Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Harvard Business Review thinks that because some businesses objected to North Carolina’s transgender bathroom law, this is a sign they will all soon jump on the bandwagon, and take real action to tackle climate change.
After North Carolina passed a bizarre transgender bathroom law with sweeping implications (one that, according to the Justice Department, is probably illegal), an impressive list of big companies made their displeasure known. The CEOs of dozens of corporate giants — including Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Citibank, Facebook, Google, IBM, Kellogg, Marriott, PwC, and Starbucks — sent an open letter to the governor to defend “protections for LGBT people.” PayPal canceled plans for an operations center in the state, and Deutsche Bank announced it would freeze the addition of 250 employees in the state because of the law.
The floodgates of business proactively influencing societal norms and public policy are finally opening. And while some people may get nervous about this use of corporate power, I believe that businesses can have an enormous impact for good. Many other issues could, and should, follow.
At the same time, it’s worth asking why is this happening now — and what are the implications?
…
In theory, then, any moral issue that moves us away from thriving economically is also a business problem — so why stop at LGBT rights? A large number of issues could fall under the same dual logic: avoiding brand-damaging human-rights issues in the supply chain, fighting income and opportunity inequality (including supporting minimum wages), and, of course, tackling big environmental issues such as climate change.
…
So shouldn’t companies pounce on that kind of law, with its shocking level of ignorance and poor strategy, as “bad for business”? After all, rising seas will have a real impact on business and economic development. But the business reaction to the sea level law was nearly nonexistent.
Read more: https://hbr.org/2016/05/business-is-taking-action-on-lgbt-rights-will-climate-change-be-next
In my opinion the author is wrong about motivation. Many large businesses, businesses like Google Corporation and Apple, are managed by people who are passionate about climate change. The problem is. as Google discovered, as Bill Gates discovered, it simply isn’t possible to make a meaningful difference to CO2 emissions using current solar or wind technology.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Yet more evidence that political correctness has polluted climate science as it extends its reach into the bathroom.
Searching for Lew paper?
As long as you don’t mind a chemically altered male sharing a toilet with your 7 year old, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
That’s OK , right? After all, we’re discussing a huge social problem? There must be at least 20 chemically altered males in North Carolina. Why worry?
Let’s all just put aside our personal cares and worries to cater to the desperate fears of 20 people. It makes perfect sense.
Come now, that’s nonsense.
1: Since when do criminals obey laws? This is the most important issue as the only people who we would need to protect against are those who would endanger our children (as opposed to the ~99% of humanity that just go to the restroom when they need to pee). However, anyone willing to break one law will be more than willing to break a second one.
2: Enforcement is insane and actually worse with a ban. A transgender male has facial hair and is (aside from certain parts) is identifiably male. You would force them to use the women’s bathroom, which would be far more disruptive. Similarly, people with breasts and skirts using the men’s bathroom would be problematic. Many trans people actively avoid ANY public restroom because they would be put in a position between taking a safe but illegal choice or the legal-but-likely-to-get-them-arrested choice. That’s not a reasonable situation to put people in.
So you are advocating causing a lot of trouble for people when the only people you are concerned about are the ones who would ignore your law. It’s literally all pain for no gain.
I can see it now, ……. the extrovert male athletes in every High School across the US will be claiming and attesting to their “selective” part-time LBGT status of being “female-in-mind-only” so that they can enjoy the company of the HS female athletes when they are “in the showers” washing the sweat off their young lovely bodies.
Ben of Houston, It is your support of a law that says people have a RIGHT to use whichever bathroom they identify with that is all pain and no gain. The sensible thing is to have no bathroom law at ALL. But of course, the Transgenders MUST have law that forces others to support their lifestyle and choices. A law that would allow ANY pervert of any sexual orientation to say they have a right to use the little girls room. That is the insanity and the pain.
Sorry Ben, maybe my sense of over the top absurd got in the way of the message.; Blaise is a bit closer to what I was getting at.
There’s no good way to legislate this in my opinion, only because there’s just no certifiable, objective, provable, way to define “transgender”. Until thre is this is all horsefeathers.
