The porn comments were my attempt at funny.

Funny failure.

/shame.

Quote from: DaddySplicer on June 30, 2010, 08:08:48 PM
The porn comments were my attempt at funny.

Funny failure.

/shame.

Okay, then you need to be MUCH more over the top and use some enlightening emoticons.

Sorry I didn't get it.

Quote from: DaddySplicer on June 27, 2010, 09:34:00 PM
... Only females have wombs. Most females, upwards of 99% out of the entire population I'd guess, turn out to remain female. What's /not/ so inherently gendered? Men don't have wombs. Women do. That's why we change. Binary system. Very, very, very few escape it, or modify themselves within it. You're deluding yourself.

Wombs aren't inherently gendered. However, due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people with wombs are female, our society genders wombs and childbirth as an exclusively "female" thing, and therefore our society genders them. Pregnant men are breaking this whole perception of genitalia=gender and I think that condemning them for doing something our society considers an exclusively female thing is cissexist, because it reinforces the idea that genitals are a 100% indicator of gender.

Quote from: TheAetherealMeadow on July 03, 2010, 06:18:49 PM
Wombs aren't inherently gendered. However, due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people with wombs are female, our society genders wombs and childbirth as an exclusively "female" thing, and therefore our society genders them. Pregnant men are breaking this whole perception of genitalia=gender and I think that condemning them for doing something our society considers an exclusively female thing is cissexist, because it reinforces the idea that genitals are a 100% indicator of gender.

I'm probably just plain sexist to begin with, for which reason I'll be eliminating myself and my biased opinions on the matter from the discussion.

I have to say that I'm a lot more disturbed by the arguments going on here than about the ones in the comment section of the article... I expect those types of comments from those people. 

99% of the article comments have me face palming. They seem to be a bit uneducated...okay a lot uneducated.

I had a kid, but I'm pre T.  There's no way I would want to do that after I transition, but if others want to do that, it's cool with me. It's their life and reasons.

It's issues like these that make me so sympathize with the people who don't like us.

I hate that I can't ever have kids of my own, one of the reasons being I outright refuse to be the genetic 'father' of anyone.

The other is that it's just UNFAIR to the kid. I didn't get a normal upbringing or a normal childhood, for issues well beyond being trans. Like it or not, fair or not, to a degree that is also what this is depriving these children of too.

People, not just trans people but gay couples, and heterosexual single parents, feel like have the 'right' to children, I think you should have NO SUCH THING. If you are so selfish to put your biological compulsion to have children beyond the well being OF those children, then maybe you just shouldn't be a parent to begin with.

It's astoundingly selfish.

That's my view, I don't think trans people should be intentionally conceiving children for them to raise, I hold myself to that as someone who would in fact have loved to have had kids, I also think it should apply to gay couples, single parents, and just generally anyone not fit to give their children a relatively normal, happy life.

You should NOT have a right to kids, nobody should. And I think anybody who thinks they should is perhaps exactly the people who shouldn't have them.



Ok begin flaming me.

Disclaimer: I might be a bit personally invested in this cause of how much non-trans ->-bleeped-<- I've had to go through because my mother felt she had the right to a kid whether my father wanted one or not, and the resulting fallout.

I also think that some trans people need to wake up and accept that some fellow trans people don't want to tow the LGBT party line. 

I've seen a lot of kids grow up under incredibly varied circumstances ranging from free-range hippie communes up in N. California and Oregon to very exclusive neighborhoods in some of the very nicest college towns, from pig-farm rural Iowa to the heart of the city in LA, SF and NYC and the vast majority of them - REGARDLESS of how they grew up - turned out to be pretty good and solid people.  I've also seen kids be horrible kids and turn into even worse adults, and those are kids that come from loving, stable households.  I'm not even sure what a 'normal' upbringing would consist of.  Is that the early-to-bed-early-to-rise farm kids my kids grew up with - which oddly enough or not is about half the people I work with also.  Or is it the people who were raised in Mid-Town Manhattan or Beverly Hills (I know one of each) and grew up in taxis and limos, a view from the 52nd floor overlooking the Hudson River and Brooklyn, or a panorama of the Hollywood Hills and LA out your bedroom window? Or maybe you just see the house next door like the suburban kids do?  And I work with people and am around people who grew up in all those different ways and for the most part you can't tell any difference.

Well, well, well, you can never tell.

