'gender Choice' Being Tought To Children.

[Khandro]

Do you agree with Pope Francis, either for his reasons or your own?
https://www.rt.com/news/354425-pope-slams-gender-choice-kids/

[Old_Geezer]

One can complicate by putting in details of why there is an issue in an effort to hide the wood with the trees, chiaroscuro, but the question of gender is pretty much that simple.

[Old_Geezer]

It is totally natural to them because their mind/brain is not in sync with the gender they really are. No one denies that there is a mismatch; nor that some have surgery for their own reasons. Others have no need for them to pretend to be the opposite gender to what they are.

I don't see what your question is looking for, but had I been born with a vagina I would have coped with life as a woman. As I was born with a penis I did so as a man.

[Khandro]

There is a Latin proverb; "Beware the tyranny of the minority" which I think is apt.
We seem to be suffering from a host of disaffected minorities; transgender people, jihadists, homosexuals, global warmers, all preying on society's wish to accommodate, not offend them and appear to be liberal minded.
The democratic process is being hi-jacked because many of these minority groups shout the loudest and get themselves into decision-making posts on a variety of committees and councils.

[ummmm]

OG - I assume you feel like a man and if you'd been born with a vagina with the same thoughts and feelings as you do now you might feel like a man trapped in a womans body.

I just don't see any issue with teaching our children that people are different and to respect and accept it.

[andy-hughes]

There is a grave danger of seeing 'education' as always being appropriate about everything for everyone.

Clearly, education needs to be tailored in terms of subject and recipient - there's not much point in 'educating' three-year-olds about the theory of relativity, and there's not much point in 'educating' teenagers about potty training.

There is without doubt a sense of 'right on-ness' that pervades some strands of education, and the notion that everyone needs every choice opened up for them.

But a sense of appropriateness and necessity should be employed in advance, and the notion of across-the-board 'education' in 'gender choice' is frankly barmy.

And no, that has nothing to do with what the Pope thinks.

[RATTER15]

OG "I don't see what your question is looking for, but had I been born with a vagina I would have coped with life as a woman."

So you are a man, can you imagine being a man with a vagina and breasts and trying to act your life as a woman knowing that you are a man?

I know what I would do, I would want to do everything possible to make my actual appearance match my mental gender, and if that involves an operation, so be it.

[ummmm]

Children are very accepting. We do not need to go into great detail for them to accept that people are different.

[andy-hughes]

Old_Geezer - //I don't see what your question is looking for ... //

Don't you? It seems perfectly straightforward - Khandro is asking if you agree with the Pope's view on this subject.

I do not agree - but not for the reasons that the Pope offers - I am an atheist, so not surprisingly, my approach differs from that of His Holiness.

[naomi24]

Yes, I do agree with the pope, but I don't agree with his reason for saying what he said.

[Khandro]

andy; If you read the OP again I did say "for his reasons or your own".
I know few on here would agree (as I do) that it is 'sinful'.

[andy-hughes]

Khandro - fair enough.

You as a Christian will regard the notion as 'sinful'.

I, as an atheist do not believe in the concept of 'sin' - but my objection is far more earth-bound and based on simple humanity.

[beso]

Old_Geezer //It is totally natural to them because there mind/brain is not in sync with the gender they really are. //

You have arbitrarily assigned "real" gender on the basis of genitals. Yet we tend to think of the brain as the centre of the personality. Why not consider the brain as the "real" gender when it does not match the genitals?

[jim360]

It depends on the precise wording. If anyone is being taught that gender is a free choice then they are being taught incorrectly -- the entire point is that it's not a choice but an innate part of who you are. On occasion, the sense of self and the biological are misaligned, but even in that circumstance it's no choice that's being made, except perhaps to no longer deny what your mind is telling you. So anyone who spreads a message to young children that "you may look like a boy/ girl but you don't have to be -- no, really, you can be whatever you want to be if you like! Honest, don't feel bad if you decide to be something different" is in the first place wrong and in the second place indeed risks pressuring someone into trying to make a choice not out of what they want but out of what they think others do. This doesn't happen often but whenever it does I'd frown on it as much as the next person.

I don't think this is actually what the Pope is complaining about, though, and he is rejecting even the concept that biological and social gender can ever be misaligned on principle. This is simply wrong, but the head of an institution bound to ancient dogma is hardly the easiest person to persuade of this. The message that gender is a choice is wrong, but the message that transgenderism is a reality of some people's lives that should be respected is certainly not damaging, whether or not it's taught to children.

It's disappointing, but hardly surprising, that the Pope (and Khandro, among others, in turn) fails to appreciate the difference between gender identity as a choice and as something that transcends biology.

[Old_Geezer]

Ratter. Yes I can imagine. I think I have a good imagination; too good possibly. And I also can accept, so I'd not need an operation on my body to try to match the erroneous feelings I would have about myself, and appear to be I'm something I am not.

A-H, the question was the one Ratter asked not Khandro. You'd need to read through the thread to see we were having a difference of opinion.

[Old_Geezer]

It's not just the genitals is it though. For sure that is the obvious indicator but the whole body is either male or female. That tends to relate to the chromosomes. So hardly an arbitrary assignment by me. I haven't arbitrarily assigned the colour of the sky blue, either.

I don't see why, having accepted that the brain can have issues, it should be taken as the standard. It has been shown that the human mind is all too easy to manipulate, check out Derren Brown and his ilk. How much easier for the mind to fool itself ? It can't be expected to make perfect neuron connections in everyone. We probably all have quirks of one sort or another.

It is this PC society that wants to claim up is down, and left is right, in order not to offend with truth, no matter what other issues it causes.

[beso]

Khandro //We seem to be suffering from a host of disaffected minorities; transgender people, jihadists, homosexuals, global warmers, all preying on society's wish to accommodate, not offend them and appear to be liberal minded. //

You have left out the left-handed, redheads, short-statured and dark-skinned people because you arbitrarily chose the minorities based on your personal prejudices.

Nobody is forcing you into a homosexual relationship? How is it that you are so gravely affected by their wish to be treated like anyone else?

The truth is that minorities are disaffected by the bigotry of people like you.

[jim360]

It's nothing to do with "this PC society", as even a cursory research into the social history of gender and sexuality, and for that matter a better understanding of biology and genetics, would reveal. It isn't difficult to find evidence of, for example, a "third gender" in some cultures, or cases throughout history of (usually) men who dressed, behaved and acted like women and were self-evidently transgender really at a time when "PC" wasn't even a job title. The only thing that's different is that society has started to pay more attention to this diversity rather than try to ignore it, sweep it under the carpet or only indulge it when the person in question is stupidly wealthy or powerful.

[beso]

Well said Jim.

[Khandro]

jim; I read your 12:02 post and agreed with what you said, and said it very well until I got to the last part where you misrepresent me (and the Pope! *).
I (and I believe he) in no way believe that homosexuality or transgenderism is a sin, the badness or 'sin' is the teaching of young children that they have a choice of gender, in the manner you have yourself outlined.
* I think you are confusing the Catholic position with that of Islam.

[jim360]

Actually the Islamic position on transgenderism is surprisingly progressive in some ways, although it varies between countries and there is a tendency to assume that gay men are really transgendered rather than gay.

If I have misrepresented your position then I apologise, but I won't extend that apology to the Pope, whose views on transgenderism extend far beyond the rejection of teaching gender as a choice. A fair and accurate summary would be that he has compassion for the people, but not for transgenderism itself, asking that people "accept the body God gave them".