So I didn’t see anywhere where it said precisely what is “bizarre” about the North Carolina “bathroom law”.
I suppose that if it says that all of the 57 gender identity classification individuals; plus I presume Hermaphrodites as well, are allowed to climb in the shower with your seven year old daughter at the same time, then I would tend to call that “bizarre”. But why would North Carolina make that legal, and why does the DOJ want to make it illegal.
Do you realize that the DOJ has not yet found enough evidence to charge Hillary Clinton, or the spy who set up her private E-mail server, with anything that might be illegal; even though his e-mails seem to have also vanished, which I thought in itself was a federal felony offense.
But in the twinkling of an eye, they believe that a hermaphrodite gender person should be allowed to get in the shower with you or your daughter.
Yes; bizarre is probably a good word.
And speaking of gender self identification; I see that Uber macho male athlete par excellance; Olympic Decathlon champion Gold medallist Bruce Jenner, wants to put on his tutu, and take his golf bag, and go join in the LPGA; or izzit the LGBTHHHPA golfing circuit and play golf against the likes of Ariya, and Moriya; the Jutanagarn sisters, and people like Michelle Wie.
I’m guessing such a male athletic champion could likely hit the ball off the tee, maybe 200 yds further than Michelle Wie.
Sounds fair enough to me, if the LPGA ladies don’t mind.
If I was them, I would tell him to go and jump in Poppies Pond in his best pink tutu.
G
This is pure insanity.
No shit.
Such poor logic makes me think Harvard Business does not know Jill-shit.
BTW, wasn’t it the Harvard MBAs that told the world all the Mortgage Backed Securities were triple A?
No it’s the desperation of progressives looking to distract everyone with a non-issue to take their minds off the economy, national security, and jobs. Most people live their entire lives without ever encountering the “transgendered.”
“Harvard Business Review thinks that because some businesses objected to North Carolina’s transgender bathroom law, this is a sign they will all soon jump on the bandwagon, and take real action to tackle climate change.”
OK, can you add huge disclaimer:
__________________________________________
WARNING !!!!! WARNING !!!!!
Reading the following text may:
– make you dizzy
– freeze your brain
– crash your brain
You should NOT drive or operate a motor vehicle after reading this news.
__________________________________________
some people find the aroma of human waste very erotic.
some people think shit stinks for a reason.
but whatever is promoted under the banner of rights wins.
mistaking the digestive tract for the reproductive tract is not a science debate.
stupidity is a right.
see how that works?
This is nothing more than a DESPERATE ploy by Hillary’s progressives to keep everyone’s mind in their pants and off the REAL issues–national security, the economy, and jobs. Usually it’s the GOP who predictably trot out the “social justice” issues like abortion or prayer in school when their side is in trouble.
Everyone I know has lived in this world between 40-85 years without EVER knowingly encountering a “tranny.” The genuine article is as rare as unicorns; most of those who claim to be are just attention-seeking youth having a “cultural moment.” IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE and they’ll go away. Like climate change, Nature’s truths are ultimately impossible to deny. As Scotty said, “Ya cannae change th’laws o’physics, Keptin!”
oh, i think many of your friends and acquaintances had a tranny on the breakfast table in their youth, truth be told.
doesn’t that constitute an encounter?
http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/caitlyn-jenner-wheaties-01-b-2015.jpg
The progressives seem to be building the MTOE.
Moral Theory Of Everything
Sadly, they fail to remember that the moral high ground is often forested by heads on pikes.
that explains why so many companies are moving to China. they object to the poverty in the US and are making a social statement. they won’t come back until the government changes the laws and gets rid of poverty. if you are poor, there should be a serious fine. And if you don’t pay, hard time in jail until you decide to stop being poor. And if you can’t mend your ways, three strikes and you are out. mandatory life sentence. and if that doesn’t work, capital punishment. that will stamp out poverty.
And the perversion continues. Vile.
Eh, it was the local government that passed a “bizarre transgender bathroom law” which imposed a radical view on every private business and public building in the area.
