I am making this post because I believe I've made a grave mistake that I must apologize for. I have previously used language like "men and women have a distinct nature". This is incorrect, it was pointed out to me, in a discussion with my priest.

Do not take this for "men and women are the same", for this does not impact my argument on the logical invalidity of transgenderism, but it is a completely wrong and, if unrepentant, heretical statement. To insinuate that man and woman are not of the same human nature would essentially be to state that Christ died on the cross for men only, for He would not share the female nature with women, while Christ in reality died on the cross for all who should come to Him. Rather, "man" and "woman", male and female, are tropoi or modes of the human nature. It was not my intent to misinform and I have surely incurred the righteous wrath of He, the LORD as I too am but a wretched sinner, for which I must confess my sins and surely repent to Him.

Glory be to the LORD!

@stardust On another topic, while speaking with my priest, I've found some of the questions you may have had @skibidist on the intersex answered.

There is a male tropos and a female tropos, and surely there are those who you have pointed out, seem to embody both. But this does not invalidate that male and female are separate, distinct, and all-encompassing. Namely, we can divide the intersex argument into three subcategories

Presupposition) Intersex individuals are neither plainly male or female
1) Intersex people have no gender.
2) Intersex people are a 3rd gender.
3) Intersex people possess both genders.

And we can knock these down one by one, in order.

If intersex people (1) have no gender, what you are essentially stating is that gender is not onto an individual -- namely, if we are defining "gender" off of male and female as some collection of traits in some order, and this does not apply for an intersexed individual, what we are essentially saying is that what makes someone possess a gender (and thus, be male or female. Not just intersex) is not any collection of traits but rather a group identity or quantity.

This is plainly absurd. In the beginning (or if you want to use a secularist parallel, at the absolute minima of human population, around low triple digits) were there no "men" or "women"? If you took all the people with some specific intersex condition and gave them their own country, would you have, "created" a new gender out of thin air? Obviously this is ridiculous.

Now, the "no gender" defender may go on to say that male and female exist because modally they're much more likely, which is a slightly stronger defense, but falls apart again. If some nefarious group were to genetically modify humans such that females were 1000 times more common than males, surely men would still exist? It would seem absurd to insist that there is no more male gender.

So suppose we've abandoned this argument and insist that intersex people are a 3rd gender (2) then. This argument is also dead in the water because intersex people have no specific ontology. To be clear, I am not saying intersex people do not exist, but that they do not have an ontology distinct from male and female. Notably, in the examples you brought up, we are referring to people for whom it may be "hard to tell". If intersex people have no distinct ontology and can rather fully be explained with the male and female tropoi, they are not distinct from maleness and femaleness the way maleness and femaleness are from each other. It would be like taking Point A (0, 10), Point B (0, 0), and we find a Point C which lies on the same line and insisting that it's 2 dimensional now because we have 3 points.

Okay, so maybe they have a gender, and it can't be not(male or female), so what if it's male and female? The problem is that this is also impossible. Suppose A is the set of necessary and sufficient characteristics for being a man, and B for a woman, and Casey has both A and B. If Casey were to remove A, he/she would become a woman. The problem with this is that you can imagine David, a man. If you have already established the precedent that "removing A is possible", which you ought if you are using a biological justification for someone being "both a man and a woman", then we could by similar logic turn David into a gender-less being. As seen in (1), this is not possible -- it self-refutes because you start from the proposition that "an individual's gender may be determined from the traits he or she has" and then deny that proposition from the same line of argument.

The much simpler answer is to reject the presupposition that intersex individuals are not male and female. It can be hard to tell sometimes and is a serious medical question. But suppose I flip three coins for you.

The first one lands heads. I point to it, and you say heads.
The second one lands tails. I point to it, and you say tails.

The third one falls flat and I cover it before you can see. The answer is not that it is neither heads nor tails, or both heads and tails, or that it landed on its side. It is that you do not know, but it is heads or tails nonetheless.

Intersex people are real and deserve to be recognized -- for the men and women who they are. They too are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, and not "Parent A" or "birthing person".

@stardust Methinks he doth protest too much.

