Talk:Transgenderism - Polansky

Major bias and citation concerns
Hello!

This article has some incredibly major issues pertaining to bias and citation. It clearly tends towards a conservative and occasionally anti-trans viewpoint and offers incredibly minimal recognition of "both sides", despite the author having a whole section on what makes a "good, even discussion". For example, why is the article opened with a paragraph that mentions jk Rowling, which is then followed by numerous sections that revolve around what essentially comes down to internet drama, BEFORE getting to a very measly section that only then acknowledges the active risk of homicide and legal discrimination transgender people are frequently threatened with? The author denounces the "public opinion" that certain countries may hold, obviously referring to countries like the US, UK, and Canada, yet ignores the opposite, where in countries like Russia, for example, legally-sanctioned discrimination against transgender people has been the norm for a while, and is on the active rise?

On the grounds of lack of citation: the author proposes a scenario whereupon an inmate at a prison may claim to be transgender to gain access to potential rape victims, then does not acknowledge or cite any case where that has ever occurred, nor anything similar. They also do not have many citations at all aside from the standard Wikipedia pages for things like "pronouns", and their section on medical intervention is severely lacking and does not use modern medical terminology, nor cites any sort of relevant source that I believe would be very necessary and helpful here.

I'm of the opinion that this article is overall written from a place of ignorance and minimal research. The author likes to claim they're "unbiased", yet spends the entire article making their real bias excessively obvious by creating repetitive and tired strawmen for people, situations, and viewpoints that very few people genuinely express, to create a clear opposition (which they would not need or have if their article was genuinely neutral) to bolster their personal claims. They seem to express confusion at concepts like social constructs, and do not express much knowledge in terms of genuine transgender history, psychology, endocrinology, or anything related.

I would love if this article could be remedied through more rigorous research and development, as there are many sources available that could help the author gain a better, more complete understanding of transgender people and related concepts. Thank you!

CarapaceWren (discuss • contribs) 23:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, I send notices to the author so they can join the discussion (special:diff/2540547), please wait for their response. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 05:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

1) I made some edits today, for the record.

2) I do not think this article is necessarily neutral or free from "bias". It is written with the understanding that articles in Wikiversity do not need to be neutral. A more "neutral" or actually standard-American-left-wing view is in Wikipedia, with many more page views. The article does approach what is American "conservative" point of view on transgenderism, although I am a Czech atheist, in part left-wing (e.g. rather redistributionist) and in part right-wing (e.g. rather libertarian). I am not interested in falling in with any particular political line; I am interested in falling in with what makes sense to my mind and in what to me seems like a defense of the concept of existence of objective truth and objective reality that is not socially construed. The article notifies of there being a specific point of view early on: "The author Dan Polansky develops the article from a certain point of view that many do not share; for a more dialectical/debatistical approach (and thus neutral or objective in a certain sense), a debate in the style of Wikidebates would be the preferred format." That signals that the article is far from being cross-culturally neutral or objective, if there is such a thing concerning this topic. If the reader does not want to learn about that point of view, they can depart at that point.

3) Expanding on the above, I emphasize problems with transgenderism such as the dismissal of the value of the category of sex in medicine, sport and prisons. I also point out the censorious spirit of transgenderism, its stifling of open debate, and attacks on anyone who dares to disagree with the dogma. This places me squarely in the transgenderism-critical camp. In Wikipedia, that would be a major problem, but if my understanding is correct that I can write a reasonably well reasoned article in Wikiversity that can take a side in what is to a large extent more of a philosophical and political than an objectively scientific (I am thinking math and physics) issue, this should be tolerable. (I intended to write a section about "scientific" character of transgenderism, but did not manage to do so yet.)

4) As for citations, the article is mainly an "original" philosophical analysis, and does not depend on citations for the force of the arguments made. It is actually not very original; it is only original in the sense of original research that does not aim to meet Wikipedia's citation standard. The arguments made in the article should mostly stand on their own rather than deriving their authority from citations.

