This topic isn’t specific to atheism but many topics on this forum are not and it does have to do with the ideological left which atheists tend to lean towards.
Transgender people are mentally ill. Being trans is a mental illness and it is despicable to reinforce people’s mental illness. That’s my thesis and now I’m going to back it up with facts and arguments.
Fact 1:
Trans people have significantly higher suicide attempt rates than almost every other population of non mentally ill people. Studies suggest suicide attempt rates as high as 46% or about 20 times the norm. The lowest I’ve seen claimed is about 15% and the average rate is 4.5 for the general population according to some studies.
Fact 2:
Studies show at most mixed evidence for improvement after gender reassignment surgery.
Fact 3:
Jews during the holocaust/ in concentration camps had possibly 30 times the rate of suicide attempts as the general public and is one of the few populations with suicide rates comparable with trans people in western societies.
Fact 4:
African Americans have lower suicide rates than their white counterparts. I believe this applied in the 60s and 50s as well under Jim Crow laws as. Fact check me on that one it’s hard to find the right stats.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/8/12/5993075/...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880554/
Argument 1:
1. Trans people have much higher suicide attempt rate than most people.
2. This is not explained by bullying/discrimination since only populations subjected to extreme persecution like concentration camps experience similar rates.
3. Hence there seems to be no sufficient exterior explanation to trans people for their suicide rate.
4. The best explanation is something internal or phycological to trans people.
5. But a phycological condition that produces an increase in suicide attempts is a metal illness.
6. Hence trans people are mentally ill or tend to be mentally more often.
7. The specific difference between trans and the general population is their self identification/ being trans.
8. Finally, being trans must itself be a mental illness.
Argument 2:
1. Very delusional thinking is a sign of mental illness.
2. False beliefs of a basic aspect of ones identity is very delusional.
3. Example: I am the real Napoleon. But he died long ago? So what, I am he
4. Identifying oneself as male when you are female or vise versa is a false identification of ones basic identity.
5. Therefore trans people are mentally ill.
So, 4 needs explanation and defense because of the sex gender distinction people make. First I’ll lay out a simple defense made by trans advocates:
Sex is biological while gender is the sociological stereotypes associated with sex. Since the opposite sex can in fact have those sociological characteristics, they can be the gender which is not associated with their sex. A sexual male can be a female according to their gender.
The problem with this is the added premise that gender trumps sex in that a gender male is a REAL male regardless of sex. In other words the stereotype characteristics (excluding biological ones) are more important. This is false. Furthermore, why can’t we just say that is a man with more female personality characteristics than normal? The reason is that there is a vague belief by the trans person that on a deep ontological level they are actually the opposite sex of their sex. They have a female soul/brain despite having a male body. They should have been opposite but God/nature got it wrong. Like I said this is a vague belief and is different for different trans people.
Another problem with sex/gender distinction is that it is based on the belief that subjective beliefs change objective reality. Hence we can’t call Katlin Jenner a man or he, because he thinks he is a she so therefore he is she and not a he. What a mouth full.
Here is an argument from analogy why the sex/gender distinction is wrong:
1. A man says: I am biologically white/ my race is white.
2. But I have always had a deep since of being black/ identifying with blacks.
3. So, I am ethnically black. I really am black and if you don’t call me black then that’s hate speech. Also I get all black stuff to apply to me. So I can say we have been oppressed by racists and so on. After all, male to female trans can say you men have always been mistreating us women.
4. But even most leftists agree that this is absurd, especially since the same distinction of race/ethnicity could be applied across species (and is by some crazy people). Black or white is based on skin color/genes. Period.
5. But it is inconsistent to hold to 4 above and not to think the sex/gender distinction is wrong.
6. 4 is true and justified belief.
7. Hence, even leftists should agree the sex/gender distinction is wrong.
I do not write this to put down trans people or trans advocates. I do so because I am concerned that we hurt them and ourselves when we reinforce their delusions. Society can only believe in lies so long before it has negative consequences. We don’t tell a crazy person with audio/vision hallucinations that they are not physically real but that they are actually real in an objective way and your not crazy. Let’s not do that with trans people.
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