A "woman" is an adult human female, or an adult human who has a consistent personal felt sense of (and adopts or desires to adopt) the gender expression of a female.

It's not a difficult bind. Trans men are "men" for most (but not all) purposes, and trans women are "women" for most (but not all) purposes. Exactly which purposes those are is socially negotiated. (Same for trans girls and trans boys. You don't have to be 18 to know what your persistent experience of gender is. People can also be agender or gender fluid, or have some other self-conception, and that's all good and fine insofar as it isn't causing significant/undue burden on others, which it almost never does.) This can all be managed in a happy, healthy society, while preventing more harm than it causes.

You aren't allowed to understand any of this because it is forbidden knowledge according to your very specific religious framework. So you must pretend that it is incoherent, or unscientific, or a matter of the prescriptive definitions of words as spoken by the mouth of an anthropomorphic immortal whose only recorded words about gender were barely relevant and were not communicated in English.

You will never find out whether there are scientific results that have bearing on and invalidate specific claims of yours, because you aren't allowed to read and understand the scientific literature on the subject. If you did read it, and you did understand it, your beliefs would change, and you would become a heretic.

@Haiku He’s just as bad as the trans extremists who think that people should get “gender affirming care” at the first sign of dysphoria. Unwilling to consider any evidence contrary to the world view.

I would consider a natal male with severe gender dysphoria but who has not started on hormones to still be a male.

What is a parent? Biological parents are parents. Adoptive parents we also call parents even though they see biologically not the parents. Brianna Wu openly admits she is a biological male, but we call her a woman. Similar concept.

@Haiku How to call what will be determined by President Trump tomorrow

> He is also expected to establish biological sex definitions
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-take-more-than-200-executive-actions-day-one

@Haiku

A "woman" is an adult human female, or an adult human who has a consistent personal felt sense of (and adopts or desires to adopt) the gender expression of a female.

Extremely ad-hoc definition that does not show a necessary and/or sufficient property of being a "woman", but yet another disjoint definition that fails for the reason all disjoint definitions do.

Woman: Adult human female OR adult human who wants to be a female

Man: Adult human male OR adult human who wants to be male

Do you see the issue here? According to your definition a "trans woman" is both a woman and a man

It's not a difficult bind. Trans men are "men" for most (but not all) purposes, and trans women are "women" for most (but not all) purposes.

In modern society that's how they're treated, yes. If you want to adopt the pure-social view though then you would by the same measure have to concede that "trans women" are not women at all and fully men in the context of a country that outlaws transgenderism. It's almost as if being treated as something is not being that thing.

This is, I will note, also appealing to a definition you didn't state. How can a trans woman be an "adult human female or adult human who wants to be a female" in most but not all contexts? Does he sometimes stop wanting to be a woman?

You will never find out whether there are scientific results that have bearing on and invalidate specific claims of yours, because you aren't allowed to read and understand the scientific literature on the subject. If you did read it, and you did understand it, your beliefs would change, and you would become a heretic.

You are free to cite whatever you want instead of gesturing to vague allusions of "there's evidence!"

Plus, the claims on transgenderism's validity are primarily ontological and not empirical in nature, so sorry, no. This would be like saying "there's scientific evidence theft is wrong". Nope, that's a moral claim.

@nathanwei

He’s just as bad as the trans extremists who think that people should get “gender affirming care” at the first sign of diaspora.

wait, what

diaspora

HAHAHAH

Unwilling to consider any evidence contrary to the world view.

Almost as if you guys have none... I will note on our last comment thread you were just like "uh, uh, read THIS" without, you know, making any arguments? This "educate yourself" attitude is why liberals lost and will continue to lose.

What is a parent? Biological parents are parents. Adoptive parents we also call parents even though they see biologically not the parents.

Awesome. Do you know what a "parent" isn't? A parent isn't someone who looks like a parent. A parent also isn't someone who at first glance to an unknowing observer you would assume is one of the biological closest predecessors.

Brianna Wu openly admits she is a biological male, but we call her a woman.

I don't. He should grow out his mustache.

@skibidist Waiting for the "your gender is what you do" people (slight strawman, but the pure social view of the ontology of gender is hardly any better) to admit that in 2025 America a trans woman is a man and a trans man is a woman

@stardust What is a parent?

