Trans Woman Defends Pete Buttigieg From The "Marcusean Left" of the LGBT Community | LGBT News

With the recent increase in popularity of 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, there has been renewed criticism of his candidacy's effects on the LGBT community from some sections of the community. These criticisms come in a few forms: firstly, that as a white gay man he can't understand or represent non-white trans women; secondly, that his candidacy as a family friendly married gay man serves to marginalize those with alternative lifestyles; and finally, that his refusal to be militant on certain LGBT matters means that he is the 'wrong kind of gay representative'. As I will show, all these criticisms are totally invalid. Furthermore, they tell us how much LGBT activist circles continue to be influenced by Marcusean ideas, passed down from the 1960s and 70s, and why this has an unhealthy effect on us all.

Let's begin with the idea that Mayor Pete, as a white gay man, can't represent non-white trans woman. This really is peak identity politics. Moreover, this assumes that people are primarily defined by their status in the so-called hierarchy of oppression, an idea with roots in critical theory as well as postmodernism. However, this hierarchy doesn't exist in a solid form in real life. Furthermore, people's preferences are informed by many other factors. For example, as a trans woman with a more traditional lifestyle, I tend to identify more with those icons of our community who share this with me. I feel like I can relate much more to Mayor Pete than say, a trans woman who is like the Tabby character in the ContraPoints videos. In fact, I can relate much more to most straight people than someone like Tabby. I think we are ultimately more united by things like personal values, lifestyles and social circles, than by sexual orientation or gender identity.

Which brings me onto my next point. Some LGBT activists who have chosen to live an alternative lifestyle feel like the candidacy of Mayor Pete and the spotlight on his religious and pro-family lifestyle serves to marginalize them. Of course, this is silly. In a free society, we all have the right to choose our lifestyle based on our own values and preferences, and nobody is marginalized by another's choice. This is what makes it a free society. The problem is, there is a faction of the left that is strongly influenced by the ideas of 20th century critical theorist Herbert Marcuse, and this faction is quite prominent within LGBT activism, probably because Marcuse specifically told his readers that the outcasts of society are where his revolution could be started, causing his followers to infiltrate the LGBT community back in the 1970s. Marcuse believed that people were sexually repressed in advanced industrial societies, that the then-dominance of family values were the cause of this, and this so-called repression could lead to bad political consequences. Furthermore, he also believed in advancing his own brand of radical beliefs by the suppression of traditional beliefs, as outlined in his famous essay on 'repressive tolerance' written in the mid-1960s, which showed that he essentially believed the cultural space to be a zero-sum game. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the Marcusean left would be suspicious of someone like Mayor Pete, who they probably fear would take away the so-called 'revolutionary potential' of the LGBT community. Of course, none of Marcuse's theories are proven or well grounded, and therefore Marcusean views are basically no more than subjective thoughts. The LGBT community would do well to avoid such divisive nonsense.

Finally, several LGBT activists have taken issue with Mayor Pete's lack of militancy on LGBT issues in general, including his refusal to boycott a certain fast food chain. This is, of course, the polar opposite of my own view that Mayor Pete's refusal to be divisive is a strength in that it brings people together and allows problems to be solved in a better way. However, those who subscribe to the conflict theory of sociology take the opposite view, that conflict and associated struggle is good for resolving cultural contradictions. The conflict theory of sociology is closely associated with critical theory, which is why the Macusean left generally holds this view. The fact is, this view is clearly disproven by history. History shows that intense conflict rarely resolves problems satisfactorily, and even risks prolonging mutual animosity for generations. On the other hand, the best way to resolve difficult issues has always been to bring people with all sorts of views together, and this is why it's important for a leader to be able to do that.

Conversation With a TradTrans: Shared Concerns About BreadTube & LGBT Culture | TE Report Trans S3 E7

TaraElla: Hi everyone, welcome again to the special LGBT season of the TaraElla Report. This is where we showcase the diversity of views in the community, to show that diverse views do exist, despite what the activists may have people believe. Now, I don't endorse all the views presented on this show, but I think it's important to showcase diversity. Today, we have Louise, who is a self-identified traditionalist trans woman, or a Trad-Trans, as she calls it. She has some controversial views regarding where the LGBT community is going. And she's worried about the effect BreadTube and its associated culture may be having on the LGBT community.

Louise: Lately, I've observed that BreadTube has a particularly high proportion of LGBT followers. I've also seen people talk about BreadTube or its creators from time to time, in general trans discussion spaces. BreadTube really seems to have become a part of LGBT culture nowadays. What I'm most concerned about is how BreadTube seems to be bundling the trans experience, or LGBT identity more generally, with some very ideological, and in my opinion misguided, worldviews.

For example, the idea that marriage and family is somehow tied to the origins of homophobia and transphobia is commonly accepted as fact in BreadTube and culturally adjacent circles. But not only is this untrue, it turns LGBT people against marriage and family, two things that are valued by most people, for no good reason. We really don't need to do that, now that we have marriage equality. BreadTube seems to have its own views about justice, which is rooted in certain academic theory. However, for me, the biggest justice LGBT people can get is to be able to integrate into mainstream society with dignity, and thanks to movements like marriage equality, we have become more able to do just that. I'm worried that the BreadTube aligned LGBT community seems to be turning its back on all that.

TaraElla: Yeah, BreadTube style 'justice' is very narrowly defined, and we need a broader notion of justice that is rooted in what people actually want. Different people want different things, and that should be respected. As a communitarian minded person, I definitely see the importance of integration to many LGBT people. Also, as somebody who helped fight for gay marriage for over a decade, I'm honestly confused and frustrated by this change too. It's as if there's been a change of guard at the top of the LGBT activist establishment, and the 1960s style conflict theory based activists are in charge again. As I've often said, our gains over the past two decades were hard won, and I'm worried that this return to conflict theory would only lead to our estrangement from mainstream society. Of course, people who believe in conflict theory don't care about that. They probably enjoy being rejected by mainstream society, to a degree. But the important thing is, the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer the very real and very material consequences of their actions.

Louise: I mean, there's no reason to teach LGBT people to be anti-marriage and family, unless the goal is to make us miserable, lonely, and hated by mainstream society. I personally believe that things like marriage, faithfulness, getting along with the community, and the like are good for everyone. Now that the historical wrong of excluding LGBT people from traditional institutions has been righted, I think we should relish our opportunity to live in these institutions, and reap the benefits of the good life they bring. Of course, that's just my personal view, and I'm not forcing it on anybody. But of course, some activists believe that the personal is political, and even my personal lifestyle choices as a Trad-Trans can offend them for some reason. It's just unbelievable. One thing I certainly don't like about BreadTube is that they politicize everything, and seem to appreciate nothing. I think LGBT people already have a hard enough life; we certainly don't need the extra anger.

