Parents Raising "Theybies": Letting Kids Decide Their Gender

[Herlock Sholmes]

There are sects and cults of Christians that are just as vile and despicable as certain Muslims. Where's the invective for them?

Im an atheist so I don’t simply criticise vile and despicable behaviour in one religion. The conveniently avoided issue is that the huge issues that are occurring world wide now are associated overwhelmingly in the name of one religion. We can condemn past acts but they’ve already occurred. So we speak out against those that are occurring now in the hope of stopping them.


Christians enslave women, brainwash children, marry off 12 year olds to 50 year old men, and preach death to all who oppose them. Christians have committed mass murder against blacks, gays and muslims. Should we ban together and seek to eradicate them from the planet because they are dangerous when they get together as a group?

Yes. But people feel afraid to criticise out loud because the politically correct left will brand them as Islamophobic or racist.

The Catholic church basically was a pedophile organization that allowed priests to rape children for a hundred years. Shall we condemn all Catholics as pedophiles? Shall we insult all Christians for what the worst of their members do? No? Why not? That seems to be the justification for condemning all Muslims.

we should condemn the institutions for failing to act and for actively and continually covering covering up but of course you can’t tar all catholics with the same brush. As I certainly don’t call all Muslims terrorists.

I mean if you want to get into what groups are capable of doing, the Christian Brits went out and destroyed countless civilizations in their attempt to enforce their worldview on the planet. How is that different than what some sects of Muslims are doing? What is happening now is happening because Christians have attempted to impose their ideology of religion and civility across the globe, for hundreds of years.

This is a typically masochistic leftist view of these events. You hear it all the time from those that somehow just cannot bring themselves to fully condemn acts of terrorise. They say “yes flying planes into buildings is bad but then again....” Al-Quaida aren’t freedom fighters. The Taliban aren’t a modern day Peasant’s Revolt. They are doing what they do because their interpretation of the Koran justifies it. Again, yes we should condemn the crusades and forced conversions and any historical acts of terror and barbarity ho e er committed them but the fact remains that Islamic terrorism is something that is facing the world now. There is no excuse. No mitigating circumstances. It has to be opposed 100% and we need Muslims to speak out against it and take action too.

So.... do all Brits suck? Why precisely do you, or anyone as a Christian nation 1st World member get to decide, "well we settled how the shape of the world was going to be in 1946. We've decided, an now everyone must agree to it." Why precisely do you think that because "we've" decided this is how it's going to be, everyone else must now fall in line? Why did we get to carve up a country that we should have had no part of, and wasn't ours to screw with, because we wanted to solve a problem for ourselves? How arrogant to think that we get to impose our will on others, and they should just happily follow along. Because we said so and we know better.

No but we get to decide that religious based terrorism is wrong whoever is committing it.

Everyone's most extreme members are dangerous. The difference is, you'd be offended if your own type or class was lumped in and categorized by the worst of its members, but bigots have no problem doing that to others. In terms of who has killed more people in pushing their religious ideology, British Christians or current Islamic members, British Christians are soaking in the blood of millions of people.

As I mentioned in another post this isn’t true. An extremist Jain is unlikely in the extreme to ever be a danger. How many acts of Quaker or Amish terrorism can you name? Do you see many news stories about Hindu or Sikh terrorism going on in the world? What do you think are the chances of you getting blown up on the subway by Jehovah’s Witnesses or Buddhists? Horrific things have been done in the name of all religions but we are living in the here and now. We can’t rectify events of the past only try to ensure that they don’t occur again. There are major problems now. We know what they are and where they come from. Silencing, insulting or belittling those that aren’t too spineless to stand up and name them serves only to help the terrorists.

I mean it doesn't matter. You've got a guy on here championing a bigot, who four pages back said he was mostly "on the left" who is now throwing out insults about leftist thinking. He can't even keep his own ideology straight, he's got no hope of understanding anyone else's so I imagine this is futile.

How can you complain about my ‘insults’ when, from memory, you’ve insinuated that I have an unhealthy interest in children, that I’m sexually inadequate, a bigot for supporting a bigot, oh and you’ve likened me to a shrub! Hardly measured language.