The state law rolled back that radical new law, and blocked the culture warriors from meddling with bathrooms in the state.
Fascinating how the status quo for thousands of years, up until last year, is now relegated to a “radical view”.
Don’t let ‘climate change’ in the title fool you. Someone lost a bet.
The bet was that he could not write a 500 word article without mentioning ‘climate change’. It took an amazing effort and he almost clinched it. But at word #489 the pressure was just too great. A breathless ‘climate change’ was squeezed out onto the digital page. To atone for the embarrassing deficit of climate change in the first half, six ‘climate change’, four extra ‘climates’ and a bonus ‘change’ were emitted in quick succession, and some nice ecoptimist stuff was padded in around it.
You forgot the book plug… 🙂
“… believe that businesses can have an enormous impact for good.”
But the opposite is also true and that doesn’t seem to bother you. It bothers me a lot. Corp’s are already buying the CONgress votes with their $$$ contributions and we are simply discussing the personal opinion of an owner or Corp. Board to influence how I live my life.
BS.
1) There is no way to stop businesses from trying to influence govt.
2) If you make illegal, they will continue to do it, just less openly.
3) As long as govt has so much influence over business, businesses not only will, but will have to try and influence govt.
4) The only solution is to get govt out of the business of telling businesses how to operate.
MarkW: Very well said indeed!
All four points.
(And if by some dreadful mischance a business forgoes the temptation to suborn governmental misbehavior, the government will exercise its power to extort the wannabe-ethical businesses. See the story on TARP about this.)
It is interesting that Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders are all considered one community, when they are not. I am not sure whether politics, media or academia that have artificially combined all four groups.
Who uses what bathrooms is a very recent phenomenon, and why this is an issue makes about as much sense as climate alarmism. That those two things overlap (or intersect as social justice warriors say) should not be surprising.
Hey, I’m bi-sexual and I prefer to pee in the weeds. It’s a territory thing. It really irritates my neighbors and for a very long time I lived out in the woods because of that. Then I got old and had to move into town. Now I can only pee at night when my idiot neighbors turn off the porch light.
Sheesh!
I’m not really bisexual anymore. I’m over 60. I’m not sexual at all.
It is getting as insane as Apartheid was. In a very small factory of 5 people, we have to have 4 toilets. White male, White female, Black male, Black female.
I firmly expect building regulations to specify at least 13 toilets all with different logos on the door for any corporate building.
What I expect to soon be the norm is for there to be ONE kind of toilet. Single occupancy, no specified gender. Add however many you will need for the locations expected crowd.
That’s how they run the Port-O-potty’s at any event I’ve attended in the last decade. Seems to work just fine.
Lot more expensive, but who cares, it’s not your money being spent.
I saw Coloured Toilets, Asian Toilets, Black Toilets and White Toilets at the airport in JHB in 1977, male and female. They were all cleaned by Black African ladies.
schitzree
In the business lounge in Incheon airport, Korea they have ‘toilets’. They all have doors, a real door, instead of a stall door. Problem solved.
Trivial to solve.
One bathroom, one person, at one time. Doesn’t matter which of the 57 genders plus hermaphrodites, any person is.
G
Eric,
“In my opinion the author is wrong about motivation.”
Mine too . . but to me the motivation is sitting right in front of us, plain as day; End rule by consent of the governed. Finalize rule by an elite few. Don’t really matter to them how . . as far as I can tell.
I’ve said it before: man-made CO2 makes seawater lumpy.
…LGBT
rightsprivileges…Ya think! 🙂
Hiking through a forest, one searches for blue-trees or pink-trees depending on preference.
What other colors are to be looked for?
I don’t know about colors, John, but I do try to avoid plants with three leaves.
[Red or reddish tints right at the split of the three leaves => “Three leaves, let it be.” .mod]
Having spent summers at the beach as a kid — yes.
Poor old clover.
Hi from Oz. Rainbow coloured tress, obviously!
“Progressives” use denial of reality as their cudgel to subjugate the rational .
