[grebel]

> An interesting example is one of her two videos on transgenderism. It had an absolutely appalling both-sidesing intro that literally called people who crazy who are just concerned about suicide rates among trans people.

This was what she actually said in the introduction to that video:

"Should transgender teens transition? This rather personal question occupies a prominent place in the American culture war. One the one side you have people claiming that it’s a socially contagious fad among the brainwashed woke who want to mutilate your innocent children. On the other side there are those saying that it’s saving the lives of minorities who’ve been forced to stay in the closet for too long. And then there are normal people, like you and I, who think both sides are crazy and could someone please summarise the facts in simple words, which is what I’m here for. So what’s going on?"

What's objectionable about that? Sounds quite fair to me.

[phyzome]

« saving the lives of minorities who’ve been forced to stay in the closet for too long »

I mean, this is literally true, and doesn't sound crazy at all. Why is she saying that normal people think it's crazy? That's not the vibe I get from the general population, who are broadly in support of gender-affirming care. There's a relatively small, very loud contingent on the "mutilating the children" side of things and yeah, some of them sound a little crazy to me (although I suspect most are just uninformed or confused -- or using trans people as a political football, and know exactly what they're doing.) Most people either a) don't give a shit or b) have empathy for people who experience gender dysphoria.

This is classic both-sides-ism, equating two things as "equally wrong" or "equally right" that are pretty obviously on different footings.

[grebel]

If one scratches the surface of the "saving lives" claim to see what assumptions and beliefs this is based on, it very quickly gets just as crazy as the other side, if not more so.

[howinteresting]

"On the other side there are those saying that it’s saving the lives of minorities who’ve been forced to stay in the closet for too long. And then there are normal people, like you and I, who think both sides are crazy"

I think this fragment speaks for itself. It is not "crazy" to care about suicide rates or suicidal ideation. It is "crazy" to not care about that.

[faeriechangling]

Which side cares about them? Those who are stigmatizing a population with high suicide rates? Or those who have successfully spearheaded a societal shift which has led more people to identify as trans, while trans people collectively still claim high rates of suicidal ideation.

I don’t see any evidence that mental health in the transgender or general population has actually improved, I’ve seen numbers suggesting societal wide mental health is on the decline, and I have seen a pretty large increase in the absolute numbers of people who say their gender dysphoria makes them suicidal. I can find research that suggests transgender people who receive more medical treatment and societal acceptance are less suicidal than those who do not, but that doesn’t actually demonstrate that trans acceptance will lead to less suicidality and better mental health at the societal level. Or even really at the individual level, since correlation is not causation.

On top of all that, most past research of this sort is potentially non-reproducible at this point because the trans population has expanded so rapidly. Three times as many trans men started visiting clinics in the course of a decade. So the research will have to be done all over again to discount this possibility but this has not been done.

So I don’t know, I’m with Hossenfelder and her radical centrism because I think nobody is actually acting scientifically re: trans people and they’re just playing it by ear. What I detest is the unwarranted certainty and lack of scepticism people have on this topic; People are just guessing and are acting like they are not.

[grebel]

That first sentence is quite euphemistic though. There's a lot more to both sides that she quietly implies (by reference to "normal people" finding it "crazy") but doesn't outright mention.

[s1gnp0st]

The only thing objectionable is the soi-disant left making a religion of erasing gender-nonconforming people with medical interventions that don't work.

[howinteresting]

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-randomized-trial-show...

[dzhiurgis]

If you are from very polarised place then just about everyone is called crazy because opinions are approaching boolean type.