But as to the reason that Christianity emulated the gender binary system of the Romans, it's because by and large Christianity was founded by a Roman- Paul. He was decidedly misogynistic as all of his books show and the concept has made its way down into all the societies that have had the misfortune of being colonized by that religion. Yes, romans had it first and Christianity was founded by a Roman. So it follows.

Still doesn't make it correct. We've learned a lot more in 2 thousand years. Like the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. Or at least some people have, anyway. But if you want to take a lesson from any religion, here's one from the Bible: Before criticizing the speck in your neighbor's eye, see to removing the log in your own.

A lesson that the left should learn instead of resorting to name-calling and making attempts to silence those with opposing viewpoints.

I’m 54 years old and despite your opinion of me I’ve been a left-leaning Labour voter all of my life. The right to me were always the intolerant side. The ones that hated trade unions and dissenting voices but that’s now changed. The Left are the intolerant ones. They are the silencers and the ones that seek to ban anything that they don’t agree with. The Left are the ones that are actively seeking to destroy freedom of thought and expression. They are also the ones that would rather not seek to prevent terrorism because their feeble political correctness makes them more sensitive of being called a name than having their office block blown up. Perish the thought that we should offend a terrorist.

[Ginger]

As Sam Harris often points out, if a follower of Jainism became an extremist he’d become even less of a risk.

Oh, my. That's something I'd never have thought of on my own, but stunningly true.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Everyone's most extreme members are dangerous

Incorrect. As Sam Harris often points out, if a follower of Jainism became an extremist he’d become even less of a risk. It’s only if the belief system had harmful elements in the first place that extremism would become dangerous.

[Abby Normal]

[QUOTE=Ally;n704669]

The general concept is too new to have studies, but as I have said there are dozens of societies that have multiple gender identifications and children have been raised in these societies for decades. This same hand-wringing over the "trauma" to the kids psyches is the same that has gone on in every societal change from gay parents to single parents. What ends up being proven is: if a child is raised with love and security, they turn out fine. If they are raised without love, and without acceptance and other factors such as poverty and other issues, they don't. We can look to other societies that have multiple gender concepts to figure out how kids adapt. And what it really comes down to, is not allowing outside influencers determine what your child will be interested in. There are multiple studies that show that adults behave differently towards girls than boys, especially in the classroom. They de-emphasize math and science in favor of arts and language. A lot of what we consider "innate" behavior is in fact social conditioning.



And this will be how it will be with gender identity too. As with all changes, it will take a while but it's not as complicated as people make it out to be.



See this is where my brain sticks. Like I genuinely don't even understand the concept. I can't fathom it at all. I understand being sexually attracted to someone but I really don't get the concept of feeling like a different gender. Kind of breaks my brain to contemplate it. My identity isn't "tied" to my gender, so I don't even have a measurement by which to judge. I like pants, I wear pants. I want to put on make up, I put on makeup. I don't ever "angst" over my gender and identity. So it's a very alien concept to me that I don't have even the hope of understanding.



Oh I'm sure it will. Kids bully red-heads. Or kids with glasses. Or kids who dress funny. Or are a different religion. They are going to get teased. But that's no reason to shave your head, or break your glasses, or change religion. The key is to teach people tolerance: if it's not a problem that's directly affecting you, let people do their thing and mind your own. I am friends with people from every religion, political spectrum, etc. HAving a flexible mind, is really a benefit in allowing you to experience a wide -range of social behaviors and how it impacts people. From the extreme right to the extreme left and all the variations in between.

hi Ally thanks

See this is where my brain sticks. Like I genuinely don't even understand the concept. I can't fathom it at all. I understand being sexually attracted to someone but I really don't get the concept of feeling like a different gender. Kind of breaks my brain to contemplate it. My identity isn't "tied" to my gender, so I don't even have a measurement by which to judge. I like pants, I wear pants. I want to put on make up, I put on makeup. I don't ever "angst" over my gender and identity. So it's a very alien concept to me that I don't have even the hope of understanding.