They don’t give a rat’s patoot for rational; they want nothing more than to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it.
I commented to my wife that President Obama was hugely concerned about his legacy. In addition to attacking fossil fuels, he has now sicced the Justice Department on enforcing bathroom rules. She said, “Well, I guess his legacy WILL be crap for sure now.”
I have just been corrected. “His legacy really is in the crapper.” Apologies to all. Creative memory, I guess.
“His legacy really is in the crapper.”
There should be an emoticon for this, at least an acronym. I propose “Choked Up Coffee” (CUC), sort of like LOL?
The floodgates of business proactively influencing societal norms and public policy are finally opening.
When that list of companies has the balls to withdraw their products, and cease doing business with, the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iran (and so many others), then shout it from the rooftops. Until then this is an empty gesture, nay, a slap in the face, to anyone who has any ACTUAL concern about the LGBT communities.
The flood gates are indeed open. It is not morality that flows through them, but hypocrisy.
Hello? Hello? Yes, this is (pick one from the list) calling. We wanted to complain to you about your LGBT laws. What’s that? Seriously, you don’t have any LGBTs? That’s a pretty silly thing to… what? You executed them all? How can you…. Oh wait. This isn’t North Carolina? We dialed a wrong number? Well, uhm, then who….
Oh. Iran.
OK then. Well, since we’re already talking… Wanna buy some phones? How about some computers?
Influencing societal norms provided it doesn’t cost them any business. Cowards and hypocrites.
If it is Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Tobacco influencing societal norms, it is bad. But if it is Big Business that sells predominantly to the progressives , management is very sure about which side of the bread is buttered, and will adjust their marketing spiel accordingly. Did someone mention morality?
“Until then this is an empty gesture, nay, a slap in the face”
Indeed it is. More to the point, it’s a blatant attempt to capitalize on the private lives of private people.
Your bathroom rituals are yours, mine are mine. My sexuality is also mine. It has no place in the public eye. I am very obviously a male and when I’m in an airport or bus station I use the men’s room. I don’t find that a horrible burden. I wouldn’t want my daughter sharing a restroom with me, and she’s actually seen me naked on several occasions.
This is pure nonsense.
First, Corporate CEOs don’t know crap (no pun intended). They say whatever their marketing people tell them to say. For three years I was the Director of Environmental Policy for a large, multinational corporation. I did not have an environmental, or any scientific background. I was a lawyer and approached the problem from a legalistic standpoint – i.e. show me the facts. I tried to dissuade the corporate execs from buying into the AGW hoax, but to no avail. The company was not going to go counter to the mainstream thinking. No one wants adverse or critical public reaction, so they go with the flow. And right now, these corporate pimps know what sells and what doesn’t. They are totally amoral.
Thanks, Charles. All of this nonsense going on lately will only be diminished when those who had various bit parts explain their part, so that we all can see the orchestrated whole.
The architects of all of this totalitarianism know that they will build their edifices off of the complicity of individuals who have no extensive case against them, but just an inkling that things are odd – and when you speak up about the bit of the full picture that you see, the rest of us look at you like you are crazy.
I would love to know what happened to “companies should not be politically involved” and “companies should not be able to throw their weight around and influence policy” and “companies should not be able to use money to advocate for outcomes” and…
I guess corporations and CEOs are only the devil when they do not advocate for the preferred cause.
There is a strong tendency to use red-meat issues to chum social disputes, where it gets totally emotional and not rational. Who really cares about bathroom gender issues, on either side? It does make a good argument that no one takes seriously, and no one thinks through. Women use stalls in most public toilets, so privacy is not an issue. The only connection I can think of to climate change is the manifestly dishonest characterization of CO2 as “pollution”.
I think it is important to note that the Charlotte ordinance did three things that have not been part of the discussion.
1) The ordinance made male/female facilities illegal.
2) The ordinance exposed any business that had male/female facilities to a sex discrimination lawsuit
3) The ordinance exposed anyone that followed it to criminal punishment under state law.
The North Carolina General Assembly would have been irresponsible not to fix what the Charlotte City Council did.
