Which gender are you?

[guruilla]

I still say that transhumanism represents a classist, hypercapitalist, libertarian thrust to give oneself an ultracompetitive edge over fellow humans in order to depart the species in search of some demigod "ideal," while transgenderism is none of the above.

Every wedge has a thin end as well as a thick.

Did anyone else notice this link at the 4th wave Now blog: 7-year-old “trans activist” used in campaign by Transgender Europe, a German NGO partially funded by US State Department (Haven't read it yet, just saw the title)

Bio-tech is apparently a huge new industry. Access to children for experimentation + massive funding under cover of compassionate research into gender dysphoria? Hello?? Earth to RI?

Sample bit from above link:

"Gender variance in childhood does not require any medical interventions such as hormone therapy or surgical procedures. Rather, children need information and support in exploring their gender identity and expression and dealing with sociocultural environments that are frequently hostile to gender variance…research indicates it is impossible to reliably distinguish between a gender-variant child who will grow up to become trans and a gender-variant child who will grow up to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual, but not trans. As such, by conflating gender variance and sexual orientation, the proposed GIC category amounts to a re-pathologization of homosexuality."

Later in the document, we find this:

"Further, the imposition of a diagnosis of gender incongruence on a child contradicts the principle that childhood development is a process of change and exploration. Such a diagnosis, which attempts to establish a concrete definition of a child’s gender identity precisely during the phase of life when essential aspects of identity are most in flux, is likely to create the presumption that the child is transgender, whether or not that is in fact the case."

This sounds like TGEU falls squarely in the camp that would criticize labeling children as trans, doesn’t it?

Yet in the video, the 7-year-old isn’t talking about being “gender variant.” The kid is a boy talking about living as a trans person. A girl. If TGEU believes that children should not be presumed to be transgender, why on earth are they promoting this child as a “trans activist”?

[brainpanhandler]

To a large segment of modern human beings transgenderism is a freak show. It's titillating, grotesque, bizarre, freaky, weird. In other words it grabs eyeballs and generates views, audience share, etc. This is the simplest explanation for why such a small minority of the population seems to get a much greater amount of coverage in the media than would seem warranted.

[backtoiam]

Bio-medicine is apparently a huge new industry. Access to children for experimentation + massive funding under cover of compassionate research into gender dysphoria? Hello?? Earth to RI?

Me too.l have been waiting on reality to set in on this thread but it has been like watching a waterfall one drop at a time. I am beginning to wonder if the reality of this issue will arrive here, or not....

[Luther Blissett]

Part of it is what brainpanhandler says, that it's the media being their regular shitty selves and capitalizing on the freak show. Part of it is that the rates of suicide, physical violence, and murder are way above average for the general population and that society has finally progressed to the point where people can handle it.

It's that old rigorous intuition chestnut that we devoted so much discussion to: once 10 percent of a given population holds a belief (in this case, that trans people are human beings too), that's all it takes for the idea to reach social consensus.

What are some other subjects in the popular media that are as "viral" as human rights for trans people that don't represent a trojan horse for x, y, or z? Surely there must be one or two? What sinister thing are the Harry Potter books teaching our children again? Satanism? What about cat gifs? I appreciate the rigor but we're talking about human beings.

If the media wanted to push transhumanism on children, wouldn't we be talking about all the technologies and inventions that improve the lives of disabled people? A direct correlation and something much ethically greyer. This is a subject in which I am actually interested but one which I have to hunt for news.

[backtoiam]

To a large segment of modern human beings transgenderism is a freak show. It's titillating, grotesque, bizarre, freaky, weird. In other words it grabs eyeballs and generates views, audience share, etc. This is the simplest explanation for why such a small minority of the population seems to get a much greater amount of coverage in the media than would seem warranted.

I totally agree one hundred percent. So, is there a message attached to this, an agenda, and if so, what is it?

[backtoiam]

Part of it is that the rates of suicide, physical violence, and murder are way above average for the general population and that society has finally progressed to the point where people can handle it.

I can dig that, ok, let us assume this is true. Considering that food contamination, police violence, auto safety issues, contaminated water, banking fraud, and damn near anything you can think of that affects the whole human population, why this issue that affects such a tiny percentage of total humanity? Why this? Mainstream media real estate is perhaps the most valuable commodity on earth, so why does this subject occupy such a huge chunk of it?

I appreciate the rigor but we're talking about human beings.

Yes we are. But why focus on such a small segment of society when enormous value could be transferred to the whole of humanity by focusing on an issue that actually affects most of humanity? I'm not being snarky, I am being serious, but nobody seems to be able to answer that question.