TaraElla: This I can certainly agree with. Not everything is political. What I had for breakfast this morning isn't political, and nobody should pretend otherwise. In believing that almost everything is political, radical activists submit everything to their critical theory analysis, and leave us no room to enjoy freedom over anything. This is why, sometimes, it just helps to be less critical, and more appreciative, in life. Apperciation of life as it is, is something the BreadTube community could probably have more of.

BreadTube Faux-Intellectualism & Bias | TE Report Trans S3 E6

TaraElla: Hi everyone, welcome again to the special LGBT season of the TaraElla Report. From now on, we'll be doing something different: I'll be having a chat with some of my LGBT friends who have a different view of LGBT matters to what the activists promote as being representative of us. What I want to do is to showcase the diversity of views in this community, to show that diverse views do exist, to encourage the creation of solutions that will work for everyone and not just the activist establishment. Today, we have Ashley, who is, above all, skeptical of the new dogmas surrounding the trans experience and the concept of gender identity. She is here to respond to my recent talk about why BreadTube hates transmedicalism, in Episode 24 of BreadBusting. For those who are new to this discussion, BreadTube hates transmedicalism, the idea that the trans experience is defined by the medical condition of gender dysphoria. This discussion has blown up again, due to the latest ContraPoints video featuring Buck Angel, a trans male icon with transmedicalist views. This led to Natalie being accused of platforming transmedicalist ideas, even though she's not transmed herself. Apparently, transmed views are now so taboo in BreadTube that even including a transmed's voice in a video is a sin.

Ashley: I've always had a skeptical personality. However, my skepticism towards everything grew further from my political experience, having gone from the so-called SJW crowd, to the so-called anti-SJW crowd, and then distancing myself from both of these crowds, having finally seen the flaws in all of them. The problem is, they all have certain dogma, a certain party line that you have to toe, if you want to be part of the group. This means they are not committed enough to the truth. What I'm seeing recently in the LGBT community, including on BreadTube, is, unfortunately, something similar. There are certain views about gender identity, what being trans is, and how a trans person should relate to the wider world that one now has to have if one wants to be cool in many LGBT circles. And these views are, in my opinion, often explicitly anti-science. Like you said last week, there is a general prioritization of ideas from the sociology and philosophy departments over ideas from the medical science department. And frankly, I think this bias stinks of faux-intellectualism.

TaraElla: My point was that, BreadTubers have more educational capital in the humanities, and they often have little educational capital in the medical sciences, therefore, they favor sociological explainations to make them sound smarter. But the fact is, medical explainations have usually turned out to be correct more often than sociological explainations, if you look at the history of humans asking the big questions of our existence.

Ashley: That's exactly what I'm worried about. For example, Dr Benjamin is out, and Foucault and Butler are in. I'm a pretty science-based person, and I don't like that. There's little interest in all the medical scienfitic hypotheses like genetic imprinting, hormone receptor mutations, or partial androgen insensitivity, all of which may lead us down the path towards more knowledge about the condition of gender dysphoria and its endocrine origins. Instead, there's an over-focus on how gender is socially constructed, and a misguided attempt at trying to deconstruct it all. I am pro-science because, frankly, I think science leads us to the truth, and philosophy often makes us more confused. Of course, what I mean by science is not the simplistic eighth-grade science that doesn't acknowledge any possibility of deviation from the usual sexual norms of the 98%. At more advanced levels of medical science, there are plenty of plausible theories about the origins of gender identity and gender dysphoria, and I'm angry that too little attention is being payed to those theories.

TaraElla: I think what you're saying is that we shouldn't let the social overshadow or overtake the scientific. And I totally agree. The scientific method exists for a reason: it's the best way to lead us to the truth. Many activists say that transmedicalism is about putting down non-binary people, which is nonsense. For many of us, transmedicalism is basically about sticking to scientific methods as the principle way of learning about the trans condition. And as you said, there's much to learn, and much truth to uncover here, something that's being ignored by both cultural conservatives who stick to the eighth-grade version of 'science', and Foucauldian cultural radicals who essentially believe that the scientific method is a tool of oppression and control. I think that's a sad situation indeed.

Why is Transmedicalism Taboo in BreadTube | Re ContraPoints Opulence | BreadBusting #24

NOTE: The transmed view is that the root cause of transness is the condition of gender dysphoria, as defined in DSM-V. It does not however mean that it is a mental illness. Being trans is NOT a mental illness!


Welcome to BreadBusting by TaraElla, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and also LeftTube in general. Subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I am going to continue to respond to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Opulence. This is part three of three, and my focus today will be on how some observations from the video can be applied to BreadTube culture, as I have observed it as an outsider.

So where should we start? I guess we can start with the controversy around the inclusion of the voice of trans male icon Buck Angel in the video. Buck was one of the voices who read out the quotes in the video. However, some people have criticized Natalie for including Buck, because he holds some transmedicalist views. Transmedicalism is the idea that being trans is a medical condition; or in other words, having the medical condition of gender dysphoria defines being trans. And as we all know, transmedicalism is essentially taboo in BreadTube world. Also, given that Buck didn't even talk about any of his views in the video, apparently it's now transmedicalist people who are taboo, and not just trasmedicalist ideas. But why are transmedicalist views taboo in BreadTube? Some may say such views are harmful, because they think transmedicalism is against non-binary people. But then, from my experience, most transmedicalists actually accept non-binary people, and they don't tend to force their beliefs onto others either. So what's the real reason for transmedicalist views being taboo in BreadTube? And what does that have to say about BreadTube as a whole? As I will explore today, I think the answer can ironically be found in some of the concepts that were mentioned in the Opulence video.

BreadTube's culture is quite an exclusive one, and may I say, an arbitrary one too. I think it's like how Natalie described the relationship between art and the museum, that sometimes whatever is in the museum is deemed to be art because it's in the museum. Likewise, it seems that whatever is accepted by the BreadTube community is BreadTube, and what is excluded is simply content that the community doesn't like for some reason. Now, to prove this point, let's consider whether BreadTube indeed has objective criteria. Firstly, it's nominally a community of left-wing YouTubers, so I guess Republicans and Trump supporters are automatically excluded. That's a reasonably objective rule, I guess. But then, it's not just all left-leaning content. For example, 2020 Democratic candidates Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard have gained substantial followings online, and there are plenty of channels dedicated to these two people on YouTube. However, I never see them shared on the BreadTube subreddit, or otherwise mentioned as part of BreadTube. Apparently, Yang Gang can't be part of BreadTube for some reason, even though Yang is generally considered left-wing. It appears that only a certain kind of left is included in BreadTube. And on top of all this, there are certain taboo views that one must not hold in order to remain in good standing with the BreadTube community. Transmedicalism is one of them. Again, this appears to be quite arbitrary. I think this proves the point that BreadTube is like a museum that is curated by certain people according to their tastes. BreadTube, then, is ultimately a brand based on taste and cultural preference.

