Well, I'm not a staunch Republican and I'm always willing to admit I'm wrong or have changed my mind on a topic when it's appropriate.
Perhaps you're gleaning that from my opinions re: Native Americans, gay marriage, global warming and my anti-religious beliefs? I'd say my beliefs in those areas are definitely progressive.
I wouldn't even necessarily say my opinions come from having an open mind. They've come from me actively seeking out opinions on both sides and seeing which one made the most logical sense to me. I need something to be soundly logical to accept it. And I'm trying to see the logic in the argument that we can't acknowledge gender and need to change our rules because a small handful of people aren't comfortable with the way they or their kids feel as a result of them identifying with the opposite gender.
Yes this is exactly what i was thinking and really how i personally define an open mind i guess, meaning you are honestly willing to be convinced of a new position. I completely dismissed the gender debate before going to college, and even dismissed gay marraige I'm ashamed to say. While the gay marriage opinion quickly changed the gender opinion took a lot longer because it is a subtler problem, and frankly a more annoying one for an unaffected outsider.
I'm not saying that I don't think people with these gender complications/confusion shouldn't be accepted/welcomed. They absolutely should. And moreover, they shouldn't be bullied.
My opinion is that schools shouldn't be pretending genders don't exist and to be allowing special privileges to kids whose parents have decided their children should buck the ages old social trend of being a boy or girl. Instead, they should focus on developing the positives of both genders and teaching kids to be good people who accept one another regardless of what they're like, so long as they behave as good people.
I haven't seen any opinions from scientists. Which ones are you referring to? Scientists are generally whom I will end up agreeing with the opinions from, so I'm open to seeing those. I can tell you that I don't agree with many of the opinions coming out of the psychologly as relates to diagnoses of mental disorders, so if it's psychology I'm going to be less likely to accept is as gospel unless the studies are extremely sound.
Well, the only scientific opinion i was referring to is my own, given that i actually have a huge amount of experience in the scientific differences between the sexes (girls have something i hear is called a "wagina"). Seriously though the only scientific point was really that these differences are easy to produce and definitely occur in the brains of affected individuals, and that there is a biological basis for someone feeling like a woman in a man's body. It was really only to refute opinions that you could fix a majority of these cases with therapy to make them feel like a man again, but people don't seem to be arguing that point so i guess it's agreed upon that it is a real issue.
For one paragraph i'll go full objective logic because maybe that will appeal to you.
FACT: There are people out there who feel like a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa.
FACT: These feelings are often backed up by physical differences in the brain that more strongly correlate to the other sex.
FACT: Therefore there is a difference between your physical sex and what you self identify as. I will refer to your self identity as your gender, but feel free to call it something else like your Fruit.
FACT: Society is primarily structured around two genders/fruits that are linked to their correlated sexes. However, if you "agree" with the previous scientific facts, you should agree that this dichotomy is a false one, objectively.
OPINION: If this dichotomy is false, it should not be taught as true. If you want your child to accurately learn what is out there they should learn about the other genders/fruits. One way of doing so is to teach kids at a young age, and experiences seem to show that kids are very open to such things because they don't have decades of experiences the other ways.
As far as parents go...I think most of them are pussies now. The AYSO mentality is alive and well and it's negative. There's a general expectation that teachers be a direct extension of the way parents are raising their kids, regardless of what kind of strange or alternative beliefs they employ at home. I'm annoyed by the belief a lot of parents have that they and their kids quirks need to be catered to moreso than developing or in this case, continuing, rules and approaches that are showing no logical issues (ie boys and girls are inherently different) after years of employ.
And I think this is an extension of that. As
@David. mentioned, alpha macho bullshit doesn't work. It makes a large portion of males into insecure, ignorant assholes and it leads to misogyn, abuse, fights and animalistic behavior. But I'm having trouble being convinced that once kids see bilogical differences between their private parts, the way they go to the bathroom and the way their bodies develop and the way personalities naturally form...it makes sense to just ignore these things and pretend there's a better way to divide them up, if divisions must be made.
