@dumb Ox

Everything you are saying has already been said. Most of the people here can't handle anything that does not 100% conform to their view. Transgender delusion thread was started by me and met with the 100% exact same responses you are getting now. Whenever you make a valid point they cant argue with you will be insulted and called a bigot. They will personally attack you instead of your ideas yet, call you a bigot lol its truly funny. This whole gender vs sex thing is made up anyway. Sex and Gender are the exact same. Many qualified and respected scientists have said the same thing. Good luck but, you are arguing with people that do NOT want to listen, trust me, i have a few different times being as nice and respectful as possible yet, the power of the theists living rent free in the minds of most atheists here is just too powerful for them to overcome for even 2 mins and try to think clearly and say 1 coherent thing that's not cloud by religion. Also, just to clarify, while i do think the whole transgender issue is not normal i still think they deserve love, care, respect and help getting over this. No, its not normal when a 62 year old man thinks hes a 9 year old girl nor is it normal when a woman thinks she's a cat nor is it normal when a man thinks he's a woman but, this does not mean we should mistreat them rather, we need to help them.

For reference if you care to save yourself some time or find some good points that were made.
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/transgender-deulusion

A little late to the party, but here goes my reply to the original post:

Fact 1:
Trans people have significantly higher suicide attempt rates than almost every other population of non mentally ill people. Studies suggest suicide attempt rates as high as 46% or about 20 times the norm. The lowest I’ve seen claimed is about 15% and the average rate is 4.5 for the general population according to some studies.

So you are saying Transgender people are mentally ill, then for your first fact you compare them to non mentally ill people, if you are comparing them to "non mentally ill people" are you saying that transgenders are not mentally ill? I am guessing you are stating life time averages in all those numbers, even the 4.5% rate for general population cannot be a yearly rate, or we would not have the population growth we have now.

Fact 2:
Studies show at most mixed evidence for improvement after gender reassignment surgery.

I do not have any real problems with this answer, but what are you trying to say here? Because the results are a wash opting for transgender surgery does not help stave suicide? Well I remain quite confident a vast majority of people that undergo transgender surgeries are not doing the surgery in attempt to prevent themselves from commiting suicide later they usually opt for transgender surgery for other, usually intensely personal reasons.

Fact 3:
Jews during the holocaust/ in concentration camps had possibly 30 times the rate of suicide attempts as the general public and is one of the few populations with suicide rates comparable with trans people in western societies.

So what are you exactly trying to say here, Jewish people in the holocaust facing extraordinary persecution commited a lot of suicide, and transgenders commit slightly less rates then that? All that tells me is that transgender people are also terribly persecuted. This sounds like a real problem. We should all be trying to end such terrible persecution, you just made an excellent argument for all of us to set our fear of "different" aside and embrace and support these people that face so much persecution.

Fact 4:
African Americans have lower suicide rates than their white counterparts. I believe this applied in the 60s and 50s as well under Jim Crow laws as. Fact check me on that one it’s hard to find the right stats.

You are correct on that, afaik, suicide as a whole, is a problem that tends to afflict the most privileged in many ways, out of all races and genders, the white male in advance western societies has the highest suicide rates. Over females, and over people of other skin color. I am a white male, and 2 people that I actually knew that committed suicide out all of all the people I know were well white males. Small sample size to be sure, but the larger data sizes backs this up.

2. This is not explained by bullying/discrimination since only populations subjected to extreme persecution like concentration camps experience similar rates.

Really? Really really? You in your argument pointed out why your argument does not work. Let us look at where high suicide rates occur. Like your example, concentration camps = extreme persecution, high suicide rates. Another example: high suicide rates in jails. Another place where people can face extreme persecution. Are we seeing a pattern here yet? Heavy/extreme persecution = high suicide rates. What do you think transgender people face? Low persecution? Open loving acceptance and kindness everywhere they go? Of Course not!

With transgender people it is often times worse, they face heavy persecution from their own families and friends, their own parents not even talking to them anymore because they disagree. At least for jewish people or minorities they at least would have a base support of their own family and communities. I would take the persecution the jewish people faced in Germany in the run up to World War 2 over a being transgender in a family that would not support me in a transgender transition. With your 2nd point in this argument being incorrect your entire argument falls apart.