If the media wanted to push transhumanism on children, wouldn't we be talking about all the technologies and inventions that improve the lives of disabled people? A direct correlation and something much ethically greyer. This is a subject in which I am actually interested but one which I have to hunt for news.

Was that a rhetorical question? You know how this works. The herd is not notified ahead of time, the herd only realizes the consequences of social programs long after they have been implemented and taken hold, and then still, most never see.

[Luther Blissett]

Part of it is that the rates of suicide, physical violence, and murder are way above average for the general population and that society has finally progressed to the point where people can handle it.

I can dig that, ok, let us assume this is true. Considering that food contamination, police violence, auto safety issues, contaminated water, banking fraud, and damn near anything you can think of that affects the whole human population, why this issue that affects such a tiny percentage of total humanity? Why this? Mainstream media real estate is perhaps the most valuable commodity on earth, so why does this subject occupy such a huge chunk of it?

I appreciate the rigor but we're talking about human beings.

Yes we are. But why focus on such a small segment of society when enormous value could be transferred to the whole of humanity by focusing on an issue that actually affects most of humanity? I'm not being snarky, I am being serious, but nobody seems to be able to answer that question.

If the media wanted to push transhumanism on children, wouldn't we be talking about all the technologies and inventions that improve the lives of disabled people? A direct correlation and something much ethically greyer. This is a subject in which I am actually interested but one which I have to hunt for news.

Was that a rhetorical question? You know how this works. The herd is not notified ahead of time, the herd only realizes the consequences of social programs long after they have been implemented and taken hold, and then still, most never see.

We hear a lot about the Black Lives Matter movement, which is at least tangentially similar. In the first half of this year, only 24 unarmed black men were killed by police. Statistically small, but very important. What's that poison pill?

I don't think trans rights or black lives matter represent trojan horses. They're just problems that a very slowly enlightening society wants to / has the capability / wherewithal / maturity to address.

The question about implants and devices for disabled people wasn't really rhetorical. If I was an oligarch I would be all over that. It's the perfect story.

[backtoiam]

I can still dig it. But it still does not answer the question of a laser like focus on an issue that affects only roughly .07 of humanity when the laser like focus could be put on issues that transfer maximum benefit to the whole of humanity. Mainstream media bullhorn time is more valuable than gold. This issue has a big time slot. Why?

[guruilla]

I don't think trans rights or black lives matter represent trojan horses. They're just problems that a very slowly enlightening society wants to / has the capability / wherewithal / maturity to address.

Is the notion of a slowly-enlightening society compatible with that of social engineering? Does this ultimately come down to who is more paranoid (or aware) than whom?

I've managed to persuade myself, rightly or wrongly but through what I think is pretty rigorous research into very specific areas (Strieber, my own family background), that social engineering is real, that it has been going on for at least a hundred years & probably a lot more, and that it has advanced in leaps and bounds during that time, & never more so than now. The Turtle has been genetically spliced with the hare (or the frog). I do not think we are in a slowly-enlightening society, and the transgender agenda provides an excellent social sample for analysis of what passes for "enlightenment" in 2015. (I won't restate my views on that, since they've already been ignored several times.)

As for:

What are some other subjects in the popular media that are as "viral" as human rights for trans people that don't represent a trojan horse for x, y, or z? Surely there must be one or two? What sinister thing are the Harry Potter books teaching our children again? Satanism? What about cat gifs? I appreciate the rigor but we're talking about human beings.

When the penny starts to drop about social and cultural engineering, it becomes not only feasible but inescapable that any and all primary cultural and social trends are part of the agenda, because they are byproducts of a long-term plan; they are sprouting from an artificially-implanted ideological order that's been seeded long before anyone here was born.

So yeah, we could go at Harry Potter if you want, but the title of this thread is 'what gender are you," so it's transgender that's under the RI microscope. This happens to be a topic that triggers deep reactions in people, not because "we're talking about human beings" but because it concerns the deepest possible area of identification, that of masculine and feminine, the true (non-ideological) implicate order of existence (Yin/Yan, Space/Time, Spirit/Matter, etc, etc). To bring in a comment about human beings is pretty strange, IMO. For one thing, who do you think is posting at this thread? Secondly, my concern for the individuals being sold the TG-"solution" may be as great or greater than those who (in my view) are unconsciously conspiring to encourage these individuals (who we can all agree are suffering) into what may be a terrible dead-end. So the seemingly compassionate call to think of "human beings" is meaningless ,or worse, since it presupposes that your own reading of the situation is the right one, and that anyone who questions it is being insensitive to the human beings in question.