Quote from: Ashley4214 on July 04, 2010, 04:18:06 AMPeople, not just trans people but gay couples, and heterosexual single parents, feel like have the 'right' to children, I think you should have NO SUCH THING. If you are so selfish to put your biological compulsion to have children beyond the well being OF those children, then maybe you just shouldn't be a parent to begin with.

As I said before in this thread a couple of pages ago, you can easily make a case that people in all sorts of circumstances should not be having children because the children would be teased or would face some sort of discrimination. Queer, dark-skinned, physically disabled, mentally disordered, fat, unusually short, lower middle class, you name it.

I'm still thankful that a black family named Campbell braved American discrimination and had at least one kid, who later grew up and became my sixth-grade teacher. For one academic year, he gave me more attention and caring and nurturing than I was getting at home from my nice white middle-class non-trans non-LGB parents.

Of course, my mother had some psychological issues that nobody ever acknowledged to me until I was a teenager and that messed up both me and my brother...but your list of disqualifying factors doesn't include undiagnosed psych issues. Maybe you should add them to your list.

One man's opinion...

Quote from: Arch on July 04, 2010, 10:55:39 AM
but your list of disqualifying factors doesn't include undiagnosed psych issues. Maybe you should add them to your list.

One man's opinion...

I see no reason why not.

Just to add a couple things to my previous post, I'm NOT saying that any of these upbringing environments outright can't result in a positive outcome for the child. I'm also not saying that people shouldn't have a fundamental right to produce kids to the degree that they are biologically capable of. These 'rules' I mentioned are only something I think should apply to things like IVF, and established systems designed to aid people in conceiving kids. (To be honest I have a lot of concerns about IVF generally).

Quote from: Ashley4214 on July 04, 2010, 04:18:06 AM
...but gay couples, and heterosexual single parents, feel like have the 'right' to children, I think you should have NO SUCH THING. If you are so selfish to put your biological compulsion to have children beyond the well being OF those children, then maybe you just shouldn't be a parent to begin with.

It's astoundingly selfish.

That's my view, I don't think trans people should be intentionally conceiving children for them to raise, I hold myself to that as someone who would in fact have loved to have had kids, I also think it should apply to gay couples, single parents, and just generally anyone not fit to give their children a relatively normal, happy life.

What is normal? We redefine what it means to be normal everyday. YOU have defied normal, just by being yourself, and people call us selfish for doing that. Limiting the world's viable parents to straight married couples will not guarantee them a happy life, nor does being in a household with two moms or dads deny them that (and it's not just us gays saying that, studies prove it). Not intended as a "flame" but I do find it highly offensive that you would generalize against a whole people, based on what you perceive to be normal.

Quote from: Arch on July 04, 2010, 10:55:39 AM
I'm still thankful that a black family named Campbell braved American discrimination and had at least one kid, who later grew up and became my sixth-grade teacher.

Good point, Arch. Should African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans, or any other racial minority not be allowed to reproduce solely based on the fact that their kids might be teased and have an altered life of less opportunities based on the color of their skin? Of course you wouldn't. It's not cool to be a racist anymore. Instead we put our focus as a society on making the world better for these kinds of people. Gays still have a huge target on our backs. We aren't to a point of equality yet (and neither, really are racial minorities), and, personally, I think instead of calling them selfish for wanting to bring life into this world, and raise a family, we should be working toward that equality.

BTW, I hate kids. I think there is really no need for them anymore, the world is over-populated as it is, and I never want any of the little brats near me. But, I will fight to the death for our right to have them.

Quote from: Randy on July 04, 2010, 03:36:14 PM
What is normal? We redefine what it means to be normal everyday. YOU have defied normal, just by being yourself, and people call us selfish for doing that. Limiting the world's viable parents to straight married couples will not guarantee them a happy life, nor does being in a household with two moms or dads deny them that (and it's not just us gays saying that, studies prove it). Not intended as a "flame" but I do find it highly offensive that you would generalize against a whole people, based on what you perceive to be normal.

I think to a degree you have (understandably) misinterpreted me.

Yes, you're right that kids from a same sex parentage can grow up just fine and have had a happy childhood.
Yes, you're right that being from a heterosexual parentage in NO way precludes having a very dysfunctional UNhappy upbringing.
Yes, you're right that in the past, studies tend to show no significant difference in actual outcome from a same sex upbringing (however the same is NOT true of a single parent upbringing)

I don't challenge or disagree with any of those points.