Yeah I know its rare-but this is where the transgender (what used to be called transsexual) comes into the equation also.. your born in the wrong body. Another rarity are what I call Asexual-they are not attracted to either sex, regardless of their own. I know three people-two good friends-males, and my aunt who have all told me they are not attracted to either sex, and have no desire to have a romantic relationship. The two guys are very good looking and "masculine" you would never think in a thousand years they were different. and they have no issues with their gender-their dudes.anyway I think these highlight the issues and that there is "gray" areas to gender/identidy.

also, re the ancient greeks/romans. bisexuality and or homosexuality was the norm in those cultures-Alexander the Great was teased for not being "gay" enough, because he only had one male lover. It was only the rise of Judeo-Christianity that changed all that.

[Ginger]

We didn't offer violence towards them as a group.

How on earth would you characterize war, then?

We defended ourselves when attacked against those that attacked.

I may need to beg your pardon here, as I'd made the possibly unwarranted assumption that you were either American or Canadian.

There is no single Muslim ideology any more than there is a single Christian ideology.

Similar, in that way, to the ideologically-tinged power struggles boiling away beneath the surface of Nazi Germany.

I mean it doesn't matter.

I think the truth always matters. I'm probably hopelessly old-fashioned in that (as well as many other) attitudes, but, like Popeye and Jehovah, I am what I am.

But as to the reason that Christianity emulated the gender binary system of the Romans, it's because by and large Christianity was founded by a Roman- Paul.

Paul was a Roman, yes, in roughly the same sense that a native of Puerto Rico is an American. He was from Tarsus, in northern Syria (now in Turkey), and described himself as an Israelite and a Pharisee. He spoke a different language, and came from a different culture. I'm unsure as to whether he ever really did replace his provincial attitudes with thoroughly Roman ones, and if he did, it would have been long after he took up the cause of Jesus. The secrecy under which the early Christians were forced to operate probably makes the truth forever unknowable, but it still seems reasonable to me to that the adoption of conservative Roman mores was a deliberate act rather than an expression of Paul's personality. In social matters, at least, the Roman world was not that much different than our own, and the influential did operate with an eye to PR, just as we do.

[Ally]

Some, perhaps the majority of the Nazis were perfectly decent people as individuals. They became dangerous when they acted together, in accord with their shared belief system. Were we in the wrong, then, to offer violence toward them as a group?

We didn't offer violence towards them as a group. We defended ourselves when attacked against those that attacked. A country, Germany, declared war against other countries. Under the leadership of a single individual, who controlled a country and declared war and invaded other countries. I There is no Muslim authority. There is no single Muslim ideology any more than there is a single Christian ideology. There are sects and cults of Christians that are just as vile and despicable as certain Muslims. Where's the invective for them?

Christians enslave women, brainwash children, marry off 12 year olds to 50 year old men, and preach death to all who oppose them. Christians have committed mass murder against blacks, gays and muslims. Should we ban together and seek to eradicate them from the planet because they are dangerous when they get together as a group? The Catholic church basically was a pedophile organization that allowed priests to rape children for a hundred years. Shall we condemn all Catholics as pedophiles? Shall we insult all Christians for what the worst of their members do? No? Why not? That seems to be the justification for condemning all Muslims.

I mean if you want to get into what groups are capable of doing, the Christian Brits went out and destroyed countless civilizations in their attempt to enforce their worldview on the planet. How is that different than what some sects of Muslims are doing? What is happening now is happening because Christians have attempted to impose their ideology of religion and civility across the globe, for hundreds of years.

So.... do all Brits suck? Why precisely do you, or anyone as a Christian nation 1st World member get to decide, "well we settled how the shape of the world was going to be in 1946. We've decided, an now everyone must agree to it." Why precisely do you think that because "we've" decided this is how it's going to be, everyone else must now fall in line? Why did we get to carve up a country that we should have had no part of, and wasn't ours to screw with, because we wanted to solve a problem for ourselves? How arrogant to think that we get to impose our will on others, and they should just happily follow along. Because we said so and we know better.

Everyone's most extreme members are dangerous. The difference is, you'd be offended if your own type or class was lumped in and categorized by the worst of its members, but bigots have no problem doing that to others. In terms of who has killed more people in pushing their religious ideology, British Christians or current Islamic members, British Christians are soaking in the blood of millions of people.

I mean it doesn't matter. You've got a guy on here championing a bigot, who four pages back said he was mostly "on the left" who is now throwing out insults about leftist thinking. He can't even keep his own ideology straight, he's got no hope of understanding anyone else's so I imagine this is futile.

