | rather ageist/sexist, which is a shame if you meant a specific | trend. | Veen wrote: | I imagine many people have a specific phenomenon in mind | which they will avoid mentioning because it's considered | impolite and impolitic. | maxbond wrote: | Either it is a real issue, in which case, we should have a | discussion about it. | | Or it is not a real issue, in which case, it is not worth | vagueposting about. | | Taking the most charitable interpretation, this creates | cover for dog whistling while not adding to the | conversation. | | The other possibility is that it _is_ dog whistling in | order to promote bigotry. | pessimizer wrote: | So either discuss it directly and be a bigot, talk around | it and be a bigot, or silence all discussion about it and | be a hero. | maxbond wrote: | There's no heroes and no villains here, but if someone | has got something bigoted to say, then they should | dispose of their waste or surrender the restroom. It | doesn't make it any more or less bigoted to be | circumspect, it only makes it difficulty to have a proper | discussion. If they believe what they have to say isn't | bigoted, they should take courage in their convictions | and speak their mind. If they're punished in a way that's | unfair, then that's something with bringing to the | community's attention. If they don't actually have | confidence in their convictions, maybe their ideas need | some more time to develop before they're comfortable | sharing them (and maybe the reason they're uncomfortable | is that there's a problem). | | I'm not trying to silence anyone, when people vaguepost, | clearly there's something on their mind, and I'm inviting | them to express it. | | Do you think that's an unfair position for me to take? | What I see is that they did say what was on their mind, | we had a substantive discussion, no one got flagged, no | one got banned, their comment isn't even gray. The | reports of HN being hostile to this discussion are | greatly overstated. | gadders wrote: | Fuck it, I'll take the karma hit. I am of course referring to | young girls identifying as male/non-binary. | | I'm sure some of the cases are genuine, but not all. And I'm | not saying these girls aren't troubled or have other things | going on that they need help with. | bjelkeman-again wrote: | I think that characterising once thoughts around once | gender as a social illness is deeply disrespectful against | those individuals. | Eumenes wrote: | It is mass psychosis at this stage. Friend is a teacher in | a very wealthy suburban area and 50%+ of the class | identifies as non-binary (apparently). We're supposed to | believe this is organic and totally normal? | Karawebnetwork wrote: | Non-binary simply mean that you do not identify with the | two currently accepted gender identity or that you do not | perceive gender as a binary system but as a spectrum. | That's it. It does not mean that the person suffers from | gender dysphoria or that they want to transition. For | many, it's simply a way to describe their existing social | behavior. It is also an umbrella word that houses many | other identies. | | I'd also challenge the "50%" number you advance. | | Canada asked the question in last year's census and it | was under 1%. 50% would be enormous. | | "Younger generations had larger shares of those who were | transgender or non-binary. The proportions of transgender | and non-binary people were three to seven times higher | for Generation Z (0.79%) and millennials (0.51%) than for | Generation X (0.19%), baby boomers (0.15%) and the | Interwar and Greatest Generations (0.12%). | | Together, over 1 in 6 non-binary people described their | gender as "fluid" (7.3%), "agender" (5.1%) or "queer" | (4.1%). Other responses included "gender neutral" (2.9%), | "Two-Spirit" (2.2%), "neither man nor woman" (1.3%) and | "gender-nonconforming" (1.1%)." | zozbot234 wrote: | "Non-binary" is commonly described as a trans identity, | and the word "trans" is etymologically related to | "transition". If there really was nothing else to it than | the truism that "gender is not merely a binary system but | a spectrum", no one would be talking about non-binary as | an identity of its own - since this has been a consensus | POV for decades. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | It is not tran[sition]gender. It is the "trans-" Latin | prefix meaning "across", "beyond" or "on the other side | of" + gender. | | In other words, people who moved on from the gender | assigned to them at birth. | | Some non-binary people identify as transgender but not | all of them do. Just like non-binary is both an umbrella | term and a spicific gender identity, transgender is both | an umbrella term and a specific gender identity. You'll | often see the shorthand "trans*" to describe the umbrella | term and the shorthand "enby" to describe the specific | gender identity. | | Examples of clear gender identities that are not used as | umbrella terms are: trans women, trans men, genderfluid, | agender, demigirl, etc. | zozbot234 wrote: | > In other words, people who moved on from the gender | assigned to them at birth. | | Yes, and the Latin word transeo (nominal form transitio - | English: transition) means exactly to "go on across", "go | beyond". Trans ("across, beyond") + eo, it ("I go, | he/she/it goes") + tio (- English: "-tion"). It's a | distinction without a difference. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | My point is that they share a source and are siblings, | but one is not the parent of the other. Being transgender | is not about the medical or social transition, it is | about how the person identifies. | zozbot234 wrote: | > it is about how the person identifies. | | What does it mean to "identify" with a claim about what | society is like - namely that "binary" gender might be | more of a spectrum, with weird liminal stages in-between? | You've said that this is what "non-binary" is about. How | does this even begin to square with all those other | notions about gender identity being something exceedingly | clearcut, that someone can base major life decisions on? | Eumenes wrote: | That 50% number is anecdotal, from a friend whose a | teacher in a middle school (norther Virginia) ... My | guess is 100% of these children are on Tiktok/Snapchat, | ingesting whatever content is being fed to their | impressionable minds. Its certainly an internet driven | phenomenon. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | > That 50% number is anecdotal | | Then it is meaningless and hazardous to build an opinion | upon it. | | > My guess is 100% of these children are on | Tiktok/Snapchat | | TikTok usage is at 32.2% for children aged 10-19. | Snapchat usage is at 59% for children aged 13-24. That | would be unlikely. Those two platforms also share little | in term of features and functionality. How are they | relevant here and why single them out? | SoftTalker wrote: | It's pretty easily explained, they think it's cool to say | they are nonbinary, or pansexual, or genderfluid, or | something along those lines. One popular/alpha kid says | it and soon their entire clique gloms on. Adding to the | allure for teens is that some adults find this shocking. | They are not really committing to anything, and they know | it. They're doing it for social karma. Teens have done | this kind of thing forever. | astura wrote: | You appear to confuse sociogenic illness with faking or | being otherwise "non-genuine." | | This is not true. Sociogenic illness, including the one the | article is about, are very real to those affected. The | symptoms are real and genuine. | gadders wrote: | I think the symptoms they have are very real to them. I | just don't think that the cure is more likely to be | psychological then surgical. | maxbond wrote: | I appreciate your being willing to speak your mind without | hiding behind vaguery. We can risk a karma hit together. | | You are referring to a myth called "Rapid-Onset Gender | Dysphoria," which has been debunked. Gender identity is not | a socially transmitted pathology. I don't believe you meant | this in a hateful way, but let me explain what the problem | is with this idea. This is sophistry about how LGBTQ people | should remain in the closet, or they'll "infect" people, | and the evidence is that as we tolerate LGBTQ people more, | more of them come out of the closet. It's a reversal of | cause and effect, from the same school as "discussing the | history of racism is racist". | throwaway27727 wrote: | > which has been debunked | | That is, unfortunately, not an argument. To apply your | line of thinking to the OP, would you say that "children | displaying Tourette's symptoms from watching a YouTuber | is a reversal of cause and effect"? The OP does not make | that conclusion, and most of this comment section accepts | that as well. I, like GP, would be interested to hear how | this would be reconciled. | maxbond wrote: | Highlighting a comment that does a better job: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33879534 | | This is a valid criticism. What you have highlighted is a | shortcoming in my ability to elucidate this topic. | | My comment is more an invitation to explore the argument | yourself. This isn't a formal debate where I've shown up | prepared with notes, I didn't know I'd be speaking about | this topic today. If I tell you what I know, you can | think about whether it makes sense to you, and you can | use extract search terms to research and learn more. You | don't have to take my word for anything, but I don't have | to remember how I learned something to participate in a | casual forum conversation either. | | That being said, I am starting to make an effort to | catalog resources and be able to share them, because I do | think it makes my comments better, but this is a work in | progress. C'est la vie. | | As to how this argument relates to the Tourettes-like | symptoms discussed in the article, these are simply | different phenomena. It's reasonable to observe this | phenomenon and ask, "Does this apply to other | phenomena?", and in the case of the increasing number of | open trans people in our society, I'm telling you the | answer is "no" and doing my best to explain why. | joenot443 wrote: | Has ROGD been absolutely debunked? Last I checked it was | still pretty debated, I see discussions about it all the | time still. When I search for papers I see the original | [1], criticisms [2], and a correction issued by the | original authors [3] which holds to most of their | starting claims. | | Obviously being cis and childless I don't have a horse in | this race, but it seems to me that there's still a fair | amount of disagreement in the field, and the ROGD's | existence or non-existence isn't really settled. The | result found by the original paper may be unpopular, but | it's bad science to hide it away solely for that reason. | | [1] https://rogd.fi/wp- | content/uploads/2021/10/pone.0214157.s001... [2] https:// | journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003802612093469... | [3] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/ | journal... | mcv wrote: | This is an issue I'm somewhat concerned about. | | Let's first be clear that gender dysphoria is a real | thing, and transitioning has been a very real solution | for many people, and has helped people from depression, | possibly suicidal, to a much happier state, and that's | great. It's vital we don't lose that. | | At the same time, it's been politicised; there's a lot of | conservative pushback claiming this isn't real, leading | to resistance against this pushback, where I wonder if | some people may sympathise with transgender people to the | point that they also identify as transgender despite a | lack of gender dysphoria, and that might create a fad | that might cause more people to transition and later | regret it. | | Gender dysphoria is a serious medical issue, and should | not be a fad or a cultural or political issue. | Transitioning is effective treatment, and not some fun | thing to do like getting a tattoo, nor should it be | considered an assault on anyone's cultural, religious or | political beliefs. | | And if it really is happening more to girls than boys, | maybe consider if cultural sexism might cause some women | to not want to identify as such anymore. Especially in | the face of issues like rape, bodily autonomy, but also | acceptable jobs and behaviours. Maybe we should be more | tolerant of cross-dressing. | aliqot wrote: | its much more important to young girls to be accepted | socially than it is to boys. | LawTalkingGuy wrote: | > Let's first be clear that gender dysphoria is a real | thing | | To be clear, the pain someone is feeling is real but the | "reality" of a condition is a bit of an unclear concept. | We can't really address this until we try to control for | the gendered expectations of the sufferer, their | surroundings, and any observers. Suzie Green of Mermaids | has said that some of their motivation in transing their | son as a toddler was his father's discomfort with some of | the toys he was playing with and the homosexual | connotations. Likely if the boy had tolerant and unbiased | parents he'd be happy as a man, and thus it's unlikely he | truly had "gender dysphoria" unless you count whatever | his parents conditioned into him. | | > and transitioning has been a very real solution for | many people | | Again, hard to say given that the decision probably was | not made in isolation from heavily gendered expectations. | There's reason to think that removing those expectations | would have made them at least as happy, if not more. | | > Transitioning is [...] treatment, and not [...] an | assault on anyone's cultural, religious or political | beliefs. | | For an adult it's a personal choice and we should have | pretty wide latitude in things that only impact us. It | becomes a societal and political issue when it's brought | into schools, or when males are given access to women's | spaces and opportunities. | | > And if it really is happening more to girls than boys, | maybe consider if cultural sexism might cause some women | to not want to identify as such anymore. Especially in | the face of issues like rape, bodily autonomy, but also | acceptable jobs and behaviours. Maybe we should be more | tolerant of cross-dressing. | | Errr, that's the wrong takeaway. If a woman wasn't going | to get promoted then her putting on pants won't help, and | if she was going to get abused it wouldn't trick her | attacker. We should work to remove or mitigate those | problems so she doesn't feel the need to hide her true | self. | | If a woman is thought to be able to avoid rape by | dressing like a man and/or having surgeries to reduce her | sexual attractiveness then women will be thought to be | asking for it ("How was she dressed? Did she still have | her breasts?") for not doing those things. | gadders wrote: | Debunked by whom? Happy to read a paper or two. | | I don't think at all that LGBTQ people "infect" people - | that is your choice of words, not mine. | | But it seems strange to think that tourettes, anorexia, | self-harming and even suicide can be socially transmitted | but for this one specific condition (for which there is | no medical test) it's impossible and has never happened. | maxbond wrote: | I understand these are not the words you used, or | necessarily ideas you hold; what I am describing is the | role it plays in the wider rhetorical space. I should | have made that more clear, it does look like I was | calling you out for that. I'll see if I can edit it in a | better way. | | Recommending literature is a skill I am still working on; | I know things about this or that, but I didn't keep a | record of how I learned them, and it's been months or | years now. The Wikipedia article has discussion of | criticism which may be a good place to start. If you're | interested in YouTube videos, there is a large community | of trans people who discuss their experiences in the form | of video essays. ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube are | some of the best known; you may or may not appreciate | their politics, that's not what I'm suggesting, but they | have a lot of content about what it's like to be a trans | person, why they're trans, how they became trans, etc. | that's just very difficult information to come by any | other way. | | I appreciate your good faith and curious engagement with | me. | Kye wrote: | It's honestly enough to remember and point out the whole | concept is based on a study that only polled parents who | aren't supportive of their trans kids. Anyone with a | shred of genuine interest in being fair and accurate | should be able to see right through the study. It's so | bad that even prominent transphobes don't seem to talk | about it anymore. | vinegarden wrote: | ROGD is the term given to the phenomenon of teenagers | with no history of gender dysphoria suddenly announcing a | transgender identity, typically after spending massive | amounts of time online, and often after a friend has | announced that they are trans. Who would be better placed | to notice this set of circumstances than their parents? | LeonTheremin wrote: | >Stop that! | | Send them to a submarine trip undersea. If the symptoms disappear | it is because they were the result of outside electromagnetic | interference. | | Not a medical problem, a criminal problem: computer hacking all | the way, the human body, a computer, is the victim. | hanoz wrote: | Wow. So now that I know that mass sociogenic illness is a thing, | where do I draw the line in applying that label? | efkiel wrote: | Obviously <OUTGROUP_IDEOLOGY> always was, and always will be a | mass sociogenic illness. | snapcaster wrote: | I do wish <OUTGROUP_IDEOLOGY_MEMBERS> could just be rational | for once and stop falling for demagogues and pseudoscience | lzaaz wrote: | dusted wrote: | I agree with your examples, though they cannot be said.. | Hopefully in a saner future, it becomes possible to have a | debate about that again. | maxbond wrote: | If it's not worth saying, it's not worth vagueposting about | either. | lzaaz wrote: | It's worth saying but if I say it the comment gets flagged | and no one gets to read it. | rjbwork wrote: | I read flagged and dead comments. Vagueposting is now | getting you flagged and deaded anyway. | maxbond wrote: | I always read flagged comments, and I vouch for them when | I feel they've been unfairly flagged (or when they're | from banned accounts that are automatically flagged, but | the comment is unobjectionable). | | This is however a tacit admission that what you have to | say is against the guidelines of this site and that, were | you to let it compete in the market place of ideas, it | would be fail completely. | lzaaz wrote: | The fact that an opinion is censored by the means of | flagging means that it doesn't have a chance to compete | in the "marketplace of ideas". | maxbond wrote: | No, that is the idea being assigned a negative value. | lzaaz wrote: | If an idea goes against the guidelines of a website that | doesn't mean it has a negative value, especially if users | aren't allowed to interact with it at all. | maxbond wrote: | They did interact with it. They flagged it. People | generally don't consult the site's guidelines when | flagging, but their own set of values. | throwaway27727 wrote: | Not all scientific discussion is pleasant to hear, but it | would be worth discussing, even if flagged and down | voted, rather than "We were always at war with Eurasia". | christophilus wrote: | If it's not worth vagueposting about, it's worth tweeting | and TikToking about. | maxbond wrote: | You are saying, because you are uncomfortable discussing | it, no one should discuss it? Feel free to correct me if | I'm misreading you, it sounds like you're more or less | saying, "things I don't like should go away and stop | existing." | reilly3000 wrote: | This is alarmist BS. Facebook group fodder. "Humans have working | mirror neurons" could have been the headline. | | All of you futurists who have slipped down the slope are worried | about media spreading "sociogenic illness". Of course media is | powerful. It always has been. There has been about 75 years of | fears and schemes about using TV to mass hypnotize its watchers. | The same with radio before it. | | What is happening is mass unstructured clustering by social | algos, specifically TikTok. Historically content and ad | algorithms have focused on contextual relevance with structured | categories. Graphs have extended that to included social context. | TikTok has novel input parameters about user behavior. There have | been many reports that this unstructured clustering is surfacing | niche medical diagnoses regularly. | | A lot of neurodivergent traits have historically been under | diagnosed for the same goddamn ignorance as OP's piece: "it's | just attention seeking". This type of dismissal by parents, | teachers, and doctors alike have lead to millions of people | leading shorter, harder lives. ADHD, Autism, Tourette's, Bipolar, | schizophrenia, etc are present in larger numbers than are | diagnosed. Often time these lifelong genetic differences lead to | 10x+ higher suicide rates, inability to sustain work, and myriad | health issues. It's really common that mental health issues that | don't result in property damage just get ignored, downplayed, or | under treated even if acknowledged. | | I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 29. Having that information | combined with medication, therapy, and exercise has changed my | life for the better dramatically. If TikTok was the surface where | I discovered that, I would have likely been dismissed or even | openly mocked by my doctors, and continued with a life of | suffering or worse. | | By the way, it seems people cited in the article are experiencing | a form of Tourette's syndrome that is a typical neurological | trait associated with other pathology. Echolalia has far less | cultural awareness, but accurate describes the behavior: | "Echolalia is not only associated with Autism, but also with | several other conditions, including congenital blindness, | intellectual disability, developmental delay, language delay, | Tourette's syndrome, schizophrenia and others." it's not just | swear words like on TV. My child does this. What happened to | start as a YouTube ad for "Raid Shadow Legends" turned into a | joke punchline, turned into a phrase that they cannot stop | themselves from saying compulsively at odd times, after multiple | years. It's sub-clinical by itself, but is consistent with the | diagnosis they do have. | | This article is red meat, BS fear bait at best, dangerous at | worst. To the extent content like this actually promotes | diagnosis denial, it's complicit in very literal harm of patients | and those around them. | denton-scratch wrote: | > these lifelong genetic differences | | I'm not aware of convincing evidence that bipolar and | schizophrenia are of genetic origin (other than that | schizophrenia sometimes runs in families). There are serious | people that insist that they originate in childhood trauma. And | since childhood trauma also sometimes runs in families, family | histories of schizophrenia aren't that convincing either. | waterhouse wrote: | Wiki says "Genetic factors account for about 70-90% of the | risk of developing bipolar disorder." | https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/resources- | support/bipol... says 80%, and says "If one parent has | bipolar disorder, there's a 10% chance that their child will | develop the illness. / If both parents have bipolar disorder, | the likelihood of their child developing bipolar disorder | rises to 40%." | | One of the cited papers is "Family, twin, and adoption | studies of bipolar disorder". Link that gives only the | abstract: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14601036/ | | I haven't dug into the paper yet, but there's a starting | point. | | Edit: The paper says "More recent (and rigorous) studies that | have compared concordance rates specifically of bipolar | disorder among MZ [monozygotic] and DZ [dizygotic] twin pairs | are summarized in table 2." The table shows four studies that | gave concordances of 0.00-0.08 for dizygotic twins, and | 0.36-0.75 for monozygotic twins. | pjc50 wrote: | (content warning) | | It's not commonly discussed, but suicide seems to be a | "sociogenic illness" in that reporting on suicides as such can | cause more suicides. You may have noticed this in the reporting | on celebrity deaths; a young person who "dies suddenly" may be | suicide, but news reports will tend to avoid saying that out of | concern for the sociogenic effects. | screye wrote: | I have anecdotally noticed this too. | | My university went 6 years without a suicide, and then had 3 | highly publicized suicides over the year. They then put in a | lot of effort to bury it as much as possible, students went | home for the summer, and the university had a few suicide-free | years right after | abfan1127 wrote: | those suicides could also be Black Swan events, very rare, | nothing done actually did anything. But human behavior is | weird, so who knows. | screye wrote: | Unfortunately I knew 2/3, and it was well known to be due | to the risk of failing a course. Now the university makes | sure that no-one knows if there was suicide note and the | details of they committed suicide. | | The eerie thing was the fact that they all killed | themselves in exactly the same way. (hanging off a the | ceiling) | | But ofc, the plural of anecdotes is not data. There I agree | with you. | Loughla wrote: | >It's not commonly discussed, | | It absolutely is commonly discussed in mental health circles. | Suicides cluster is a common theme among health experts. When | you see one suicide among a target population (youth for | example), you will commonly see multiples. | | https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/resources/suicide-clusters.html | walkhour wrote: | For the reason you discuss you should delete your comment. | Airplanes crashes rise when the media discusses these topics: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1746810. | elil17 wrote: | It's not clear to me that discussing the effect causes the | effect. It's an effect that's been specifically documented in | response to media coverage of suicide. The consensus from | suicide prevention orgs seems to be that compassionate, | interpersonal discussions about suicide prevention are | probably helpful. Not sure if that's backed by research. | civopsec wrote: | Can't delete something that has been replied to. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | This comes to mind: "Association Between the Release of | Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and Suicide Rates in the United | States" | | Relevant studies: | https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(19)30288-6/fulltex... | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... | munificent wrote: | The "Werther effect" is the name for this: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide | guywithahat wrote: | hot take: the definition of tourette's will soon be changed to | include this "sociogenic illness" to avoid offending those who | develop tics from watching online videos. Otherwise you'll be | implicitly offending those with it as being less legitimate | (which they are, but that's besides the point) | Ekaros wrote: | Is this what Dawkins originally meant by a meme? | ccity88 wrote: | What's interesting to me is that if we're able to accept the idea | that mass social media-induced illness can be developed just by | virtue of video watching TikTok or YouTube, then this opens new | doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as | gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is | probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants | to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another | gender. But I think there's some interesting parallels to be | observed here, and discounting that based on "moral virtue" or | "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be attacked with is just | moving the target. | agileAlligator wrote: | brnt wrote: | Recently read the story of a detransitioner and the statistic | that about a third falls of the radar (and due missing their | hormones, almost certainly are unhappy about the treatment). | Social media are implicated in the spread of these ideas (all | ideas), and the detransitioner pleaded for better info from | professionals and an end to doctor neutrality for underage | trans people. | | Changed my mind a bit. | somedude895 wrote: | Could be part of the Tavistock Center[0] story? | | The state of affairs around transsexuality is horrifying. | Critical discussion is basically not allowed on moral grounds | and most people who "study" the topic (eg gender studies), | care for said patients (eg gender clinics), etc are the same | people who already adhere to that no-criticism-allowed | agenda. | | [0] https://news.sky.com/story/amp/nhs-gender-clinic-the- | tavisto... | DarkWiiPlayer wrote: | Less than 1%. That's the number of people who detransition | simply because they didn't feel it was the right thing for | them. | | Of the less than 2% of detransitioners overall, the vast | majority names reasons like social pressure, transitioning | being too difficult, etc. | | Dunno what numbers _you_ are talking about, but the ones I | know certainly underline gender dysphoria being a very real | thing and not some sort of "social contagion", and my | personal experience definitely aligns with this as well: I | don't know a single trans person who seems to regret | transitioning, but a whole number of trans people who are | struggling with the constant hate they get, fuelled in part | by this sort of rhetoric. | | And since the article in one of the replies mentioned puberty | blockers: They are 1. entirely reversible, 2. routinely | prescribed to cis children for other medical reasons and 3. | unlike these blockers, puberty is not reversible. | | Can I change your mind, even if just a little bit? I don't | know; but if you really want to change your mind, start | looking closely into the "statistics" of the right. Their | misrepresentations are often absurdly superficial. It's all a | lie, and the parts that aren't, usually aren't that bad. | brnt wrote: | > Less than 1%. That's the number of people who | detransition simply because they didn't feel it was the | right thing for them. | | About 1% who do so through the hospital procrdures. About a | third just stops showing up for followups and hormones. | According to the detransitioner, who falls into that | category, and has found a small community of similar | people, this is what's wrong with the statistic: it's | extremely important to not exclude the group that falls of | the radar. Since they're not getting hormones anymore, the | safest assumption is that they are stopping their | transition (because they are) or detransitioning. | | A third is a very high amount. | | This is the NL btw. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | idk I got a stapled packet of info from my provider and the | effects are listed on Wikipedia these days for the stuff I'm | on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminizing_hormone_therapy# | Eff... | | It's a tradeoff. At least we can all agree that adults have | the right to transition under an Informed Consent model. | Countries like the UK, without IC, are hellholes for trans | medical care. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1eWIshUzr8 | brnt wrote: | This is in the NL. Yes, they got a pile of folders, but in | retrospect they would have wanted psychiatric care, because | these issues were not treated and instead channelled into | gender disphoria. | djexjms wrote: | My partner of the last six years is trans. Your post doesn't | strike me as hate speech, but what Hacker News commenters seem | not to understand is that making overly general statements | about entire groups of people can often lead to an | oversimplified view of the situation (see what I did there). | | Let's start with the assumption that people can and do learn to | "want" to be a particular gender. I am not an anthropologist, | but I feel like this is a pretty uncontroversial take, and is | the mechanism for how cis-gendered people learn to follow the | gender norms of the culture they find themselves in. This is | the key difference between gender and sex. Gender norms seem to | be a cultural universal, but the form those norms take is | dependent on time and place. | | What this means is that in any society there are two sets of | behavioral norms, one for perceived men, and one for perceived | women. If a person in this society has a strong preference | about which set of norms they prefer, and if the set of norms | they prefer doesn't line up with their sex, you have the | potential for that person to identify with the other gender. | The term "transgender" is new, but behaviors associated with | the term go back as far as you care to look. | | So you have this potential tension where a person might prefer | the gender norms of the other sex, but you also have the fact | that questioning norms of any kind in a society is always | somewhat taboo. A few very dedicated people would live their | lives as the other gender. Many more probably would have liked | to if they were aware that it was an option, but were not (in | other words, even questioning a social norm can be difficult if | there isn't already public discussion about it). | | So if the sudden perceived increase in trans people seems like | a sociogenic disease to you, I can see how you might think | that. I can also see how hurtful it is to many people to frame | it in those terms. If we take a closer look at the linked | paper, they hypothesize that one of the drivers of the | tourettes-like disease is attention seeking behavior. Are there | people who decide to transition ultimately because they believe | they will get more attention? I'm sure some do. But thinking | that is the motivation for most trans people is a very hurtful | overgeneralization and is unhelpful because it is just wrong. | The trans people that I am personally acquainted with don't | want more attention. They want less of it. If you even glance | at common discussion topics in trans discussion forums, you | will see that there is a lot of discussion about "passing". | Passing doesn't seem like attention-seeking behavior to me, it | seems like the exact opposite. | | Does social media have no role to play in explaining the | increase in people who identify as trans? It probably does have | some role there. But its only accelerating and amplifying | trends that already existed. LGBT+ issues in general have been | getting less and less taboo to talk about for the last several | decades. The internet and communications technology more | generally is exposing people to more cultures and norms. My | hypothesis is that there were many preexisting people who were | unsatisfied with the gender roles that they were expected to | fulfill, and that growing acceptance and discussion of LGBT+ | issues made them realize that there was no reason to keep | putting up with them anymore. | naasking wrote: | > then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other | illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over | represented | | I don't think this is necessarily new. Anorexia seems to | increase proportionally to public awareness of anorexia. It's | not just that diagnosis actually improves, it literally appears | to be a causal connection, as in, hospitalizations for health | problems due to undereating increase dramatically after public | awareness about anorexia increases in response to media | coverage or public awareness campaigns. Pretty wild. | | This was discussed in the book "Crazy Like Us: The | Globalization of the American Psyche". | mnsc wrote: | Since there is a school of thought that gender to a great | extent is socially learned behaviour the idea that you by | learning more about gender transgression would "create" a | desire that "I would be more comfortable in 'that gender' over | there" is not far-fetched although I'm not aware of any | research. The issue is mostly by those who pathologize that | state of not being comfortable in ones "gender assigned at | birth", like saying "...other illnesses such as gender | dysphoria" and then wanting to "cure" this dysphoria in other | ways than enabling a safe and informed transition. Like for | instance banning people talking about their experiences, good | and bad, in transitioning. | DSingularity wrote: | How can there ever be an informed transition with something | like shifting genders? | ReactiveJelly wrote: | You can practice presenting differently in safe social | situations, that's reversible. (e.g. crossdressing) | | Trans fem people can remove their facial hair without doing | other medical transition steps. | | The effects of hormone replacement are so slow that you can | safely "try them out" for a month or two and not have a | huge permanent burden. | | You talk to people and think about it real hard and sleep | on it for years. It looks sudden from the outside because | there's such a stigma over saying "Hey I'm thinking about | trying on a new gender, do you think it would work?" | | It's not too different from other body modification like | tattoos or vasectomies. You can't fully know for sure, but | there is a point where you decide that the risk is worth | it, because the potential payoff seems worth it. Then it | usually turns out it is. Most "de-transition" cases are | people who couldn't afford the monetary cost or social cost | of presenting as transgender. It's un-common to transition | and then find out you're actually cis. | DSingularity wrote: | What is cis? | | This makes sense except the part about the slow acting | hormones. If they are slow acting then one wouldn't know | their effects until later. How much later? And is it | guaranteed that they will be reversible at that point? | | Modulo what is above, in summary: you are saying there | can be informed decisions because the teenagers can: - | try out cross dressing - try out the hormone therapy to | some point before it has non-reversible long term | consequences | jackmott42 wrote: | If you suppose that understanding this well is not | possible, that would imply you also do not understand it | well, so perhaps you should leave other people alone to do | what they will, unless some good reason is revealed not to. | DSingularity wrote: | Agreed -- until it starts to harm people. Some are | suggesting that this is creating harm for minors. | vinegarden wrote: | Your comment reminds me of a very interesting interview with | Dr Az Hakeem, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who set up | group therapy sessions for gender dysphoric patients: | https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ycqNoareUT6Y6s85LrJSF | | He would include in these groups people at all stages in | their transitions, so those considering transitioning further | could be informed and challenged by those who had gone the | whole way with surgery and all. | mschuster91 wrote: | > then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other | illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over | represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to | oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can | _learn_ to want to be another gender. | | It's very, very simple. There always have been about 10% of | people who are left-handed - but for a time in history, | teachers and society (sometimes brutally) repressed that and | forced left-handed children to use their right hand. Once that | relaxed and children were left to freely be who they were, the | left-handed ratio went back to its historic norm [1]. | | Obviously, it's been the same for gay, trans and other | sexuality/gender-nonmainstream people. They have always been | part of human history - from the old Greeks [2] to early | Islamic and Hindu ages [3], but as long as there was an heir | available for a long time many simply didn't bother to care or | looked away in historic Catholic regions. The repression only | went really bad with the Nazis, who destroyed the Institute for | Sexology [4] and later on with anti-LGBT laws still remaining | on the books for decades, then the anti-gay panic with AIDS, | and only nowadays public opinion is beginning to relax. | | The problem is that Conservatives not just don't get that | simple historic fact, they actively _deny_ it based on their | morals, and as a result young LGBT people have shockingly high | suicide rates (in thoughts, attempts and success [5]). | | [1] https://www.truthorfiction.com/the-history-of-left- | handednes... | | [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec... | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia) | | [4] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen... | | [5] https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096920693/lgbtq-youth- | though... | [deleted] | mrpopo wrote: | There's no denying that gender dysphoria exists and has | always existed. OP made the claim that it might be | statistically over-represented. | | Looking at the Hijra example, it looks like the Hijra | demographics are around 0.5-1% of the population. | | In the latest polls [0], the proportion of Gen Z that | identify as transgender is over 2%. | | Is there repression/stigma in South Asia keeping some people | in the closet? Is the culture difference having an effect on | gender dysphoria? Is there a gender dysphoria "contagious" | effect? I don't know, but those are interesting questions. | | [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification- | tick... | Karawebnetwork wrote: | According to Gallup's poll, which they present as | estimates, it is 0.7% in the US. In India, 0.6% people | self-identified as hijra (Sahastrabuddhe et al., 2012). In | the 2011 census in India, 0.04% answered with "Other" when | asked to choose between "Male", "Female" and "Other". | | Canada included the question in their latest census. In my | opinion, a mandatory government census provides data that | is more accurate than Gallup's phone poll. | | "In Canada, 0.2% of the population aged 18 and older was | transgender in 2021. Belgium (0.5% among people aged 18 to | 75 in 2021) and New Zealand (0.5% among people aged 18 and | older in 2020) have also published representative survey- | based data on their transgender populations." | | "The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were | three to seven times higher for Generation Z (born between | 1997 and 2006, 0.79%) and millennials (born between 1981 | and 1996, 0.51%) than for Generation X (born between 1966 | and 1980, 0.19%), baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965, | 0.15%) and the Interwar and Greatest Generations (born in | 1945 or earlier, 0.12%)." | | "Other countries have published 2021 data on transgender | people using crowdsourcing and non-representative surveys, | including Ireland (0.6% among people aged 18 and older), | England and Wales (0.6% among people aged 16 and older), | and the United States (0.8% among people aged 18 and | older)." | mschuster91 wrote: | And what the fuck would be the problem if GenZ had an | "over-representation" of LGBT?! | | We don't live in the dark ages, almost all Western | constitutions have some sort of "freedom of expression" on | their books. Just let people live their lifes however they | want to do it, as long as they don't harm anybody. Trans | people or kissing gays on the street don't harm anyone but | the feelings of some poor Conservatives who are secretly in | the closet and envious about the freedom today's youth has. | | Just look how many of the loud pearl clutching | Conservatives turned out to be gay or adulterous. It's | nothing but projection and pure envy. | monodeldiablo wrote: | One potential danger is that some of the more extreme | therapies for gender transition are permanent and work | best when used early. If a person's trans orientation is | the result of a poorly formed sense of identity, as | alleged by the article, there's a stronger chance they | may change their mind later, after irreversible harm has | been wrought. | | In other words, there's a chance that some kids may not | be "really" trans, but rather attention-seeking or | mentally ill. And for those kids, transitioning would, in | fact, be harmful in the long run. | | Do we, as a society, have an obligation to prevent these | children and young adults from harming themselves in this | way? | | I don't have a firm answer because it's a difficult and | emotional subject, but I think it's extreme to pretend | this is not an issue, and equally extreme to encourage | kids for whom it might not be safe to transition. | | Perhaps the informal controls we have in place prior to | gender reassignment surgery are already adequate to | filter out these vulnerable kids. Perhaps there are other | interventions I'm not aware of that are already in use. | But I don't see the harm in discussing and exploring | whether there is a proportion of the trans population | that is, in fact, suffering from social or mental illness | and not actually a more innate form of gender dysphoria. | mschuster91 wrote: | > One potential danger is that some of the more extreme | therapies for gender transition are permanent and work | best when used early. | | There is virtually only one, and that's puberty blockers, | stuff that has been used for _decades_ to treat | precocious puberty. We know these medicines are safe and | we also know that nature will run its course again all by | itself after the medicines are left out. | | Genital surgery, the second option, is extremely rare in | people under 18, and most of it is done on inter-gender | children shortly after birth which is a grave mistake | anyway and some countries have banned that as a result | [1]. | | And in any case: Puberty blockers are reversible - | puberty itself is not. Some things (e.g. the growth of | breast tissue) can be reversed but at a high cost, some | like the vocal cords changing for hormonal males cannot | be reversed at all. It is way, _way_ better for trans | children to not force them through puberty. | | [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-lgbt- | health-idUSK... | hijrathrowaway wrote: | The Hijra cult kidnaps children, forcibly castrates in a | brutal ritual which many don't survive, and then pimps them | out. These are not people who voluntarily "identify as | transgender"; these are people who were violently feminized | to satisfy others' sexual desires. It continues to amaze | that people trot such a terrible thing out as some kind of | positive example. | | https://www.rediff.com/news/1998/oct/20hijra.htm | | https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special- | report/story/1994... | bognition wrote: | Counter hypothesis. For the last several decades society put | massive pressure on kids to conform to heteronormativity. With | these pressures lessening more and more people are feeling | empowered to explore their sexuality. | | Social media is absolutely involved, but we really don't know | what the base rate would be in a society devoid of this kind of | pressure. | throwaway049 wrote: | 'The last several decades' is an odd specification. Are you | saying there was a point in the quite recent past when this | was different? | niom wrote: | Yes. Outright bans and persecution of homosexuality is | relatively new. Effeminate gays were practically | eradicated, Europe had the Nazis do it, the US had the | lavender scare (because gay=communist), the Soviets under | Stalin did much like the Nazis. This is why gays reinvented | themselves into the hypermasculine leather culture starting | in the 50s. It's why older gay men have negative attitudes | towards younger effeminate gays and the reason why the same | parts of the gay community look down on bottoms who aren't | vers. | simiones wrote: | > Outright bans and persecution of homosexuality is | relatively new. | | In most of Europe at least, homosexuality could not be | openly practiced for most of the middle ages. There were | certain exceptions, but it was not generally considered | acceptable, and it was persecuted by the church or other | moral authorities, at the very least as ostracism if not | outright legal punishments - usually seen as a deviant | sexual act, which were also routinely punished. Since the | states were far weaker than modern states, it wasn't as | systematic and universal as the Nazis attempted, but it | was still happening. | | Even in societies we perceive as more open such as | ancient Rome, homosexual acts were often not explicitly | accepted as normal, except for some we today would | (rightly) consider abhorrent - adult men having sex with | teenagers, but never the other way around. | niom wrote: | Ancient acceptance of MSM generally depended on who did | the penetrating, because in a nutshell penetrating was | manly and A-OK while being penetrated (orally / anally / | vaginally) was womanly and hence bad. MSM was an exercise | of social power. | red_admiral wrote: | Upvote. | | For anyone else wanting more context, this is an ok | starting point: | https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/relationships/the- | hist... (but note that the side of the story from inside | the gay community is yet another matter, as niom hints | at) | | Basically, before most people knew that "gay" was a | thing, there was much less pressure on men to be | performatively straight. | api wrote: | This brings to mind one of my rules about conservative | panics: | | If laws against witchcraft are removed and/or witchcraft is | destigmatized and then all the sudden there appears to be an | explosion of witches, the explanation is probably _not_ that | hordes of people are adopting witchcraft. | | I'll leave it to the reader to guess the simplest and most | likely explanation. | naasking wrote: | > the explanation is probably not that hordes of people are | adopting witchcraft. | | I don't know how you can a priori gauge this probability. | If something illegal suddenly becomes legal but is still | somewhat taboo, that obviously attracts experimentation, at | least from rebellious youth. | rowanG077 wrote: | Why not? If something illegal/destigmatized which has some | advantages becomes legal I would absolutely expect there to | be an explosion of people who now start adopting that | thing. | conchrat wrote: | I understand your point but I think witchcraft might not be | the best example. If witchcraft started going viral, I | would absolutely be tempted to give it a shot lol. Would | not surprise me if I was not in the minority there | alisonatwork wrote: | Sure. Adventurous or curious people might give something | a try just for the hell of it. For some it will stick. | For many it won't. | | This is what I find so exhausting about those who try to | drum up some kind of controversy around gender identity. | Assuming it is all just a fad, who cares? Where's the | issue when people decide to switch their gender on a | whim? It's their lives. People do all kinds of things on | a whim. Adults, teens and children too. Especially | children, in fact. Sometimes people regret the things | they did, sometimes they don't. Oh well, it's part of | life. | | I could understand being concerned about a social trend | if it was causing violent behavior that negatively | affected other people's lives, but this isn't that. Who | is it hurting if someone decides to identify as another | gender? Even if they pursue medical intervention, it's | only going to affect them at worst. If anything the small | government/pro-freedom position should be to defend the | right of those people to live how they want. | dahfizz wrote: | > Where's the issue when people decide to switch their | gender on a whim? | | The issue, at least for me, starts when we give children | drugs and surgeries to enable them to switch genders. | | There's nothing wrong with little Timmy wanting to play | with Barbies. He doesn't need hormone injections because | of it. | maxbond wrote: | These same points are made & rebutted in this thread: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33880094 | dmm wrote: | > Even if they pursue medical intervention, it's only | going to affect them at worst. | | People are worried about their kids. People are scared | and the media amplifies the most extreme voices. | Establishing scientifically the effectiveness of medical | interventions is difficult in the best of circumstances | and most psychology is non-reproducible, so it's hard to | know what to believe is best. | wwilim wrote: | Captain Obvious here - the witches were already there, they | were just closeted | moffkalast wrote: | Maybe the real witches were the friends we made along the | way | nmadden wrote: | An explosion of witches is usually down to too much eye of | newt. | adolph wrote: | _The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over | 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, | sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, | organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the | United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts | of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today._ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic | mc32 wrote: | Well, there were actual cases of it, but it was | exaggerated in the media. | | Just as the media makes it out like the next stop by a | cop could end up in an execution if you're not the same | ethnicity as the cop. It's still rather rare, or at least | not happening at the rate the media portrays it. | actionfromafar wrote: | Yeah, but the ethnicity of cops is blue. | denton-scratch wrote: | Why can't blue men sing the whites? | adolph wrote: | Exaggeration of the actual happens for cause and effect | alike. It is often hard to tell which side exaggeration | favors until time passes. | rendall wrote: | > _one of my rules about conservative panic..._ | | _Rule_ implies that it applies to past conservative moral | panics. Is there a past moral panic in which lots of | formerly suppressed identities suddenly expressed | themselves once the moral panic was over? | pjc50 wrote: | A lot of people came out after homosexuality was | decriminalised. | | Freedom of religion allowed a lot of people to express | their religious identity which was formerly suppressed? | amarant wrote: | A bit of an obscure example, but: Capoeira was forbidden | in Brazil for a very long time, mostly because of a moral | panic(for brevity I'll leave the complexities of this | situation out of this comment), then when it was | legalised, and the stigma around it began to disappear, | it quickly became very popular, both in Brazil and | internationally! | cshimmin wrote: | This seems to be to opposite of the example GP was | seeking. Unless you mean to say that a great many people | (both in Brazil and internationally) were already | practicing Capoeira