@nathanwei Not someone who "looks like a parent", or someone who "you would assume to be the biological first predecessor of"! But I asked the first question. I'll give you an answer after you give me a real answer to my question ("what is a woman?") or admit that "trans women" are, categorically, men.

(FYI I randomized my vote, I just wanted to see results)

@Nightsquared Don't worry, I understand the cancel culture is strong.

Thoughts on the initial response at 42 entries: 3-3-7-6-13-10.

I originally got this idea from @jim's poll here https://manifold.markets/jim/trans-rights. Where at time of writing, 30/36 participants consider themselves "in favor of trans rights". If we do a little extrapolation, which isn't always reliable but is the best we've got, that comes out to everyone 11+ and most of 6-10 considering themselves in favor of trans rights. Likely, 0-6 comes out "against" more often than not and 7-20 comes out "for" more often than not.

This makes me very very happy. If the "pro-trans" crowd is so divided, and many of them deny trans children, trans sports, trans prisons, trans bathrooms, and most importantly, the quintessential transgender claim that "trans men are men and trans women are women", then I think the picture isn't nearly as dire for us Christians as some would like us to think. Do not mistake my words for "everything is fine" for any position which is not "0" is ultimately morally and spiritually bankrupt. Do mistake it for "there is hope yet, and transgender will be completely repudiated before 2050". Of course, I pray for the souls of the 10 deeply lost individuals who chose "20".

If we assume a quarter of the 16-19ers agree with the trans ontological claim, then only around 31% of very liberal manifold is totally ungettable. Everyone else's position, if taken consistently, breaks against the transformers. If we take 16-19 in its entirety to mean "logically entails anti-transgenderism, but woke/liberal enough that if pushed would sooner adopt the trans ontological claim than its antithesis" (which I believe is a conservative measure; some likely will break against trans in these coming months) then still, 45% of very liberal manifold (which would be around as blue as DC) will, if the argument is sufficiently made, accept the falsity of transgenderism.

15- is from my point, where there are enough not only breaks, but consistent breaks with the trans-narrative that anyone with those positions, even if they don't want to admit it, essentially deep down believes that transgenders are lying but you should "be nice anyways". As our society gets less soft and men learn that it's okay to be masculine again, people will learn that love must sometimes be delivered by the sword. Matthew 5:17.

Predictions and Further Predictions: I find my initial distribution predictions to be almost entirely correct -- just that I thought that more of the 6-10 column would be in 11-15. That makes me happy. From the above, I will make a shorter term prediction that does not take until 2050.

By the end of the Trump term, if real action is taken on the transgender problem, Manifold's 16+ rating rate for transgenderism will drop from 55% to 45% - likely most of those who reject the transgender ontological claim will see the light. Additionally, most of the people in the very unstable 6-15 category will drop to 0-5. This will correspond to most Democrats in the real world jumping ship on transgender issues. I expect Americans responding to "is it moral to change your gender" with NO by a 20+ point lead. And trans sports, trans prisons, trans bathrooms, and all the implications of "is it moral to change your gender", because Americans are hard with abstract phrasing but can see things with their eyes, will be in the dumpster -- contingent on this manifold sample being representative, and people starting to identify as "pro trans" at around a 7 or an 8. It is very possible that "trans rights" becomes a minority position even in the Democrat Party as we return to normality.

Once this market https://manifold.markets/RichardHanania/will-at-least-three-of-trumps-cabin resolves NO and I get my 45k mana (thanks liberals), I will make a market predicting the results of the next time I re-run this poll -- sometime in late 2025 or early 2026 likely. I expect the results to be relieving for Christians and Monarchists. And I expect to make some mana off of the 10 radical leftists who voted 20!

Христос воскрес!

@stardust

Everyone else's position, if taken consistently, breaks against the transformers

I find it really funny how you keep referring to transgender people as transformers, a word that to me conjures up alien robots transforming into vehicles

@TheAllMemeingEye Me too. All the liberals disliking probably read it, laughed, got guilty they laughed

@stardust For sports, the position that organizations should be able to choose whether to ban it or not is actually not the most extreme pro-trans. There are people who say that there should be a blanket law that ALLOWS transgender people to compete.