Do you see what I mean? You have loaded the deck in your favor. But I would not be arguing as fiercely as I am if I was not concerned for the human beings in question, starting with those at this thread.

[guruilla]

Here's some copy pasta.

Transgender and Transhuman - the alliance, the complaints and the future

By Hank Pellissier

Transhumanism and Transgenderism enjoy a close relationship due to mutual interest in enhancement technology. Multiple transgenders are valuable spokespeople in H+, such as IEET fellow Martine Rothblatt, IEET contributor and KurzweilAI editor Amara Angelica, and the brilliant tech writer for Acceler8or and hplusmagazine that I interviewed for this article: Valkyrie Ice.

Hank Pellissier: Hi, Val. Let’s begin with your introduction.

Valkyrie Ice: I didn’t start out as Val… No, my “legal” name is Lance, and I am a transgendered M2F. Like most transgenders, I didn’t really know why I felt so different as a child. My parents worried about my difficulties “socializing with my peers” and about how picked on I was in school for being “different”. Even I had no clue as to why I was so different until I was reading the “The Marvelous Land of Oz” one day, and reached the end of the book. If you’ve never read this particular OZ novel, the spoiler ending is that the “hero”, Tip, turns out to be the “princess” Ozma, hidden as a boy to protect her from the evil witch Mombi. I was floored when I first read that scene, because it was like a thousand light switches suddenly went off in my brain all at once as I finally knew with perfect clarity exactly what the problem with my reality was.

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier20120615

All links from the ^^^ central transhumanist org:

IEET's Mission

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies is a nonprofit think tank which promotes ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies. We believe that technological progress can be a catalyst for positive human development so long as we ensure that technologies are safe and equitably distributed. We call this a "technoprogressive" orientation. Focusing on emerging technologies that have the potential to positively transform social conditions and the quality of human lives - especially "human enhancement technologies" - the IEET seeks to cultivate academic, professional, and popular understanding of their implications, both positive and negative, and to encourage responsible public policies for their safe and equitable use.

Posthuman Gender: A Non-Binary Future
Oct 12, 2013 Transhumanists extoll transgender people as prescient pioneers of morphological freedom and technological enhancement.

Time to Start Looking At 'Cyborg' As a Gender Identity
Jan 28, 2015 ... A great example in understanding this would be the gender identity of Transgenderism. If you ask any Transgender male or female when they

Martine Rothblatt
From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto On the Freedom Of Form by Martine ... "The Bathroom Bugaboo" Transgender To Transhuman Mar 4, 2012

The Future of Sex
Feb 9, 2003 ... But the transgender movement has quickly moved beyond simple female-to-male and male-to-female transsexualism, in which the “gender ...

Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary (PDF)
Mar 20, 2008 ... transgendered people challenged the assumption that one had to be either ... Today's transgender movement is a roiling, radical critique of the

Sexual Freedom - an interview with VenusPlusX
Jan 11, 2012 ... Well, for one thing, it affects the ability of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people to participate meaningfully in society, even though ...

Sex Beyond Procreation - Sex as Hobby
Jun 11, 2015 ... Transgender transitioning became possible via technology; birth control continues to improve; and the prospect of artificial wombs may change ...

Transhumanism and Celebrating the Unnatural
Oct 16, 2014 ... ... upwinger, socialist-libertarian, hedonist and abolitionist. Khannea is a woman of transgender origin, and currently lives in the Netherlands.

Billions of Sexes (Part 2)
Mar 13, 2012 ... Transgendered people of all types normally report that they feed a need to express a gender identity different from the one society associates ...

Valkyrie Ice McGill
Valkyrie Ice, transgendered tranhumanist and future succubus, has been writing about and observing the accelerating curve of technological advancement for .

Trans: A Photo and Video Project
Aug 1, 2013 ... This is a Trans-Positive project featuring photos and videos of transgender females. For more information, or if you would like to be a part of the ...

The Future Business of Body Shops
By B. J. Murphy
Ethical Technology

Posted: Nov 15, 2015
The following essay was originally published as a chapter for The Future of Business: Critical Insights Into a Rapidly Changing World From 60 Future Thinkers. The book was edited by Rohit Talwar and published by Fast Future Publishing.

How will cybernetics, 3D printing, and the biohacking movement change the way we enhance people?