So why must the BreadTube community render certain ideas cool, and other ideas taboo? I guess one reason is simply because they can, and they want to. But another reason could be about portraying a certain kind of cultural classiness. Now, remember that opulence, wealth, and the trappings of class are not necessarily always linked. As Natalie said, President Trump seems to have opulence, wealth, but not the trappings of class, and this gives him a self-made man image that is popular with some people. While Natalie talked a lot about how one may deliberately portray opulence to imply having a lavish lifestyle, I guess one may also deliberately portray some trappings of class to imply a certain eliteness. I know it's unpopular to say this, but I feel like some BreadTubers are keen to portray the trappings of being highly educated, knowing more than the average person, and perhaps belonging to an exclusive sub-culture where only those who are appropriately learned can enter. BreadTubers often come across as just the opposite of Trump: they don't have opulence, they are generally not wealthy, but they portray the trappings of the elite intelligensia.

In turn, I think this explains many of the preferences of the BreadTube subculture. They like complex theories, especially by obscure theorists. They like to tell people to read this author or that author. They like to use big, uncommon words like 'praxis' when they can just say 'practice', for example. And they don't like simple, practical stuff. I guess that's why they don't have much interest in the Yang Gang and their fixation on 'securing the bag'. There's no grand theory or praxis there. I guess if you're an economist there are indeed a lot of technical things you could say about the UBI. However, your average BreadTuber doesn't have the necessary educational capital in the area of economics to make those sophisticated comments. For your average BreadTuber, there's not much there that one can use to show off their elite educated status, to show that one is different from the average person in the street. Now, let me make it clear that I'm not against higher education. I personally have multiple postgraduate degrees, so I can't be against higher education. But it's one thing to cherish education, and it's another thing to be elitist and exclusive, almost for the sake of it.

So where does the taboo against transmedicalism fit into all this? I guess transmedicalism is hated because it excludes your average BreadTuber from the 'elite' conversation. At a higher level, transmedicalism is associated with many different medical hypotheses, but you would probably need a medical sciences background to understand, study and explain those hypotheses. Most BreadTubers don't even understand basic stuff like hormone receptors, genetic imprinting and basic neuroanatomy, so it's not something they can delve into. In the transmedicalist world, your average BreadTuber would be stuck at the basic, high school level, and they don't like that very much. Furthermore, the transmedicalist hypothesis also has no implications beyond trans people, and can't be linked up with the grand social theorizing that BreadTube is all about. If transness is simply a medical condition, there's no implications for the rest of society, and transness also can't be linked in any way to the social theories. On the other hand, the alternative, that is the social constructionist model of gender, can be used to theorize about all sorts of things, and can also be linked to all sorts of social theory. By embracing social constructionism, the BreadTuber can thus show off their knowledge and education in various areas of the humanities. While your average BreadTuber doesn't have the educational capital to sound elite in the medical sciences, they do have the educational capital to sound elite when it comes to philosophy and sociology. In fact, I guess this could explain why the contemporary humanities is often a bit hostile to the sciences.

What's With Trans Women and Glamour? | Re ContraPoints Opulence | BreadBusting #23

Welcome to BreadBusting by TaraElla, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and also LeftTube in general. Subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I am going to continue to respond to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Opulence. This is part two of three, and my focus today will be on her point about trans women and glamour. As I understand it, Natalie seems to be seeing glamour through the lens that it is the portrayal of the fantasy of a lavish lifestyle. And to be fair, she has a point. But I think it's more complex, and therefore we should take a closer examination of this idea, as I often like to do.

Let's start with the fact that some trans women love glamour, even if some don't. In fact, according to my observations, proportionally more trans women love glamour, compared to non-trans women, something I will discuss again later. Natalie is a good example of a trans woman who loves glamour, as is Gigi Gorgeous, who Natalie often likes to mention. Natalie then discussed the political dimensions of it, hypothesizing that far-left trans women could be getting frustrated at her love of glamour for political or ideological reasons, drawing on quotes from DJ Sprinkles, as read out by Theryn's voice in the video. However, I think we should note that many trans women with a wide range of politics are of the glamour type, ranging from the moderate Republican Blaire White, to staunch progressives like Natalie, even to Stef Sanjati, who as I understand it holds very far-left political views. Therefore, the love of glamour does not represent a political type among trans women, and I guess among women in general.

However, I think that glamour could be associated with certain cultural ideas or idealized social types. For example, when I see a fully glammed up person, no matter what their gender is, I often think of them as having a Hollywood style mindset, and it turns out they often do. Larger than life, and bold in experimenting. My other instinctive feeling about glamorous people is that they tend to have less traditional views on a wide variety of things compared to myself. And 99% of the time I would be right. Natalie, Gigi Gorgeous, and Stef Sanjati are all clearly culturally not very traditional. And then, there's also the fact that the glamour style is less common in more conservative areas, for example rural America. On the other hand, I think it's interesting that Natalie raised the fact that far-left trans women are most often not interested in glamour either. DJ Sprinkles, whose quotes were used by Natalie in the video, has very radical cultural ideas. While she shares the traditionalist's aversion to excessive glamour, she doesn't share any of the traditionalist worldview. In fact, her negative views about families and family values scare me. In the quotes used in the video, she justified her disinterest in glamouros LGBT icons using social class theory, but I suspect for many far-left trans women rejecting glamour could also be a cultural thing. Throughout history, those who see themselves as revolutionaries generally don't embrace glamour. Being a revolutionary is a pretty gritty thing in general, and roughness is often part of that culture. For the traditionalist, rejecting glamour is about being down to Earth and family orientated; for the revolutionary, rejecting glamour is about being rough and facing up to the toughness of the world.

My point is, the embrace of glamour or lack thereof is often a function of internalized cultural image, that is, the ideal of how a person sees themselves. This could be related to politics in some, but probably not most, circumstances. For trans women, this association between style and self-image may become particularly intense, which I think could explain why the full expression of the Hollywood glamour style is overrepresented among trans women. As we grew up, many of us built up our image of what we want to be like, but were unable to actually portray that image. Therefore, when we actually can do so, it feels like reclaiming what has been denied to us. As Natalie said, portraying glamour can be part of this reclamation for some people. But equally, for those of us who don't see ourselves in the images of the glamouros Hollywood types for whatever reason, this reclaimation would occur without embracing glamour, or even explicitly rejecting glamour. As someone whose idealistic image is that of a family person, perhaps one day a successful small business owner, and an outspoken independent thinker, Hollywood style glamour is clearly outside of my self image. Glamour doesn't suit my identity. However, I respect that other trans women embrace glamour because they have a different ideal identity, and portraying glamour could be part of their self actualization. Again, this is also valid. I think we just need to learn to respect each other.

Are TRUSCUM Evil? | Re ContraPoints "Transtrenders" | BreadBusting #9

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. Please note that, while I do have my personal political beliefs, all this is done in the name of intellectual discussion and seeing things from different perspectives. This is the second part of my response to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Transtrenders. Last time we looked at the conflict between assimilationist vs anti-assimilationist LGBT people; and this time we will take a look at the transmedicalists vs anti-transmedicalists conflict.