before it was legalized... | bigbillheck wrote: | Left-handed people. | trelane wrote: | Most sinister[1] example | | [1] See notes on etymology etc. at https://www.merriam- | webster.com/dictionary/sinister | api wrote: | I bring this one up every time someone brings up | Chesterton's Fence arguments about stuff like this. | | Why was left handedness considered taboo and evil? Do we | need to figure out a legitimate reason for this before we | can remove the fence? Could there possibly be a | legitimate reason for something that clearly absurd? | tpmoney wrote: | I mean the point of the argument is to try to find out if | there is possibly a legitimate reason, not to assume | there was and not explore removing the fence. Sometimes | no there was no good reason. Sometimes there was but it's | no longer applicable.For example lots of religious | dietary restrictions have reasonable health benefits, | especially in a society before modern refrigeration and | food safety standards. So while there was a legitimate | reason, it's not nearly as applicable anymore. | Discouraging sexual freedom and promiscuity makes a lot | more sense in a society without birth control and where | every additional mouth to feed means someone isn't making | it through the winter. Less so in a modern society. And | sometimes there are absolutely legitimate reasons that | have just been lost to time (most commonly captured in | the idea that most safety rules and regulations are | written in blood) | brookst wrote: | There could be, but I think the presumption should be | that it is normal social evolution to stigmatize | minorities. Red-headed people, Jewish/Semitic people, | people with cleft palates, on and on. | | There seems to be a representation threshold below which | any observable minority is considered undesirable. To the | extent there is a "legitimate reason" it is probably | rooted in evolutionary psychology for avoiding too much | genetic variation in small tribes. I submit those fences | are the opposite of Chesterton's fence and can happily be | ignored in today's society. | rendall wrote: | > _evolutionary psychology for avoiding too much genetic | variation in small tribes_ | | Hmm. I suspect it's just "other tribes". We humans will | make tribes out of literally any distinction, even | athletic team preferences. It's kind of our thing. | naasking wrote: | > Could there possibly be a legitimate reason for | something that clearly absurd? | | Yes: https://www.straightdope.com/21343459/in-the-third- | world-do-... | cshimmin wrote: | No comment about Chesterton's Fence but I have heard (but | never confirmed!) one reason for left-handed stigma is to | do with hygiene. The idea is that before modern hygienic | standards (e.g. sinks with soap in every | bathroom/kitchen), the left hand was reserved for "dirty | work" (we are also considering a time before toilet | paper...). So for example when you reach out to shake | someone's hand, it would be rude to use the left. | denton-scratch wrote: | Your right hand is your sword hand; by offering to shake | hands, you demonstrate that you are not about to run your | counterparty through. | rendall wrote: | This is apocryphal | leephillips wrote: | For me, the Chesterton's Fence principle doesn't insist | that there's a good reason for everything that needs to | be discovered. It says, don't remove the thing until you | understand why it was put there. If you're sure there's | no good reason, go ahead. But find out first. | xd wrote: | As a parent I have no idea what you are trying to say with | this idea of pushing "heteronormativity" - I don't and don't | know any parents that push anything sexual let alone | encouraging kids to explore sexuality .. they are kids and | will be kids until they mature and begin to feel the urge to | explore. This normalising of sexualising of children is | abhorrent. | | Edit: the voting on this comment is crazy.. the number of HN | users that feel sexualisation of children isn't bad is | utterly shameful. | pjc50 wrote: | You've not noticed the pink for girls/blue for boys | distinction? | xd wrote: | Yes and me and my wife laugh about it but there is an | obvious distinctive preference for kids male and female | which will play into sales .. no one is forcing anyone to | buy anything and even back in the 80s growing up I knew | kids that would buy toys you'd associate with the other | gender. | the_af wrote: | A societal pressure doesn't mean it's forced. Most | societal pressures aren't. Instead, they are _strong_ | expectations and in occasions, frowning upon behavior | that deviates from the expectation. This creates | tremendous pressure. Just look at teenager social | dynamics, lots of "unenforced" expectations become | critical for them. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | How is that " massive pressure on kids to conform to | heteronormativity"? | acdha wrote: | That distinction goes back to decisions made by a few | department store managers around WWII. It's nothing but a | cultural norm reinforced everywhere so pervasively most | of us aren't even aware of the pressure. | | https://www.thelist.com/32342/real-reasons-behind-blue- | boys-... | TrispusAttucks wrote: | The colors used to be switched in the 1800s. Pink for | boys and blue for girls. | ryanbrunner wrote: | That just says that gender norms are malleable, not that | they don't exist. Both in the 1800s and today there were | strong expectations in terms of "expected" roles for | different genders. | mc32 wrote: | And before that color was too expensive. But one wouldn't | say that gender roles did not exist. Color is nothing but | an added expression like lipstick or horsehair wigs. | | For some today black is the macho color, for others it's | the artistic color. | TrispusAttucks wrote: | My only point is that because of the color switch we can | see that certain concepts of gender identity preference, | "color", are social constructs that influence society. | Macha wrote: | The assumption that this is inherently sex related is where | the issue starts. This is why the discussion shifted from | talking about sexuality to talking about gender nearly 20 | years ago. Ideas like boys cannot wear skirts or play with | barbies are present from a young age, yet we don't accuse | people opposed to boys with skirts/barbies of thinking | about said boys future sexuality. | Closi wrote: | > The assumption that this is inherently sex related is | where the issue starts. This is why the discussion | shifted from talking about sexuality to talking about | gender nearly 20 years ago. | | Well it was the parent comment that was linking this to | sexuality - Hetronormativity is inherently about | sexuality (i.e. Hetro-Normativity - Hetro -> | Heterosexual: of, pertaining to, or being a heterosexual | person). | acdha wrote: | I think the downvotes are coming because you're insisting | on treating this as a question of sexualization. Gender is | distinct and it's reinforced early on - my son is 5 and | most of his classmates have had things like "pink and | skirts and dolls are for girls", "trucks and blue and guns | are for boys" established as the norm for years. That's not | perfectly reliable - we know more sparkly princesses who | climb trees and drive race cars than I did at his age - but | it's _everywhere_, and the religious conservatives who call | any acknowledgment of LGBTQ people "grooming" would 100% be | locking and loading if even 10% of that reinforcement | energy was going into LGBTQ acceptance. | | Also note that none of this is about having sex: it's about | telling kids which archetypes are available for them as | grownups. If we want to talk about sex, however, look at | the degree to which girl's clothing mimics the styles of | adult women even at the expense of practicality for the | things kids actually do and how many stories even for young | children revolve around the major life goal being an | exclusive relationship with a man. Again, the stuff people | are complaining about now is an order of magnitude less | than what kids are already getting to reinforce traditional | gender norms. | dsiegel2275 wrote: | I think "pushing heteronormativity" doesn't need to be a | conscious, deliberate act and it doesn't need to be | anything related to sex. It can be as simple as a parent | buying their son a toy truck for their birthday while | buying a barbie doll for their daughter: a reinforcement of | socially acceptable gender roles | xd wrote: | I've never known a kid to not ask for toys they prefer.. | you make the simple act of giving a child a gift sound | sinister.. what a world we live in. | bognition wrote: | It's not sinister in the slightest, but people should | understand the larger picture. | | Where do those preferences come from? I've seen first | hand the impact that media, advertising, and social | pressures at school have had on my children's | preferences. | naasking wrote: | > Where do those preferences come from? I've seen first | hand the impact that media, advertising, and social | pressures at school have had on my children's | preferences. | | Sure, but why is that a problem? Our preferences are of | course sculpted by our environment, and that's not a | problem as long the people who fall outside of those | norms aren't punished for it. Assuming those norms aren't | harmful of course, eg. not good to normalize psychopathy. | ryanbrunner wrote: | It's basically inevitable that children are going to | exposed to some normative behaviour, particularly around | gender. I think the important part is that we're not so | quick to denounce and suppress any messaging that exposes | children to the existence of behaviour outside of those | gender norms, that's when it goes from just existing in a | society where gender norms exist to maintaining and | enforcing those gender norms. | refurb wrote: | Your use of "heteronormative" doesn't make a lot of | sense. | | Heteronormativity is "heterosexual is the normal state of | being". | | Playing with trucks if you're a girl has nothing to do | with whether you're hetero or homosexual. | ryanbrunner wrote: | It ties into a larger concept of gender roles (which is | probably more applicable to discussion of trans folks | than sexuality, "heteronormativity" was probably not the | best word choice) | Broken_Hippo wrote: | _I don 't and don't know any parents that push anything | sexual let alone encouraging kids to explore sexuality_ | | I definitely learned before age 13 that being gay/lesbian | was bad (I'm bisexual and in my mid 40s). I definitely | learned that I was expected to grow up and get married and | have kids and if I worked, it was really to help the | spouse. I remember my parents suddenly getting upset that I | had male friends and didn't want me spending time with them | the same way (this was around age 10). No one talked to me | about attraction and if they did, never explained that I | might feel that way about women as well as men. This is | what heteronormativity is. This is pushing sexual | preferences on youth. | | Exploring sexuality isn't about actual sex acts, but more | about learning who you are and who you are attracted to. | You know, the sorts of folks you'd like to date and | eventually, the sorts of folks you want to spend your life | with. This sort of thing is most definitely encouraged, but | sometimes the only acceptable option presented is the | hetronormativity - you know, "biblical" monogamous | relationships that produce children, and if you are female | and don't want children, you are broken. | | This isn't sexualisation of children. | maxbond wrote: | Gender identity and sexual orientation are different | concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as | exploring sexuality. Children are constantly exploring | identity, as I'm sure you have observed. For instance, I am | a straight man, but when I was a child I sometimes stole my | mother's lipstick and tried to put it on, or I would play | with Barbie dolls. I saw that other people incorporated | these activities in their identities, and I wanted to try | it. This was no more sexual than when I play acted as a | soldier or decided I liked to wear cargo pants; I was | experimenting with who I was or could become, because that | is what children do. | | This is a convenient segue to heteronormativity. | Heteronormativity is the societal pressure to conform to | the traditional gender roles of men and women who pursue | heterosexual relationships. My parents didn't like me | playing with Barbie dolls; they explicitly told me that it | wasn't something boys did. This transmits a set of | expectations about how I should behave, based on my gender. | Notice that their telling me it was wrong to play with | dolls was no more sexual than if they had allowed me to | play with the dolls. | zozbot234 wrote: | maxbond wrote: | This is a straw man. | | 1. This is not a good faith representation of what trans | people are arguing for; no one is saying that playing | with dolls makes you trans. | | 2. Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. | Surgeries are not performed for people under the age of | 18. Trans healthcare for kids largely involves letting | them choose what clothes they wear, pronouns they use, | perhaps changing their name. The most that might happen | is that they take puberty blockers, a reversible and safe | treatment. | | 3. I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, | were it the reality, but trans people are not an | abomination, and directing dehumanizing language towards | a group of people who are frequently targeted for | violence is profoundly not okay. It's been less than 3 | weeks since a terrorist entered an LGBTQ nightclub in | Colorado Springs and opened fire, and this has happened | more times than anyone can count; don't contribute to | this. And your straw man is just that. | zozbot234 wrote: | > no one is saying | | That's a rather extreme claim, don't you think? There's | been a significant shift in recent years from "gender | fluid" behavior being considered a matter of _expression_ | , to it being regarded as an almost mandatory matter of | identity - either as a sign of identifying with the | opposite gender, or as being "non binary". | | > Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. | | The heavy medicalization of "trans healthcare" creates a | rigid path from "affirmation" of the supposedly expressed | gender, to puberty blockers/hormones, to surgical | reassignment. There are significant social drawbacks for | those who choose to stray, since 'community' support is | conditional on picking the "right" choices at any given | step. | | > I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, | were it the reality, but trans people are not an | abomination | | The latter is not something I ever said, of course. You | might be pattern-matching my comment with things that are | just not there. I agree that most trans people just want | to live their lives and not be at risk for violence, but | this much is obvious. In general, the most extreme | "activism" on either side gets a lot of visibility while | being unrepresentative of what real people think. | maxbond wrote: | > There's been a significant shift in recent years from | "gender fluid" behavior being considered a matter of | expression, to it being regarded as an almost mandatory | | Who exactly is arguing that it is _mandatory_ to be | gender fluid? I 've never heard such a thing. | | What I do hear trans people arguing for is that they have | a right to exist, that they are under threat of violence, | and that the require awareness of their condition and | protection under the law as a matter of survival. | | > The heavy medicalization of "trans healthcare" creates | a rigid path from "affirmation" of the supposedly | expressed gender, to puberty blockers/hormones, to | surgical reassignment. There are significant social | drawbacks for those who choose to stray, since | 'community' support is conditional on picking the "right" | choices at any given step. | | You're just kinda putting quotes on things to make them | sound scary. Do you object to surgery, or surgery being | performed on children? If teenagers go on puberty | blockers, and they decide they don't want to pursue | surgery when they become adults - no worries, no surgery | was performed. If they become adults, having considered | the decision for a long time at this point - by what you | were saying before now, that would seem to be okay; you | were saying it was an unacceptable to impose a surgery on | children, are you now saying that this isn't a choice | you're ever okay with? I'm starting to get the feeling | maybe you just feel trans people are unacceptable in | general and that, whatever they did, you would disapprove | of it. | | I'm not deeply involved with the LGBTQ community, but I'm | confident none of the people I know would bully someone | who decided against transitioning. And none of the LGBTQ | communities I've ever intersected with have been stingy | or withholding of their support; they're happy to discuss | my feelings about gender with me, for example, though I'm | a straight man with a "by the book" gender presentation | (and I have my frustrations with my gender and the | expectations that come with it all the same, which I'm | sure many men can relate to). | | I'm sure there are toxic personalities within these | communities, but it is certainly not the norm or | generally tolerated, as bullying exists in virtually all | communities but generally is not tolerated. | zozbot234 wrote: | If I can responsibly say to "object" to anything it's | people being _rushed_ on a path to gender transition, | given the heavy costs that this involves in practice and | the fact that some steps are irreversible (including male | hormones for those AFAB - though admittedly this might | also make it more justifiably salient for someone AMAB to | seek to delay their puberty). | | This applies to kids the most (they of course aren't at | risk for surgery, but the usual notion of a fixed "gender | identity" is also least sensibly applied to them), but | people in young adulthood should also be a bit concerned. | Research seems to show that, by and large, those who | transition in middle-age are the happiest post- | transition. I'm not sure how that squares with your | feeling that someone with my views might just find "trans | people unacceptable in general"; my concerns are derived | from real-world practicality. | maxbond wrote: | There's no rush, but they're also under no obligation to | respect _your_ timetable. People make up their own minds | about these things, there isn 't a conspiracy to trans | the kids as fast as possible, as you make it sound. | zozbot234 wrote: | I'm not setting a fixed timetable, but the medical | establishment sure has their own opinions as to how fast | people should transition. The "conspiracy" is out in the | open - and these opinions aren't always comprehensively | informed by research about good outcomes. | vinegarden wrote: | > Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. | Surgeries are not performed for people under the age of | 18. | | Unfortunately that is not true. | | There are surgeons who perform 'gender affirming' double | mastectomies on girls as young as 13. This is documented | in the medical literature. | | The former CEO of Mermaids, a UK-based charity for | children who identify as transgender, had her child | castrated and given a penile inversion at the age of 16, | by a surgeon who specializes in constructing | 'neovaginas'. | blueflow wrote: | > My parents didn't like me playing with Barbie dolls; | they explicitly told me that it wasn't something boys | did. | | Same with me, but let me ask you a question. Were you the | sort of kid that actually listens to their parents? | Because i didn't, and most of my peers didn't, either. | maxbond wrote: | No, I was stubborn like mule. I wore my parents down | until they caved. That doesn't mean it didn't have an | impact though, I certainly picked up what they were | putting down. | | Now, the reaction of my friends when they came over and | looked at me funny when I tried to show them my awesome | Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders doll (it had | wings and could fly if you pulled a ripcord! That's | objectively cool. Also, dangerous, especially to taller | adults in the area.), _that_ was painful. | ryanbrunner wrote: | If it's your parents and your peers and virtually all | popular media, it's massively naive to think that isn't | going to have a normalizing effect on people. | blueflow wrote: | For people with your attitude, yes. | ryanbrunner wrote: | To be clear, I'm making a descriptive and not a | prescriptive statement. I'm not saying that people | _should_ conform to societal norms, just that right now | they do (and that doesn 't seem like a trivial thing to | change). | blueflow wrote: | I'm sorry, it should have been: | | For people with that attitude, yes. | rendall wrote: | > _Gender identity and sexual orientation are different | concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as | exploring sexuality._ | | While true, to be fair GP was responding to this: | | >>> " _For the last several decades society put massive | pressure on kids to conform to_ *heteronormativity*. | _With these pressures lessening more and more people are | feeling empowered to explore their_ *sexuality*. " | [emphasis mine] | | To muddy the distinction further, there is a small | minority of men whose sexual kink is to be perceived as | women. These seem to be the people who are making the | most trouble for trans women who just want to quietly go | about living as women without fuss. | maxbond wrote: | Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people can | get turned on by literally anything. | https://xkcd.com/468/ This doesn't really muddy the | waters; the concepts remain distinct, and people making | it a kink to conflate them is kinda like how a joke isn't | true but is only funny if you know the truth it refers | to. | | Heteronormativity conflates gender and sexuality; I'd | guess (while acknowledging I don't know the content of | anyone else's mind) that is what is responsible for their | confusion, because they have been raised in a | heteronormative society, the distinction doesn't exist in | _their_ mind. | rendall wrote: | > _Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people | can get turned on by literally anything._ | | While a true statement it's also a non-sequitur. | Anglosphere society is roiled with social turmoil about | trans-gender identity. One faction would like society to | recognize that some people's gender does not fit their | sex, and to normalize accommodating these people's gender | expression without intrusive and oppressive questioning. | Another faction, perhaps motivated by genuine concern, or | perhaps by simple hatred of difference and change, throw | a spanner into the works by asking hard questions about | bathrooms and prisons and athletics and such. If the only | people interested in entering women's bathrooms and | prisons were genuinely only women who happened to be born | in a male body, then everything would be clear and | unmuddied. However, the existence of some fraction of men | who would happily identify as women in order to gain | easier sexual access to women does complicate the simple | distinction. Is a trans woman lesbian with a penis really | trans, or a predatory man with a kink? Ignoring or | dismissing the muddy implications of the question will | not make the second faction go away. | maxbond wrote: | This narrative of predatory trans people does not bare | out, trans people are not assaulting people in bathrooms, | and what you're describing is really using the way our | society is built to be hostile to people who do not fit | into gender norms as a way to justify further hostility. | It's saying, oh look, we built bathrooms and prisons in a | way that reinforces these norms, well, I guess we're | stuck with them. | rendall wrote: | > _This narrative of predatory trans people does not bare | out..._ | | I didn't say predatory trans people. I said predatory | men. Have you met men? Some men will put on a dress, call | themselves trans, and fondle themselves in a women's | locker room. | | Again, pretending this is about trans people is | disingenuous. This is about (some) men. | | And, again, whether you genuinely dismiss the concern | because you genuinely disbelieve that any man ever would | take advantage of the situation, the faction that bring | it up do genuinely believe that some men will take | advantage of it. This faction will not go away. So, | probably best to at least acknowledge their concerns so | that trans people can get on with the business of doing | their business. | maxbond wrote: | I have heard some men say things about women when they | weren't around that I find appalling; I've had to work on | eliminating misogyny from my own thinking, and it is a | work in progress; I'm well aware of men and the toxicity | that often goes along with them. | | The narrative you have presented is frequently | weaponized, specifically by the adherents to the ideology | of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism, to argue that | trans women are "men in dresses" who's real goal is to | infiltrate women's spaces in order to assault them (or, | in the example you gave, violate their privacy and | dignity). In practice this a widespread phenomenon. TERF | activists use this narrative to attempt to enact | legislation barring trans people from the bathroom of | their gender - forcing trans women into _men 's | bathrooms_, and I'm sure that, as someone concerned about | problematic men and bathrooms, that won't sound like a | good prospect to you. I take you at your word this was | context you weren't aware of; now that I've brought it to | your attention, I hope you'll consider it and see if it | alters your thinking. | rendall wrote: | > _The narrative you have presented is frequently | weaponized..._ | | Indeed. This is both true, and a non-sequitur. Bad-faith | arguers exist. Let us acknowledge the fact that some | people will reprehensibly refer to every trans woman as a | "man in a dress". Let's assume the best about each other. | | If you're trying to say that everyone is a TERF who | points out that some men (again, not trans women) will | take advantage, or that only bad people point this out, | then you're not addressing the concern, but dismissing | it. Addressing and empathizing with the actual concern | will get trans people into their preferred bathrooms and | keep bad men out. | | Anyway, you and I won't litigate this here, so if you | have more to add, know that I'll read whatever you have | to say but might not reply. Be well. | maxbond wrote: | > [Y]ou're not addressing the concern, but dismissing it. | | You're right, I should have done better there. To me, | until this comment where you described this as | "reprehensible", it sounded like you were employing "just | asking questions" rhetoric, because you were asking all | the same questions as TERFs, and to me it appeared you | were only holding back the transphobic conclusions. | However, that I should have done a better job assuming | good faith on your part, and I apologize. | | > This is both true, and a non-sequitur. | | It isn't a non-sequitur though, I'm explaining to you | what my issue is. If you were aware of the context around | this narrative the whole time, you could addressed it | instead of implying I was being disingenuous; the best- | faith