The “ordinance”, destroyed thousands of years of cultural idiom at the will of deranged idealists. It did harm. It was shut down.
Each of your assertions is incorrect.
More importantly, local control is a bedrock conservative value.
Or used to be…
takebackthegreen, It is really sad when liberals try to tell conservatives what they believe. They are simply mentally incapable of understanding. A conservative wants LESS government, LESS law, LESS regulation. Conservatives also believes in State’s rights over Federal government. What Charlotte did was create an unneeded law about bathrooms: more government, more law, more regulation. So the State stepped in and reversed the law and said local governments cannot make stupid laws about bathrooms, so that whenever someone travels from one city to another they do not have to worry about a different stupid bathroom law in each city. Understand? No, I didn’t think so.
Local meant State government. The powers not granted to the Federal government in the Constitution fall into the jurisdiction of the States.
It’s easy to see exactly what the Charlotte law says and doesn’t say. http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/CityClerk/Ordinances/February%2022,%202016.pdf The relevant portions are on pages 3 and 4.
Martin Meyer, Thanks for the link. I had searched for the actual ordinance verbiage a couple times and could not find it. The actual law is worse than I expected. To make it illegal for any place open to the public to have a sign that restricts gender, such as “Men” or “Women”, is very radical … and pathetic.
It also would be illegal to offer “Marriage Counseling” as it is illegal to have a sign or advertisement that refers to “marital status” and makes anyone feel unwelcome.
Dan: I understand that you can’t divine a person’s political leanings from a single sentence any more than you can reduce a broad political philosophy to legal posturing over States’ rights.
I wonder how much North Carolina depends on these CEO’s?
“Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Citibank, Facebook, Google, IBM, Kellogg, Marriott, PwC, and Starbucks ”
I have no facebook; no Starbucks. No Bofa, no Citibank. Google is a bit difficult to avoid but their trackers don’t work so well on my computer.
Google is easy to avoid. Use duckduckgo.com to search. Put all the google ads and tracker sites in a kill list in a private dns server. Mine is a $25 Raspberry Pi board running generic (free) Linux.
Look up PiHole for a fancier solution on the same hardware…
Someone, ….. maybe NC’s AG, …. should investigate and report the status of “restroom facilities” that ONLY the Officers and Executives employed by …… Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Citibank, Facebook, Google, IBM, Kellogg, Marriott, PwC, and Starbucks ….. have inclusive privilege of access. (aka: a key to the executive restroom)
In their executive suites and/or executive office buildings ….. I seriously doubt that all said restrooms are “LBGT compliant”, …. but on the contrary, ….. the doors of said are still most probably “marked” with a gender specific logo.
A restaurant called Bart’s Wharf on the Columbia River near Portland Oregon (years ago) simply labeled the doors: “Inboards” and “outboards”.
Simple enough.
g
It has not been widely reported, but Johns Hopkins hospital, which pioneered sex reassignment sugery, no longer performs those surgeries after the Psychology department said that transgender people are suffering from a mental disorder. In his book, Making Gay OK, Robert Reilly recounts how homosexuality was removed from the APA manual of mental disorders without any justification. All sexual deviates are suffering from some type of mental disorder. Many other people are also deluded. The inmates are running the asylum.
Here in Maryland, such people have passed laws for same sex marriage and any sex restrooms. However, when my wife and I went to the Social Security Office to sign her up for Medicare we discovered that all the ladies restrooms were locked but all of the men’s restrooms were open. They wanted to avoid lawsuits, possibly? My wife and daughter once saw a large dude lurking in the women’s restroom at the mall.
Eventually sanity will be restored, but I am afraid things will get worse before they get better. (I will not even mention women in combat.)
“Robert Reilly recounts how homosexuality was removed from the APA manual of mental disorders without any justification”
Just like it was added to the manual without any justification.
You are a shill.
“the Psychology department said that transgender people are suffering from a mental disorder”
Pseudoscience.
“recounts how homosexuality was removed from the APA manual of mental disorders without any justification”
And how is homosexuality a mental disorder?