But then... Truscum Trouble?

Technically, 'transmedicalist' refers to trans people who believe that being trans has a firm basis in the medical condition called 'gender dysphoria'. 'Truscum' originally meant a transmed who acts exclusionary towards trans people who don't agree with them, but nowadays many people just use the term as a smear for transmeds in general. Based on the way Tiffany treated Baltimore in the video, Tiffany would fit both definitions of a 'truscum'. But then, as I explained last time, putting down people who disagree with your worldview is an attitude problem, not a belief problem, and since I have already dealt with Tiffany's attitude problem last time, I won't explore that again. Instead, I'm going to focus on the difference in belief between Tiffany and Justine, and that difference is the acceptance vs the rejection of the transmed idea. In the rest of this video, I will see if this incompatibility is the make or break for this potential couple.

Are TRUSCUM Evil? Let's Look Deeper.

So, the main conflict we are presented with is that, Tiffany, like all transmeds, believe that being trans is a medical condition, and Justine, like all anti-transmeds, is opposed to this idea. Well, then, people have different ideas about various things, and they disagree all the time. So what? But then, this is actually personal for both Tiffany and Justine, because they are both trans. Therefore, Tiffany's theory about trans would apply to Justine too, and Justine's theory about trans would apply to Tiffany too. This is why the argument between transmeds and anti-transmeds have gotten so toxic, and people on both sides have taken it so personally. But then, to be fair, if people like Justine hate being described by Tiffany's transmed theory, people like Tiffany hate being described by Justine's theory just as much. And what was Justine's theory? It's that gender is performative, a theory originally described by Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble back in 1990. And from what I know, this view of gender is hated by the vast majority of trans people across the political spectrum. I am certainly very opposed to it myself, as I have described in my previous video, 'Are Transwomen Women'. So then, both Tiffany and Justine are promoting a theory of trans-ness that some other trans people hate. They need to recognize that, they have at least this in common.

If theories about being trans are dividing us, why can't we just not have them? Why do we need those theories anyway? As Justine said, there's no theory about being gay. But then, being trans affects one's identity and interaction with other people much more extensively than being gay does. It requires family and friends to get used to some serious changes when they interact with you, every single time. It can't just be put aside for a while, it is always there. Hence, most trans people feel the need to explain their circumstances to many people in their lives. And this is where theories about being trans come in. Tiffany believes that the transmed story is the one that represents her. Justine believes that the Butlerist performativity theory story is the one that represents her. It's like two people who have different religions, or two people who support different football teams. And within each camp, we can have further divisions. For example, I am a transmed too. But then, I don't share all of Tiffany's views, nor do most transmeds I know. For example, most of us have certainly evolved to be accepting of non-binary people. I don't like the label 'transsexual' and I prefer to reclaim HBS instead. I would classify gender dysphoria as an endocrine condition rather than a mental disorder. I also think the idea that seeking medical transition being what makes trans people valid is fundamentally wrong, because medical diagnosis should always be separate from what treatment choices the patient makes. Nevertheless, the thing we all agree on, as transmeds, is that being trans can be traced to a medical cause of some sort, and is not explainable by sociological theory.

And trans theories are very personal for many of us. In the video, Tiffany seems to say that she favors the transmed theory because it can be more readily accepted by others, but I don't think this is the reasoning for most transmeds, but rather, just Natalie's idea of how we think. For most of us, it isn't about which theory gets acceptance at all. For me, the transmed narrative accurately represents my story, and I feel that other narratives such the Butlerist performativity theory or the gender as a social construct idea don't speak to me at all. For me, only the transmed narrative adequately explains my onset of gender dysphoria the very first time I learned that the world was divided into genders, my feelings of missing out on things throughout childhood, my experience of awkwardness with puberty and so on, and any sociology-based narrative wouldn't represent my history adequately. Sociology theories also can't explain physical dysphoria. For me, I feel as though the sociology based narratives invalidate a large part of my past 30 years. It feels like some so-called expert in an ivory tower, often a radical feminist theorist, tries to fit my existence around her own view of what the world should be, and not caring that it invalidates me as a person in the process.

The LGBT Assimilation Question | Re ContraPoints "Transtrenders" | BreadBusting #8

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. Please note that, while I do have my personal political beliefs, all this is done in the name of intellectual discussion and seeing things from different perspectives. Today, I want to respond to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Transtrenders. This will be the first part of a three part response, looking at the conflict between assimilationist vs anti-assimilationist LGBT people; transmedicalists vs anti-transmedicalists; and the left-wing stereotyping of centrists respectively. I will try to balance out my discussion so that left-wing theory, classical liberal values and more conservative concerns are all examined.

Today, I will focus on assimilationist vs anti-assimilationist LGBT people. In the video, the character Tiffany Tumbles represents a stereotypical assimilationist, and the character Baltimore Maryland represents a stereotypical anti-assimilationist. One important thing to note is that, while Tiffany was also transmedicalist and Baltimore was also anti-transmedicalist, I think this should be treated as a separate issue, and I will examine this in part two. One thing I didn't like about the video is that it contained all jumbled up stereotypes, for example I'm still unsure whether Jackie Jackson is supposed to be a classical liberal or a centrist, but she actually sounds more like a conservative to me. But let's leave that for part three. Anyway, Tiffany Tumbles wishes to be accepted in mainstream circles, and is therefore inclined to present herself according to conventional expectations of what a woman should look like. On the other hand, Baltimore is happy not to fit into traditional expectations. Tiffany wanted to make the point that she and Baltimore are very different and have very different life circumstances, which is actually true. But then, Tiffany kind of insulted Baltimore when making her point, painting them as a 'transtrender' who is a fashion disaster. Baltimore probably got offended, and like many leftists, responded with indirect insults at what they saw as right-wing judgemental attitudes, the way gay activists have long responded to religious right commentary. As you can see, it's all very stereotypical. Tiffany Tumbles didn't actually sound like your average assimilationist, but rather the left-wing stereotype of one.

But let's look past the stereotyping for now, and let's look deeper as to what is really going on. Tiffany is worried that the existence of people like Baltimore is going to make it difficult for her to explain her circumstances to her social circle, to get them to understand and accept her. From Tiffany's point of view, acceptance from her social circle, which probably leans conservative, is very important to her, and if she doesn't make a case for acceptance that will resonate with conservatives, she has a lot to lose. This is very real indeed for Tiffany. Of course, the case for conservative acceptance will inevitably rest on accepting the conservative social contract, and promising to not upset the conventional order. Baltimore probably can't understand it, because they probably don't interact much with conservatives. In other words, Tiffany has a lot to lose from immediate conservative rejection, but Baltimore probably doesn't. The stakes are different on both sides here.