0,1,2,3 are fine, but there should also be
4 - Transgender people should legally be allowed to compete in professional sports under their gender identity if they undergo a specific surgery/hormone treatment
5 - Transgender people should always be able to compete in professional sports under their gender identity

@ShadowyZephyr I find that 3 and 4 as I read them are too similar. In point 3, specifically. I'm referring to "non-discrimination" clauses that you cannot ban someone on the basis of being transgender. Perhaps hormone levels or whatnot, but that any ban must be done on some other metric.

If by 4 you're talking about all transgenders being allowed to compete as long as there is verification of some procedure (let's call it 4+). In that case, I would still leave it at 3 for the sake of fairness.

• For one, many of the liberals here would proclaim "nobody does this"! and bias in the poll

• They would somewhat be right. If they win, I suspect you would see 4+ and 5 become more normalized positions, but right now they're not, and I cannot think of one mainstream politician or major figure who goes to bat for either.

• Ultimately, rejecting 4+ and 5 are still consistent with transgender ideology and the transgender ontological claim, so they would serve a fairly useless role

I find that they ultimately fit non-binary ideology more strongly than transgender ideology

@stardust Your main problem is that you try to fit everything into this singular ontology, which not only doesn't make sense from a policy perspective (why would thinking puberty blockers should be restricted imply that a positive depiction of a trans person in movies should be equivalent to rape, incest, or necrophilia) but completely ignores any kind of linguistic descriptivist lens.

Even if people did all prescribe to your prescriptivist ontology about gender, it's a bad method for polling how much most people agree with "transgender ideology" - when you're polling you want to create the widest possible range of options, to distinguish people's stances.

@ShadowyZephyr There are only two possibilities. "Trans women are women and trans men are men" or the antithesis. All other options fall into absurdity.

If "trans women are women and trans men are men", then all the transgender arguments follow. If "trans women are men and trans men are women", then all the transgender arguments fail to obtain.

why would thinking puberty blockers should be restricted imply that a positive depiction of a trans person in movies should be equivalent to rape, incest, or necrophilia

You are misunderstanding, it is not that "puberty blockers should be restricted" -> "trans person in movies = rape, incest, or necrophilia". Both are from "transgenderism is a delusion".

it's a bad method for polling how much most people agree with "transgender ideology" - when you're polling you want to create the widest possible range of options, to distinguish people's stances.

Because fundamentally 4 and 5 are not claims onto "transgender ideology". There's also a reason I didn't include a "death penalty for transgenderism" option even though I think in some cases it's quite reasonable.

but completely ignores any kind of linguistic descriptivist lens.

(All of them are absurd when it comes to "men" and "women")

@stardust

All other options fall into absurdity

Hot take: the nuanced middle ground is the actual truth though, rather than the simplistic dichotomy

@TheAllMemeingEye "2+2 is 4" "2+2 is not-4" "Actually, it's something in the middle".

@TheAllMemeingEye There is such a thing as false nuance

@stardust that's a pretty poor analogy, single digit arithmetic is a vastly simpler system than gender identifies lol.

If you insist on keeping the same analogy, a better wording would be:

1. (Sort-of) False: 2+2=4

2. False: 2+2≠4

3. False: Actually, it's something in the middle

4. (More rigourously) True: It depends, 2+2=4 in standard modern mathematical notation and in layman understanding, but technically that could change if symbols are defined differently (e.g. future, historical, or foreign notations, conlangs etc), or if more fundamental underlying mechanisms of mathematics are considered, such that the expression is only a special case simplification (e.g. quarternion-type hyper-complex domains, non-euclidean domains, set notation, axiomatic freedom, level 4 tegmarkian multiverse etc.)

A better analogy, using systems of similar complexity and dynamics, would be:

1. False: Taiwan is part of China

2. False: Taiwan is not part of China

3. False: Actually, it's something in the middle

4. True: It depends, Taiwan is part of China if by China you mean the cultural region, or you mean the dejure territorial claims of the UN recognised nation calling itself China (the PRC), but Taiwan is not part of China if you mean the defacto territorial control of the actual sovereign state of the PRC

@TheAllMemeingEye

single digit arithmetic is a vastly simpler system than gender identifies lol.