Pseudoscience, again.
For starters, it leads to deviant, extremely unhealthy compulsive behavior. CDC data reveals how unhealthy the Homosexual lifestyle is. Reilly’s book has an appendix summarizing this data. Encouraging anyone to engage in homosexual activity is like encouraging someone to use drugs. (The two most common causes of AIDS are anal sex and intravenous drug use.)
“it leads to deviant,”
Nonsense.
I am bored by your crap.
I will not bore you any longer, simple, but your opinions about homosexuals are uninformed. You could fix that if you took the trouble to do some research on what homosexuals actually do and what the consequences are. You are obviously interested in the truth because you are on this site. Why limit yourself to only one facet of the progressive agenda intended to force the rest of us to accept their false version of the world?
I live in Maryland, and we have same-sex marriage, but I can’t buy beer in a grocery store. Our priorities are all messed up.
The truly sad thing is that the only long term study I have found about people who undergo “reassignment” surgery (an unscientific and false term – the only changes are cosmetic) indicates that there is no difference in perceived quality of life as compared to those who do not have the surgery (who also suffer from gender dysphoria). However, those who have the surgery ARE over 20 times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not have surgery. This study was conducted in a Scandinavian country that is extremely pro-“transgender”.
No study has shown that there is any evidence of a physical cause, that gender dysphoria is anything other than a mental condition. Studies HAVE shown that 86 percent of children who report experiencing gender dysphoria during childhood no longer have those feelings by their late teens (following puberty), and choose to live as whatever sex their DNA has dictated. Despite this, unethical “doctors” are prescribing hormone blockers to young children so that they can (supposedly) not have to confront the reality of their bodies going through puberty, even though no one has any idea of the short term effects, let alone long term effects. Blocking sex hormones is likely going to further convince the kid that their sex is “wrong”: they will not experience the same feelings and changes that they would without the medication.
It is crazy that post menopausal women are advised to avoid hormone replacement therapy because of potential side effects (of hormones that MATCH their DNA/hormone profile), yet people are advocating giving these hormones to young children. I have had bloodwork done that included hormone levels (I am female, my DNA and body confirm this). The levels of female hormones must have a certain balance/ratio for optimal health. High levels of testosterone forms can have negative health effects. What do people think it is going to do to women if they are given high doses of testosterone? What are high levels of estrogen going to do to men?
I really think much of this is driven by two parties: the true believers who are convinced that they can socially engineer people to “overcome” biology, and the people who are not willing to put in the effort to try to help mentally ill people overcome their delusions. Pretending that reality is false does not change facts. Pretending that someone is not mentally ill is not kind or compassionate, it is cruel. I sincerely hope that the people who are jumping on the bandwagon would not tell someone who was severely depressed that he is not really depressed, that there is nothing wrong with him, and that he should just “embrace” the misery. I hope that they would not tell someone who is schizophrenic that he does not need therapy, and seek to make such therapy illegal. Discouraging and refusing treatment of any illness is immoral.
The issues above are enough to show that the current mainstream opinions are at best misguided, and likely mentally and physically harmful to people with gender dysphoria. Sadly, it is more important for people to feel “tolerant” and “openminded” than it is to protect mentally ill people from their inability to accept reality. Instead, everyone is expected to make sure that the tiny percentage of people who believe their DNA is wrong are comfortable, no matter how many more people are made uncomfortable. I am a woman. I do not want to share a locker room with a man who is delusional enough to think he is a woman. I do not want to be told that all someone has to do is put on a dress and “believe” they are female, and they will be just as much of a woman as I am. Women and men have intrinsic physical and mental differences, and it is insulting (not to mention sexist/bigoted) to suggest otherwise.
I suppose that this IS related to “climate change”: believing either ideology has merit requires one to deny reality and abandon reason and sense.
There actually are some folks who’s brain chemistry does not match body gender. Often it is due to the hormone receptors being defective in some way. There are also chimeras with 1/2 their cells one gender and 1/2 the other. Yes, all very rare.