But as to the reason that Christianity emulated the gender binary system of the Romans, it's because by and large Christianity was founded by a Roman- Paul. He was decidedly misogynistic as all of his books show and the concept has made its way down into all the societies that have had the misfortune of being colonized by that religion. Yes, romans had it first and Christianity was founded by a Roman. So it follows.

Still doesn't make it correct. We've learned a lot more in 2 thousand years. Like the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. Or at least some people have, anyway. But if you want to take a lesson from any religion, here's one from the Bible: Before criticizing the speck in your neighbor's eye, see to removing the log in your own.

[Herlock Sholmes]

LOL...

Wowser. I've seen some justification for bigots before, but that's the first time I've seen "well they deserve it, so it's okay. Some of their group sucks, so it's totally fine to defame an entire race of people." Also a black guy once stole my car, so all black people are criminals.

Man. That's ... bulletproof logic right there. They deserve it for being the religion they are.

Wow.

I don’t need to justify someone that’s not a bigot in the first place. I didn’t say they deserved it and yet again that’s typical Leftism. You suggest that what you think that I was thinking as a fact. You would find that, by your measures, pretty much every single Arab would qualify as a bigot in their hatred of the people of Israel. In a vicious conflict between two sides harsh, angry things will be said. Perhaps Linda Sarsour is more your cup of tea?

And on the issue of Islamophobia (which doesn’t exist) I have never insinuated that any group deserves I’ll-treatment due to their religious beliefs. But I reserve the right to be critical. Again it tends to be overwhelmingly the left that seek to close down debate and criticism which basically provides a generous aid to terrorism and the more extreme effects of the religion.

[Ginger]

LOL...

Wowser. I've seen some justification for bigots before, but that's the first time I've seen "well they deserve it, so it's okay. Some of their group sucks, so it's totally fine to defame an entire race of people." Also a black guy once stole my car, so all black people are criminals.

Man. That's ... bulletproof logic right there. They deserve it for being the religion they are.

Wow.

Some, perhaps the majority of the Nazis were perfectly decent people as individuals. They became dangerous when they acted together, in accord with their shared belief system. Were we in the wrong, then, to offer violence toward them as a group?

[Ginger]

The concept of gender fluidity is not new. ... Many societies have had that concept historically until Christianity and it's obsession with sex and gender-roles wiped out other concepts.

That's rather misleading. The Romans, the Germans, and to a large degree the Greeks regarded male and female as two absolutely different orders of creation, existing for different purposes, centuries before Christ. It seems significant to me that all three languages employed male, female, and neuter genders for nouns as well, although Greek sometimes had really weird rules about that. All three societies, however, saw the role of men as public life, and the role of women as family life.

The attitude of Christianity toward gender is pretty close to that of the early days of Imperial Rome, even though it was much later in history when they were allowed to profess publicly. I wonder if they perhaps deliberately promoted socially conservative attitudes among their members (at least where it didn't conflict with doctrine) to appear more respectable to the public at large, or possibly as camouflage when they were banned as a radical sect? Regardless, the concept of binary gender is part of our heritage from Rome.

[Ginger]

Robert, I get that . But things seem to be a little extreme here.

Well, no-one (so far, at least) has been murdered and disembowelled. The study of Jack does lend one a bit of perspective.

[Ally]

Or you can conclude that he’s angry at those Arabs (who happen to be Muslims) whose stated aim is to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. I can kind of understand why that wouldn’t engender warm and fluffy sentiments from him.

Is everyone who is critical of Islam a bigot? Sam Harris for example or the late Christopher Hitchens? Have they been infected with the mythical disease of ‘Islamophobia’ too?

LOL...

Wowser. I've seen some justification for bigots before, but that's the first time I've seen "well they deserve it, so it's okay. Some of their group sucks, so it's totally fine to defame an entire race of people." Also a black guy once stole my car, so all black people are criminals.

Man. That's ... bulletproof logic right there. They deserve it for being the religion they are.

Wow.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Er yes.... when someone tweets out that "Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue."

I think you can reasonably conclude they are bigots. But you know, that's just me. I'm sure you can find a reasonable take on his stance that points away from him just being a blatant bigot. It's so nuanced, it could be taken a dozen ways, can't it. Then there's his constant articles about how the majority of Muslims are radical extremists who are going to bomb and murder us all... again, so nuanced. Could mean anything.