2. False beliefs of a basic aspect of one's identity is very delusional.

This got discussed heavily in the last thread, but gender identity is different then biological sex. Every transgender I have met or read about are very, all to probably painfully aware of their biological sex. They know what they were born with, they are not being delusional about that. But on the gender side, that is subjective, divorced from the objective reality of biological sex. Just like how a woman that went through menopause can no longer have babies (objective fact) does not change their subjective opinion that they identify as a female gender. There also plenty of transgenders that do not do any transgender surgery but still want to identify as the gender of their choosing. Nothing delusional about that, they are not denying reality. In fact in transgender surgery they are facing it and changing some biological facts about themselves.

The problem with this is the added premise that gender trumps sex in that a gender male is a REAL male regardless of sex.

I have never seen a transgender person make this claim. If they did even I would refute it. If you tried to tell me your biological sex was male, when you have all the sexual and biological traits of a female, I would have issue with that, simply on the grounds that is incorrect information. Again you need to divorce the idea of gender and biological sex. If we are talking gender, then gender takes priority, if we are talking biological sex then biological sex takes priority. If I am a doctor and I am checking for cancer, I am concerned about do I check for prostate cancer or not, I need to know the biological gender of that person. If I am a doctor and I want to support the well being of a person by treating them with respect, I will address them in their prefered pronoun to show acceptance for their chosen gender identity.

on a deep ontological level they are actually the opposite sex of their sex

If people think they are the opposite biological sex, in biological terms when they are not, this does create an issue, some transgender people do think about and struggle with this, they will be well served to separate out biological sex facts from their gender identity. I would love to be able to fly around like superman, but I am well served to know that no matter what, I cannot fly, I do not have wings or the muscles to flap wings if I had them, biological fact. But if I want to put on a superman cape and identify as superman that is fine as long as I stick to the fact that no I cannot jump off buildings and expect to fly. Just like a transgender woman no matter how much she wishes is not going to have eggs and the ability to carry a baby 9 months to term within their own bodies. At least for now, barring further medical advancement this is reality to a transgender woman. Just like it is biological reality for a woman past menopause cannot have their own babies, (although that particular fact is rapidly changing.)

They should have been opposite but God/nature got it wrong. Like I said this is a vague belief and is different for different trans people.

If I had to guess, this is where I am guessing your hostility ultimately stems from: it is an affront to god, it is people telling your god idea that: "nope! god got it wrong!"

1. A man says: I am biologically white/ my race is white.
2. But I have always had a deep since of being black/ identifying with blacks.
3. So, I am ethnically black. I really am black and if you don’t call me black then that’s hate speech.

It is not hate speech to call someone a female that identifies as a male to be female, or to call a male that identifies as a female as a male. That can be an honest mistake, a kind generous person would seek to avoid the situation and correct themselves. Just like you were alluding to, if I am white but I go around identify as black, if someone were to yell out "hey white man! Help me with this door!" That is not hate speech. That is an honest mistake that is likely to happen a lot if I had white skin and was out in public where people did not realize I identified as black.

Transgenders while they can be sensitive to what gender pronouns you use, must also realize people will get it wrong. The hard part of course for them, that becomes a real struggle on top of all the other persecution is that it is frequently very important to them for their outward appearance to closely reflect their gender identity, a lot of their ego frequently gets tied up into how they are perceived. Just like how a woman that was unusually hairy, big boned and muscular with a lot of other commonly male attributes will also be likely hurt if someone called them by a male pronoun instead of female, how they both are biologically and via their chosen gender identity. Imagine if you had very female characteristics. You are biologically a male, you identify as a male, but it just so happens you have very smooth skin, a face with lots of feminine characteristics, perhaps your voice is even pitched higher than most males how sensitive would you be if people occasionally mistook you for being female?

Eh I will stop here, I have plenty more to say about this but who knows if anyone will read it all :)

@Dumb Ox: Transgender people are mentally ill.

I think Reg is the stupidest and most annoying character in "Life of Brian". Loretta should have given him a knuckle sandwich.

Research has shown that trans kids with supportive parents are almost indistinguishable from cisgender kids when looking at mental health. That is truly exciting and encouraging to me. Being trans doesn't have to be traumatic.

If being trans was a mental illness, the negative affects wouldn't disappear when kids were simply loved and supported by their parents and communities.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/pg7nq7/to-stop-trans-kids-from-ki...