My point with single-digit arithmetic is not that one is simple and the other is complex, but that both have ontological being, unlike sandwich-ness and Taiwan-ness.

Look, if you want another example of a question where there is no "false nuance" that references gender identity, are "cisgendered" men men and "cisgendered" women women?

(More rigourously) True: It depends, 2+2=4 in standard modern mathematical notation and in layman understanding, but technically that could change if symbols are defined differently (e.g. future, historical, or foreign notations, conlangs etc)

This is sophism. Obviously when I say 2, +, =, 4, I am not referring to the symbols themselves but the ontological entities that the symbols represent. You could change "2+2=4" to "w mark w ! r" and that would not change the underlying mathematical fact at all.

Consider the hypothetical: we find another planet called Earth-Beta identical to ours in every way, except their words for "man" and "woman" are swapped. Do women (Earth) have more in common with what is connected by the word or what is connected by the nature? Furthermore, if you took a "trans woman" from Earth and put him on Earth-Beta and everyone called him a woman as if it's 2nd nature (cause their word for man is woman), do you think within that context he would cease to destroy his body and soul and integrate seamlessly?

more fundamental underlying mechanisms of mathematics are considered, such that the expression is only a special case simplification (e.g. quarternion-type hyper-complex domains, non-euclidean domains, set notation, axiomatic freedom, level 4 tegmarkian multiverse etc.)

This is sophism. None of this changes the fact that 2+2 still is 4. If any of it potentially did change 2+2 being 4, all it would show is that you've gone wrong in your math somewhere. Cause you've basically proved it wrong by contradiction, minus "axiomatic freedom" I suppose, which needs to see the above note I wrote.

A better analogy, using systems of similar complexity and dynamics, would be:

Not better. I deny that China and Taiwan are of a similar likeness to man and woman. My argument with man and woman is very simple. It's straightforward logic, and I invite you to find any holes instead of insisting "but, but, there might be nuances"! That's on you to prove, and technically there are, but none such that make "transgender identities" valid.

1) "Man" and "woman" have some sort of ontological status

- If you deny this, frankly, I think that's rather stupid. That said, then you've denied gender ideology in its whole. If "man" and "woman" don't actually exist, but "male" and "female" do, then...

2) If "man" and "woman" have some sort of ontological status, then there is some necessary property or set of properties onto "man" and "woman". We will use woman for the sake of simplicity, and call the woman property Property A.
3) A "cisgendered" woman is necessarily a woman. A "cisgendered" man is necessarily a man.

4) All "cisgendered" women, thus, partake in Property A.
5) Either "trans women" are necessarily women or "trans women" are not-necessarily women (LEM). Truth tables, I said not-necessarily, not necessarily not. We'll substantiate that part later.
- If "trans women" are not necessarily women, then they cannot partake in womanhood qua womanhood like "cisgendered" women can. Simply, if you take a "transgender woman" Sarah and a "cisgendered" man Robert, and assign onto Robert whatever you think makes Sarah a woman, then at some point Robert becomes a woman if you assume Sarah can become a woman.

6) This contradicts (3). Thus, the proposition that "not all trans-women are women, some trans-women are women" is necessarily false.
7) "Trans women" are not necessarily women

- You acknowledge this.
8) Therefore, no transgender women are women.
9) Therefore, Property A is immutable.
10) So, all "transgendered women" are men.

@stardust corrected version:

1) The words "man" and "woman" have multiple different definitions according to different speakers, which you could call ambiguous semantic status, nothing to do with ontology (the metaphysics of existence)

2) There exist definitions of "man" and "woman" that are most beneficial to use, due to their not causing distress to individuals suffering from gender dysphoria, namely the definitions based on gender expression

3) For a given definition, there is some necessary set of properties, which for the most beneficial definition of "woman", we will abbreviate as Property Set A

4) A "cis woman" partakes in Property Set A, and thus fits the most beneficial definition of "woman", but technically could not fit highly unusual definitions of "woman", so arguably is not "necessarily a woman"