What I believe however, is that a same sex parental upbringing is a LESS good upbringing than a hextrosexual two parent upbringing. Less good in that the quality of that parenting is lacking by missing either the presence of a mother or (much more frequently) a father. And I believe that while the kind of person that child turns out to be may still be a very happy, functional adult, that kind of upbringing is inferior in quality, and that we should not be purposefully helping them to conceive children for an inferior upbringing.

Quote from: Randy on July 04, 2010, 03:36:14 PM
Good point, Arch. Should African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans, or any other racial minority not be allowed to reproduce solely based on the fact that their kids might be teased and have an altered life of less opportunities based on the color of their skin? Of course you wouldn't. It's not cool to be a racist anymore. Instead we put our focus as a society on making the world better for these kinds of people. Gays still have a huge target on our backs. We aren't to a point of equality yet (and neither, really are racial minorities), and, personally, I think instead of calling them selfish for wanting to bring life into this world, and raise a family, we should be working toward that equality.

BTW, I hate kids. I think there is really no need for them anymore, the world is over-populated as it is, and I never want any of the little brats near me. But, I will fight to the death for our right to have them.

If you think I am advocating preventing people from conceiving children amongst themselves for themselves by say, mandatory sterilization, then you're completely wrong.

There are two major differences here between your example and this one.

One is that different races require NO extra help to have children, gay couples and single parents do, so even if I was saying that some races shouldn't have kids (which of course I am NOT), it's still purely a moral issue and in no way a legal one, cause I'll never support suppression of people having kids to the natural ability that they can. Only in not helping them when they can't.

The other major issue is simply that there is NO inherent deficiency in a hetrosexual non-white parentage, the differences are 100% a social construct. I do NOT believe that all the deficiencies in a single parent or same sex upbringing are socially induced, I think they are inherent to the dynamic of the upbringing, which is to say I think there should be an influence by a member of each gender.

Arguing that it's "equal rights" for gays to have kids, is assuming that homosexual relationships are the same as hetrosexual ones, they're not, they're equally valid, but they're not the same, and they don't have the same things to offer a child. I also outright reject any concept that it's your (straight, gay, anybody) 'right' to have children.

It's not, you have no right to have kids, you have a right to be able to TRY to have kids to the extent you are biologically capable. As soon as anyone else has to step in to help, it's not your right anymore.

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Post Merge: July 04, 2010, 07:16:35 PM

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Quote from: Arch on July 04, 2010, 10:55:39 AM
As I said before in this thread a couple of pages ago, you can easily make a case that people in all sorts of circumstances should not be having children because the children would be teased or would face some sort of discrimination. Queer, dark-skinned, physically disabled, mentally disordered, fat, unusually short, lower middle class, you name it.

I don't know that physically disabled or mentally disordered, or extremely poor people should be having children either

Quote from: Ashley4214 on July 04, 2010, 07:10:35 PM
Yes, you're right that kids from a same sex parentage can grow up just fine and have had a happy childhood.
Yes, you're right that being from a heterosexual parentage in NO way precludes having a very dysfunctional UNhappy upbringing.
Yes, you're right that in the past, studies tend to show no significant difference in actual outcome from a same sex upbringing (however the same is NOT true of a single parent upbringing)

I don't challenge or disagree with any of those points.

What I believe however, is that a same sex parental upbringing is a LESS good upbringing than a hextrosexual two parent upbringing. Less good in that the quality of that parenting is lacking by missing either the presence of a mother or (much more frequently) a father. And I believe that while the kind of person that child turns out to be may still be a very happy, functional adult, that kind of upbringing is inferior in quality, and that we should not be purposefully helping them to conceive children for an inferior upbringing.

You can believe that all you want, but that doesn't make you right. Unless you can provide some sort of evidence that you're right - objective, verifiable reproducible evidence to refute the existing evidence that you're wrong - your belief in this matter is equivalent in value to other people's belief that the Earth is six thousand years old or that transsexuality is the collective delusion of a bunch of homosexual perverts. It's your right to have it, but it has no business in the public sphere affecting social policy.

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Post Merge: July 04, 2010, 07:27:43 PM

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Also, same-sex couples and single people have very little trouble having kids the natural way. Even if the wider society doesn't help them, they can help each other quite easily. Gay or single does not equal infertile. What's missing - what the wider society would need to provide, but refuses - are the legal protections that would allow the children of same-sex couples and single parents to have the same social and financial stability as children of heterosexually married couples. And it's quite clear that the absence of these protections doesn't and can't stop anyone from having children. It only punishes the children.