5) I will pass comment on the rest. I will ponder which edits could address at least some of the comments, but I am afraid I will be unable to address the gist of the complaint in that I do not see value in me writing an article about transgenderism from the transgenderist point of view. An article about "transgenderism" makes sense especially if the author is looking "from outside". Ideally, the author would be a Martian anthropologist; in this case, the author is neither in the U.S., not in the U.K., not in Russia, and is somewhat external to U.S. and U.K. politics.

--Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:51, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

An "alternate" view.
Transgenderism seems to get a lot of media exposure lately. I'm going to go out on a limb here and reason that it's probably not for concern of those people with gender dysphoria themselves. As I alluded to on the colloquium page, I think this has to do with promoting the idea that it's rude to criticize others' beliefs regardless of how bonkers those beliefs are, and that this has a more general chilling effect because people associate criticism with rudeness or being mean-spirited. In other words, they're being used to shift our cultural habits such that we feel its rude to hold people accountable to reality and become very hesitant to criticize. This is to say nothing of transgenderism or gender dysphoria itself, but rather, it's simply the effect I believe the media intends to achieve by promoting the issue. Part of a broader trend of nonjudgmentality, and while this doesn't stop anyone from criticizing, say, a corrupt politician, the habit of criticizing others becomes slightly less part of public habit and consciousness. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 07:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

It probably also doesn't hurt that it's attention grabbing and not especially consequential to realpolitik per se, except perhaps for the reason I've speculated above. In other words, it's also something they can use to fill time without talking about issues of greater objective economic and social consequence. Not to say their issue isn't important, but the bathroom situation isn't exactly high-priority compared to so many other things they could put on national news or yak about in short quips on twitter, which is the worst website I've ever visited bar none. At any rate, it's often more interesting to consider the intent of the news cycle rather than the content therein. Of course they want us to talk about transgenderism when they put it on the news, but why? It may not be one reason in particular, but simply a topic that checks all of these boxes. Something for "the plebs" to talk about so they don't pay attention to things like the world bank, national debt, foreign policy, the education system and so forth. Instead, we are to discuss bathrooms and gender benders. That'll keep us busy. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 07:37, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

The article uses the phrase public intellectual quite loosely, I notice. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:13, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