5) A "trans woman" partakes in Property Set A, and thus fits the most beneficial definition of "woman", but does not fit commonly found but less beneficial definitions of "woman", so arguably is not "necessarily a woman"

6) Both a "cis woman" and a "trans woman" fit the most beneficial definition of "woman", and both are not "necessarily a woman"

7) Due to the semantic ambiguity, literally nothing is "necessarily a woman"

8) There is no contradiction

@TheAllMemeingEye Fails at P1

This is once again, classic word-concept fallacy. I am not talking about the word man and woman, but the things they refer to. If you want to put this in laymans terms, it is approximate to what they should refer to in a universal sense. Once again, if we found Earth-Beta and Earth-Beta was exactly like Earth, but they swapped the words for man and woman (and associated gendered terms) this would not change my argument in the slightest, as I am referring to the concept.

Sex has an ontology. Either gender has an ontology or gender doesn't.
If gender has no ontology, it is meaningless to do things by gender. Thus, trans women are not women.
If gender has an ontology, then all cis women are women. Either all "trans women" are women, none are, or some are.

"Some are" is a logically impossible answer.
Mutual agreement that not all trans women are women

Thus, no trans women are women, and all trans women are men.

@stardust what do you mean by ontology in this case? To me, if someone "has an ontology" then it means they have an answer they believe in to the question of "what is existence and why does the universe exist". It seems nonsensical to say that an abstract concept like gender "has an ontology"

@TheAllMemeingEye If something has an ontology, what I mean is that it has some sort of ontological existence, or some sort of real existence which is not merely illusory. For instance, most people would agree sex has an ontology, mathematical realists would admit an ontology for numbers, a concrete object like "The All Memeing Eye" has an ontological existence.

Race (unless you're a race-realist) would be an example of something which does not have an ontology. It fundamentally does not correspond to anything which is real, it is in principle impossible to construct a set of all members of one "race" which does not include any non-members of that "race" (not just "I can't do it" or "can you think of a definition? Language is hard", but in principle, impossible. An ASI couldn't do it.) that isn't extremely ad hoc. "Cool" is another example of something which does not have an ontology, even though it may sometimes correspond to things that do.

@TheAllMemeingEye In other words, and please tell me if you think what I'm saying is unfair lol, because although I am an Orthodox Christian and stand very firmly against degeneracy it is the most honest practice to steel-man your opponents' arguments unless they are being blatantly sophistic:

For instance, the school of gender ideologues that admits that "gender" is some psychological/psychosocial phenomenon would point to an idea of "mental" phenomena that defines gender -- or in other words, they would make an argument such as:

We assign fictional characters who are not necessarily human (invalidating AHF/AHM, which would be the more biological school's "first hand", so to speak) "genders", and it is natural to do so. We may speak about the deceased in present tense (not merely past tense) with gendered terms, such as "I hope she's watching us from heaven right now", and in the case that we could abandon our physical bodies and upload ourselves to a cyborg body or the net, it seems absurd to insist that the men would stop being men and the women would stop being women.

Furthermore, there is the school of gender ideologues that believe in some biological criterion, which is not necessarily chromosomes, it may be phenotypical sex, may be secondary sexual characteristics, etc., just some biological criterion would point to the fact that we can seemingly refer to human females from 100000 years ago that you may find a fossil of (if you believe in Old Earth) as a "woman", even though it seems a little weird to insist that there's something social corresponding there. And to strike against the mental view, they would admit the example of, say, a very mentally disabled or comatose human male or female, who should still in their own right be considered a man or woman respectively.

The last main strain of thought is a purely social view of what makes "man" and "woman" in some sort of gender-role or power dialectic type of thing. I will be honest, I haven't really seen an argument for this side which isn't pure sophistry but I thought I would mention it because a lot of feminists hold this view. It is notably weak to a hypothetical which both the biological and psychological/psychosocial ideas avoid, which is that if we swapped the gender roles of men and women, #1, that would be degenerate. But #2, degeneracy aside, would that make transgenders not transgender anymore? Would it make a significant amount of normal people transformers?

As Christians we emphatically disagree with all three views, although the biological view (which tends to be the most trans-exclusionary, but not always) sees common ground with us for the current moment in time.