No, I have no position on it, just was a biosci major for a while, and my older sister had left her “Abnormal Psychology” texts laying around one summer… so I read them…then took upper devision genetics… (I also have 12 units of Medical School Psych… but that’s a long story…involving a NASA Project). The bottom line is that while some folks are just head cases, some are legitimately one brain, the other body.
Can it be fixed? Darned if I know.
My solution? Well, until we get 8 different bathrooms… (Male, Female, Male in transition, Female in transition, Exmale, Exfemale, hermaphrodite, decline to state) .. I’d suggest just the “got a winky” room and the “no winky allowed” room…
Either that, or a way for Dads to assure their daughters are not bothered… Maybe each stall a separate room, one person only no common space… Or expect to see a lot of big hairy guys policing the ladies room before their little girl goes in…
We certainty dont know enough about brains to say man’s brain in a woman’s body. Absolutely not
So sayith: AllyKat – May 9, 2016 at 11:56 pm
The literal fact is, …. excluding one’s inherited survival instincts and fetal development errors if any, …… “You are (mental condition) what your environment nurtured you to be”.
And whatever your environment nurtures you to learn anew today, …. is highly dependent upon what you learned yesterday, …… and all the yesterdays in succession back to the 1st day of your birth.
Well, aren’t we all? But there’s been some credible evidence shown all sexual deviates (i.e. deviates from pure heterosexuality) are unusually depressed and more prone to suicide. Not a happy thought. The question then becomes, is this an effect of sexual orientation or one of societies response to sexual orientation.
Who has a few million to find out, and do we really need more information?
Even if I’m quite sure not being mentally capable of making children is a ‘disorder’ as in terms of Darwinesque fitness thinking, I’m quite unhappy with people stamping others with the word ‘disorder’, or even worse, wanting to control their behaviour based on this.
Transgendered toilet usage is something that touches maybe one person out of 100,000. I’m not quite sure the solution should be allowing apparent males using a female marked toilet and expecting everyone be happy with that? We are, after all, talking about a nation that has difficulty in spelling toilet as it is called a rest room instead.
Anyway, I don’t much like most European toilets where you can’t wash your butt, and even in the best case, men are expected to pee somebody watching you intently.
Look, it’s always difficult to get involved in these types of discussion because inevitably any dissent from the progressive norm reveals one to be a: racist, homophobic, right wing, tin foil hat wearing, red neck bigot…so first let me say, I bear no hatred for, resentment of or even discomfort about individuals who have ‘gender identity issues’, in fact they have my best wishes and support…it can’t be a great situation to be in and like most humane people I wish suffering on no-one.
However, (there’s always a however) if we rely purely on ‘science’ in the matter of ‘trans-gender’ individuals then ‘science’ is quite clear; if you were born male…it doesn’t matter how radical the surgery, how intense the hormone treatment, how long the hair, whether you wear a dress, speak with a high voice and wear eye make up and fragrance…those things do not or cannot change the scientific fact that every cell in your body is already tagged xy. The inverse of course applies to those born female.
How hard must it be to adopt a ‘gender identity’ that is in fundamental opposition to every single cell in your body?
Now maybe my understanding of this is out of date and if I’m wrong here I would appreciate, indeed I would expect to be corrected.
Nature makes a lot of mistakes, and not all of them are lethal. The half genome in each egg and sperm does assure basic cellular metabolism is functional, but not advanced differentiation function.
Many people lack a gene for one thing or another, or have double the norm, or a broken copy.
My red hair gene is, in a way, a slightly broken form of melanin, so higher skin cancer risk (but I can live under clouds far north without rickets, so not all bad). There are dozens of deseases from genetic issues. Sickle Cell and Favism from attempts by nature to beat malaria, some just of no benefit ( one deaf friend was missing the genes for an ear canal and external ear).
For some folks, the hormone receptors in their brains are not right and they really do develop the brain wiring of a conflicting gender. (There are a great many odd brain wiring issues, this is but one of them. Some folks have seisures, others have other problems. A friend’s child is missing the part of the brain that makes language. Beautiful girl, but just can never get any language…yet still has funtion just like many other mute species.. and likes rollercoasters… but I digress) So there really are folks who ARE of the other brain gender. Just not very many. Their cells may be xy, but their brain develops like an xx.
