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posted by martyb on Friday November 09 2018, @05:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the does-the-pensioner-want-to-repay-his-benefits-and-go-back-to-work,-too? dept.

Washington Post:

In the quixotic battle against old age, some people use skin care and spin class.

That’s not enough for Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old who feels like he’s in his 40s. The Dutch pensioner is asking a court in his hometown of Arnhem, southeast of Amsterdam, to change his birth certificate so that it says he took his first breath on March 11, 1969, rather than on March 11, 1949. The judges heard his case Monday and promised they would render a verdict in the next several weeks.

Ratelband sees his request as no different from a petition to change his name or the gender he was assigned at birth — and isn’t bothered that this comparison might offend transgender people, whose medical needs have been recognized by the American Medical Association. It comes down to free will, he maintains.

I want to be recognized as an alien trapped in an Earthling's body.


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  • (Score: 3, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 09 2018, @06:57AM (33 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday November 09 2018, @06:57AM (#759748) Journal

    *Caitlyn* Jenner is a woman, just not a ciswoman, and she's a complete waste of oxygen for reasons that have zip to do with her gender. Rachel Dolezal is a race-baiting sack of shit. Warren is by DNA part native american, but the tribes have more stringent criteria than just blood.

    0/3, try again never.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Troll=3, Insightful=2, Informative=1, Underrated=2, Total=8
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:06AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:06AM (#759754)

    Yeah, don't ever talk about Caitlyn's penis like that! But you should toss her of the building, and stone her below for having Conservative believes.

    Rachel Dolezal is Black by your idealogy's stringent "I feel like it" criteria.

    Elizabeth Warren is more White than me, and I'm 100% of a certain Caucasian ethnicity that migrated from Euroasia a 1000 years ago. Better read up on the sham of a test she took. It actually uses 0 Native American DNA for comparison AHAHAHAHAHA.

    Now listen, we know you lost your mind, you can stop remind us all the damn time.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:40AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:40AM (#760251) Journal

      Wait, everyone else is telling me she cut the thing off. Which is it? This is, like, Schroedinger's Ding-a-ling here.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:12AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:12AM (#759756)

    >> Rachel Dolezal is a race-baiting sack of shit.

    Do you also consider other individuals self-identifying as black like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to be race-baiting sacks of shit, or just Rachel Dolezal?

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by Pslytely Psycho on Saturday November 10 2018, @12:52AM

      by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Saturday November 10 2018, @12:52AM (#760174)

      False equivalency, Neither of them started out life as a little blonde girl.

      --
      Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @08:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @08:10AM (#759769)

    >*Caitlyn* Jenner is a woman
    You're on fucking drugs if you think a man who chops his dick off is anything but a man without a dick.

    >Rachel Dolezal is a race-baiting sack of shit
    Fair enough.

    >Warren is by DNA part native american
    I am more related to Ghengis Khan than Elizabeth "1/1024 Pocahontas" Warren has any right to claim to be native american. She is a fraud and fraudently claimed benefits intended to help *real* Natives. You are the sack of shit for condoning that kind of shit. Fuck you.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday November 09 2018, @08:44AM (14 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @08:44AM (#759781) Journal

    Rachel Dolezal is a race-baiting sack of shit.

    DNA-wise, she's closer to the black race than a is transwoman of having the female sex.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday November 09 2018, @10:38AM (8 children)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Friday November 09 2018, @10:38AM (#759799) Homepage Journal

      DNA-wise, she's closer to the black race than a is transwoman of having the female sex.

      There is no such thing as "the black race." Regardless of melanin content, we are *all* humans (taxonomically: Homo Sapiens).

      "Race" is a social construct, with no basis in biology. One can understand why, in the past, people may have thought that there was a biological basis for such constructs. However, we have this thing called "science" which has fully debunked that destructive mythology.

      What's more, comparative genetic studies have shown that differences *within* ethnic/geographic populations are generally greater than those *between* ethnic/geographic populations.

      Don't believe me? Check out the research for yourself. Here are a few starting points:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Population_genetics [wikipedia.org]
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/ [nih.gov]
      https://genome.cshlp.org/content/12/6/844.full.html#ref-54 [cshlp.org]
      http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/ [harvard.edu]

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday November 09 2018, @11:32AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @11:32AM (#759805) Journal

        Ok, I'll take "race" back and table "phenotype".

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Friday November 09 2018, @12:14PM (1 child)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @12:14PM (#759816)

        "Race" is a social construct, with no basis in biology

        The scientific community disagrees. For political reasons maybe not to loudly, but ...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @07:23PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @07:23PM (#760691)

          I don't see a link there. I'll assume you're employing Poe's Law. I mean, the only other alternative is that you're a fucking bigot! Is that the image you want to project?