interpretation I could see was that you didn't | understand my objection, so I added more detail. I would | like to engage with you presuming the best, but can you | see how saying I'm being disingenuous and that my points | are non-sequitur (when it seems like you do understand | what TERFs are, what bathroom bills are, and what it was | I was getting at and how it relates to our discussion) | made that difficult for me? | | > Addressing and empathizing with the actual concern will | get trans people into their preferred bathrooms and keep | bad men out. | | Happy to listen to what you may propose, but I don't have | any thoughts. I certainly empathize with women's feeling | of unsafety and the desire to create spaces without men, | to the extent I can as a man. But I understand if you are | done with this conversation, I myself need to log off for | a few hours to attend to things, and of course you don't | owe me any of your time. | | All the best to you, as well. | michaelmrose wrote: | This is a meaningless concern. Any man who would put on a | dress to come assault you in the bathroom could skip the | dress part and just come in the bathroom and assault you. | It's like saying some rapists have red hair. It's true | but its not meaningful because no fruitful thing can be | derived from the fact nor strategy obtained. | | There are millions of trans people in the world but | presumably few rapists in dresses. The spurious focus on | pointless concerns suggests we ought to harm the dignity | of millions for a fictional advantage. | [deleted] | throwaway049 wrote: | Sometimes they are doing exactly that | | https://www.theguardian.com/uk- | news/2018/oct/11/transgender-... | mc32 wrote: | My take is kids play with whatever is around. | | If your dad has acetylene torches around and your mom has | axes around the house you're going to play with them. | | It does not mean or imply or predict that you want to | burn the house down or you want to become a butcher or | axe murderer. You're not exploring being a pyromaniac or | a murderer. You're just playing, that's it. | | Same with high heels, smoking pipes, hunting rifles or | lipstick. Kids don't know their meaning yet (context of | usage). | refurb wrote: | _For instance, I am a straight man, but when I was a | child I sometimes stole my mother 's lipstick and tried | to put it on, or I would play with Barbie dolls._ | | I wouldn't see trying on lipstick or playing with Barbie | dolls as "exploring a gender identity" as neither of | those are exclusive to one gender, even in a | heteronormative world. | maxbond wrote: | I'm not saying you are wrong, but in the culture of my | household, my school, and the people I had contact with | as a child, this was seen as strange and something to be | discouraged, because these things were seen as gendered. | | I think these things were much more gendered at the time, | as well. It is crazy for me to look back and remember how | there was a time when I hadn't made up my mind about | whether gay marriage was okay or not. Things have changed | a lot over the past 20 years or so. | rendall wrote: | I dunno. My social set would never discourage a child | from this at all. However, of those of us who had | children, only one (out of, like 50+ children in our | extended set) was gender non-conforming boy at 3 and | liked to wear girl's clothes and play with dolls. | [deleted] | zztop44 wrote: | I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. | Barbies and lipstick are not exclusive to one gender, but | they are _associated_ with one gender. I don't think it's | controversial to say that people in general will respond | differently to a little boy who likes playing with | lipstick and barbie dolls compared to a little girl. | simiones wrote: | Have you never asked or seen others ask your boy(s) what | girl(s) they prefer at school, or vice versa? | | Have you never seen anyone upset if their boys are playing | with dolls or their girls are playing with toy swords? | | How do you think most parents would react if someone bought | a pink dress as a present for for their 6 month old boy, or | blue pants for their 6 month old girl? | | How would most parents react even today to a children's | cartoon featuring two little boys holding hands and kissing | on the cheek, or a story about prince charming saving and | marrying another prince charming? | | Pretending heteronormativity is just some sex related thing | that no one actually talks about is absurd. | ryanbrunner wrote: | How many Disney movies has your child watched? | Heteronormativity is 100% prevalent in nearly all media. | | You don't even have to single out Disney, 99% of popular | media will present heterosexual relationships as the norm, | and children's media that shows something as benign as a | same sex couple holding hands or hugging is viewed as | mildly transgressive or at least newsworthy. | | Gender non-comforming behaviour is 100% absent outside of | maybe a "tomboy" female character (and even that seems less | present than it used to be). | iwillbenice wrote: | em-bee wrote: | it's not the parents, it's everyone around us. i can buy | gender neutral toys, clothing and encourage the children to | explore everything and not just gender conform activities | as much as i want. | | but when almost every other friend, relative, other | kindergarten/school parents teachers push their own ideas | of what is appropriate for girls or boys, my influence ends | up being rather small. | | i can't push my own ideas here. i can only encourage and | protect the diverse interests that my kids develop on their | own. | bognition wrote: | I get it that this stuff is confusing and can be hard to | make sense of at first, but gender identity and sexuality | are completely different things. | | Also I'm not accusing anyone of pushing this on their kids, | rather, our society does it in massive doses. Watch most | children's TV shows or movies and heteronormativity is | abundant. | | For a pretty clean example of this check out the movie Up | by Pixar. The first 10 minutes of the movie are devoted to | Carl & Ellie's relationship and the loss of that | relationship serves as a major driver for the movie. | | Also there's nothing wrong with showing children this kind | of content. It helps them make sense of the world. However, | there is an issue with representation. When it's all they | see then it constrains their minds as to what is possible. | dahfizz wrote: | > I get it that this stuff is confusing and can be hard | to make sense of at first, but gender identity and | sexuality are completely different things. | | Yeah, but the comment OP is responding to was explicitly | about letting kids " _explore their sexuality_ ". | maxbond wrote: | > With these pressures lessening more and more _people_ | are feeling empowered to explore their sexuality. | | Emphasis mine. The comment is not, in fact, about letting | _children_ explore their sexuality, but _people_. (When | you consider the parent of that comment, that still does | not add context implying that we 're talking about kids.) | | The only part of the comment which discusses children is | this: | | > For the last several decades society put massive | pressure on kids to conform to heteronormativity. | | To read this as sexualizing children is misunderstanding | the term heteronormativity, but regardless, this is the | behavior that is being criticized, not championed. | dahfizz wrote: | You chopped the one statement into different "parts". | Here is the comment in question: | | > For the last several decades society put massive | pressure on kids to conform to heteronormativity. With | these pressures lessening more and more people are | feeling empowered to explore their sexuality. | | In a maximally generous interpretation, you could say | that the "kids" in the first half and the "people" in the | second half of the statement are completely different | subjects. I think that is a bit of a stretch, though. | | "For years I have been pruning the tomato plants in my | garden. Now, I just let the _plants_ grow". | | Anyone reading that would assume "plants" refers to the | aforementioned tomato plants, not cucumbers. | maxbond wrote: | They are different subjects, or if you prefer, the same | subject at different times in their life. They're | asserting that societal pressure experienced during | childhood has an effect on how sexuality is expressed | during adulthood. I chopped it into different parts in | order to dissect and analyze it; I ultimately included | the entire comment (except a sentence neither of us found | relevant and you yourself didn't include), and I was not | hiding anything; the entire comment was always available | to be inspected, the structure and content of the comment | was not in dispute, only it's interpretation. | | Consider that, in the example sentence you came up with, | you are referring to the same subject, _at different | times_. | notadev wrote: | Terms like "heteronormativity" and "cisgender" are just | ways they attempt to marginalize normal people and their | normal sexual development. These people who use these terms | are objectively and statistically outliers in society. And | since they can't convince anyone to accept their | abnormality, they instead try to change language to remove | the idea of there being a standard/normal baseline. | | They think that because you're not trying to make them | "explore their gender identity" while teaching them ABCs | that you are pushing something. It's absolute projection. I | support all people to live their lives how they see fit, | but I refuse to use their newspeak or pretend like there is | not a natural normal. | maxbond wrote: | Interestingly, newspeak was about removing words from | language so that certain ideas couldn't be expressed. It | was explicitly not about adding words to the language, | and certainly not about adding words to convey additional | nuance and precision where there was previously none. | | It seems to me like you're actually arguing to try and | remove words that people have introduced to the language, | and to erase the nuances they convey, because you don't | find it to be "normal" or "natural". What is normal or | natural is entirely subjective, and varies across | cultures and across time, and in any case we don't | generally yoke ourselves to what is natural (we are, | after all, speaking through an artificial medium because | we find it advantageous, and though we weren't born with | wings we often find it advantageous to fly.) | | It might be interesting to give 1984 another read. | notadev wrote: | I know it's from 1984, but it's considered a word itself | as far as I can tell. I was using it as "Deliberately | ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and | manipulate the public." Heterosexuality is the norm, it | is the default. Heteronormativity is some nonsense phrase | that is used in place of "normal" to try and draw a false | equivalency between normal and abnormal. It is intended | to muddy the waters and mislead like most contemporary | "woke" language. | maxbond wrote: | There's nothing ambiguous or misleading, what you're | actually objecting to is the _concrete_ and _specific_ | use of language to describe ideas you don 't like and | which you don't want to see proliferate. You aren't | objecting to people being mislead, you're objecting to | people understanding. Do give 1984 a read, I think you'll | find the irony that you are appropriating a term used in | that book in order to invert it's meaning and to take the | very actions that the book is criticizing quite amusing, | and then we can be in on the joke together. | | Heterosexuality doesn't have to be the default, and | indeed, that era is ending. The evidence for it is right | here; you feel compelled to go to bat for the notion, not | something you'd need to do if it really were mystically | natural and inextricably true. Heterosexuality is | promulgated as a default because it is key to a power | structure called the patriarchy. The patriarchy works by | assigning certain gender roles to men and women; these | roles allow men to subjugate women, and also allow men to | be subjugated by other men. The patriarchy's strength | lies in the rigidity of those gender roles, and as the | gender roles are loosened the patriarchy gets weaker. | Lots of power within our society is expressed through | patriarchy, for instance, the idea that men express their | agency through violence instead of through emotion and | that they should readily throw their lives away in | service of a cause is useful for recruiting men as | soldiers and police, and soldiers and police are useful | in upholding many other power structures (like state | power or the power of the rich). So over the last few | millenia, many different power structures have come to | rely on the existence of patriarchy, and it's been woven | into our mythology and the fabric of our society. The | fluidity of gender roles is a direct challenge to | patriarchy, and people with nonconforming identities have | been forced into the closet through violence and social | reprisal. | | This was a natural series of events in the sense that all | of history took place in the context of the natural | world, sure. But cancer is natural, we don't have to | accept it. In the same way, I reject your | heteronormativity. I think it sucks. I don't think people | are "naturally" any particular gender, it's a role we | learn to play as we're socialized. That doesn't make it | bad, there's nothing wrong with being a man or a woman, | there's nothing wrong with embracing very traditional | views of what that means if that's what makes you happy. | I live my life as a pretty traditional man. But that | isn't all there is to life, and that's not all it should | mean to be human. | zozbot234 wrote: | Heterosexuality being prevalent within the population | (note that I purposefully avoid idioms like "X is the | norm" as ambiguous, especially in this context) is merely | the flip side of LGBTQIA+ folks being a minority. Now, a | minority can have a robust subculture - and one can | certainly make that claim about LGBTQ identity today - | but that doesn't somehow make it into not-a-minority. | | Social and cultural norms are beside the point here; in | fact, the most traditional societies are those that tend | to feature the _most_ salient spaces for same-sex quasi- | romantic affection and emotionality, with such things as | _compadrazgo_ and sworn brotherhood /sisterhood. So it's | just not clear how "heteronormativity" is supposed to be | an internally coherent concept. | maxbond wrote: | You're conflating heterosexuality and heteronormativity. | You could have a society where heterosexuality is | prevalent, without having heteronormativity. | Heteronormativity encompasses both heterosexuality and a | specific set of gender roles for men and women; so it is | not enough for heterosexuality to be prevalent. You need | to conflate these genders with heterosexuality, prescribe | them, and marginalize sexual and gender identities that | do not conform to this. | | Heteronormativity isn't an epistemology, there's no | burden for it to be consistent. It's a set of beliefs and | attitudes, and a label that allows you to critique them. | Why would we expect that to be any more consistent than | the human behavior it describes (which is to say, only | somewhat)? Will this label break down and stop making | sense as society changes? Yes, I imagine it will. Will it | become unwieldy and eventually fail altogether if we | employ it in an analysis spanning cultures with very | different conceptions of gender? Absolutely. But you | might as well ask whether the concept of pop music is | consistent and relate it to the works of Beethoven, if | you think that's useful in your analysis than go for it, | but if it doesn't work in that circumstance it isn't a | condemnation of the idea. The only burden on | heteronormativity is to be useful in describing real | world behavior, which it clearly is. | | If you want to know whether heteronormativity is a real | phenomenon, you need look no further than the comment I | criticized. It doesn't say, heterosexuality is prevalent; | it says, heterosexuality is _total_ , that it is | "natural" and "normal", that it is inseparable from | gender, and that people living as (or even describing) | other gender and sexual identities are doing it to trick | you. | zozbot234 wrote: | > you need look no further than the comment I criticized. | It doesn't say, heterosexuality is prevalent; it says, | heterosexuality is total | | That comment actually said "heterosexuality is normal", | which is of course ambiguous - it could mean either of | "prevalent" or "not merely prevalent but standard, with | deviations from it being seen as undesirable". | Heteronormativity might be a description of the latter | claim, but to deny that heterosexuality is especially | common would be mere wishful thinking. | | The claim that gender and sexual orientation are linked | would've been quite recognizable to ancient cultures | including classical Greece and Rome, where heterosexual | behavior was not normative and other sexual arrangements | were often celebrated (though their dark, exploitive | side, linked to the ubiquity of rape culture as | purposeful male domination, was not unrecognized either; | and this later fed into Christian condemnation of such | practices). So it makes little sense to view that as | "heteronormative" either. | maxbond wrote: | It isn't ambiguous if you consider the entire comment, | where they go on to clarify what they mean by invoking a | naturalism fallacy and contrasting it with other | identities (which they clearly describe in pejorative | terms as "abnormal" and "misleading" with an overall tone | of derision). Of course I acknowledge that most people | are heterosexual, that's such misrepresentation of what | I'm saying (including that I've _directly acknowledged | this point_ already) I can 't suspend my disbelief it | isn't willful. I've provided definitions for all of this, | you're choosing not to engage with them. | | I make no claims about heteronormativity in Greece or | Rome (I do say that the patriarchy is several millennia | old, so this could be read as an implicit claim that | patriarchy existed in Greece and Rome [and I wouldn't | take issue with that claim], but I don't think you'd find | this disagreeable, given the "rape culture as purposeful | male domination" you reference, and that the definition | of patiarchy I provided specifically calls out the | domination of men), and gender and sexual identities | certainly are linked in the sense that certain | combinations are more common than others - they just | aren't _synonyms_. As I noted, there is no burden for | this concept to translate to other cultures and time | periods in order for us to accept it as a useful model | for the purposes of our discussion; I 've not seen a | counterargument from you on this, so I don't see why I | would accept these observations of Greece and Rome as | being deleterious to my point, anyway. | zozbot234 wrote: | But what I'm taking issue with is merely your claim of | heteronormativity as a "set of beliefs and attitudes" | that one can ascertain in anything like a consistent way. | If _compadrazgo_ and sworn brotherhood are too exotic for | you, consider contemporary "bro" subculture; is it | heteronormative? Some people might certainly claim as | much, calling it especially misogynistic. Yet it also | reportedly involves a lot of emotional affection and | bonding among males. By and large, it just doesn't square | with what you've been supposing in your earlier comments. | maxbond wrote: | If you'd like to explain why we should demand that a | label describing a set of human behaviors be entirely | consistent in order to be considered, when the human | behaviors we're describing are frequently inconsistent | and contradictory (but still real and worth discussing), | then I'm happy to respond. I don't see anything wrong | with your examples, I'm not familiar with _compadrazgo_ | or sworn brotherhood but I 'd be willing to learn more | (and until such a time as I read up on them am willing to | take what you say about them on face value), I think bro | culture is a super interesting thread to tug on and an | incisive choice on your part, but if you repeat your | argument without engaging with mine, I don't see what you | expect me to do other than repeat myself (which I | respectfully decline to do). | dragonwriter wrote: | > Heteronormativity encompasses both heterosexuality and | a specific set of gender roles for men and women | | Heteronormativity is just heterosexuality as a normative | element of social structures (not merely prevalent in | society, but where deviation from it is viewed as | transgressive.) In modern societies, it is typically tied | to patriarchy (a particular normatige structure of gender | roles, in which social power is attached to male roles), | cisnormativity, and, in particular societies, it may be | attached to things like White supremacy that are | superficially farther from sex/gender dynamics, but these | are nevertheless distinct if linked elements of the | cultures they appear in. | maxbond wrote: | Hmm, pardon, where is it we differ? The word "just" makes | me think this is a correction, but I agree with all of | that, and I feel like if you that if you take all of that | to be true, you get the sentence of mine you've quoted. | dragonwriter wrote: | I don't see it as a strong disagreement, but there is a | slight but sometimes important difference between | heteronormativity _including_ , e.g., cisnormativity and | patriarchy, versus heteronormativity being distinct from | them but frequently co-occurring with them. | | But we certainly agree that heteronormativity is | different than society having a majority heterosexual | orientation. | maxbond wrote: | For sure, I can see how I elided some concepts there; I | think my definition was appropriate to the context of | this conversation, but I appreciate you keeping me | honest. | zozbot234 wrote: | > where deviation from it is viewed as transgressive | | Note that by this standard, much of LGBTQ+ culture might | well be described as heteronormative, since glorifying | social transgression _as such_ (not merely inasmuch as it | might inevitably follow from having a non-majority gender | or sexual orientation) has long been a staple of that | particular identity. | [deleted] | kayodelycaon wrote: | It's pretty simple. I grew up with the social expectation I | would be some special attraction to girls beyond | friendship. There were some people shamefully attracted to | boys. | | I'm neither of these. I've never experienced sexual | attraction to anyone. Every relationship I have is happily | platonic. I have several good, close friends, so I capable | of deep emotional bonds to people of any gender. | | This would have been fine if I didn't have a high sex | drive. But I do. You're not supposed to have a high sex | drive while being completely uninterested. | | I've wondered most of my life why I was broken. It was | extremely isolating to be constantly surrounded by messages | telling me there is something wrong with me. | | Then I found out what asexuality is. That's what I am. | Romantic attraction can be completely devoid of sexual | attraction. Someone's sex drive can be independent of a | person's sexuality. | | It hasn't been any less isolating, but at least I know | there is nothing wrong with me as a person. | efkiel wrote: | heteronormativity include sexual behavior, but mostly | contains other behavior. Like the way you dress, talk or | present yourself, the activities or kind of play you do or | like. Parent comment is mostly talking about non-sexual | heteronormativity, which is often presented as the norm. An | obvious example would be an adult insisting that pink is | for girl and blue for boys, and shaming a kid for liking | what's not the (hetero-)norm. | jasonlotito wrote: | Heteronormativity isn't sexualizing anything. The only | person talking about sexualizing children is you. | | The voting on your comment is crazy because your ignorance | on the topic is showing and it's dangerous and insulting. | | Educate yourself. | dahfizz wrote: | Read bognition's comment. They literally say that kids | are "empowered to explore their sexuality". | maxbond wrote: | This is incorrect, as you and I discuss here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33879888 | jasonlotito wrote: | This comment is a lie. | | They literally do not say "kids are empowered to explore | their sexuality." | | Kids grow up into adults. | | xd is the one that brought up sexualizing children. No | reasonable person here would assume anyone is talking | about sexualizing children unless they explicitly said as | much. | | Somehow you and xd are thinking "people are feeling | empowered to explore their sexuality" explicitly means | "kids" in this context. Why you are thinking that, I | don't know. | xd wrote: | "For the last several decades society put massive | pressure on kids to conform to heteronormativity. With | these pressures lessening more and more people are | feeling empowered to explore their sexuality." | | He talks about society putting pressure on kids to be | straight and then talks about people and sexuality in the | same damn paragraph; are you being purposefully obtuse? | quietbritishjim wrote: | I have no skin in the overall debate but it's clear that a | prince and princess running off together in a Disney film | is heteronormative, while most people wouldn't consider it | to be abhorrently sexualising for children to watch those | films. | refurb wrote: | I mean, heterosexuality is the predominant form of | sexuality in humans? | | Humans come in all forms. Most humans have two legs, but | not all. Some are born missing a leg and some lose them | from injuries. If we only show two legged characters in | Disney films does that mean it's some sinister message of | "bipedalnormativity"? | quietbritishjim wrote: | I never said it was sinister. I just made a statement of | fact that it shows a heterosexual relationship, but | doesn't significantly sexualise children. If anything, my | comment could be construed as defending that sort of film | rather than attacking it. | rendall wrote: | > _For the last several decades society put massive pressure | on kids to conform to heteronormativity_ | | This is patently untrue. Since the 60s, western society has | been increasingly accomodating to the non-gender-conforming. | Especially with the rise of the internet, people who once | felt isolated with whatever made them different were able to | find others like themselves. | brookst wrote: | I wouldn't say it's untrue, just incomplete. Kids who | present as the "wrong" gender are still much more likely to | be bullied by kids and emotionally abused by parents. | | But that isn't a new thing in the past few decades, and | indeed it does seem to be getting better. | largepeepee wrote: | >For the last several decades society put massive pressure on | kids to conform to heteronormativity. | | Only decades? You mean for all of history, where there are | distinct roles mostly because of anatomy. | | In fact, it was only in recent decades with birth control | that was there even an option for most women to take a | different role for extended periods. | | I'll say the opposite is true, the last several decades did a | great job and removed the notion of heterogenomativity. We | are just going so far