On the other hand, Baltimore feels as if Tiffany is making her own case for acceptance at the expense of them. And it certainly comes across this way in the video. I mean, Tiffany came across as quite rude in the video, unlike most assimilationists I know, and I certainly don't agree with the way she treated Baltimore. I suspect this portrayal may reflect Natalie's own view of assimilationist LGBT people from her own radical-leaning point of view. But then, as I said earlier, there is indeed a practical need for assimilationist LGBT people to separate themselves from the anti-assimilationist. One group has agreed to live within the conventional social contract and the other is actively tearing it apart, so for the narratives of either to work, they must both deny being similar to the other. There's nothing wrong or condescending about that in priniple. However, I do believe, as a general principle, that people should make their point without putting down other people. For example, as an assimilationist, I would point out that people like Baltimore are in fact very different from people like myself when it comes to our narrative, our life circumstances, our expectations of society, and our desires, but as someone who actually follows real classical liberal values as they were defined by people like John Stuart Mill, as someone who actually celebrates individual freedom, I can have nothing against Baltimore being 'different'. I will try my best to use their pronouns out of respect, and I'm certainly not going to be judgemental about the way they live their life. I also think the assimilationist community has been moving in this direction for some time now. Crude rhetoric like that of Tiffany Tumbles used to be very common 15 years ago, but it's certainly less common now.

I also think respect is a two-way street, and radical anti-assimilationists should look at if they have treated assimilationists with adequate respect. For example, I have to say that Natalie seems not to have enough respect for assimilationists at this point, seeing how Tiffany is portrayed as a crude stereotype rather than a character with real nuance and real needs in life. While assimilationists and non-assimilationists can be friends and allies, anti-assimilationists need to respect that assimilationists have an inherent need to explain their differences clearly. For example, during a recent LGBT politics debate, a conservative assimilationist trans person tried to make the point that she doesn't have much in common with politically radical non-binary people, only for her point to be rebuked. I mean, if someone says their life experiences are inherently different from yours, then you need to respect it. It's just like if an African American person told me I wouldn't know how it's like to grow up black in America, then I have to just accept it. Challenging that would be rude indeed!

While in the ContraPoints universe it is Baltimore who suffered at the hands of Tiffany, in the real world it is often the other way around. For example, I often get the feeling that anti-assimilationists somehow think they're superior to us, and won't ever see us as equals. This bias is probably based in leftist critical theory, which justifies the belief that the non-assimilationists are de-constructing the gender binary and therefore bringing about real liberation, whereas the assimilationists are almost like class traitors who are happy to be slaves living in the master's house. Again, I doubt we can ever get along well if that's what you think about me. As I said, assimilationists have real, material reasons to be assimilationist, and we choose this out of our own agency. Furthermore, many assimilationists have said that they regularly see this condescending attitude on display from radical anti-assimilationists, including when they speak to the media, pretending to speak for all LGBT but ignoring the assimilationist faction completely, or even making a comment about how sad it is that we even exist. It appears that they are all too willing to let their political radicalism stand in the way of mutual respect and allyship. As a Moral Libertarian, I believe the most important thing is for everyone to have equal and maximum moral agency, and that means I respect you being you, and I equally expect you to respect me being me. All healthy relationships have to have this equal respect built into them. Let's use another example. Interfaith cooperation among religions only work on the basis that they can put aside their differences and respect each other. Catholics and Hindus can and do work together, but only on the basis that Catholics don't force Hindus to agree with the Christian Bible, and vice versa. Similarly, radicals and assimilationists can work together, but only on the basis that you stop telling us to read Judith Butler or bell hooks.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Happy Pride Month!

The BreadPill Trap: How ContraPoints and BreadTube are Changing the LGBT Community | BreadBusting

Welcome to the first ever episode of BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, what I call Breadism. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. TransTella Mag has become BreadBusting, because the world around us is changing. When this project started last year, my intention was to provide an alternative LGBT voice to counter the growing dominance of radical discourse. In the past few years I had been increasingly concerned about the change in the LGBT community. Gone are the days when practical and realistic goals like gay marriage were the focus. Instead, I think the community has turned to escapism, with the help of postmodernism, itself born of historical escapism of a different kind.

And then, there is the rise of the Lobster Queen herself, ContraPoints, aka Natalie Wynn. Don't get me wrong, I love watching her content, it's quite entertaining. But like all infotainment, ContraPoints, and the rest of BreadTube, are here to spread ideas, and somewhere in all the fun and games, there are certain ideas that I just can't agree with. I first became concerned when Natalie's views on gender and trans issues began to become mainstreamed in certain sections of the LGBT community, at the expense of our more traditional, and more realistic, narrative. You can watch my other videos to see where we disagree. Basically, I can't accept the idea that gender is a social construct, or that it is performative. Even Judith Butler herself has said that she didn't understand trans issues well when she wrote Gender Trouble. But on a deeper level, it is the supplantation of one worldview by another altogether. Let's get directly to the point. I am concerned that the ideas of BreadTube, which Jordan Peterson seems to have a controversial name for, but I will just call Breadism, will lead us to a place where we believe that everything is socially constructed, and that we are the victim of such social construction. Somehow, we don't have much individual agency anymore. And, somehow, everything is also linked to capitalism too, which is so large and so powerful that we may as well be completely powerless. My first concern is, I don't think this worldview is either realistic or healthy, especially for LGBT people and other minorities who already stuggle to stay afloat, living in the here and now. My other concern is, adopting this worldview has led the LGBT community to abandon its successful strategy of gradual reform, which culminated in the legalization of gay marriage among other things, and instead regressing to the hopeless nihilism that characterized the gay community of the 1970s.

Let's put it this way. Breadism sometimes sounds like escapism, but with real world consequences. I mean, I watch a lot of political videos, which focus on real world news events. They talk about real world issues like health care and free speech. On the other hand, BreadTube is often more like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, or perhaps Game of Thrones. It likes to focus on a particular version of history, particular intellectual theories, and uses language that is only understood by people who are fans, essentially. It's very similar to a fandom, in other words.

My point is, BreadTube is, on some levels, escapism, and I think people are taking the Bread Pill to escape from a reality that they don't like. Which would explain the high proportion of LGBT people in BreadTube Land. But the thing is, BreadTube is a mind-altering drug, and people who take the Bread Pill too much will develop an altered sense of reality, which has real world consequences. And I have seen some of these real world consequences in the LGBT community recently. I won't sugercoat it. Ever since 2015 or so, there has been a great increase in victim mentality justified by critical theory, there has been a focus on fantasy-world theory and fantasy-world issues like Marxist gender theory rather than practical issues like helping other countries legalize gay marriage, and there has been an inability to debate people who disagree with us, which stems from a loss of faith in free speech. The LGBT community has been in a downward spiral, and frankly I'm sick and tired of it. That's why I started this channel to provide an alternative LGBT commentary. But then, I have come to realize that the recent developments are the result of the spread of Breadism, and if we want to reverse course, we need to confront Breadism itself. Furthermore, Breadism is also spreading in non-LGBT spaces, so it's not just an LGBT problem. Hence, from now on, I will critique Breadism broadly. I will show you why an ideology based on postmodernism is no less than Opium of the Mind, because it drains individual agency. I will show you how Breadism promises impossible utopia to its followers, in turn making them unnecessarily angry at the status quo. I will show you how Breadism, by developing and enforcing oppressor and oppressed binaries and hierarchies of privilege, essentially end up enforcing this privilege as a self-fulfilling prophecy. All this will be explored in the coming weeks and months.