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 09 2018, @12:22PM (4 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @12:22PM (#759818)

        differences *within* ethnic/geographic populations are generally greater than those *between* ethnic/geographic populations.

        That's innumeracy at work. The std deviation of a group is wider than the difference between two groups implies virtually nothing. Somehow the graphs having some amount of overlap means something, although usually never whats implied.

        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @04:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @04:17PM (#759912)

          You just can not let the truth outshine your eugenics h7h? Truly a nazii bigot dinosaur you are. Get fucked racist garbage person.

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Friday November 09 2018, @08:34PM (2 children)

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Friday November 09 2018, @08:34PM (#760065) Homepage Journal

          Actually, it's not.

          Look at the research. I presented several links which specifically address that issue.

          Where is the *actual* data and research that supports your claim? You don't have any? There's a shocker. Not.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:05AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:05AM (#760241)

            Those links say intra-race variation exceeds inter-race. They do not say that inter-race means do not differ. Inter-race means do often differ, canonical examples being pigmentation, lipid distribution, hair/less patterning, hair protein kinkiness, height, and even intelligence (Ashkenazi jews).

            Now, the **cultural construct** of white/black races is useless, because the genetic pools those describe are grouped pretty tightly around melanin genes, which don't code for much else, and melanin doesn't impact development/life tooooo much apart from some cancers. So the *cultural definitions* of race are very often utterly useless. But population subgroups exist, and some of those are culturally defined as 'races', and eg. Andean populations have different phenotypes, beyond just skin colour, than Inuit, or than Maasai.

            Argh. I hate to do this, ie. to argue against someoe who I think is 'more right', but you have to be right for coherent reasons or you don't represent ideas well.

            So let's repeat: intra-race variation exceeds inter-race, but doesn't disprove inter-race, which has been demonstrated on some axes between some populations, using the socially common understanding of 'race' which is not the biologist's (H.Sapiens). Further, developmental and epigenetic factors (food security, mental wellbeing, social environment, clothes and shelter, parental exposure to stress/alcohol/formaldehyde/mercury?/lead?/etc) almost certainly provide much larger driving forces in any instance except pigmentation than 'race.' But it's wrong to say Mbena and Maasai have the same expected outcomes in every way.

            • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:36AM

              by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:36AM (#760250) Homepage Journal

              I'm not sure what point of mine you're trying to rebut.

              1. I absolutely did *not* say "that inter-race means do not differ" Rather, what I said was that,
              a. "race" is not a valid scientific concept;
              b. geographically separated populations do differ. They just do so less (on the whole) than localized groups. In fact, you paraphrased my point when you said "intra-race variation exceeds inter-race."

              2. I don't subscribe to unscientific definitions as they are too squishy for my taste. For example, the vernacular use of the term "theory" doesn't comport with the scientific use of that term. As such, while I do agree with the premise that geographically or culturally isolated (in the interbreeding sense) population groups are different (this is both empirically and intuitively obvious), there is only one "human race."

              3. We appear to be in violent agreement. If you really want to argue semantics, please do it with someone else. I'm not interested in doing so.

              All that said, you expressed our (as in collective human knowledge) understanding of how geographically separated populations can and do differ, including genetic, societal, cultural, economic and epigenetic factors quite nicely. Well done.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday November 09 2018, @01:14PM (4 children)

      by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Friday November 09 2018, @01:14PM (#759836) Journal

      Maybe, maybe not. There have been reports of women with XY chromosomes bearing children. Ditto with men with XX chromosomes fathering children.

      Turns out that human sex and gender are really fucking complicated.

      --
      Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 09 2018, @02:15PM (1 child)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @02:15PM (#759851) Journal

        There have been reports of women with XY chromosomes bearing children. Ditto with men with XX chromosomes fathering children.

        Citation please.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @07:41PM (#760033)

        Only at the edges, it is pretty straightforward for most.

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 10 2018, @06:08AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday November 10 2018, @06:08AM (#760261) Journal

          That's what you'd expect out of a natural process, isn't it?

          My view is that the "it's a binary!" and the "it's a spectrum!" folks are *both* right, but only seeing part of the story each. Nature "intends," please note scare quotes, for there to be a binary. Nature is also not 1) intelligent, 2) perfect, 3) even necessarily right to follow. And because nature is imperfect, you get fuzziness, clustering around the extremes, and a few cases of outright inversion.

          Where the left goes wrong on this is the idea that what we have is a perfectly flat power distribution from one side to another. No, we don't, and if we did, we would not see almost universal gender preferences across cultures and races and time periods, and we'd see waaaaaaaay more ambiguous, "gender-fluid" androgynes than polarized trans* people.

          So what we really have here is a lot more advanced of a concept: it's a bimodal distribution with two extremely sharp peaks at either end and a wide, flaring "bathtub" curve in the middle. That doesn't fit in a sound byte, though, so neither side likes it.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday November 09 2018, @11:39AM (10 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Friday November 09 2018, @11:39AM (#759808) Journal

    I identify as the love child of Azuma Hazuki and Runaway....can I get the courts to legalise that FOREVER!