past that into the illogical now. | TomSwirly wrote: | > it was only in recent decades with birth control that was | there even an option for most women to take a different | role for extended periods. | | Reliable birth control methods are sixty years old. And of | course there have always been non-reproductive sex acts | since the birth of time. | red_admiral wrote: | I think it's a bit more complicated than that. | | As far as "all of history" goes, ancient Greece for example | tolerated a particular kind of "homosexuality", but not one | we should try and emulate - it matched neither of two | conditions in "consenting adults", for example. | | While it's true that few if any societies other than | "modern Western" would score as high as ours on Stonewall's | diversity index, there were definitely ups and downs if you | plotted things over time. | | Go back several generations in the USA or Western Europe | and it's absolutely normal for straight men to have close | and emotional friendships for life; when photography was | first invented, it was a thing that male BFFs had photos of | themselves taken that I bet anyone today, if shown without | context, would immediately pattern-match to "gay couple". | I'm going to quote the "art of manliness" site, of all | places, on this: | https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/relationships/bosom- | bu... (warning: images may be considered NSFW at your place | of work, despite being absolutely non-pornographic as far | as I can tell) | | Some of these men were undoubtedly gay in the sense we | understand the term, but the idea of having a close | emotional bond with another man was certainly open to | straight men too (and to some extent, also expected). | | But then, to quote "The History of Male Friendships" linked | on that page, | | > First, men were free to have affectionate man | relationships with each other without fear of being called | a "queer" because the concept of homosexuality as we know | it today didn't exist then. America didn't have the strict | straight/gay dichotomy that currently exists. Affectionate | feelings weren't strictly labeled as sexual or platonic. | There wasn't even a name for homosexual sex; instead, it | was referred to as "the crime that cannot be spoken." It | wasn't until the turn of the 19th century that | psychologists started analyzing homosexuality. When that | happened, men in America started to become much more self- | conscious about their relationships with their buds and | traded the close embraces for a stiff pat on the back. | | > [...] | | > The man friendship underwent some serious transformations | during the 20th century. Men went from lavishing endearing | words on each other and holding hands to avoiding too much | emotional bonding or any sort of physical affections | whatsoever. Fear of being called gay drove much of the | transformation. Ministers and politicians decried | homosexuality as being incompatible with true manhood. And | like most deviant behavior in the 1950s, homosexuality was | associated with Communism. | | So, once "gay" appeared on people's radar, | heteronormativity shot through the roof and men were | expected to be performatively straight, to prove themselves | that they were not "tainted" by this new "affliction". | That's where a lot of this pressure came from, it was | definitely not constant throughout all of even relatively | modern history. | dahfizz wrote: | You make a case that gender norms have changed over time, | not that there were no gender norms in the past. | red_admiral wrote: | Indeed. But my argument is specifically that the norms | around acceptable behaviour for a straight male have | significantly narrowed from roughly the end of the 19th | century to the 1960s. | ryanbrunner wrote: | I'd argue that the trend continued past the 1960s. While | yes, there is certainly more acceptance of homosexual | men, there is also a continuing trend towards an | exaggerated extreme masculinity that would have felt out | of place in the 1960s. | | Maybe it's more accurate to say Western (and in | particular American) culture has fragmented, and one of | those cultures has increasingly put stricter and stricter | norms around acceptable heterosexual male behaviour to | the point where it's nearly parody. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Tough call since it is also possible a certain number of people | have always felt this way but only by others "coming out" do | they now feel comfortable expressing themselves as well. | fredley wrote: | This reminds me of the virus in _Snow Crash_ which is spread | virtually, but affects its victims physically. | DarkWiiPlayer wrote: | > because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ | to want to be another gender. | | Because we can't. And trust me, I have tried. Trans people are | neither "over represented" nor a contagion. | | And it's not about "hate speech"; it's about stopping the | spread of lies and extremist propaganda. The lie that "being | trans is a choice" is just one little moving part in the | massive machinery of oppressing, persecuting and killing trans | people. You don't need actual hate speech to cause harm. | ergonaught wrote: | Are there actual people with Tourette's? Yes. | | Are there actual people who "learned" to have something | Tourette's-like? Yes. | | If you don't distinguish between the two, then Tourette's is | absolutely overrepresented. | | Denying that this can be the case for gender dysmorphia is | neither reasoned nor logical and can absolutely lead to harm. | | There has to be a way to respect and help people without | turning off our brains. | claudiawerner wrote: | >This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because | nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want | to be another gender. | | Did you _really_ think this was going to be downvoted on Hacker | News of all places? | spoils19 wrote: | The famously 'progressive' HackerNews? Years of reading the | comments has led me to believe that the GPs assumption is | mostly correct. | claudiawerner wrote: | It could be my own bias, but I don't see HN as a | particularly progressive place, at least as compared to, | say, Reddit. Granted, it can be a good or a bad thing, but | HN has a far wider spectrum of opinions that get upvoted; | IME trans issues in particular dominate comment threads | when it comes to LGBT issues. | denton-scratch wrote: | > illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically | over represented | | Can you explain what it means for an illness to be | "statistically over-represented"? | | I can parse it several ways, but not so it makes sense. E.g. | | - Gender dysphoria is more common than influenza | | - Gender dysphoria is more common in human societies than in | gendered alien communities | | - Gender dysphoria is discussed by a greater proportion of | Youtube posters than you'd expect from it's rate in the | population | | I'm guessing you mean the last; but I have no idea how mmuch | it's discussed on Youtube, and I doubt there are reliable | figures for its occurrence in the population. | kome wrote: | very very good point. and anecdotally, i think it's indeed the | case for gender dysphoria... | | btw, not long ago there was a sociologist from columbia, | working on the autism epidemics, pointing out how autism is | "contagious" among parents | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0003122411399389 - so | it's not for the first time that we point out at the | sociogenesis of mental illness | mschuster91 wrote: | Hell no it's not. Gender non-conforming people have been a | staple throughout human history, with examples dating back to | _at least_ the 2nd century AD [1], and not just in Europe but | in South Asia as well [2]. | | The thing is, many societies didn't care for a long time, and | only in the 20th century repression really took off with the | rise of ultra-fundamentalist religions. Now we're seeing the | backlash against that and people obviously are way more free | to be who they are once again - so neither a surprise nor an | epidemic. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia) | kome wrote: | i know it has been a staple throughout human history, and | i'm not contesting that. i just posit that the proportion | of it, nowadays, might be inflated by social media and | mimetic behaviors. edit, a very enlightening comment: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33879136 | 4gotunameagain wrote: | This is the direct outcome of "political correctness", and of | silencing people that disagree with you. | | Even suggesting the fact that mass sociogenic illnesses | (formerly called mass hysteria) primarily affect girls [1] goes | against the new religion and is vilified immediately. | | [1] https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/106/5/420.full.pdf | ryanbrunner wrote: | Most objections of claims about mass sociogenic illnesses | that I've seen have to do with people using it to dismiss | behaviour they don't like, often without any real evidence | that this is "mass sociogenic illness". | | Even this article doesn't really make any attempt to disprove | a null hypothesis and we basically are required to take these | people at their word that a) the behaviour expressed is not | consistent with Tourette's and the patients don't actually | have it, and b) the source of this is due to the YouTuber | mentioned. There's no control group or anything to prove | these two facts beyond the author's opinion. | RC_ITR wrote: | >then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other | illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over | represented. | | Don't fall into the trap of assuming that 1950's Western norms | are a 'baseline.' | | History shows us that almost _all_ expressions of gender are | fluid. The idea of "men and women need to be segregated in | certain places (particularly when nude) and must dress | differently' is likely _the cause_ of how prevalent transgender | people have become. It was always an unsustainable system that | was only allowed to flourish because a powerful minority wanted | it to. Like are you a boy that relates primarily to women? Well | you either endure being separated from them for _a ton_ of | meaningful developmental activities _or_ you become | transgender. | | I think there are plenty of people who would be fine with their | biological sex _if it didn 't come with so much societal | baggage._ | SavageBeast wrote: | > ... and must dress differently | | Operating based on a sampling of women I know - Im going to | perform an experiment - I have some clothes of mine that I | (Male with a capital M) no longer wear and Im going to give | them to some Female friends for their own use. | | We'll see what happens but I bet Im going to be met with | confusing expressions and laughed at - at best. | | Men and women do not dress differently on the count of | societal pressures but rather express themselves differently | on the count of different imperatives. You can slice it 6 | different ways but outside of a small minority of people with | non-standard gender ideals, the vast majority of women want | to "be pretty" in whatever way that means to them and the | vast majority of men want to "look like a man" for their | various reasons and in whatever way that means to them. | | I realize this is a terribly "incorrect" thing to say these | days but at the same time its among the most pervasive ideals | I can think of - right up there with the understanding that | water is wet. Out side of groups where the word "Patriarchy" | is thrown around, men are men and women are women and neither | would have it any other way. This isn't due to societal | pressure to conform either. This is prevailing behavior of | both genders at work. | | I personally do not understand why a minority of people | choosing alternative, non-birth gender roles needs to be cast | into some movement where everyones gender is in question. Im | not sure I know anyone who has ever so much as questioned the | "baggage" their bio-gender is supposedly saddled with. | According to modern psychiatry (which for the purposes of | this conversation we'll assume is valid since we all agree | Sociopathy and Eating Disorders are real things too), the | DSM-5 includes Gender Dysphoria. Psychiatry considers that a | real thing right next to some other things I think we can all | agree are real. | | > History shows us that almost all expressions of gender are | fluid. | | politely said: CITATION PLEASE | RC_ITR wrote: | >Operating based on a sampling of women I know | | How big and diverse is _that_ sample? | | >You can slice it 6 different ways but outside of a small | minority | | How small is that minority? | | >the vast majority of women want to "be pretty" | | Are you implying that there's an objective idea of 'pretty' | as it relates to fashion? That a woman in pants can't be | 'pretty'? Can I point you to powerful men in high-heeled | shoes in the 10th Century? Lots of women were attracted to | _that_ back then, _because of what it meant from a societal | standpoint_. | | _Or_ are you implying that it 's fine for men to dress in | women's clothes? Because if so then why are we here? | | >I realize this is a terribly "incorrect" thing to say | | It's not 'incorrect,' it's intellectually lazy. | | >I personally do not understand why a minority of people | choosing alternative, non-birth gender roles needs to be | cast into some movement where everyones gender is in | question. | | Luckily, that's a strawman so you can stop being confused | by it. | | > History shows us that almost all expressions of gender | are fluid | | Again, are high heels for boys or girls? History's opinion | will surprise you! | | Now listen, outside of snark, I _understand_ its hard to | see outside of the environment you 've lived for your | entire life, but this is a forum for _hackers_ so maybe be | a little bit more open to people questioning and | challenging things you hold dear? | | EDIT: You know what, here's one of many phenomenon that you | seem to be unaware of: | | _Although Europeans were first attracted to heels because | the Persian connection gave them a macho air, a craze in | women 's fashion for adopting elements of men's dress meant | their use soon spread to women and children. | | "In the 1630s you had women cutting their hair, adding | epaulettes to their outfits," says Semmelhack. | | "They would smoke pipes, they would wear hats that were | very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel - it | was in an effort to masculinise their outfits." | | From that time, Europe's upper classes followed a unisex | shoe fashion until the end of the 17th Century, when things | began to change again. | | "You start seeing a change in the heel at this point," says | Helen Persson, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum | in London. "Men started to have a squarer, more robust, | lower, stacky heel, while women's heels became more | slender, more curvaceous."_ | | [Citation - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21151350] | LawTalkingGuy wrote: | > The idea of "men and women need to be segregated in certain | places (particularly when nude) and must dress differently' | is likely the cause of how prevalent transgender people have | become. | | Have you ever been a parent? Because males and females are | different, and the sexual pressures on them are immensely | different too, for both social and physical reasons. | Similarly, sexual risk (to anyone, but especially children) | is incredibly lopsided and comes almost entirely from males. | | If you ignore sexual differences in other children you will | let your children be mistreated, if you ignore sexual | differences in adults you will get them molested. | | > It was always an unsustainable system that was only allowed | to flourish because a powerful minority wanted it to. | | Pretty much all women know and are cautious, if not fearful, | of male violence. They fought for women's sex-based rights | because of obvious need. This isn't men putting women in | purdah, these are protections they've achieved for | themselves. Most men can see the extra work women have to do | for safety reasons. The need for women's spaces is far from a | minority opinion. | | > Like are you a boy that relates primarily to women? Well | you either endure being separated from them for a ton of | meaningful developmental activities or you become | transgender. | | If you truly empathized with women you'd realized that your | size and strength and biology makes you a risk that another | woman wouldn't be and you'd socialize with women in mixed-sex | areas and activities where your presence wasn't an undue | burden. | | > I think there are plenty of people who would be fine with | their biological sex if it didn't come with so much societal | baggage. | | It's the physical baggage people are wrongly trying to | ignore. | RobertRoberts wrote: | > ...if it didn't come with so much societal baggage. | | Isn't societal baggage also a perception issue? Take 10 | people with all the same physical traits and the same social | situation and you will get 10 different perspectives. | | Why should I accept there is _any_ baggage as a fact? It may | just appear so for a massive amount of people, and _that_ | could be fluid. | RC_ITR wrote: | So you're telling me that a boy who identifies as a boy is | fine to change with the girls at PE and do their | activities? | | _OR_ is there 'baggage' to being a boy in this scenario? | RobertRoberts wrote: | I am just saying many of these things are subjective, and | just because someone says "it's baggage" doesn't mean it | is for everyone. | RC_ITR wrote: | Please answer my question directly. | | Is it 'subjective' that many activities are segregated by | gender in the West? | | If a person doesn't like that, how is it not a logical | response to try to change their gender? | LudwigNagasena wrote: | What boggles my mind is that people who adamantly claim that | all gender behavior is socially constructed are the ones who | are the first to denounce the idea that you can learn to want | to be another gender. | GaryNumanVevo wrote: | It's less "learning to be another gender" but more being in a | society that allows an individual to express their gender as | something other than their sex. | funcDropShadow wrote: | And they are absolutely sure that you need a physical | modification to adapt to a socially constructed norm. And at | the same time they demand medical procedures while denying | that it is a medical condition, whose treatment needs to be | studied with scientific rigor. Instead they say the affected | persons know their best treatment. | | Just imagine applying that same approach to addicts. | Macha wrote: | Is it? Transmedicalists (those who belive sex reassignment | is a required goal) are a minority in trans communities and | "truscum" was created as a derogatory term for this | attitude indicating its unpopularity. | | If you mean puberty blockers for trans youth rather than | sex reassignment, they have much more support because of | their non-permanent nature. We let many teenagers make | decisions about things like tattoos and piercings too | smeej wrote: | There's still a significant ave gap between these two | populations, though. Tattoos and piercings can be | obtained by 16-18yos without parental consent, but to be | effective, puberty blockers need to start near or before | the beginning of puberty, when children are usually 10-14 | years old. | | We may not be talking about many years by raw count, but | as a percentage of the total lifespan of those involved, | the first group is ~50% older than the second. | leephillips wrote: | The use of puberty blockers to delay the normal onset of | puberty is experimental and there is plenty of evidence | that it has irreversible and serious, often tragic, | effects: | | https://accpjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10. | 100... | [deleted] | joenot443 wrote: | Puberty blockers being non-permanent is a misconception, | it's rather concerning seeing it presented otherwise. | aliqot wrote: | puberty blockers are not non permanent, thats just the | acute effects. | [deleted] | monodeldiablo wrote: | I find it very concerning that anyone would attempt to | present puberty blockers as "non-permanent". | Extraordinary claims like that require extraordinary | evidence. | simiones wrote: | I don't think that happens too often. The problem is that | there are at least two different and often opposing currents | in pro-trans movements. | | One is from the "gender is a social construct" post-modernist | side, which views the very idea that people are either men or | women with some suspicion, and leads to concepts such as | gender fluidity, non-binary identities, and the idea that | maybe young kids should not be gendered at all unless and | until they chose to assume some gender. | | The other current is much more conservative, and starts with | the simple observation that some people experience extreme | gender dysphoria that has only successfully been cured (or at | least alleviated) by gender-affirming care (from gender | expression to hormone treatments to top/bottom surgery to | facial feminization/masculinization surgery and beyond). This | current considers it much more clear that humans are | generally either men or women, with relatively clear | associated characteristics, and simply considers that some | people happen to have the "wrong" characteristics. Rather | than investigating the philosophical reasoning of why this | might be happening and what it means for the concepts | woman/man, it is much more concerned with the practical | problem of how to make life better for people who feel like | this. | | My impression is that the second group is much much more | prevalent, but also seen as problematic by the first group. | The first group is much more extreme, and has much more | "interesting" talking points, so it is significantly over- | represented in online discussions and media. | [deleted] | nicoburns wrote: | > My impression is that the second group is much much more | prevalent, but also seen as problematic by the first group. | The first group is much more extreme, and has much more | "interesting" talking points, so it is significantly over- | represented in online discussions and media. | | My impression is that extreme opinions are mostly from two | subgroups of the second group: | | - Those who believe that gender is essentially defined by | physical characteristics | | - Those who believe that gender is essentially defined by | social characteristics. | | Their inability (or unwillingness) to more deeply consider | the concepts of "men"/"women" place them in conflict with | each other because each of them want to use a different | concept, and neither of them are open to exploring | different ones. | | The only way I can see this being resolved is by taking an | attitude more similar to first group. | simiones wrote: | True, a little bit of philosophy can be a dangerous | thing, since it can lead to a shallow kind of idealism | that can easily fall into extremism at all. | | However, I believe that the general attitude of the trans | community is relatively moderate and easy to accept: | | 1. Trans people should be able to get the kinds of | treatment they need (from therapy all the way to | aesthetic surgery), in cooperation with their doctors. | Children should be allowed to get some treatment, and | their parents should be involved (with some complexity | when the parents' bigotry may interfere with the best | interest of the child). | | 2. Other people shouldn't be allowed to ostracize one for | being trans, and should seek to accommodate them (such as | not referring to them with the wrong pronouns or name); | accidental use is easily forgiven, but intentional | misgendering is clearly malicious; the problem of "non- | passing" trans people complicates this somewhat | | 3. Trans people should be allowed to use the amenities | that correspond to their gender, which will, in the vast | majority of circumstances, correspond to their gender | presentation; "non-passing" trans people complicate this, | as does participation in competitive sports | | However, I believe trying to modify society to dispense | with the concepts man & woman, or to avoid inoculating | them in children - as would be natural if we take the | position of the first group too seriously - is way beyond | what most people would agree with. | | Of course, extreme positions such as trans- | medicalists/truscum or people insisting everyone "shares | their pronouns" and such are somewhat significant sub- | groups, as are people who insist that children should be | able to just take hormones without any supervision from | doctors or parents if they really think it's right for | them (I've seen this exact position on HN before). But | while they exist, I think they are still loud minorities, | even within the relatively small trans community. | zozbot234 wrote: | The question of how many people happen to genuinely be in | the liminal space between male and female gender expression | is very much an empirical matter, not about philosophy. In | the real world, seemingly clear-cut binary distinctions and | fuzzy, mysterious liminal phenomena are not opposed to one | another; they can very much coexist. | nicoburns wrote: | I would suggest that empirically it's pretty much | everybody. Almost nobody is entirely masculine or | feminine. And it seems to me that the world would be a | better place if we recognised that for everybody not just | those who especially struggle with a world that places us | into binary categories. | Kye wrote: | Then there's the third one that sees that there probably is | some biological aspect, but the way it's expressed depends | on the culture's concept of gender. I favor this one since | it provides an explanation for the existence of trans | people of some sort in every society throughout history | without discounting nature or nurture. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | The trouble is, the Internet is bathroom stall graffiti. | | If I say "For me it's a choice" then it undermines the people | for whom it is not a choice. Because most of the audience in | the bathroom stall aren't doing research to put together a | comprehensive understanding of gender, they're just reading | what in front of them for that day, and then leaving. | | If I say gender can be learned, we can spend days bickering | about what "learned" really means. | | It's not fun. And I'm sorry that someone else said something | you think is contradictory. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | People have been saying "it's just the Internet" since 2007 | or whenever Tumblr appeared. It's a tired defense. Such | treatment of gender that makes people feel good but only | makes sense on the superficial level permeates modern | discourse and invades institutional structures deeper each | day. | | You cannot keep the society well-functioning by treating | the law and social norms as a bathroom stall or as | something that you should mindlessly follow without | comprehensive understanding. | MontyCarloHall wrote: | You've nicely explained why trans-exclusionary radical | feminists (TERFs) exist. Absolute belief that gender is | purely a social construct (a core tenet of second-wave | feminism) is strictly incompatible with gender dysphoria | existing at all, since gender dysphoria necessarily means | that our brains are inherently wired to be male or female. | | The reality is more nuanced--while certain gender _roles_ are | purely social constructs, other aspects of gender are | hardwired. | nicoburns wrote: | > Absolute belief that gender is purely a social construct | (a core tenet of second-wave feminism) is strictly | incompatible with gender dysphoria existing at all, since | gender dysphoria necessarily means that our brains are | inherently wired to be male or female. | | That's not true. It would just indicate that the gender | dysphoria is socially caused (perhaps by the imposition of | strong gender norms) rather than being an unavoidable part | of someone's nature. | | It does lead to very different policy proposals though: if | gender dysphoria is socially caused then it makes sense to | prioritise minimising the cause (by widening the scope of | acceptable gender expression for each gender) rather than | treating the symptom (by allowing people to change their | recognised gender). | MontyCarloHall wrote: | >It would just indicate that the gender dysphoria is | socially caused (perhaps by the imposition of strong | gender norms) rather than being an unavoidable part of | someone's nature. | | It seems unlikely to me that social norms alone could | cause gender dysphoric people to believe so strongly that | their gender identity mismatches their biological sex | (i.e. physical body) that they are willing to undergo | dramatic, irreversible medical procedures like gender | reassignment surgery and other transitioning procedures | to rectify the mismatch. | | There are plenty of people who strongly defy gender norms | yet still strongly identify their gender as being | concordant with their biological sex. Gender dysphoria | goes far beyond mere nonconformity to gender norms; many | trans people explicitly say that they feel like they were | born into the wrong body. | nicoburns wrote: | > It seems unlikely to me that social norms alone could | cause gender dysphoric people to believe so strongly that | their gender identity mismatches their biological sex | | I think it's quite likely. | | As an analogy, it seems relatively common for people to | become so convinced that they are so unattractive that | they undergo highly invasive cosmetic surgery. It's also | very much the case that there are social groups where | this is normalised (and many people in those social | groups will choose to have this surgery) and social | groups where it is not (and people in those groups are | unlikely to opt for cosmetic surgery). | | The difference seems to be that the people in one social | group are telling each other that the appropriate | solution to feeling unattractive means that one is | unattractive and that surgery to change one's body is an | appropriate response to that, whereas in the other social | group people might either convince each other that | they're attractive as they are, or seek alternative | remedies such as changes in clothing, grooming, make-up, | etc. Or even therapy, self-esteem coaching or similar. | | Similarly, if one is an environment where one is | constantly told that men (or women) are or should act/be | a certain way, then it is hardly surprising that one | might develop the notion that one isn't a man/woman. Such | an environment is commonly created by people with | traditional notions of gender. But it's reinforced by | people suggesting that transitioning might be the | solution to not fitting one's gender norms. | | Which isn't to say that there aren't people for whom | physically transitioning is the right answer (the best | solution for them), or that do have an inherent dislike | of their body that isn't externally influenced. Likewise, | there are people for whom cosmetic surgery is absolutely | the right solution (e.g. people with a cleft palate or | who have suffered from severe burns). But I question the | way it currently seems to being positioned (by some | people) as the default response to not fitting in with | the norms of one's existing gender, and I also question | the idea that it is innate and not socially influenced. | zozbot234 wrote: | People will do practically anything in order to be | socially accepted. The followers of the ancient goddess | Cybele famously underwent ritual gender transition, as | related most effectively in Catullus 63. | lukev wrote: | This is a dangerous rhetorical maneuver, though, because it: | | 1. Accepts the existence and influence of social-media-induced | illness: | | 2. Does not rigorously define the condition, it's symptoms, | scope or mechanism: | | 3. Therefore, leaving us free to apply it to gender identity or | really, anything at all. | | Trumpism? SMII. Wokeness? SMII. Pro-union sentiment? You're not | gonna believe this, also a SMII. | | And once you call something a "disease" the implication is that | it should be "cured" which gets scary quick. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | According to Gallup's poll in early 2022, which they present as | estimates, 0.7% of the US population is trans. In India, 0.6% | people self-identified as hijra (Sahastrabuddhe et al., 2012). | In the 2011 census in India, 0.04% answered with "Other" when | asked to choose between "Male", "Female" and "Other". | | Canada included the question in their latest census and the | result was 0.2%. In my opinion, a mandatory government census | provides data that is more accurate than Gallup's phone poll. | | "The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were | three to seven times higher for Generation Z (born between 1997 | and 2006, 0.79%) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996, | 0.51%) than for Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980, | 0.19%), baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965, 0.15%) and | the Interwar and Greatest Generations (born in 1945 or earlier, | 0.12%)." | | Canada's government also adds this under their data | comparability section: "Belgium (0.5% among people aged 18 to | 75 in 2021) and New Zealand (0.5% among people aged 18 and | older in 2020) have also published representative survey-based | data on their transgender populations. | | Other countries have published 2021 data on transgender people | using crowdsourcing and non-representative surveys, including | Ireland (0.6% among people aged 18 and older), England and | Wales (0.6% among people aged 16 and older), and the United | States (0.8% among people aged 18 and older)." | | Being transgender is not a mental disorder or illness, but | rather a natural variation of human diversity. Everyone has the | right to express their gender identity in a way that is | authentic and comfortable for them. I fail to see how the topic | of a mass social media-induced illness applies here. | Macha wrote: | Of course if gender non-normativity can be learned, so too can | gender normativity (e.g. bro culture is arguably a form of men | learning to do what their local culture considers male things). | I don't think all trans people would disagree with that part as | much as you think (see the "I never knew that could be an | option" thoughts from some late transitioners reflecting back), | the bit they'd disagree with is the idea that there is an | aberration or problem to those who opt to identify with a | gender other than their identified at birth sex. | Ord3rChaos wrote: | Normativity by definition is related to actions/outcomes that | society deems good/desirable/permissible; non-normativity, | the opposite. Societal goals are always a moving target, so | it follows that normativity is as well. | | My dad still uses language like "C'mon! Be a man and do {this | thing}." | | Personally, I believe when I'm old and crotchety the winds of | society will leave my language at something like "C'mon! You | should do {this thing}." and leave the gender out of it | entirely. | pjc50 wrote: | > "I never knew that could be an option" thoughts from some | late transitioners | | Anedotally, the three people I knew before transition who | later transitioned have all expressed some form of process "I | was depressed and didn't understand why" -> "I had these | thoughts but suppressed them because I felt they were weird / | unacceptable" -> "I learned what transition is and the pieces | fell into place". | | Edit: over a period of many years, that's why they were late | transitioners! | ReactiveJelly wrote: | Yeah the reason that the "social contagion" stuff makes my | blood pressure spike is because it's almost always a prelude | to some kind of "And they're trying to force-feminize | everyone and then they're gonna take our children" stuff. | | You know like, Quentin Tarantino isn't racist even though he | said the N word, but if I'm walking down the street and a | total stranger comes up to me and starts throwing the N word | around, safe bet they're saying something dumb. | | See my comment a few days ago about "The Internet is graffiti | in a bathroom stall". I could probably have a calm good-faith | conversation with any of you in real life about gender. But | not on a web forum. | TomSwirly wrote: | I downvoted you because I knew that your comment would prevent | any discussion about the actual article, and that was in fact | what occurred. | | This whole "I'm going to say [something offtopic and offensive | to a lot of people]. This is probably going to get downvoted to | oblivion, because nobody [ridiculous generalization about | humans]" is feckless and intellectually dishonest. You do this | _because_ it will be downvoted. | causi wrote: | The way we have leapt from one societal belief to the other end | of the spectrum is, I believe, interfering with objective | healthcare. We started at "people who believe and behave | outside of gender norms are perverted freaks" and we jumped | straight to "you are whatever you think you are." Between those | two paradigms there are questions it has become very difficult | to research. Questions like "is it possible we are categorizing | more than one mental state as _being transgender_ " as an | explanation for why some people greatly benefit from | transitioning while others are destroyed by it. Questions like | "is modifying the body a better treatment than modifying the | mind at our current level of medical capability?" | ryanbrunner wrote: | > "you are whatever you think you are." | | You should do some reading on how gender affirming therapy | and treatment works, because it is absolutely not standard to | pursue treatment immediately without any process or | consultation. | | Whether transition is the right option is absolutely | explored, it's just explored in a way that allows the patient | to come to a decision rather than a doctor making the | gatekeeping whether this person is "really transgendered". | johnnymorgan wrote: | High performance people have been saying this for generations. | | Surround yourself with positive, talented people to keep your | mind clean. | | Hell even vogue and trash mags call out 'energy vampires' (lol) | but it's all the same thing. | | I legit decided to not listen to gangster rap in the 90s | because a dude said to me 'that shit will warp your mind ' but | I realized all music and influences do that. | | So books it was...god I was a nerd! | | I cut the cord on much of it early on, mostly because the value | was terrible (aka music industry in the 90s was just bad | value). | | Now it's the odd anime that had a deep story that pulls me | in...and lectures..Holy fug I love watching smart people talk | :) | ReactiveJelly wrote: | Amen. In 2011 I watched a really good anime, Puella Magi | Madoka Magica, and it helped me realize I'm transgender, and | now that I've transitioned I love my body and myself more. | meowfly wrote: | I still listen to "gangster rap" and I'm doing well enough. | It's entirely possible to listen to Trap and not drink lean. | There are plenty of dorks (I use the word affectionately) | watching anime whose fandom has subsumed their ability to be | successful. I do think that a person's life trajectory is | affected by their closest friends, especially in high school. | Ord3rChaos wrote: | Can you honestly say that your lived experience hasn't | changed you? It's clear "gangster rap" doesn't ruin | anyone's lives like the parents of the 90's thought it | might. That doesn't absolve it from affecting you in more | subtle ways (good and bad). | meowfly wrote: | Maybe I don't understand the question but of course a | persons lived experience affects them. It seems like | you've moved the goal posts. | | What I'm pointing out is that OPs moralizing on good | media "Anime, Books" vs bad media "Rap, Trash Magazines" | is likely focusing on the wrong things. A person's | friends are ultimately what matter in prioritizing values | (as far as values can be shaped by environment). | | But the claim about "gangster rap" (a term I don't like) | was "that shit will warp your mind." is false. Moreover, | Anime has tons of content that's way darker than anything | you'll find in rap. But again, I don't think it really | matters. | johnnymorgan wrote: | Lol I'm not moralizing at all, I stated it applies to all | information regardless and so I cut the cord. | | 24 hour news is worse for this than gangster rap and | turned off both so the same reason, I didn't like the | messaging coming from it. NWO and Ghetto boys pushed me | out of the genre, that doesn't the music is bad just | something I choose to not engage with based off their | content. | | You got super defensive over what should be obvious, the | content and people you engage with will define your | character. | aordano wrote: | Disclaimer: I am transgender and i have done actual research on | transgenderism a couple years back. | | I have seen this firsthand on some acquaintances. Social media | has a massive influence on people and there are some persons | specifically that have a weaker sense of identity (usually | associated with poor development or some mental disorder like | schizophrenia, STPD, or BPD), and those persons can be | influenced to the point of actually, legit molding their own | identity by their own media consumption. | | This consumption in most people only plants seeds that will | lead to questioning or trying stuff, but won't have a long- | lasting impact on their core identity. So for most people this | kind of exposition will be something either transitory or will | just provide awareness. People grow out of it and it actually | it's "just a phase" for many. | | So yes people can learn to have a new identity if they don't | have a strong core identity formed yet or if it is weak or | broken enough. | | OTOH, i am unsure what do you mean by a statistical over- | representation of GD. There are no bounds set for deviation of | the norm for the general population (i.e. normalized rate of | growth of % of population that is transgender is not an outlier | vs the rate of growth of other emergent behaviors afforded by | greater overall inclusion and reduction of discrimination). The | places where it is statistically over-represented, like on | people within the Autism Spectrum, are under investigation. | | In any case the risks of social media brainwashing are not | restricted to stuff like disorders but go way beyond and i | think the solution to this stuff is, like for many other | things, more education and awareness of risks, tradeoffs, what | is gender, what is identity, and how they work both | intrinsically and within the bounds of social interactions. | class4behavior wrote: | Parent might be falsely inferring an over-representation of | GD from the statistical discrepancy between younger and older | age groups of those who identify as LGTBQ+. | zozbot234 wrote: | IIRC, research also shows that those who identify as trans | in middle age are much more likely to be happy when they do | choose to transition, compared to the younger folks. | f38zf5vdt wrote: | I don't see anything to support this in the literature. | The overwhelming majority (94-98%) of youth who | transition maintain their gender identity many years | later as adults. [1][2] It's hard to imagine they would | continue treatment if it was making them miserable. | | [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/transgender-kids- | tend-to... | | [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PII | S2352-4... | zozbot234 wrote: | AIUI, another user ITT has mentioned | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33883438 that this | is merely statistics of how many transitioners _formally_ | pursue detransition, and that the numbers of those who | practically desist from treatment are a lot higher than | that. | f38zf5vdt wrote: | The number of individuals failing to follow up on a study | or even treatment for any disease at the same medical | office is high, for example it's approximately 50% for | _cancer_. [1] You're welcome to extrapolate to your own | taste, but it's still simply an unknown -- unlike the | people you _do_ have data for. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29028642/ | zozbot234 wrote: | But the whole question is why people are desisting from | treatment that's supposed to help them reaffirm their | gender. Everyone knows that cancer treatment has very | uncomfortable side effects; it's not surprising that | people might neglect that. Gender treatment is literally | supposed to make you feel good, by treating disphoria. | f38zf5vdt wrote: | Lost to follow up is not necessarily discontinuation of | treatment is the issue. The person may have moved out of | state or out of country, or simply have moved to be | treated by a different physician. Consider also the | perspective of the detransitioning person: in trying to | reconcile their experience, they project that there must | be more people out there like themselves and point to a | known unknown to justify it. | class4behavior wrote: | Is there any statistical significance to that. Have the | emotional baggage and social complexity younger people | are dealing with and the share of middle aged people who | did or could not transition been accounted for? | the_third_wave wrote: | > OTOH, i am unsure what do you mean by a statistical over- | representation of GD. | | This is quite clear to me and I do not think gender dysphoria | - which is a DSM-5 diagnosis [1] - is the correct term to | use. Compared to previous years or decades (or centuries) | there is a markedly higher percentage of children/young | adults who "self-identify as 'trans'", often clustered and in | waves. This did not use to be so but that does not mean | similar phenomena did not occur, they just did not get a | diagnosis attached to them. It is highly probable (and feed | for a dissertation if there is a university which would | accept such a politically charged project) that the same | character types who now "self-identify as 'trans'" were those | who would style themselves as "goth" or "emo" or (in the late | 80's and 90's) "metrosexual" or any other androgynous style. | The difference is that these earlier style figures did not | come with a diagnosis nor were they adopted by any mainstream | political movement and as such were taken less seriously. You | could be a goth just like you could be a metalhead or a prep | and be part of your in-crowd by just wearing the right | clothes (and, for some crowds, make-up) and listening to the | right bands. It was accepted as a way for children and young | adults to "belong" without coming with much baggage. | | [1] https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender- | dysphori... | JeremyNT wrote: | > Compared to previous years or decades (or centuries) | there is a markedly higher percentage of children/young | adults who "self-identify as 'trans'", often clustered and | in waves. | | I don't see how you could usefully extrapolate a "real" | baseline rate based on what prior generations did. Atypical | sexual/gender identities have been taboo for almost the | entirety of human civilization, and only as these taboos | are now being lifted are people able to express these | traits without fear of horrific repercussions. | the_third_wave wrote: | The current wave of "self-identification" was markedly | absent in the wake of the '68 revolts and the ensuing | "free love generation" which casts doubt upon your | thesis. It is far more likely that these current "self- | identification" trends are emergent properties of the | availability of direct one-to-many communications media - | social media and the like - which make it possible for | these identity groups to emerge and grow rapidly. | VictorPath wrote: | > we can _learn_ to want to be another gender | | If that is true, then cookie cutter expected gender behavior | can be "learned" as well. In fact much of it was illegal in the | US a few decades ago. | RocketOne wrote: | This is exactly what I thought of when I saw "social media- | induced illness": MSMI | | I saw this in the school I led, especially in young girls. One | of them starts cutting, suddenly we have multiple girls | cutting. One of them struggles with bulimia, suddenly the | guidance counselor is reporting that she has an inordinate | number of girls coming in for counselling about bulimia. | | I dont think its any different with claiming to be transgender. | And my current school counselor contact confirms that - for | every one child she sees that she believes may actually | struggle with body dysmorphia and she believes may be trans, | there are 10 more coming in because its the 'thing' to be. | These are usually kids who are troubled and are desperately | seeking attention and care, legit needs, but going about it the | only way they see that's acceptable. They gain attention, they | gain power, and in an odd way, status among their peers for | 'being who they are.' | simplotek wrote: | > I saw this in the school I led, especially in young girls. | One of them starts cutting, suddenly we have multiple girls | cutting. One of them struggles with bulimia, suddenly the | guidance counselor is reporting that she has an inordinate | number of girls coming in for counselling about bulimia. | | When you showcase suicides on TV you also have upticks in | suicides. Same goes for mass shootings, copycat murderers, | and even political protests. | | When the 101 dalmatians movie was released, there was also an | uptick in demand for dalmatians. | | I fail to see how this means it's ok to fabricate diseases to | downplay the effect that mass media has on people. | leephillips wrote: | "nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want | to be another gender." | | It's impossible to have the idea that you want to be another | "gender" unless you have learned to want it. The ideas of | "gender" and that you can switch yours have to come from | somewhere; you have to learn them. Just as: you can't want to | be a doctor unless you've learned that there is such a thing as | a doctor and that it's something you can be. | pjc50 wrote: | Very confident to assert that this act of imagination is | impossible, that nobody in history has ever spontaneously had | the idea of trying on another gender's gender-marker clothing | and worked from there. | leephillips wrote: | Did this somebody from history also spontaneously know that | the clothes were markers of another gender? | red_admiral wrote: | I have gender dysphoria myself, and you get an upvote from me | because I think you are speaking the truth in a way that would | lead to better outcomes for many of the affected people, if one | properly thought through the implications. | | I understand gender dysphoria (as opposed to body | dysphoria/dysmorphia in a stricter sense) to be a mismatch | between someone's own preferences, interests etc. inasfar as | they touch on categories that society has declared to be | gendered, and society's expectations of the same - at least | those of your local bubble of society. | | This means there are two non-mutually-exclusive ways to make | the lives of gender dysphoric people better: (1) let them | change themselves (many options from pronouns to hormones and | surgery), or (2) change society's expectations. Out of sympathy | for people suffering from gender dysphoria, I wish for a bit | more of (2) in the world. | | Even in a vastly improved society, there will be people who | decide that medical changes such as hormones/surgery are right | for them, and as far as possible we should support them. These | people existed, in small numbers, before "trans" was cool, and | they will still exist when the media interest has picked up | some new favourite category. (By analogy, Tourette's syndrome | is also a real thing that existed before the internet, and will | still exist when this particular media spike has died down.) | niom wrote: | The "trans/gay/lesbian is cool now" explanation doesn't hold | a lot of water to me. If I had the choice to not be gay, I | wouldn't be. Life would be so much easier, emotionally and | otherwise. Sex would be lower risk and it would be much | easier to find a romantic partner. I spent a long time - two | decades - suppressing it, as hard as I could, and it did not | go away. Instead I was anxious and depressed. After I started | to accept myself, those things became a lot better. I look | forward to the day I come out. | | Transitioning is 100x harder. The nonconformity is obvious. | The antagonism directed at transitioning people is | unavoidable, strong and potentially deadly - violent and | lethal attacks on trans people are becoming much more common | every year. Compulsory sterilization for people legally | transitioning is still mandated in many countries and was | only abolished in progressive countries in the last few | years. | | No, nobody is doing any of this because it's "cool". | red_admiral wrote: | It is "cool" inside a very small, but very powerful, | stratum of society. You are right that there are still a | lot of places where being queer (whether of the LGB or T | variety) is a huge disadvantage. | ryanbrunner wrote: | Even within that stratum, I'd argue that it's more | "acceptable" than specifically "cool". Or if it is | "cool", it's in a superficial sort of way that doesn't | relay any real benefits or privilege. | red_admiral wrote: | I guess one could argue whether getting upvotes, likes, | views and such on social media counts as "real benefits", | but that seems to be exactly what's going on with some of | the Tourettes-on-TikTok people. You get lots of | validation coming your way, you get to be part of a | community, and you get +1 armor against trolls who claim | it's ok to punch as long as you're only punching up. | YellowStuDregg wrote: | Could people feel dismissive towards your opinion because it | sounds like confabulation, rather than a carefully reasoned | argument based on data that could spawn a good faith | discussion? | | > What's interesting to me | | Shower thought, then | | > This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because | nobody wants to confront the idea that... | | Alright you win! | throwaway27727 wrote: | Or because it's a controversial topic and GP is worried about | being taken as offensive but still would like to make their | point. | jackmott42 wrote: | Our neural networks have learned that people tend to say | "I'm sure I'll get downvoted" right before or after saying | some nasty racist or sexist shit. So, maybe avoid the | phrase if you aren't doing that. | bsaul wrote: | Indeed. It seems pretty obvious to anyone that has ever | witnessed a high school hall that teenagers mimic far more than | just clothes. Fashion goes way beyond that. | nathias wrote: | I think this generation is forced into gender essentialism, | gender non-conformity used to be much more normal, now it's | redefined as if really a conformity to another gender ... very | totalitarian | blueflow wrote: | Decades ago, a woman had to do the cleaning chores... | nowadays you are the women because you do the cleaning | chores. Its the same sexism thinking, but the path is walked | the other way. | | Always be wary of persons who sort your behavior into 'male' | and 'female' categories. | brookst wrote: | > statistically over represented | | Over represented compared to what? The incidence of these | disorders back when admitting them would get you bullied / | raped / killed? | | An alternative explanation is that reducing the social | straitjackets that enforced conformity is leading to greater | diversity of human behavior. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it's at | least a hypothesis worth considering. | | BTW your point would be stronger without the persecution | complex. And stronger yet with an acknowledgement that, while | tic-like behavior and multi-year cognitive identity issues may | have correlations, also they may not. | nicoburns wrote: | > Over represented compared to what? | | In the case of gender dysphoria, the obvious comparison would | be, compared to a society where one can subvert gender norms | and be accepted _without_ changing one 's identity. The | emergence of trans movement has created a space where gender- | nonconforming people can find more acceptance, but it comes | with own set of norms and requirements. | | One of which is that one must change their identity and, in | many cases, conform to the norms of your newly chosen | identity (certainly not everyone in the trans community | enforces identity-based gender norms, but that's also true of | general society when it comes to sex-based norms. In my | experience, they're both about as bad as each other. I've | lost count of the number of times people have told me that I | must be a certain way or have had certain experiences because | of my gender identity). | brookst wrote: | I kept waiting for you to support the "over represented" | claim. Much disappointment. | | Over represented compared to what _real_ thing? What should | the representation be, in terms of percent, compared to | what we see today? | nicoburns wrote: | The "real" thing would be the gender dysphoria present if | people weren't subject to a society telling them that if | they don't conform to the norms of <gender> then they | can't be <gender>, they must be <other gender>. A society | that conflates wanting to live and present in a certain | way with wanting a certain body type (these are both | valid things to want, but they ought to be treated as | independent phenomena rather than as being linked by an | abstract concept of gender). | | Having such an escape is better than not having it, but | it's far from an ideal gender free society (where we | effectively treat everyone as having a non-binary | gender), in which I suspect we would see a lot less | gender dysphoria. Allowing people to choose which set of | gender norms they want to follow is still enforcing | gender norms if you expect people to choose a single | identity and don't allow people to freely mix and match. | totemandtoken wrote: | >> This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because | nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want | to be another gender. | | Except this was disproven. Dr. Money and David Rimer is the | infamous case study I believe | poulpy123 wrote: | Didn't a researcher shown that's it was indeed the case ? | rippercushions wrote: | That would be the "rapid onset gender dysphoria" controversy, | which is so politically charged that lay observers (/me | waves) will have a very hard time separating science from | ideology. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid- | onset_gender_dysphoria_c... | ReactiveJelly wrote: | You're already getting swamped but I wanna take this bit in | good faith: | | > illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically | over represented | | If it was true that gender dysphoria had a major "social | contagion" component, what would you want to do about that? | | Censor speech so children can't discuss gender? Like how some | people think censor sex ed was a treatment for teen pregnancy? | | Put up bureaucratic barriers to transition, at the cost of | hurting people who really are transgender? | [deleted] | simplotek wrote: | > This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because | nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want | to be another gender. But I think there's some interesting | parallels to be observed here, and discounting that based on | "moral virtue" or "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be | attacked with is just moving the target. | | I feel you're grossly misrepresenting the issue. It means | nothing if you believe people can be re-educated to cease to | identify as a specific gender or repress their sexuality | throughout their whole lives. That's completely irrelevant. You | can also argue that you can re-educated men to be ok with being | impotent or be bald or not need glasses, but somehow the | conservative side of society is perfectly ok with having whole | industries devoted to pumping out erectile disfuncion pills to | circumvent natural health issues. | | So you have to ask yourself why do you feel it's ok to repress | whole segments of society because they don't feel comfortable | with who they are, while you are perfectly ok with other | segments pulling nature's cheat codes to achieve the exact same | thing. | | This is exactly the point: the authoritarian motivation behind | repressing minorities, and the hate speech that goes along with | it. | naasking wrote: | > It means nothing if you believe people can be re-educated | to cease to identify as a specific gender or repress their | sexuality throughout their whole lives. That's completely | irrelevant. You can also argue that you can re-educated men | to be ok with being impotent or be bald or not need glasses, | but somehow the conservative side of society is perfectly ok | with having whole industries devoted to pumping out erectile | disfuncion pills to circumvent natural health issues. | | I don't understand this. The core problem with gender | dysphoria is that you feel significant discomfort with your | biological sex. If it were possible to _legitimately_ "re- | educate" oneself to not feel this discomfort, that would be | considerably cheaper, less invasive and less problematic | overall than trying to change one's sex. All surgery carries | risk of death after all, and lifetime of hormone therapy is | annoying to say the least. | | Being bald is not just a feeling of discomfort with having no | hair, it has real consequences. Baldness is generally | considered to be less attractive, and attractiveness impacts | career and dating prospects, for instance. | | Being impotent also has real-world consequences. It impacts | dating and also impacts your ability to conceive. | | Arguably, being trans also has real-world consequences as | well, so if a solution became available that could eliminate | the gender dysphoria without changing your sex, I would be | very surprised if plenty of trans people wouldn't choose that | option, and not just because of social stigma. | | The resistance to such a solution comes from two | understandable directions: a) terrible gay conversion therapy | that doesn't actually work, and b) the (mistaken) notion of | mind-body dualism that many people internalize over their | lives, that their identity, their mind, is separate from | their body and has more primacy. | simplotek wrote: | > I don't understand this. The core problem with gender | dysphoria is that you feel significant discomfort with your | biological sex. | | Indeed, and that's why you see people undergoing medical | treatments to address that problem. | | Why anyone in their right mind would be against people | seeking medical treatments to address their health issues | is beyond me. | | > If it were possible to legitimately "re-educate" oneself | to not feel this discomfort, that would be considerably | cheaper, less invasive and less problematic overall than | trying to change one's sex. | | You're desperately trying to avoid the point. | | I repeat. You can reeducate an impotent man to stop | worrying about his erectile dysfunction. You can reeducate | a man to stop bothering with being bald. | | Why is that somehow not targeted by this authoritarian | belief that you're entitled to force upon others to undergo | reeducation camps to accept an outcome they don't want nor | feel comfortable with? | | Why is that only minorities vilified by certain religious | conservative pressure groups should have no say in what | they can and cannot do regarding their health and personal | well-being? | roody15 wrote: | It reminds me of the old saying "Monkey see .. Monkey do". | | An over simplification perhaps but there is no question we | "mimic" all the time. | anenefan wrote: | I think similarly. | | I am wondering how they differentiate this specific extreme | behaviour moving "socially," to other subtle behaviours which | are copied and mirrored within small tight knit social groups | - especially kids / teenagers? I found the 9:1 ratio of girls | to boys intriguing, given the same or very similar mechanism | might been a huge benefit to females in past ages where they | might be married into a strange culture. | boyanlevchev wrote: | A freaky thing that this paper doesn't mention is that in some | cases these tics have gotten so extreme, that one patient began | having almost constant seizures and became wheelchair-bound. | Imagine being "infected" by watching a video on TikTok! It sounds | like a horror movie. | | From The Guardian: "Over the next few weeks, Wacek noticed that | she was having tics. "They were just little noises," she says. | "Nothing to write home about." She would scrunch up her nose, or | huff. The tics escalated from sounds into words and phrases. Then | the motor tics kicked in. "I started punching walls and throwing | myself at things," she says. By July, Wacek was having seizures. | She had to stop work. "Being a chef with seizures is not safe at | all," she says. Her GP referred her to a neurologist, who | diagnosed her with functional neurological syndrome (FND). People | with FND have a neurological condition that cannot be medically | explained, but can be extremely debilitating. "In a general | neurological clinic, around 30% of the conditions we see are not | fully explainable," says Dr Jeremy Stern, a neurologist with the | charity Tourettes Action. In Wacek's case, FND manifested in | verbal and motor tics, not dissimilar from how Tourette syndrome | appears to lay people, although the two conditions are distinct. | Wacek has up to 20 seizures a day and currently has to use a | wheelchair." | | Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/16/the- | unknown-is... | _aavaa_ wrote: | > It sounds like a horror movie. | | Might I interest you in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. | Zezima wrote: | So happy I found this comment! Yes Snow Crash is a mist | recommendation and insanely relevant to mass hysteria and | "babbling" | quux wrote: | Wow, This reminds me of the virus in Snow Crash | Spivak wrote: | Yeah, I'm surprised on a forum like this people are using it as | an opportunity to be like "ugh kids these days in $current_year | seeking attention" and not "holy shit this is fascinating." | Social media turned "picking up an accent" up to 11 in a way | that actually manifests in tangible problems. | nsxwolf wrote: | This reminds me of "Blipverts" on the 80s TV show "Max | Headroom". TV commercials that were so stimulating they would | cause some viewers to explode. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekg45ub8bsk | pfortuny wrote: | The exclamation mark after that (!) is very relevant, @dang. | | Thanks. | OJFord wrote: | If you edit it, it will save without modification (auto- | stripping of certain things happens only on first save) - | though in this case it's probably better just to remove 'stop | that' altogether? | bowsamic wrote: | The "Stop that!" is part of the paper's title | OJFord wrote: | Yes. | pfortuny wrote: | Sorry, I did not submit it. Was just pointing him to the | (important) difference. | incomingpain wrote: | This is the next big area of research in social sciences. You | must research this for national security reasons. Early research | came in with the idea of mirror neurons but it went further. | | Statistically you're always going to have 'hot spots' for | suicide. # per capita etc. So governments trying to help setup | suicide hotlines. Not much uptake on this. So they advertised the | suicide hotline and suddenly has mass suicide problems. | | Been replicated/reported many times, even on Canadian reserves. | Cultural, racial doesnt seem to change anything. | | Then you have the general crisis in mental health where suddenly | lots of people think they have some sort of disorder. Lots of | OCD, when really they dont have anything. But it came from | advertising and awareness campaigns. | | Do the flipside, how about all the motivational speakers who | abuse this same mechanism but in a good way? Same with | mentalists. | | How about people who are being radicalized into violence? How | about all the kids suddenly becoming trans? All the same umbrella | which social sciences is working on. | deanCommie wrote: | > How about all the kids suddenly becoming trans? | | Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point. It is a | moral panic, and it causes real harm to kids who need genuine | mental health support who are instead being dismissed as being | part of a trend. | | "all the kids" are not suddenly becoming trans - the incident | rates in society are still extremely small. | | All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily explained | by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same appeared when | we stopped pathologizing left-handedness - all the kids didn't | suddenly become left-handed, but the ones that were felt | comfortable no longer hiding it. | | And by and large, with some exceptions that get consistently | magnified by those with an agenda, it is not something you can | just do on a whim, and generally requires a lot of counselling | and a lot of effort to pursue hormonal or surgical changes. | | There are incidents of detransitioning and those that regret | it. Those rates are lower than those that regret knee | replacements. | | Happy to answer any other questions if needed. | vinegarden wrote: | > All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily | explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. | | This doesn't explain the disproportionate rise in teenage | girls seeking treatment at gender clinics though. | | Here's a fascinating essay by a detransitioner on how she | began thinking of herself first as 'non-binary' and later as | male, and ended up being prescribed testosterone medication | for this: https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name. | She goes into quite some detail about how being exposed to | gender identity ideology on Tumblr over a period of years was | what influenced her to transition. | | Other detransitioners have described similar online | influences. It seems likely that this is at least one of the | factors causing such an increase, and may well explain why | the rise in referrals to gender clinics are so skewed toward | female teenagers, who are the primary demographic of sites | like Tumblr, and who are particularly vulnerable to social | contagions. | LawTalkingGuy wrote: | > Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point. | | Please do not make this a partisan issue. Some of us have | been following the sexually regressive trend of calling our | children's bodies defective and broken because they don't | match the viewers' sexual stereotypes for quite a while now, | and there was pretty widespread consensus across political | and religious ideologies that our kids didn't need surgery to | be okay. | | > It is a moral panic, and it causes real harm to kids who | need genuine mental health support who are instead being | dismissed as being part of a trend. | | That's circular. They need help because they're caught in a | trend which ignores the actual issues in _their_ lives | (bullying, divorce, academics, etc) and provides a one-size- | fits-all solution of body modification. | | > All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily | explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same | appeared when we stopped pathologizing left-handedness - all | the kids didn't suddenly become left-handed, but the ones | that were felt comfortable no longer hiding it. | | This sounds compelling but is not accurate. Left-handedness | is a testable "condition" whereas transgender is some adults' | interpretation of how people and their genitals should look | based on how they act, especially with regard to things the | observer thinks of as sexualized, such as who plays with | dolls. Society was getting more tolerant, back in the 00s | you'd never have a teacher scold a child for using wrong-sex | toys because we'd largely gotten rid of the concept. Now it's | back and we're telling children their actions and desires are | wrong, BUT we've got a surgical solution! | | Fifteen years ago a boy could have worn a dress to elementary | and wouldn't have socially risked anything worse than if they | wore the wrong brand. Now they risk their teachers "helping" | them make huge life decisions they can't even comprehend, and | telling them to keep the discussions secret from their | parents. That's a lot less accepting than it used to be. | | > with some exceptions that get consistently magnified by | those with an agenda, it is not something you can just do on | a whim, and generally requires a lot of counselling and a lot | of effort to pursue hormonal or surgical changes. | | This isn't true, the fast track (affirmative care) is the | only one allowed in most schools and clinics and by WPATH | guidelines. Very rarely do teachers, counsellors, therapists, | or health care providers pause to help children with | preexisting issues before literally telling them that they're | born incorrectly and offering solutions - even if those | solutions (drugs and surgery) aren't always immediate. | | > There are incidents of detransitioning and those that | regret it. Those rates are lower than those that regret knee | replacements. | | This is not correct. There are no proper studies that follow | medical transitioners long enough to usefully make that | claim. The studies that exist have egregious failures such as | not accounting for dropouts or controlling for comorbidities. | And knee surgery is widely known to be almost ineffective for | many people, making it an exceptionally misleading | comparison. | beckon69 wrote: | I appreciated this thoughtful response (rebuttal) to OP. I | agree with your concept of "back in the 00s you'd never | have a teacher scold a child for using wrong-sex | clothes/toys because we'd largely gotten rid of the | concept". This dovetails into one of the paradox's of the | trans-adjacent ideology that I haven't been able to square | in my own head, which is that transitioning genders is | predicated on strong gender norms existing in a society. In | other words, it seems less accepting to be a male and | exhibit feminine traits (and by the way, we are in fact | acknowledging traditional societal ideas of gender roles | now, rather than moving beyond them). | zozbot234 wrote: | Even weirder is how those who don't acknowledge | traditional societal ideas of gender roles are being | directed to adopt an identity of their own: "non-binary" | or "genderfluid". So the strong gender norms have now | become a thoroughly self-reinforcing cycle: even if you | disagree with them, you're just treated and reassigned in | accordance with these same norms. | at_a_remove wrote: | You know what else causes "real harm to kids"? Telling them | that puberty blockers are like, _totes_ reversible and have | zero side effects. | LargeTomato wrote: | >All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily | explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same | appeared when we stopped pathologizing left-handedness - all | the kids didn't suddenly become left-handed, but the ones | that were felt comfortable no longer hiding it. | | I think you are repeating talking points from John Oliver. If | trans identifying people were evenly distributed among the | population then it would appear a natural phenomenon. | Unfortunately in some cases this is not true. Groups of young | girls are coming out as trans together. Trans youth are | clustered by social circle, not randomly distributed. Being | trans is a legitimate identity but it is false to say that | every single person who announces that they are trans is in | fact trans. | fock wrote: | > All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily | explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same | appeared when we stopped. | | Explained (aka semi-solid empirical experiments - where are | those?) or imagined (aka ideological beliefs, much like the | right)? | | > And by and large, with some exceptions that get | consistently magnified by those with an agenda, it is not | something you can just do on a whim, and generally requires a | lot of counselling and a lot of effort to pursue hormonal or | surgical changes. | | And yet every other week I see a talkshow on public TV | discussing this. Prominently hosting a person that thinks the | rules in place are faaaar to rigid, while most sane people | would agree they are fine and problems lie in other areas. | For example, while I agree that in many cases physiological | "modifications" might be the most economic solution putting | this solely to the purview of the individual might a) incur | follow-up costs on society (here, these things are not self- | paid) and b) raises the question why we don't amputate the | legs of those who think they have one too many. The latter | thing is something, which I would really like explained once | by someone. | Fr0styMatt88 wrote: | I have to wonder if mirror neurons play a part in this. Perhaps | there's something that's fundamentally common to both 'real' tics | and these types of non-Tourette's tics. A person could already be | predisposed to something like Tourette's and seeing these videos | could be the thing that ignites the kindling for them. | jlrubin wrote: | anecdotally, i had a professor (if you're reading this, hi) who | would wink in conversation at exactly the right point to add a | little "isn't the world a funny place" comedy to whatever he was | saying... wasn't clear if intentional or a tic for when he | thought he had said something clever. I noticed that habit to | have transferred to me for a while after, though I think now it's | faded. | golemiprague wrote: | themagician wrote: | This is South Park: Season 11, Episode 8 (Le Petit Tourette) come | to life. | lifeisstillgood wrote: | From my reading of the article (which is hard to parse not being | an expert) it seems there is a German YouTuber with Tourette's | who _also_ on his YouTube shows displays non-tourette 's tics. | And these tics are being copied by other young people watching | his shows, and being presented as Tourette's until they arrive at | the clinic where these experts go "hang on this kid does not have | Tourette's but does have tics similar to the German youtuber | above" | | So, the weird thing is not they pick up someone else's tics but | they cannot get rid of them. | | Learnt behaviour, copying, or physical tics that once learnt get | stuck in the brain? | akira2501 wrote: | > Learnt behaviour, copying, or physical tics that once learnt | get stuck in the brain? | | The article itself makes it clear. There's an obvious reward | for these behaviors. This youtuber got exceptionally popular | very quickly and was able to turn that into appearances on | other shows. The other patients are also noted to have their | "symptoms" express themselves during unpleasant tasks, but to | be missing during pleasant ones. To the point it gets them out | of doing the unpleasant work. | | We've built a system that rewards this behavior because we | built a system that also makes this behavior profitable. To me, | these results shouldn't be a surprise, and I wonder if this | "new illness" is really just an emergent lower level expression | of something like Munchhausen syndrome; now given a wider and | less sophisticated audience to play to. | ridgeguy wrote: | Faceworms instead of earworms? | indigochill wrote: | There may be a relation to military conditioning. I spent just | a single week at a military academy introductory program in | high school and when I returned home I was "uncontrollably" (if | I thought about it I could avoid doing it, but if I was on | autopilot it happened by itself) squaring my corners and | calling my family "sir" and "ma'am". The thing was, those | patterns were my entire life for that week, and they were very | deliberately drilled into me. Eventually they faded because | they weren't reinforced outside of the academy (if anything, | they were "deinforced"), but there may be a connection here. | | If someone spends many hours a day watching someone with | particular quirks, it doesn't seem surprising (drawing | parallels here to my experience) that those quirks may transfer | because their brain starts to make those associations through | observation. I would expect that stopping watching that | particular person would probably let the transferred tics decay | over a period of time (I'd give it a month). | hrnnnnnn wrote: | I love "deinforce" as an antonym to "reinforce". The standard | way to say it would maybe be "deemphasised", but it lacks the | symmetry of "deinforced". | elliottkember wrote: | In behavioural psychology the antonym is "punish". There | are positive/negative axes (whether a stimulus is added or | removed) and reinforcement/punishment axes (whether the | consequence is desired). | | Negative reinforcement is what boot camp uses. If you | square your corners, you won't get shouted at. The | "negative" aspect relates to the lack of shouting, and the | reinforcement relates to the fact that the shouting is | unpleasant. | | At home, positive punishment would be making fun of the | tendencies, and negative punishment would have meant | receiving no validation for the behaviour. | labster wrote: | I think GP meant deinforce to be a complimentary antonym, | where you gave the gradable antonym. | CognitiveLens wrote: | @elliottkember is giving the correct complimentary | antonym to "reinforce" in behavioral psych - "punishment" | reduces the frequency of a behavior, "reinforcement" | increases the frequency. There's a spectrum, but the | terms only refer to the opposing effects on behavior | rates. In the GP's comment, "deinforcement" appears to | also mean "actively reducing the frequency of the | behavior". | albert_e wrote: | I read about "mirror neurons" where humans watching others do | physical activity also have some of the same neural pathways | fire. | | (V. S. RAMACHANDRAN) | | The author/researcher says he believes that is one of the | main mechanisms of human learning (babies look at adults and | imitate. Adults look at other adults and imitate. | Subconsciously) | | What you are describing sounds very similar. | boole1854 wrote: | When I was raising my first child, I discovered a strange, | apparently innate instinct which presumably is related to | the mirror neurons: | | At some point the child gets old enough that you start to | feed them 'baby food' on a spoon. The child isn't used to | eating off of a spoon so for many weeks the process is | messy. The initial challenge is getting them to open their | mouth wide enough for the spoon to enter. And telling them | 'open your mouth' is not particularly useful since they | don't understand English at that age. | | Instead, the following instinct kicks in: as you approach | their mouth with the spoon, _your own mouth opens_. They | see your mouth open and then open theirs. The crazy part is | that your own mouth opening happens involuntarily at the | moment you want their mouth to open. It is _physically | difficult_ to suppress it, even if you try. | | I've also noticed the reverse. When the child gets a little | older, they at some point want _you_ to open your mouth, | because they want to feed you something or they are curious | about the inside of your mouth (this is a phase they go | through). They seem to also involuntarily open their mouth | wide when they want you to open yours. | adolph wrote: | After your first sentence I thought the next would be | "uncontrollably dropping two f-bombs for every noun and one | for every verb" but the classic hallway "at ease, make way" | is good fun too. It was hilarious how it could travel in | waves up a hall ahead of the drill like a preceding shadow. | My floor was enthusiastically and maliciously conformant and | loud about it. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning | kuhewa wrote: | The article says that one thing differentiating these kids | from acutal Tourette symptoms is that instead of symptoms | waxing and waning, they only deteriorate. So that definitely | squares | jelliclesfarm wrote: | Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in the | UK and return with an affected British accent. | | Before social media, there were movies that molded society. | Bollywood and more recently K-dramas/K-pop have influenced an | entire generation. | | Often these were used for shaping a younger generation as a | long term strategy for a desirable adult demographic. To a | certain extent, it is happening in our American public school | system. Everyone who comes through it are kind of identical. | It may not be apparent to those who have never stepped out of | the States, but it is obvious to those outside or have known | other cultures. | | With social media impacts, its effect is like an oil spill. | Even if you can contain it, it will be messy, expensive and | traumatic for years and years. This is a Faustian bargain we | have made. | bawolff wrote: | I feel that might be overstating things. Otherwise we would | all be speaking in a transatlantic accent. | filoleg wrote: | > Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in | the UK and return with an affected British accent. | | As someone who moved to the US in his mid-teens (from a | non-english-speaking country), that's quite literally me | with British movies. | | After watching a few over a weekend, Mondays are usually | rough, as I end up saying random words in British accent | and immediately correcting myself. | rubidium wrote: | All behavior is total behavior, so it doesn't really matter. | Article makes the point that this is attention seeking behavior | and often used as an excuse to avoid unpleasant tasks. Whether | the teens are aware they are choosing the tic, eventually it | becomes habitual and they "can't stop". Except they can after | meeting with a trained phycologist. Get to the root of the | behavior and usually the behavior goes away. | amelius wrote: | Many OCD sufferers will not agree. | elil17 wrote: | I think they were referring to behaviors associated with | mass psychogenic illness, which is probably a lot more | curable than many OCD cases. | lisper wrote: | It's plausible [1] [2]. | | I am by all accounts neurotypical (except perhaps for a touch | of Aspergers) but I have an involuntary tic. Every now and then | (like once or twice a week) a memory of some incredibly stupid | thing that I once did -- sometimes decades ago -- will pop into | my head and before I can re-establish conscious control I'll | make a vocalization that sounds like a cross between a whimper | and a sneeze. It's kind of embarrassing, but usually I cover it | up with a cough afterwards. I don't think anyone has ever | actually noticed except me. | | --- | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought | snapcaster wrote: | Holy shit, I thought this only happened to me. Hey fellow | weirdo! Glad to know i'm not alone | wussboy wrote: | I had a significant tic, and found profound relief through | Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I strongly recommend | "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life". | [deleted] | theGnuMe wrote: | Interesting. | | I am wondering if you've tried EMDR after the event happens? | So you have the thought that triggers the tic and then you'd | focus intensely on the event and do the EMDR stuff. That may | reduce the intensity of the past event and reprogram your | nervous system to not trigger so intensely on it. | lisper wrote: | See my response here: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=33887467 | HEmanZ wrote: | Happens at least twice a day to me, sometimes a lot more. My | wife finds it bewildering so I'm not sure it's totally | normal, but I know it's not uncommon either. | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | I have SAD and this happens to me several times a day. Though | it's not so much that it pops into my head, more that my | train of thought leads me there by association. | | In a lot of ways SAD feels like a form of PTSD where instead | of a single extremely traumatic experience, or many extreme | experiences(known as complex PTSD), it's a huge amount of | slightly traumatic ones. So it's sort of like a flashback. | | One of the things I've noticed is that when I'm on SSRIs and | they're working(which has never been a long-lived state of | affairs, unfortunately), this phenomenon is drastically | reduced or even gone altogether. | geocrasher wrote: | Are you talking about Seasonal Affective Disorder? Or can | you define what SAD is if not? | Scarblac wrote: | From context my guess is Social Anxiety Disorder. | geocrasher wrote: | That makes more sense. Thanks. | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | Sorry, forgot about seasonal affective disorder, which I | also have, ironically. But I was referring to social | anxiety disorder. | geocrasher wrote: | I too have issues with these kinds of thoughts that very | nearly cause a whole-body shudder, followed by a kind of yell | just to get it out of my system. It doesn't happen often, but | hearing others talk about this gives me hope that I'm not a | total weirdo... even though I know I am in many other ways | LOL! | | I've also wondered if my ADHD somehow factors into it, but | that I don't know. | ljf wrote: | As a someone who recently realised/accepted that I have | loads of adhd traits, I can see the connection. I | personally think that the fact my mind is never really | "calm" means I/we have more opportunities to play over | these things when doing other tasks. | | I get the impression those without adhd can just | concentrate without a mind full of fluff - I can't imagine | what that must be like! | evilos wrote: | I think this is a bit different from a tic though that's an | unqualified opinion. | | This happens to me as well, but usually I just kind of mutter | 'damnit' under my breath or 'ugh'. Maybe shake my head a | little. | Lochleg wrote: | EMDR therapy may help with something like that. | lisper wrote: | EMDR looks mighty hinky to me. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11393607/ | | "In sum, EMDR appears to be no more effective than other | exposure techniques, and evidence suggests that the eye | movements integral to the treatment, and to its name, are | unnecessary." | theGnuMe wrote: | That research is likely out of date. | throw__away7391 wrote: | Is this not totally normal and very common though? This exact | thing happens to me all the time, with some specific memories | linked to seemingly random acts like shaving the left side of | my neck. | twic wrote: | Yes, loads of people get this. A couple of random reddit | threads: | | https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/hzgm1n/how_t | o... | | https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/2nnff4/how_t | o... | | I do it. When i'm alone, and one of those thoughts hits, | me, i often vocalise a bit. If i'm in company i just wince | (if i made a noise in front of other people when i thought | of something embarrassing, that would be embarrassing, so | that would lead to a sort of embarrassment Kessler | syndrome). | cscheid wrote: | > embarrassment Kessler syndrome | | Thank you, this is a genuinely great turn of phrase. | lisper wrote: | I have no idea if it's common or not. It might be. It's not | the sort of thing people generally discuss. This is the | first time I've ever talked about it. | tgv wrote: | A (long) time ago, I noticed something not dissimilar in | my behavior. I've never noticed it in others, so it quite | likely that your behavior goes unnoticed too. | | But what I did was tell myself to not react like that | again next time. Of course, that didn't work, but it made | me notice it better. And after repeating that for some | time, I had timely control over the reaction (not over | the stimulus that provoked it). If your tic is light and | annoys you, you could try that. Your subconscious is | capable of picking up more than you think, and it is | (somewhat) malleable. | kneebonian wrote: | I have this happen to I've always assumed it was an anxiety | response. The interesting things is I am able to control it | to some extent, I used to hit myself, now I mutter | profanities. Anyone else do something like this? | [deleted] | [deleted] | rjbwork wrote: | Yup. I just say fuck and shake my head. Apparently this is | rather normal behavior... | sgu999 wrote: | According to who? I have the same issue and it's | annoying. | rjbwork wrote: | Well, there are a bunch of us in this thread, and I've | heard many people talk about it over the years both IRL | and elsewhere on the internet. Maybe "normal" is the | wrong word, but it does seem to be exceedingly common. | | https://img.ifunny.co/images/81b1345612c2c66153ac111e99d4 | 1b2... | | https://www.thecut.com/article/how-to-stop-reliving- | embarras... | | https://harleytherapy.com/blog/posts/cringe-attacks | Levitz wrote: | Well sure? Remembering embarrassing stuff is annoying. | | I've found that sitting with the thought for a little | while and processing the emotion prevents it from coming | up again. You can't just remember that girl in first year | of uni that made an effort to hug you every day and flee | the thought every time, painful as it is. You have to sit | there and go through it. Yes I was young and stupid, but | the reason I even cringe thinking about it is because I | am now better. And that is ok. | dEnigma wrote: | I also do that from time to time, though less regularly, | maybe once a month. But then I also sometimes talk to myself | (not excessively, just occasionally when I take a walk or | while at home, replaying some conversation or imagining a | possible situation). I thought this was rather normal, or at | least not too far from normal. | ljf wrote: | This is me to a tee! I either get a neck spasm when my chin | gets brought down (also happens spontaneously, but often with | a cringe worthy thought from the past), or I'll 'almost' same | something out loud while replaying something. | | Assumed it wasn't just me who did this but glad to know there | are others. | somedude895 wrote: | It's the mere suggestion that they might have those tics, but | the article says: | | > Fourth, in some patients, a rapid and complete remission | occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. | | It also mentions other examples of MSI, where symptoms across | the group would subside after a couple weeks or months. So | yeah, in most cases all it needs is someone to say Stop That! | You're imagining things | kuhewa wrote: | > First, all patients presented with nearly identical movements | and vocalizations that not only resemble Jan Zimmermann's | symptoms, but are in part exactly the same, such as shouting | the German words Pommes (English: potatoes), Bombe (English: | bomb), Heil Hitler, Du bist hasslich (English: you are ugly) | and Fliegende Haie (English: flying sharks) as well as bizarre | and complex behaviours such as throwing pens at school and | dishes at home, and crushing eggs in the kitchen. > Fourth, in | some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after | exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. | | To a first approximation, the kids are 'faking it'. The third | point I didn't quote was that symptoms appear when it will | preclude then from doing a tedious task, and then disappear | when they are doing something they want to do. | [deleted] | rocketbop wrote: | Link is 403 Forbidden for me. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | https://archive.ph/ZhKaL | lynx23 wrote: | So, these people are trying to convince us that SnowCrash is | basically a realistic story, and no, modern society is not fed up | with what happened in the recent years. I believe neither. | "Outbreak" your a*! | cnity wrote: | Ironically categorising this as an outbreak of illness | legitimises the attention-seeking behaviour which is firmly | predicated on being perceived as a sufferer of illness. | TeMPOraL wrote: | I don't think it does. I understand the implication here being | the people affected are suffering from Tiktokitis, i.e. | symptoms of a different disease, but caused by social media | exposure. Suffering from that isn't going to earn you much | compassion or street cred, particularly when the cure is to | spend less time on social media. | 01100011 wrote: | This sucks as someone who has had movement disorders(essential | tremor, tics) for decades. It also sucks because the covid | booster, like a flu shot years ago(only one, I get them every | year) caused a dramatic worsening of my tics for a few months. | | I didn't realize the whole 'covid tic hysteria' was even a thing | until I googled 'covid vaccine tics' after personally | experiencing a dramatic worsening of symptoms. | teekert wrote: | It almost feels like gpt created literature when you start to | read it, seemingly linking unrelated issues and concepts. But | later in I became convinced it's real and very interesting. Very | meme-like, in the original definition of meme that is. A "virus" | of the mind. | gary_0 wrote: | It read like parody to me at first, but I verified the | domain[0] and it's not. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_Press | Traubenfuchs wrote: | This has been a thing for a while. | | https://www.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/ | | It's status as illness though, let alone mass-illness is | dubious at best. | bowsamic wrote: | If you can't voluntarily stop it and it's causing negative | effects to your quality of life then why can't it be called | an illness? These people aren't going to get professional | help just for the fun of it | tedunangst wrote: | > Third, patients often reported to be unable to perform | unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms resulting in | release from obligations at school and home, while | symptoms temporarily completely disappear while | conducting favourite activities. | mrguyorama wrote: | That makes no comment about whether the symptoms are on | purpose, or unconscious. Ask any ADHD or OCD person about | "symptoms that arise around unpleasant tasks" | bowsamic wrote: | How does that imply that it's voluntary? | astura wrote: | These illnesses appear to be very real, even if | sociogenetic in origin. | | Someone researching the same thing has this to say | | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/16/the-unknown- | is... | | >Olvera's research has not gone down well in some quarters. | "I'm frustrated," she says. "I've tried to stop reading a | lot of what is written out there." She's received "lots" of | angry emails. "My colleagues have had a positive response | to my research," she says, "but I don't know if it's been | perceived appropriately by the public. The last thing I | would want is for my patients to walk away from this | thinking that their disorder is fake or not worthwhile." | | >Much of the controversy arises from the misapprehension | that doctors are accusing young people of faking Tourette's | for attention, or arguing that TikTok is giving people | Tourette's. Neither claim is true. "What the media has | boiled it down to," says Olvera, "is that if it's not | Tourette syndrome, it's fake. But just because it's not | Tourette syndrome doesn't mean it's fake. This is a real | condition. Even though it's not typical Tourette's, it's | very disruptive and stressful." | bowsamic wrote: | A lot of the responses in this thread demonstrate the | same dismissal that she discusses | ejolto wrote: | The last sentence of the abstract felt especially unnatural: | | > since spread via social media is no longer restricted to | specific locations such as local communities or school | environments spread via social media is no longer restricted to | specific locations such as schools or towns. | DanSmooth wrote: | The whole sentence could use some more punctuation marks, | like so: | | A large number of young people across different countries are | affected, with considerable impact on health care systems and | society as a whole. Since spread via social media is no | longer restricted to specific locations such as local | communities or school environments, spread via social media | is no longer restricted to specific locations such as schools | or towns. | indigochill wrote: | The second sentence both says the same thing twice and | actually doesn't make any sense when you parse it. | | > Since spread via social media is no longer restricted to | specific locations such as local communities or school | environments, spread via social media is no longer | restricted to specific locations such as schools or towns. | | The sequence "spread via social media is no longer | restricted to specific locations" appears in exactly that | sequence twice in that sentence. If you cut the redundancy | down to "spread via social media is no longer restricted to | specific locations", that doesn't make sense either since | social media was never restricted to specific locations. | | I'm not saying it's definitely written entirely by GPT, but | mindlessly repeating sequences is very GPT-like behavior. | Maybe academics are using GPT to pad their word count? Or | maybe the authors and their editors just need more coffee? | caf wrote: | Yes, I too got to that sentence and thought "Are we being | pranked by a GPT-written academic article?" | bowsamic wrote: | As someone in academia, that reads just like a sentence that | wasn't peer reviewed by a native English speaker. | HPsquared wrote: | It's just missing a comma. | mahathu wrote: | A comma would help, but it's not just that. | | They used the phrase "spread via social media" and pointed | out that spread isn't locally restricted anymore twice for | no reason. They're also using circular reasoning. A more | concise way to phrase this would have been: | | > since [the images and videos] are shared via social | media, spread is no longer restricted to specific locations | such as local communities or school environments. | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | I think someone's just been steeped in academia a little too | long. | goda90 wrote: | Stuff like this makes me wonder if taboo and stigma "evolved" in | societies as defense against the spread of behavior that could | cause a breakdown of social order. For example, if something like | dancing mania[0] got out of hand, then important jobs could be | left undone and people starve or whatever. So if the notion that | such behavior is bad is drilled into everyone's mind before being | exposed, then they are more likely to avoid "catching" it. | | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania | ttpphd wrote: | Taboo and stigma are also what drive irrational prejudices, so | I'm not sure about the rush to judgment about, ummm, "important | jobs" which definitely were not how society was organized | during the vast majority of our evolution. | fncivivue7 wrote: | I've been starting to think the bible and other religions have | their place due to this. Plot people on a bell curve, that's a | lot of people that can't grasp basic nuance and critical | reasoning. | lo_zamoyski wrote: | There's no need for convoluted explanations. A good taboo, | understood as a restriction on certain kinds of behavior or | speech at least in certain circumstances, exists to protect | some good. It's the same reason (or one of the reasons) we | partition our houses into rooms by purpose. Human flourishing | requires certain limits, not letting it all hang out. The | latter is more akin to the liberal notion of freedom understood | as "do what thou wilt" and limitless indulgence of the | appetites and desires. The classical understanding of freedom | is the ability to do what you ought. Guess which leads to | happiness and which leads to misery. | el_nahual wrote: | "limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires" has a | different word. That's not _freedom_ , that's called | _debauchery_ and has absolutely nothing to do with | "liberalism" in the political science meaning of the term. | ravenstine wrote: | > There's no need for convoluted explanations. | | I don't see how it's at all convoluted. If anything, it's too | reductive. | | Taboos, traditions, etc., don't need to exist because of a | reason that's explicit. Sometimes, they do, but that doesn't | explain the taboos that don't make obvious sense. A taboo can | be more or less a form of "cultural neuron" that doesn't have | an explicit purpose but incidentally changes the balance of | the system towards something that society at a given time may | benefit from without even knowing it. A religion featuring | more ornate hats than others may have more true believers, or | perhaps the other way around for all we know. If that's at | least plausible, if not true, that wouldn't necessarily mean | a reverend at one point decided to declare a certain kind of | hat wearing because of the "good of the church." | | The inverse can also be true. Take for instance the taboo of | _sexism_. Makes sense, right? Given modern western | principles, why should culture allow for discrimination based | on sex? On the other hand, there 's evidence that many women, | regardless of their political positions, actually appreciate | men who are "benevolently sexist." It's a phenomenon | compelling enough that even Psychology Today, a publication | heavily biased against anything unflattering to women, has | reported on it more than once. By making sexism a taboo, and | far more taboo as of late, society has raised the bar for | just how confident a man has to be to attract a woman. We | really don't need a study to demonstrate that, on average, | women are attracted to confidence. An effect of making sexism | taboo is it changes the signal to noise ratio, allowing women | to better identify which men they'll actually be attracted | to. Maybe there were some people arguing against sexism with | this in mind, but I imagine they are an extreme minority. | Most anti-sexists probably weren't thinking along those | lines. | | At least that taboo makes some reasonable sense in isolation, | and even the fashion of religious garb can be made sense of, | but what about a taboo that makes no sense? What about merely | making a mouth-noise that comes out sounding like "shit?" | | It makes little explicit sense that saying the word "shit" be | a faux pas. You can say poop, doodie, scat, dung, and even | crap, but shit is considered a curse word. It's really pretty | stupid. | | Except I would argue that having any form of taboo can have a | positive effect, even if it barely makes sense. By having | cultural limits of any kind, it puts the society on the same | page and creates a mindset where individuals try to at least | maintain some level of basic class as a mindset. Personally, | I like saying the word shit, but adding virtually any | variable to a chaotic system can have effects that weren't | explicitly predicted. | polishdude20 wrote: | Oh yeah definitely. It's easier to just have a general learned | feeling of a taboo than to have to explain to everyone the | historical and societal consequences of it to every person. | It's a learned behavior that helps perpetuate a higher survival | rate not because the thing itself is bad if done a handful of | times but because it can get out of hand and be done by the | whole population. | wahern wrote: | > It's a learned behavior that helps perpetuate a higher | survival rate | | Taboo is the learned behavior, _shame_ would be the | evolutionary corollary, though both of those words are doing | alot of work. IMO, until we figure out the evolutionary | mechanics of how human social behavior evolved, I 'd be | cautious discussing survival rates; it only begs the question | of who's survival rate--the group or the individual? | Presumably _at_ _least_ the individual, but it 's definitely | still an open question. And without properly resolving the | question (really, a whole host of questions, many of which we | probably can't even articulate, yet) there are many other | evolutionary phenomena we can't or shouldn't imply, not to | mention cultural phenomena we won't be able to fully | understand. | poulpy123 wrote: | There is also the same thing with Dissociative identity disorder | that had (have ?) a boom after some people from tiktok started to | pretend have it | azangru wrote: | This passage from the abstract: | | > Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of | a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society | emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their | alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking | behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of | modern man. | | is rather peculiar. I didn't expect that this is how neurologists | and neuroscientists would speak these days. "Our postmodern | society", "permanent identity crisis of the modern man" - these | sentiments sound like they've been transplanted from a humanities | paper. | damagednoob wrote: | Yes this struck me too. I wouldn't describe the language used | as 'neutral'. | CognitiveLens wrote: | This language style is a bit more common in academic writing | outside of the Anglo tradition that is most commonly reported | in the English-speaking world. British and American university | training emphasises more clinical language, for better and | worse. | quonn wrote: | This reminds me of analytical (formal) vs continental | philosophy which is similar. | somedude895 wrote: | I agree. It is a bit weird to see such subjective takes and | cultural pessimism in an article like this. Hadn't noticed it | the first time around, probably due to my own biases. So thanks | for pointing it out. | boomchinolo78 wrote: | Surely not the vaksine ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-06 23:00 UTC)