The reason I don't agree with this philosophy isn't because I'm not being open-minded. It's because I think the argument isn't sound at all. They're identifying a problem that doesn't exist and applying a solution that isn't necessary.
I very much agree with Dave, and i actually think that if girls and boys are combined more often that it would go a long way to reduce the "rape culture" and sexism present in so many frats that we see today.
I think a major point of disconnect between us is that you feel this is ignoring the boy/girl distinction, while i feel it is acknowledging that boy/girl aren't the only options. To me its like if everyone was referred to as either black or white, and then we decided to start acknowledging the shades of brown and other races that actually exist. It's not about ignoring the black/white difference, but rather not emphasizing it as the holy dichotomy that it really isn't. If you make male/female the immutable sex difference, and then gender is a large spectrum that is self-identified you aren't ignoring the differences but rather recognizing things that weren't recognized before.
Here's what I see:
I see people pointing out that many people grow up and find they don't identify with many of the norms/expectations of their gender.
Then as they look back on their childhood, they believe that gender roles were forced on them. They were taught to play with trucks and play sports and get dirty. To like blue instead of pink. Were told not to be a sissy and to man up, don't be a girl about it,etc. Then they were expected to be attracted to the opposite sex, whether they were or not. One way or the other, they rejected some or all of these things in retrospect. They believe that these norms and rules set for boys lead to some level of confusion that prevented them from becoming the person they are sooner in life. They identified moreso with personality traits and interests more closely associated with girls. All of the same applies to girls except in reverse.
The solution in all of this, imo, isn't to deny that these kids are boys or girls but rather to expose them to every color, hobby, animal, etc and see what they like. If 9/10 times they like something that 9/10 girls like and don't like something 9/10 boys like and exhibit commonly female behaviors and this trend continues for a long period of time...they're a boy who identifies with girls. They're not a person who identifies with girls.
What I'm saying is that you don't have to ignore gender norms and make the sex/gender division one more thing that's against the rules for teachers to foist on your kids to have well-adjusted kids. Again, while you're acknowledging these differences, kick the kids that make fun of the girly boy out of class and tell their parents they're not welcome at the school if they're going to bully and make a perfectly happy and well-behaved kid feel bad about himself. And teach the girly boy that his interests are great though different than his classmates and that he should continue to pursue those interests. To me, that's how well-adjusted people are raised. Denial or evasion is never a good thing in my eyes. And I see this mentality as both.
I think we are very much on the same page here and would raise our kids in similar ways. But lets assume for a moment that you had one of those kids, say a son who liked to wear dresses and play with dolls, and most of his friends were girls as a result. I would think that having a class run by Keys where he thinks of creative ways to get kids to line up that don't make your son uncomfortable would be preferable to you. Things like lining up for recess and using the bathroom are really the only places where this would come into play, and i think everyone could agree that thinking up different ways to line up everyday is probably a lot more engaging to kids, and they would be excited to pick between "team cupcake" and "team chocolate chip cookie". As far as bathrooms and locker rooms, perhaps combining sexes would do a lot to combat macho-ism and sexism. I really don't know but it is at least as likely to be beneficial as detrimental. Sports teams you probably have to divide by sex once kids are older, but i don't think sports teams are as big of a deal as this sports message board is making them out to be.
Lastly i want to reemphasize that I am not saying to not call a boy a boy or a girl a girl. I'm saying that if that boy really doesn't like to be called a boy, then don't be an ass and call him a boy, and teach the other kids to call the boy what he wants to be called, because he might not feel like a boy. It's not denying the differences between men and women, it's acknowledging the differences between the brains of various men and the brains of various women. I've said this about a dozen times but it seems difficult to get across. Putting people in the same line for recess doesn't mean you think they are all the same.
Hopefully some of this hits home in your logic center. It took me awhile and a lot of personal experience to change my opinion on it so i can't expect others to change quickly either. I remember being quite annoyed by it for the first few years of college too, it just seemed like trying to be PC for the sake of being PC. I'm confident that as you gather more information through your life you will eventually shift however when you realize that is it a real issue, albeit a subtle below the surface one that is incredibly easy to ignore, because we can't see brains.