Or you can conclude that he’s angry at those Arabs (who happen to be Muslims) whose stated aim is to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. I can kind of understand why that wouldn’t engender warm and fluffy sentiments from him.

Is everyone who is critical of Islam a bigot? Sam Harris for example or the late Christopher Hitchens? Have they been infected with the mythical disease of ‘Islamophobia’ too?

[Ally]

[QUOTE=Abby Normal;n704652]

do you know if there are any scientific studies on children being raised as Theybies on its affects? Maybe too new a thing to do that?

The general concept is too new to have studies, but as I have said there are dozens of societies that have multiple gender identifications and children have been raised in these societies for decades. This same hand-wringing over the "trauma" to the kids psyches is the same that has gone on in every societal change from gay parents to single parents. What ends up being proven is: if a child is raised with love and security, they turn out fine. If they are raised without love, and without acceptance and other factors such as poverty and other issues, they don't. We can look to other societies that have multiple gender concepts to figure out how kids adapt. And what it really comes down to, is not allowing outside influencers determine what your child will be interested in. There are multiple studies that show that adults behave differently towards girls than boys, especially in the classroom. They de-emphasize math and science in favor of arts and language. A lot of what we consider "innate" behavior is in fact social conditioning.

Anyway, on a similar note-I was fascinated (and relieved)to see how quickly and what an early age my kids got the whole gay thing. and they didn't really care-no big deal and they didn't seem to have any confusion, or interest for that matter. They went to a day care affiliated with our church and we have several families with openly gay couples-men and women. so Im wondering is there any real harm in the theybies thing.

And this will be how it will be with gender identity too. As with all changes, it will take a while but it's not as complicated as people make it out to be.

I always go back to the poor folks who are born one gender but KNOW they are the other, regardless of what body parts they have. I mean can you imagine the torture these people go through? so Im a little more open to these types of things.

See this is where my brain sticks. Like I genuinely don't even understand the concept. I can't fathom it at all. I understand being sexually attracted to someone but I really don't get the concept of feeling like a different gender. Kind of breaks my brain to contemplate it. My identity isn't "tied" to my gender, so I don't even have a measurement by which to judge. I like pants, I wear pants. I want to put on make up, I put on makeup. I don't ever "angst" over my gender and identity. So it's a very alien concept to me that I don't have even the hope of understanding.

But Could it actually cause confusion that impacts the child negatively, or bullying they would not otherwise get? or getting shunned by the group? Kids can be pretty brutal, even at a young age. It will interesting when they do do the studies, what we learn about this.

Oh I'm sure it will. Kids bully red-heads. Or kids with glasses. Or kids who dress funny. Or are a different religion. They are going to get teased. But that's no reason to shave your head, or break your glasses, or change religion. The key is to teach people tolerance: if it's not a problem that's directly affecting you, let people do their thing and mind your own. I am friends with people from every religion, political spectrum, etc. HAving a flexible mind, is really a benefit in allowing you to experience a wide -range of social behaviors and how it impacts people. From the extreme right to the extreme left and all the variations in between.

[Ally]

So he’s bigoted against Muslims too? The religion of peace......ok.

Er yes.... when someone tweets out that "Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue."

I think you can reasonably conclude they are bigots. But you know, that's just me. I'm sure you can find a reasonable take on his stance that points away from him just being a blatant bigot. It's so nuanced, it could be taken a dozen ways, can't it. Then there's his constant articles about how the majority of Muslims are radical extremists who are going to bomb and murder us all... again, so nuanced. Could mean anything.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I always go back to the poor folks who are born one gender but KNOW they are the other, regardless of what body parts they have. I mean can you imagine the torture these people go through? so Im a little more open to these types of things.

Abby, I’d just like to point out that I too sympathise with those suffering these issues despite it being implied that I’m an uncaring bigot. I just can’t see the advantage of the concept of ‘theybies’ when just decent, open, humane parenting would suffice and that surely by giving kids a label it can potentially lead them to being singled out when what kids really want to do is to fit in and not feel like an alien. I’m certainly not alone in thinking this. Yes, I may be wrong in my opinion, but there it is.