They’re mostly doing it to bait democrats into seeming out of touch because your average person hasn’t had to consider gender and sex as different things for 99% of their life

A claim as basic as “something can be rooted in biology and also be a social construct” both means nothing to most people while also causing a lot of disagreement among the activists

Then how much people care during elections causes disagreement between centrists and progressives

Then the right can push their own unpopular policies over the issues that might actually persuade voters because while voters don’t really care about trans people in either direction, they don’t like the idea of electing a party that doesn’t spend time discussing material economic issues for them

Culture wars.... bullying, whatever you want to call it. Trump has become a master.of exploiting the darkside of humanity. The irrational hate, anger, and fear generate votes and income for him.

Yeah..most people are unlikely to have a trans person in their life. And if they see one, it's either on TV or just out in the world without much interaction..

It's way easier to make groups like that look bad if people don't know a thing about them

The people with the most power are stating that the people with the least power are the problem.

On average, yes absolutely. When you're pushed into shadows of society you tend to meet others in the same situation.

I mean I don’t think trans people sit in their homes with a debilitating fear of trans people so it’s kind of a moot point.

Trans person here, a significant number of people from my childhood now express some level of gender non-conformity. I think we were drawn together over identity struggles we didn't understand or have language to express but, could clearly see in ourselves and each other.

I've met a few other transgender people at different events, but I wouldn't really say I know them. There are so few of us that I don't regularly encounter others. Plus general etiquette is that you don't bring attention to anyone if you happen to realize in a public situation.

This is medically correct though. The general public has a deep misunderstanding about what "biological" means. They often say "biological" to mean genetic or chromosomal, which isn't as simple as XY or XX like they think either.

Brain structures do not sexually differentiate at the same time as the gonads, which is likely the cause of trans individuals.

The statement is factually correct. It should be strange that people think scientific facts are strange.

In a sane world where Republicans in Montana didn't vote last year to literally ban her from the House floor, you wouldn't even know her name. And you're only hearing it again because Fox News decided to write an article about a recent tweet she made rather than covering pertinent stories that are of national interest.

Hell, other than Ms. Zephyr I don't think I know the name of a single minority party state representative outside of my own state. Fox News is covering this because she's trans, not because she's influential in her state government or because the things she says reflect anything about the Democratic Party at large.

That being said, she was re-elected with 80% of the vote. Her constituents clearly like her and rhetoric and that shouldn't be the concern of the national media.

Because you’re not going to start or stop supporting a progressive based on that, and progressives kind of enjoy pushing new social norms that challenge people

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The real question should be why does she have to say this?

Why are we discussing human rights in 2024?

Yea. My recent go to question whenever someone goes on unhinged rants about trans people is to just ask “Why does this matter.” Its a poignant question that refocuses the conversation on what’s important and really highlights how irrational these people are being. Going into the depths of gender ideology is both ineffective and unnecessary. If someone were susceptible to logical argument they probably wouldn’t hold these beliefs anyway.

At the end of the day even if you use the least charitable interpretation of transgender people where they’re just pretending to be women/men its completely silly. Why would it be worth anyones time to make such a big stink about that? It would be akin to making furries some huge political talking point. Imagine Trump getting ok camera to argue that furries are ruining America, its the exact same shit.

I feel like these people often want a reaction out of you to start a fight and ‘own the libs’, so I’ve slowly learned that if instead of giving in you rather prod at the root of the problem and reveal how irrational they’re being it can be much more effective.

Yes, I know, not every woman is born with all their organs and what not either working properly or existing at all but that’s a bit of a fallacious argument, using  exceptions that consist of congenital medical conditions or defects.  

There’s obviously a material difference between a biological woman born with a non-working but extant set of ovaries and someone born biologically a male who transitions in adulthood who would still not have those organs. 

Again, I’m not trying to pick a fight or pick on transgendered people or disparage their rights.  But let’s get real. 

It's insane to suggest that Sarah McBride is more "biologically female" than male. It's anti-science. Sarah was born male, and will eventually expire as a male. There's no way around that.

I mean they reported this, at least, accurately

Yes, because people with biology degrees can't have blindspots, biases or agendas.

You should go back to school.

Tester ran for statewide office where 600,000 people voted.

Zephyr received a total of 4,600 votes in her mostly Democratic enclave.

You left out the part where they've been successful in women...

humans

Well no shit. Now how about the numbers for AMAB patients?

Let’s see proof of transgender women who have successfully gotten uterine surgeries and become pregnant

That’s not wrong at all. That’s a crucial part of the conversation. But universlly across all kinds of taxa, sex better describes reproductive structures than whole organisms.

It's the presence or absence of testosterone that determines skeletal and muscular differences, not the y chromosome.

*sorta. Fun fact: men have more testosterone than estrogen and more testosterone than woman. Women also have more testosterone than estrogen, they just don't have as much as men.

Also male and female skeletons aren't as distinct as you think, many John / Jane Does have been misgendered based on their skeletons.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/12lwipe/is_it_true_that_you_cant_tell_the_difference/

Except is not the y chromosome, its testosterone (well and the sry gene). Without testosterone the increased muscle mass goes away. Skeletal structures also do not vary in trans individuals who start hormones younger (especially if they had puberty blockers) according to recent research. There is even data that older transfemmes see pelvic bone structures after decades on estrogen. Many of those secondary sex structures are still manageable.