My intention is to use this space to voice my disagreements with Breadism. Don't get me wrong, I like watching BreadTube, I am subcribed to most BreadTubers, but there are certain concerns I have. And, by the way, I will not use BreadTube style lighting and aesthetics, because I'm talking about something serious, and I don't want any distractions.

That's all for today. I hope you subscribe if you are interested. See you next time!

Why Pete Buttigieg could lead the LGBT Community back to Sanity

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay presidential candidate to have achieved a high profile, and he has been warmly embraced by many people in the LGBT community. Of course, Mayor Pete's support isn't limited to the LGBT community, but there has been particular interest about his run in the LGBT community.

So why do I think that Mayor Pete is a good role model? Because he's reasonable, and he deals in good faith with all sides. His recent comments about Chick-Fil-A demonstrate this. While he doesn't agree with the politics of Chick-Fil-A, he also thinks that all the talk about boycotting Chick-Fil-A is perhaps a little too much virtue signalling and a litte too 'santimonious'. Instead, he has suggested that perhaps a bridge should be built here.

In recent years, we have seen a decline in rationality and civility in some parts of the LGBT community, which saddens me a lot. It looks like the activists who are supposed to represent us have decided to just abandon the successful methods of recent years, and go back to using the methods of the 1960s and 70s, which alienated so many people that we had to wait until 2003 for being gay to be legal across the Western world. The 1960s and 70s were a mistake, and it caused the prolonging of homophobia for three more decades, with even relatively young people today still suffering the consequences. On the other hand, if you look at how the marriage equality movement was able to win over hearts and minds everywhere in such a short time, you can see that they didn't do so by being angry and militant. Quite the opposite. So, in my view, the LGBT community needs to make a choice, to embrace the methods that got us marriage equality, or to needlessly re-learn the lessons of the 20th century.

This is where the emergence of Pete Buttigieg as a major figure in the LGBT landscape could be important. In my opinion, the recent activist tilt back to radicalism is driven more by a change in the balance of power between the factions than anything else, but some young LGBT people feel like they have no choice but to go whichever way the activists go. With the emergence of Pete Buttigieg, we have a clearer choice between the two paths. Mayor Pete's meteoric rise in popualarity shows that the path that brought us to marriage equality is still a very viable option in this day and age, and we can collectively decide to travel down this path if we want to. I don't know how far Mayor Pete's campaign will go, but just by being a candidate with a high profile, it is possible that he may change the course of the LGBT community going forward. And for that, future generations may have to thank him.

Gender and Language 2

Welcome to the third part of my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled Gender Critical, in which she addressed some of Gender Critical Feminism's talking points about the trans community. In my original response, I criticized Natalie for arguing her points in the ground that gender is a social construct, something that I have always vehemently disagreed with, because I think it erases the lived reality of trans people.

"But some trans people agree that gender is a social construct too. Basically, it is a foundational idea of radical feminism. Besides, people who believe that gender is a social construct are not always transphobic. Believing that gender is a social construct is not the same as being a TERF."

Yes, I get that. I guess our difference has come from the historically different ways the trans community and the feminist community have defined gender. For the trans community, up until very recently, gender has meant something like brain sex, and this is the view of gender I sought to explain in my video for gender dysphoria. It is under this definition that I began the exploration of my gender issues two decades ago. It is this definition of gender that I used when coming out to people. On the other hand, for the feminist community, gender means something like the gender norms and expectations of society, hence their wish to 'abolish gender'. This is just another example of a word being defined very differently in two different communities.

Therefore, I can accept that gender is a social construct, if it is agreed to be defined as social norms and expectations. I also have nothing against moves to critique and abolish unfair gender norms and expectations. However, this would be very different from the way gender is traditionally used among trans people, and we at least need to agree that there are two different things we're talking about here. Perhaps it's like ministers of religion vs ministers of government departments. To use the feminist definition of gender to talk about gender dysphoria makes no sense, like to use church law to talk about political ministers makes no sense.

"But if we accept that gender is a social construct, it means we can work to abolish it. Some feminists believe that if we abolish gender, then gender dysphoria won't exist anymore, because trans people would be able to express whatever gender they like."

I think Natalie actually addressed the 'abolish gender' idea, saying that because gender cannot be abolished anytime soon, feminists won't be able to help trans people anytime soon with this. But I would go further. Even if we abolish all gender norms and expectations, gender dysphoria would still exist, because the 'gender' in gender dysphoria is not the feminist type of gender. From my experience, gender dysphoria is basically dysphoria about the body, how it is seen both subjectively and objectively, plus dysphoria about the gender role taken in romantic relationships, and as you can imagine, these things are all closely related to each other. I cannot see how the abolition of gender norms and expectations can solve the problem of dysphoria.

"I have heard that some trans people have decided to reclaim the word transsexual for themselves, as that would end the confusion. Besides, bodily dysphoria can be more accurately termed sex dysphoria, right? So what do you think about that?"

I personally don't support this. Yes, it would end the linguistic confusion, but then the word transsexual has never been an accurate one, because human beings cannot physically change their sex. To identify as a 'transsexual' is basically to identify as something that is beyond the possibilities of reality, and therefore is like identifying as a 'unicorn' when unicorns don't even exist. It opens us to attacks that we are living in fantasy land. Therefore, I guess we are just stuck with being 'transgender people', and we are also stuck with the language of gender. As a result, I think we will just have to continue to uphold the 'brain sex' definition of gender, at least as one of the ways the word is used, and to prevent its confusion with the feminist definition of gender.

Gender and Language

To clarify the point of this episode: I personally strongly believe that trans women are women, but I do recognize that not everyone actually agrees with me right now. And I also recognize that, even though this is the case, it doesn't mean we can't have constructive discussions about how society can better accomodate trans people.

 

Welcome to the second part of my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled Gender Critical, in which she addressed some of Gender Critical Feminism's talking points about the trans community. I guess one important point that Natalie did sort of touch on, but in my opinion did not address quite convincingly, was the question of 'are transwomen women'. Natalie said that she sees herself as currently a woman but used to be a man, and if I understand it correctly, this is based on a performative view of gender, one that is rooted in the kind of gender analysis found in the works of Judith Butler. But in fact, the vast majority of people in this world would find this view of gender absurd or even offensive. On one side of the debate are the vast majority of trans people, who clearly don't share Natalie's point of view.