Emergence of a new business sector

In the near future, I expect that the cyberpunk fantasy of cyborgs and genetically enhanced humans will become a lucrative business opportunity. Google co-founder Larry Page once said: “Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.”[1] We are presently accelerating into a future where people can enhance and augment themselves at their whim. The question we need to ask ourselves, and one which I hope to answer in this chapter, is: how will a viable industry business model evolve for a future dominated by cyborgs?

The future of any business is nothing more than a race against time itself. It requires a keen eye on what is going on throughout the different sectors of science and technology, and subsequently a proactionary drive to move forward revolutionary ideas, even with the prospect of there being risks. To not move forward would be to remain in stasis. If you stand still or retreat, the future will continue accelerating, watching as you wither away - cast into the dustbin of history. If you are a business owner, or have any plans to become one in the future, this should scare the hell out of you.

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/Murphy20151115

Part of the Ideology series on Transhumanism The transhumanist h+ symbol[/b] (from wikipedia):

Postgenderism is a diverse social, political and cultural movement whose adherents affirm the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology and assistive reproductive technologies.[1]

Advocates of postgenderism argue that the presence of gender roles, social stratification, and cogno-physical disparities and differences are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Given the radical potential for advanced assistive reproductive options, postgenderists believe that sex for reproductive purposes will either become obsolete, or that all post-gendered humans will have the ability, if they so choose, to both carry a pregnancy to term and 'father' a child, which, postgenderists believe, would have the effect of eliminating the need for definite genders in such a society.[1]

Postgenderism as a cultural phenomenon has roots in feminism, masculism, along with the androgyny, metrosexual/technosexual and transgender movements. However, it has been through the application of transhumanist philosophy that postgenderists have conceived the potential for actual morphological changes to the members of the human species and how future humans in a postgender society will reproduce. In this sense, it is an offshoot of transhumanism, posthumanism, and futurism.[1]

One of the earliest expressions of postgenderism was Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex. It argues,

[The] end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. (A reversion to an unobstructed pansexuality Freud's 'polymorphous perversity' - would probably supersede hetero/homo/bi-sexuality.) The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction: children would born to both sexes equally, or independently of. either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general, and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally.[2]

Another important and influential work in this regard was socialist feminist Donna Haraway's essay, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp. 149–181. In this work, Haraway is interpreted as arguing that women would only be freed from their biological restraints when their reproductive obligations were dispensed with. This may be viewed as Haraway expressing belief that women will only achieve true liberation once they become postbiological organisms, or postgendered.[1] However, Haraway has publicly stated that their use of the word "post-gender" has been grossly misinterpreted.[3]

Types of postgenderism

Postgenderists are not exclusively advocates of androgyny, although most believe that a “mixing” of both masculine and feminine traits is desirable—essentially the creation of androgynous individuals who exhibit the best of what males and females have to offer in terms of physical and psychological abilities and proclivities. Just what these traits are exactly is a matter of great debate and conjecture.[1]

Postgenderism is not concerned solely with the physical sex or its assumed traits. It is focused on the idea of eliminating or moving beyond gendered identities. In a traditional gender construct one is either a man or woman (regardless of their genitalia), but in postgenderism one is neither a man nor woman nor any other assumed gender role. Thus an individual in society is not reduced to a gender role but is simply an agent of humanity who is to be defined (if at all) by one's actions.

However, not all postgenderists are against the existence of gender roles in some form; some only argue for the deemphasization of gender roles. People in this form of postgender world would be able to identify as a gender if they decided to, but identifying as one would not be mandatory, and gender roles would have little bearing on how people actually act or are treated in society.

Future technologies

In regard to potential assistive reproductive technologies, it is believed that reproduction can continue to happen outside of conventional methods, namely intercourse and artificial insemination. Advances such as human cloning, parthenogenesis and artificial wombs may significantly extend the potential for human reproduction.[1]

Many argue that posthuman space will be more virtual than real. Individuals may consist of uploaded minds living as data patterns on supercomputers or users engaged in completely immersive virtual realities. Postgenderists contend that these types of existences are not gender-specific thus allowing individuals to morph their virtual appearances and sexuality at will.[1]

Sexuality

Postgenderists maintain that a genderless society does not imply the existence of a species uninterested in sex and sexuality. It is thought that sexual relations and interpersonal intimacy can and will exist in a postgendered future, but that those activities may take on different form.[1] Postgenderism, however, is not directly concerned with the physical action of sex or with sexuality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postgenderism

[Luther Blissett]

I think that social engineering and a slowly enlightening society are oppositional forces. I agree with you that social engineering is stronger now more than ever. The small wins (and my evidence for "enlightenment") are most readily seen in the ways in which the younger generations differ from ours in terms of progressivism. Greater numbers of interpersonal relationships that cut across cultural barriers more than ever before, abandonment of organized religions, greater class consciousness in their realization that their generation can no longer do better than their parents', declining proportion of the population participating in the armed forces, greater environmental consciousness, etc. Social engineering fights against those factors and others.