One last note, while I'm thinking of it: It seems possible the media's attempts to discourage members of the public from being critical of one other's beliefs is specifically an effort to prevent the normal pattern self-correction and social-transmission that members of society would generally afford one another. Same thing with ridiculous phrases like "don't talk about politics or religion". Why the hell not? It seems likely that when someone tells you not to talk about something, they generally have something to gain from a general state of ignorance on the topic. I might develop this further in an essay. Incorrect pronouns are offensive, religion is offensive, politics are offensive, criticism is offensive, etc. I think eventually they'll just tell us that breathing is offensive and half of America will drop dead on the spot. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I am thinking of affording you a section "View by AP295", starting with "As something of an appendix, the following text is authored by AP295". If so, you will be responsible for that section, while I may raise specific issues/defects against the section. I for one find those views interesting enough to be aired. One option would be, since this is my article, for me to write my response to your writing in that section as well.
 * You may then need to have a responsibility to respond to issues/comments/defects against that section raised by other people other than me. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 08:47, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * About "public intellectual": fixed since indeed the use was too loose; now it says "public personalities/figures". Other specific terminological change proposals welcome and appreciated. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 08:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * It might be best for me to have it in my own resource, though I'd be more than happy if you cited that resource. That's probably the easiest thing to do. I haven't decided where to put it yet, but I'll let you know when I do. It's interesting to think that when propaganda has the effect of limiting social transmission between peers, it debases consensus building and generally the capacity of the public to organize around concrete social imperatives and standards. People become less able to relate with one another but are obliged to keep up perfect professionalism. In other words, we're expected to cooperate in a corporate setting but nowhere else. This seems awfully favorable to the status quo. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 15:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * It may end up in my essay Bipartisan Fraud, but that essay is a total mess right now so it might take me some time. The difficult part about this sort of speculation is that it's just that, speculation. I'm fairly certain it's not far off the mark, but statements about vague, nebulous trends in the media end up being somewhat vague themselves. I haven't the resources or time to conduct the sort of social and data-analytic research to support them. Yet a solid prima-facie argument should suffice. Eventually I should be able to organize that essay into something pretty good, but the process ends up being something of a "random walk" (which is all but impossible if one is afraid to go out on a limb or be wrong sometimes). One just has to keep at it for a while. It's also hard to be dispassionate, yet if one isn't then one's ability to use precise language tends to suffer for it and they fall into bad habits, such as the habits Orwell wrote about in his superb essay "Politics and the English Language". Every time I read it I realize more and more how correct he was. It's not a large step to extend this idea to current propaganda, but it does need updating and this is partly the point of my essay Bipartisan Fraud. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 15:58, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Actually, many of these trends are represented here on Wikiversity. That's part of the reason I started the RfC, because it's convenient to have an example to work with and I do plan on being fairly critical about some of them. Can't you just imagine someone raising a big fuss over it though? It's far too easy to picture getting blocked for a slightly-too-impassioned critique, and I wanted to have some assurance that I won't be. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Let me post a reference to the article you mention:
 * Politics and the English Language, orwellfoundation.com
 * I will look whether I have something meaningful and high-enough-value to respond. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:24, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Notice that Orwell is making accurate, socially consequential, and most of all specific observations about not just vague statements, not just the vague language they're made in, but the intent and purpose of that vagueness and who is likely to benefit from it. This alone takes a sense of awareness that most people do not have (or perhaps are just not in the habit of exercising), but anyone can see he's obviously more or less correct. This is precisely the sort of concise prima facie argument that is needed. It's probably more important in terms of rhetorical value than any formal study on the matter. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 18:46, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I suppose a good analogy here is that it's quite easy to validate a solution to any boolean SAT problem, but it can be horribly difficult to find one. Hitchens once claimed that Orwell changed the twentieth century, and I don't know exactly what he meant by that or whether it's an honest signal or not (his work is a mixed bag). I like to think Orwell was able to render invalid this model of vagueness and send the social engineers back to the drawing board, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 19:01, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

One more note about the resource itself. In general, I would like to see a greater emphasis on the medical point of view rather than commentary on transgenderism as a lifestyle choice. This is entirely up to you though. It seems like there's a trend in the direction of treating gender dysphoria as a "sexual wellness" issue rather than a psychiatric condition or pathology. While I think that many behaviors are unjustly pathologized, I'm not aware of any medical condition that indicates the destruction or removal of healthy tissue. At face value, sex reassignment surgery seems as crude as a lobotomy. And as with the lobotomy, I would expect significant dissent and opposition from no small portion of the medical community. Is this the case for sex reassignment surgery? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 16:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * If one views self as primarily a mental thing occurring somewhere in the body, and if one considers the horrible effects of lobotomy on the mental lives of the subjects to whom lobotomy was administered, often against their will, sex reassignment surgery seems relatively harmless. It diminishes the reproductive capability, but there are people like Steven Pinker who voluntarily focus their lives on undertakings other than genetic reproduction, and it seems like--at least emotionally--rather tolerable outcome. (These are just crude impressions, not a result of a more careful research.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:52, 26 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Would any responsible doctor amputate a healthy arm or leg or foot or hand simply because a patient demands it? Apparently people do: Body integrity dysphoria. Is it ethical to amputate someone's foot simply because they want it gone and have no plans on becoming a pro NBA player? No, of course not, obviously. This is a mental disorder and it's probably healthier simply to encourage people to accept their body than to condone needless, mutilating surgery. I can't imagine that so many people would have had preoccupations like this a century ago. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 03:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, I'd like to see at least one large-scale, long-term clinical study. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 04:02, 6 December 2023 (UTC)