"I have always been a woman. I have never been a man, I have never identified as such, even if I was forced by others to present as such. To suggest that trans women used to be men is offensive! I am so disappointed! Natalie doesn't speak for us."

We also have, on the other end of the spectrum, the Gender Critical Feminists themselves, who believe that trans women are men, and will always be men. And then, you can also say that, both the GCF view and the most common trans view are at least consistent, because human beings cannot change their sex, and let's face it, gender is strongly related to sex. You are either always a male, or you are always a female or else these terms become confusing and dysfunctional. Let me give you an example. If gender is only performative, then a drag queen would be a woman when he is in drag, only to become a man again when his performance is over! Defining gender this way would only cause chaos for society. This renders, in my humble opinion, Natalie's view of gender basically invalid.

But between the two views I consider logical, namely, that of the trans woman saying that she was always a woman, and that of the GCF saying that trans woman are men, which one is the more valid one? From my point of view, it is basically a matter of semantics, a matter of language. Objective reality is absolute, but how people use language is not. The objective reality is that trans women are not the same as biological women, nor are they the same as what we typically consider a 'man', but how language reflect this reality is another matter. According to opinion polls, there are a substantial number of people who would say that trans people are their birth gender, and there are also a lesser but still substantial number of people who would say that trans people are the gender they identify as. Furthermore, both sides are very strong in their conviction, and neither is going to back down anytime soon. Like all semantic debates, short of limiting the free speech of one side, there is no end in sight to the debate. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for different communities to have different definitions for the same word. For example, a 'biscuit' is a completely different thing in Alabama vs in England. Therefore, as a Moral Libertarian who strongly supports free speech, all I have to say on this matter is people are free to use their words in whatever way they like, and I have no problems with it either way.

One reason I am not interested in semantic debates is because it needlessly divides people, and takes us further away from the discussions we need to have to accomodate the needs of people on every side of the matter. It is a fact that trans women are different from genetic women, but it is also a fact that people with gender dysphoria deserve reasonable accomodation in a society that otherwise values compassion and equal opportunity for all. While the activists' recent debates have focused on issues that put trans rights in conflict with other parties' concerns, I think there is a rational middle ground to resolve all those concerns, as I have discussed in a previous video. The key to having constructive discussions is to put our linguistic differences aside, and focus on the reality. After all, even if you believe 'trans women are women', you can still acknowledge that many straight men and lesbians aren't going to be attracted to trans women. And even if you believe 'trans women are men', it is still cruel and unreasonable to let them face social punishment and discrimination for not behaving like men. While language may divide us, the underlying reality is basically the same, and it is on the common reality that we need to find common ground and mutually acceptable solutions.

That's all for this installment. I will have even more to say on the Gender Critical video, as well as other ContraPoints trans stuff, later on.

Re ContraPoints: Gender Critical

This is a quick initial response to the ContraPoints video uploaded two days ago, titled Gender Critical. As with her usual videos, there's a lot to get through, so I will do a more detailed and thought out response later on. From my perspective, the video provided a good answer to many Gender Critical Radical Feminists' critique of the trans movement, but as usual with ContraPoints stuff, there is quite a lot I disagree with. So let's go through this video from my perspective, as a trans woman with a very different worldview.

Theme 1: Why Don't You Just Be A Feminine Man?

Natalie attempted to answer the common Gender Critical suggestion to trans people that we should just be feminine men. Natalie countered with her own experience, saying something along the lines that she felt like she had to be a woman to be happy. In other words, she had gender dysphoria, and living as a feminine man won't solve that problem. Of course, Gender Critical Feminists have a hard time understanding that, because they don't believe that there is any biological component to gender. If gender is purely a social construct, then it wouldn't make sense for anyone to have gender dysphoria. This is why Gender Critical Feminists often imagine trans people to have bad social motivations in transitioning.

The trouble is, Natalie didn't even argue this point. It seems to me that she would rather argue on the very grounds that validate Gender Critical beliefs and invalidate gender dysphoria, by giving into the 'gender is a social construct' ideology. Perhaps she is so deep into the sociological theory that is taught in the humanity departments, that she doesn't recognise the limitations of radical feminist ideology. For this, I'm glad that I have a biological sciences background instead. It means that I see things from a more or less medical science perspective. And yes, while brain differences between men and women are averages and those studies don't prove a lot, there is a strong evolutionary biology based argument for certain gender behaviours being biologically hardwired, as I had explained in my previous video on gender dysphoria.

The hard facts of biology and nature always trumps any ideology. Therefore, Gender Critical feminism's insistance that gender is not innate must objectively yield to the fact that individuals with gender dysphoria exist, that it is a well founded medical condition. I guess this would be enough to argue against most Gender Critical arguments, had it been presented upfront.

Theme 2: Solidarity of the Oppressed?

From what I understand, Natalie aimed to argue the case for solidarity between biological women and trans women, on the basis that both face some oppression from society. Maybe this is an appeal that Gender Critical Feminists are likely to appreciate, because they are very left-wing in their philosophy. But in the wider world, this argument simply holds no weight. For example, on the issue of gay marriage, it is white people who tend to support it and non-white people who tend to be opposed. There is no linkage between suffering from racism and supporting gay marriage, indeed it is the opposite that is true. The solidarity of the oppressed is essentially an academic idea, and it has very little acceptance in the wider world. If trans people want better treatment from other people, we must learn to argue on grounds that most people will accept. Like compassion for the inborn condition of gender dysphoria. Let me tell you, gender dysphoria is very real and is very terrible, I have suffered from it since before age 3, and I can tell you all about it one day, but there's no time for this now.

Theme 3: Trans People Changing the Language?

As Natalie noted, Gender Critical feminists have been angered over attempts to change language that has been in long-standing use, like saying 'pregnant people' instead of 'pregnant women', but she didn't have too much to say on the matter. In fact, many people, including those who aren't feminists, have been angered by these moves, and they have set trans acceptance back by years. Let me say that I am as uncomfortable about these changes as everyone else is, because we should all stand against top-down linguistic changes that probably originated in an ivory tower somewhere. A liberty loving people will be rightfully suspicious about this. Throughout history, language only changes to reflect changes in our collective understanding of reality, that is, linguistic changes normally lag behind changes in understanding. If this order is reversed for whatever reason, there is a justified fear of social engineering and potential tyranny.

In fact, I have been a part of the trans community for nearly 20 years now, and I know that everyday trans people have never been part of this Orwellian Newspeak campaign. Instead, it is elites from academia, armed with their postmodernist philosophy, that are responsible. For some reason, postmodernists believe that language is power and oppression, and that's why they insist on changing our language. But I can assure you that everyday trans people have nothing to do with this madness. No actual trans people I know are offended by the assumption that women usually have certain reproductive anatomy, or that pregnant people are generally women.

That's all I have time for today. I will have much more to say about this particular video, and also other ContraPoints stuff and trans stuff in the future. Subscribe if you are interested.