I mean you could be totally right about trans rights being a trojan horse for transhumanism and that my support for trans people needs to be tempered a little bit so that it's a little more nuanced, but how far back to we take it? Trans people don't even have housing or employment rights, so we can't take those away from them. I'm only stacking the deck because I don't understand what on earth the final solution is supposed to be for the trans problem.

[tapitsbo]

I think social engineering is generally open-source although different actors have different levels of agency.

Nobody in this thread was saying trans individuals aren't human. The focus was on a certain slant on the issue in the MSM. Your quip about "trans run media" literally applies to something like Reddit where SRS, made up of mostly transwomen, has achieved a kind of capture of the discourse on the site. This demographic is indeed vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation, given their precarious status and frequent isolation they are ideal targets for deep state predators, etc. who would use them as assets.

I meet people all the time who literally can't understand why anyone would go anywhere other than Reddit for information. They don't understand the significance of the limits of the discussion there.

I for one would have to disagree with the characterization of queer people as "worst of tumblr" idiots. I've met many non-binary individuals, for instance, who were very impressive, original, individuals with a lot to say.

Let's just say people in this thread are reacting to the employment of queer politics in the arsenal of TPTB. What Willow has to say is especially damning.


What you are saying about youth could have been said in other generations. It simply isn't true in places where the trends among youth are disturbingly more volatile, say Eastern Europe for instance (although there are other parts of the world like this - people reacting oftentimes to the threat of the corporate-led feudalism Alice described so eloquently in the thread where she shared her perception of it descending on North America).

In my twenties trans stuff has literally seemed like the political issue that got the majority of attention and passion at least for younger people in cities. Way more than topics like war, the environment, etc.

I don't think trans is a "problem" requiring a "final solution". There does need to be more pluralism in the conversation happening about gender, though.

There is a divide and conquer strategy where disenfranchised minorities are given representation and the majority is not, even if they are privileged/powerful in other ways as a "sleeping giant". This happened in many cases under the British Empire, it is literally spelled out in Machiavelli, and it is prevalent all over the West today. It works against any kind of mutual aid or recognition. For extreme examples see: Rwanda, Sri Lanka, etc.

[Project Willow]

I believe that they feel that at too many meetings dominated by "white feminists" the issues are more focused on advancing careers, and that it is difficult to bring issues of class struggle into some groups. (These are Manhattan and Brooklyn groups, if that makes any difference, and I think it does). Maybe this is a tiny minority, but it was enough that a group of a dozen of my friends could all discuss their experiences with the phenomenon last weekend. I think that they blame other feminists for their lapsed consciousnesses is a product of trying and failing to get them to be more intersectional for years. I don't think it's quite a straw man since I do believe that their experiences were real.

I really don't like having to repeat these words with all the risks of misquoting them or misrepresenting them. Hope this cleared a little bit up.

In my experience, the "white feminist" label is most often a slight hurled at second wavers and older women. It is used as a silencing/shaming technique in social media. That is the phenomenon to which I was reacting. Otherwise, I wouldn't presume to know the ideology or motivations of random groups of women whom your friends have encountered.

[tapitsbo]

Indeed, I wonder how much younger AD is than these wizened older feminist wizards who are supposedly catching their breath playing catch-up.

Also "intersectionality" is a term/trend that has been gathering steam for a few decade. Where I live (Montreal) it is the buzzword de jour for "gentry"/upper middle class white women, for what it's worth.

Also divideandconquer your observations about this part of the professional class as cult are spot-on. We wonder what their Jim Jones/Solar Temple moment will be, don't we?

[backtoiam]

Trans people don't even have housing or employment rights, so we can't take those away from them. I'm only stacking the deck because I don't understand what on earth the final solution is supposed to be for the trans problem.

Really? I didn't know it was against the law for transgender people to do what every other human being on the planet can do. People with short legs don't have those rights either, or actually, yes they do, or do they? Why are you putting the transgender issue on a golden mountain as if it is something so unique that it needs to be split from any other category of human existence?

I don't understand what on earth the final solution is supposed to be for the trans problem.

And this is a global problem of huge proportion for all of humanity exactly why?