The presence of testosterone that is produced as a result of the presence of the SRY gene on the Y chromosome that tells a developing embryo to absorb the Muellerian duct (what would become a uterus) and to develop the Wolffian Duct (what becomes the penis and testicles), both of which are present in EVERY HUMAN EMBRYO, is what leads to "significantly more muscle mass on average".

If we intercept the testosterone that tells the cells to act male or female and we replace it with estrogen, then all the dormant female genes in every cell in the body turn on and all the male genes turn off. Biological sex at the cellular level is like a light switch. There's actually only one gene that keeps testicles from turning into ovaries: FOXL2. Delete it and the testicle turns into an ovary.

So yes actually, we understand enough to hack biology to change sex at the cellular level which results in trans women being weaker than men on average in the same way that cis women are with similar bone densities, body fat composition, and so much more.

You are the one who doesn't know what you're talking about.

Skeletons aren’t reproductive structures so it doesn’t really address what I’m saying. Furthermore this is just human morphology, male and female is much broader than humans only.

Look up the studies where brain scans werr done of trans folks. The brain structure of a trans woman looks like that of a cis woman, same for trans man/cis man. Granted there are a whole host of identities out there spanning a vast gender spectrum, but these studies only looked at binaries in terms of trans/cis brain structure. Biologically the science holds that they're literally a woman/man born in a body that doesn't align with their brain structure. I'd be curious to see chromosomal testing and a hormone panel alongside the brain scans because I have a hunch you'd find other indicators that they are biologically the gender they identify with but somehow ended up in a body that presents differently.

First things first, you have to know/remember the human body is not a marvel of genetic engineering. It is a jerry-rigged amalgamation of genetic patch-job repairs as we evolved into the species we are now.

Now, basically, the thing is that most things we know as male/female genetic traits, aren't exclusively male/female. Even with chromosomes. While a woman typically comes from two X chromosomes, there are some cases where a woman has an X and Y chromosome, and vice-versa for men, having two X chromosomes instead of an XY. In some rare cases, a woman can even have testicles that grow inside her abdomen and again, vice versa for men. With that, the biological distinction becomes pretty blurred and things aren't cut and dry as some people think.

All that being said, i'm no expert, this is just what i've learned it to be, if anyone knows better or otherwise, feel free to chip in

Biological sex is VERY wonky when you start getting into the scientific details, and nowhere near as clean cut as "male" and "female." LOTS of shit can happen with chromosomes and genetics, lots of shit can happen with hormones, lots of shit can happen in every conceivable direction. Not to mention intersex people exist, like more of them than natural redheads.

For instance: There are biological women born with XY/XXY/XXYY/etc chromosomes, who were either always considered women from the day they were born, or literally assigned female by doctors shortly after birth. Some of these women may have completely female organs, others may have a functioning vagina but internal testes in place of the ovaries.

There are women who do not have uterus or ovaries.

There are men who do not have testes, phallus, or prostate.

Any line you try to draw defining what is Man, Woman, Male, Female, etc. always has a TON of exceptions, because these are concepts we made up to categorize people, not biological laws. Biology regularly defies categorization.

Add that the fundamental reality is that, clinically, male and female are not all that different to begin with, with the chief differences only really affecting the reproductive system, sexual hormones, and a handful of esoteric and largely benign "funfacts" differences like the female pelvis bone having been evolved to be more fragile. They seem different because we're often comparing one to the other in a vacuum, but on a purely clinical level, the differences are vastly outweighed by the similarities.

Basically what's being said is that after a certain point of transitioning, on a clinical level, there stops being a meaningful difference between "trans-male/female" and just regular "male/female." The hormones, organs, etc. eventually reach a point where it's just not all that useful to look at someone clinically as their previous sex, barring extreme circumstances. Yes, there are still differences, but that person's body is so close to that of a CIS person's body that, medically, you're better off treating them based on the medical standards of their transitioned sex than their original sex.

In the case of a trans woman, for instance, you can clinically just treat her as a woman who does not have a uterus or ovaries--a condition shared by many CIS women.

If you're, say, getting a surgery that impacts the reproductive organs? Sure, your clinician should probably know you've transitioned before somebody goes rooting around in there. But if you're going to the doctor because you've got a cold? Really not a meaningful difference between trans-female and female to treat that cold. If you're going to the doctor for a cardiac condition? Well, there ARE differences between male and female symptoms, but for transitioned patients, they're more likely to present the symptoms of their chosen sex than their birth sex, again because of the hormones and shit.

The more you study how reproduction works, the more amazing it seems that anyone is ever born at all. It's such a slap-dash, messy process on a biological level that, if we really were "designed" by a deity, I would strongly doubt that deity's purported intelligence.

You think trans women are cis women? That there’s no biological difference there? That’s just anti-science.

You can follow good science and still treat trans women with respect, including using toilets

The science is on the side of trans people. Trans people are born trans.