Quote from: kyril on July 04, 2010, 07:21:29 PM
You can believe that all you want, but that doesn't make you right. Unless you can provide some sort of evidence that you're right - objective, verifiable reproducible evidence to refute the existing evidence that you're wrong - your belief in this matter is equivalent in value to other people's belief that the Earth is six thousand years old or that transsexuality is the collective delusion of a bunch of homosexual perverts. It's your right to have it, but it has no business in the public sphere affecting social policy.

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Post Merge: July 04, 2010, 07:27:43 PM

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Also, same-sex couples and single people have very little trouble having kids the natural way. Even if the wider society doesn't help them, they can help each other quite easily. Gay or single does not equal infertile. What's missing - what the wider society would need to provide, but refuses - are the legal protections that would allow the children of same-sex couples and single parents to have the same social and financial stability as children of heterosexually married couples. And it's quite clear that the absence of these protections doesn't and can't stop anyone from having children. It only punishes the children.

They can, but they shouldn't.

And yes, I have no proof, and guess what, neither do you.

But when it's involving another non consenting party (the child), you don't have inherent rights.

Just like I can believe all I want, so can you, but you have no more evidence that same sex parentage is an equal environment.

Quote from: Ashley4214 on July 04, 2010, 08:31:24 PM
They can, but they shouldn't.

And yes, I have no proof, and guess what, neither do you.

But when it's involving another non consenting party (the child), you don't have inherent rights.

Just like I can believe all I want, so can you, but you have no more evidence that same sex parentage is an equal environment.

I don't? You yourself conceded that the studies show that the outcome is the same or better.

Also, the burden of proof is on the person who wants to discriminate. Which would be you. If you want to implement a policy that requires differential treatment, you have to provide compelling evidence that the state has an interest in some result of that differential treatment.

Quote from: kyril on July 04, 2010, 08:37:47 PM
I don't? You yourself conceded that the studies show that the outcome is the same or better.

Also, the burden of proof is on the person who wants to discriminate. Which would be you. If you want to implement a policy that requires differential treatment, you have to provide compelling evidence that the state has an interest in some result of that differential treatment.

Woah woah, I did NOT conceded that studies show that the outcome is the same 'or better', NOTHING has EVER shown that it's better.

I did not concede that studies show that the out come is so much as the same.

What I said was "studies tend to show no significant difference in actual outcome from a same sex upbringing" and then followed that with how the same outcome doesn't make for an equal path TO that outcome.

You can have a child of a single parent abusive alcoholic turn out great while one from a 2 parent perfect upbringing becomes a criminal, that doesn't mean that the abusive alcoholic upbringing isn't a worse one to experience even if the outcome is the same.

And no, the burden of proof should be on the people who want a child, to be able to prove they're capable of giving that child a good upbringing, before they get any extra assistance.

The childs interests come first, the burden of proof is on the people who want them and can't have them because of their special circumstances, which themselves might mitigate their suitability.


If you want to call it discrimination, you're free to do so, the reason I think homosexual couples should get differential treatment is because THEY ARE DIFFERENT. I think anyone who says that a same sex couple is an identical dynamic to a hetrosexual one is naive.

Quote from: Ashley4214 on July 04, 2010, 09:00:42 PMI think anyone who says that a same sex couple is an identical dynamic to a hetrosexual one is naive.

I'm pretty sure nobody here is saying that the dynamic is identical.

I did an argumentative speech on homosexuals adopting and/or raising children and I did find studies saying that the children generally faired the same of others, and would even be more tolerant of others than the children raised by heterosexual in some cases.  I'll have to search for the studies again, but I'll post them when I find them.

I think anyone who says that a same sex couple is an identical dynamic to a hetrosexual one is naive.

I'm pretty sure nobody here is saying that the dynamic is identical.

No, but they do seem at least to be compatible.  To wit - i.e. what the research really shows - : Children with two parents do better than children with one parent across the board.  There is not enough data to say that any sort of sexual qualification makes a difference as of yet (though it might even tend to favor gay male couples because of the next two factors), but the number being two does tend to make a difference.  Next is the education/income deal, so that kids of parents with higher than average income or education do better than kids with less well off parents.  As measured by income, education and criminal records, the standard such measurements.

Quote from: Arch on July 04, 2010, 11:52:13 PM
I'm pretty sure nobody here is saying that the dynamic is identical.

And if it's not an identical dynamic, then it can't be assumed to be an equally good one to raise a child in, and the different dynamic deserves its own evaluation.