What is Gender and Gender Dysphoria?

Today, we are going to discuss what gender is, and by extension, why there are trans people. I'll give an explanation of my sincere beliefs, my scientific hypotheses, based on my observations and my knowledge in the biological sciences. As a moral libertarian, I always acknowledge that I am not always right, and other individuals have an equal moral right to raise alternative hypotheses, in the name of being committed to the truth. But by putting my thoughts out there into the free market of ideas, I hope we can advance towards the truth of things, through rational debate. This is the very purpose of free speech, right?

I regret to have to warn you that what I am going to say today may sound controversial to some people, but shying away from controversy to please the establishment isn't my thing. It is infinitely more important to advance our understanding of why people are suffering, than to toe the establishment party line to keep egos happy.

Part One: Is Gender a Social Construct?

The radical feminist theory is that gender is a social construct, part of an oppressive system called patriarchy. This conception of patriarchy as a social system is in many ways linked to the neo-Marxist model of sociology, where our culture and institutions, called the superstructure, exist primarily to reinforce the base, that is the material system and its production relations. I will explore this concept further in a future episode. One thing I really don't like about the left is that their practice is largely based on theory, and practice based on misguided theory can be very harmful. We classical liberals base our practice on values and principles, like liberty and equality before the law, which I think is a much better approach. My regular viewers will know that I don't believe in leftist theories in general, but I will examine this one in good faith, I promise.

As leftist YouTuber ContraPoints explains in her video 'What Is Gender', saying that gender is a social construct doesn't mean that gender is not real, because money is a social construct, and it is clearly real. I actually think the example of money explains what a social construct is. That it is entirely constructed by human thought, and can be changed by human decisions. For example, back in the 20th century, people in Paris used the Franc, but nowadays they use the Euro. Because money is made real by laws made by the government, the government can decree a change in how money is defined and used, and this will effectively change the properties of money in a given country. Francs are no longer legal tender in France, because the French government decided so.

We can then look at whether gender is a social construct or not. At this point, I have to note that I will be using the normative cases of male and female in my discussion. Now, I'm not saying that normal is necessarily better, but I guess a good method to understand things is to look at your average or typical cases first, before we consider things that lie outside of the norm, like trans people and intersex people. The problem with postmodern leftist theory is that they too often jump to fit their theory around marginal cases before they have even appreciated the normal case. The Gender-bread Man that was shown in the ContraPoints video is a good example of a theory that over emphasizes the marginal cases at the expense of looking at the normal.

Let's start with what gender is. In common linguistic usage, gender refers to the dimorphic social and behavioural characteristics associated with biological sex. The female gender is the social and behavioural characteristics associated with the female biological sex, and the male gender is the social and behavioural characteristics associated with the male biological sex. (You know, as a somewhat conservative person, I really feel uncomfortable saying 'sex' so many times. That's why I don't use words like transsexual and homosexual. It just feels dirty saying it.)

Now, let's look at how gender typically functions. A good example would be how women are generally better at caring for children compared to men. Now, this is clearly universal across all cultures and times, and it is not something a government could change by legal decree. If you think about it, it makes biological sense for the mother to be the primary carer, because the father may be absent at birth. Similarly, across all cultures and all times, women have placed a higher emphasis on making themselves look beautiful, compared to men. Again, this is not something a government could change by legal decree. This is all evidence that gendered behaviour is biologically hardwired, and not able to be changed by human decisions. Therefore, gender is clearly not a social construct.

I mean, there are certain gender roles that are social constructs, but the bulk of gendered behaviour is biological. I must also emphasize that gendered behaviour can manifest differently in every individual. But there are clearly many patterns of gendered behaviour that is typical of each gender, and has a scientifically logical purpose to it.

Part Two: The Biology of Gender and Sex

So what is gender? Gendered behaviour in humans is essentially the equivalent of mating behaviour we see in other animals. And if you look at nature, every species has a set of highly specific mating behaviour, all ultimately geared to increase the success rate of reproduction, which let's face it, is the ultimate biological purpose of all animals. The other thing is that mating behaviour exists even in animals of low intelligence. It doesn't require conscious decisions to function. Instead, it functions as a set of pre-programmed behaviours. Even in humans, mating behaviour functions at a subconcious level, and doesn't require much conscious input. It all happens naturally. Now, we need to note that when I refer to mating behaviour, I'm not refering to just behaviour that happens around mating. A lot of mating behaviour is essentially life-long. It is more like a pattern of programming that manifests itself in many natural behaviours in many different contexts. This explains why gendered behaviour encompasses a wide range of behaviours across the whole of life. In this view, gender is just as biologically grounded as reproductive sex, and the two normally complement each other.

Part Three: Let's look at Gender Dysphoria

To use a modern metaphor, biological sex is the hardware for reproduction, and gender is the software that makes the hardware work. In normal cases, which is more than 98% of the time, biological males have male gender software, and biological females have female gender software, and it fits like a hand and a glove, like a horse and a cart. But nature is messy, and is not perfect in the sense of mechanical perfection. Everything that can go right can also go wrong. For example, there is a specific neurological program for recognising faces, but some people like myself don't have that program, so we are not good at recognising faces. It's like the phone doesn't have the app, to use another modern metaphor. Therefore, as you can imagine, it is very possible to have a mismatch between the biological reproduction hardware and the gender program in the brain. As a result, the individual would have the gendered behaviour of one sex whilst having the physical characteristics of another. As gendered behaviour is hardwired and manifests itself across many areas of life, this represents a very painful situation. For example, in the area of self-grooming, the individual would be compelled to hate their own body image. In the area of romantic relationships, the individual would find it difficult and even repulsive to have to take on the role of their biological sex. There are also numerous other examples that arise in our everyday social interactions, where people who have the right match between hardware and software can just function without even thinking about it, but where people who have a mismatch experience recurrent living nightmares. This is what gender dysphoria is.

I think this model of thinking about gender and transgenderism in biological terms is better than all other similar models out there, because it explains the nature of gender dysphoria and accounts for why it has such a huge impact across an individual's life. In contrast, the more traditional explanation of 'male brains' vs 'female brains' grossly oversimplifies things, and cannot convincingly explain why normal people don't have a sense innate gender identity, or why gender dysphoria is so all-encompassing and so debilitating.

Now, I have to say that, although my views can be classified as transmedicalist, it doesn't follow that I share the beliefs of so-called truscums, or that I don't accept non-binary people. I will have more to say about these topics, and how they fit with my understanding of gender, in the coming weeks.

So there it is, my beliefs about what gender is, and what gender dysphoria is. I believe thinking about things this way is helpful for both trans individuals themselves, to understand why and how they are suffering, and for others to understand why there are trans people in the first place. The trouble is, I still don't feel comfortable speaking like this in real life, because it might offend postmodern radical feminists. Which is why we do need a more robust free speech movement.