Then some result from an odd hormone surge during fetal development. A rush of testosterone at slightly the wrong time and your XX develops as a male. There actually are some XX folks with male form, and we know how to produce it. Testosterone at a particular developmental step.
So it goes in nature.
I’m just glad “me and mine” have not had to deal with any of it.
BTW, some of the cannabinoids in M.J. can cause problems with brain development in adolescents, including the development of female style breasts in some males. Is that part of the current wave of confused gender folks? Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe for some folks with particulr genetic profiles. Nature makes all unique, but then wants to sort us for “genetic fitness”, while we would rather remain unsorted… so have social issues instead…
But worse, many synthetic compounds have been shown to be estrogen analogs, including bis-phenol-a that was common in plastic baby bottles and can liners for many years (discovered to be an issue by a lady breast cancer researcher when tissue in plastic Petri dishes showed estrogen response while glass did not). Very few of all the chemicals we ingest have been fully tested for hormone analog behavior, but of those that have, a surprising number were positive. So what does it do to males to have lifelong exposure to estrogen analogs? Nothing good (sperm counts have been dropping for decades as one ‘maybe’)
The point?
Nature is not uniform, nor always correct, and “normal” is a statistical construct. Plan accordingly and be thankful if you are within one sigma of the mean… and have all the usual parts… ( but not too many either… some folks have 6 fingers, 5 is a recessive gene, and some women have more than two nipples, as common examples). We are ALL different, but it only shows in some of us…
That’s why tolerance is so important!
Thanks for that.
“I’m just glad “me and mine” have not had to deal with any of it.”
My kids, when they were old enough, asked if gay people were bad. They were living in a very structured and culturally conservative society at the time,
I told them they weren’t, but I hoped they’d never have to find out what a curse it was.
+1
I know the whole LGBABC thing has been claimed to be something along the lines of “We were born this way.”.
If it really is a birth defect, why don’t they claim “free access to any bathroom they feel like at the moment” under the “Americans’ with Disabilities Act”?
They don’t want to admit that there is something wrong with them?
Kids are impressionable. A kid going through puberty can get very confused as all the new male/female hormones hit. (Suddenly that little girl you threw rocks at a couple of years ago has become the most desirable creature on Earth. And you don’t know why. Or what to do about it.)
All this crap isn’t to help kids through that normal period but to steer.
E.M.Smith said:
There is no evidence whatsoever that hormone receptors have anything to do with the per se “wiring” of a person’s brain.
The per se “wiring”, or to be scientific correct, …. the “synaptic links” that connect brain neurons to one another have to be generated (grown) prior to any “hormone receptors” being activated via a synaptic “signal” transmission.
The voice portion of a telephone “call” does not determine how the physical telephone “wires” are installed. It is just the opposite, just like synaptic link brain “wiring”.
The information/data that one senses from their environment determines how their brain/mind is nurtured or “wired”, ….. or if one prefers, “programmed”.
Therefore, “conflicting gender” is a direct result of one’s environmental nurturing (programming).
I come here to learn about climate. As for the other subject that has taken over this thread, everybody should take seriously the possibility that much of what we ” know” isn’t true. Everyone, including me. I have my opinions, but they are probably wrong.
Richard, the point that I was trying to make is that many areas, ‘opinion’ and ‘feelings’ seem to dominate technicalities and scientific facts these days. Climate Science and Gender Studies are two good examples of this form of Post Normal science.
“Climate Science and Gender Studies are two good examples of this form of Post Normal science”
At least climate is at least very vaguely well defined (it’s like weather on average except it’s not), but gender isn’t defined at all.
At least climate has its own (ill defined) concepts, like “forcing”, (broken) tools, like (almost useless) “proxies”, and (bad) methods, and a terrible epistemology, gender studies has no well defined concepts, no agreed basic principles, not well defined tools…