    *Ducks.... severely*

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 09 2018, @11:50AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday November 09 2018, @11:50AM (#759810) Journal

      I knew there was something splendid...and wrong about you.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 09 2018, @04:44PM (8 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday November 09 2018, @04:44PM (#759924) Journal

      Only if I get full custody rights. I don't want that son of a bitch poisoning your mind with his...well, everything about him.

      Okay, not-very-funny joke over. This is another of those "I identify as an attack helicopter" memes, which were both missing the point and about as amusing as a rubber crutch to begin with. I don't "get" the whole trans thing, but I've got trans friends and every single one has improved after transition. That alone would be enough to convince me to support trans rights. It is a false equivalence to equate that with, for example, someone disputing the chronological age he's at, which as I said upstream has nothing to do with humans at all except insofar as we've invented a way of measuring it.

      And wow, there sure are a lot of flaky, triggered snowflakes on this thread. Oddly, it's the ones who talk the toughest, and they seem scared of Caitlyn Jenner. She doesn't scare me, at least not unless she's driving and I'm within about 100 feet of her.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 09 2018, @10:16PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday November 09 2018, @10:16PM (#760105) Journal

        I think this whole 'change muh bird-day' thing is an attention getter:

        as an aside, I think of myself as, at least mentally, around 35 years old. My body, on the other hand, likes to remind me i'm over 50. If i could legally change my body to a 25 year old one, i'd do it in a heart-beat, lol.

        My brain says "Let's really go at the grass cutting, the garden, the job": my body says, "Yeah... fuck you, Grandpa."1

        1 I am not a grandpa. Yet.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @10:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @10:28PM (#760110)

        someone disputing the chronological age he's at

        That's a mischaracterization of this case though. He is challenging the societal consequences of said age more than the age itself (forced retirement, zero standing on the job market, insurance premiums). Yes, I'm sure he's looked at a few pages in the transgender playbook and playing them too. But that doesn't make him wrong, and I actually think it's quite ageist to dismiss his troubles with a "tough, suck it up" attitude as some seem to do.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @11:40PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @11:40PM (#760141)

        Lol!!! like we're supposed to think you're not trans.
        Seriously I didn't even know you were trying to claim otherwise.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:46AM (2 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:46AM (#760254) Journal

          Oh for heaven's sake...why do you think I'm trans, because I defend trans rights? By that "logic" I'm also black because I defend civil rights, and also a male baby because I'm against circumcision, and ALSO a cat because I donated time and money to the local animal shelter.

          Or is it that you think I'm not demure and passive enough to be a woman? Leaving aside any speculation that gay women might have masculinized brains, if you think *I'm* bad, you should see my sister. My ramrod-straight sister, who would implode on herself and pop back out as Freddy Mercury if she liked dick any more than she actually does. I at least do the research before going off on a rant; she's far less well-read and seems to take it as a point of pride not to consider the opposition's side...

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @10:18AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @10:18AM (#760294)

            So, this sister of yours... is she seeing anyone?

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:57PM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:57PM (#760423) Journal

              Last I heard yes, though he's a bit of a manbaby. I've been politely advising her to drop him for a while now, but it's her decision in the end.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday November 10 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 10 2018, @12:40AM (#760169) Journal

        This is another of those "I identify as an attack helicopter" memes, which were both missing the point and about as amusing as a rubber crutch to begin with.

        I don't think it's that; it's far more subtle and approachable conversationally. There does not appear to be an element of mocking anyone. Though there is certainly some overlap in the positions.

        I don't "get" the whole trans thing, but I've got trans friends and every single one has improved after transition. That alone would be enough to convince me to support trans rights.

        People who discover themselves to be transsexual often have a ton of problems** and suffering only to have that just added to by treatment from others who are not capable of understanding the positions of anyone who is not just like themselves. People with problems should get nothing but support.

        It is a false equivalence to equate that with, for example, someone disputing the chronological age he's at, which as I said upstream has nothing to do with humans at all except insofar as we've invented a way of measuring it.

        No, this age-trolling is not equivalent to the rights of people who need help or at least understanding and compassion.

        Even though people with problems should get nothing but support, life isn't all one thing or another, and often, people with problems find that they, for whatever reasons, make more problems for themselves. Some people who are trans, for example, and by no means most nor all, might overcorrect for bias against them and claim that not only is gender not a solid, unchanging measurement, but everything's whatever anyone says it is.

        The former is absolutely correct*; the latter is just nonsense, wrong as wrong ever could be. There is, as I said of something else above, some overlap, this time between people who are trans, and people who say that pretty much any part of reality is whatever you say it is.

        This case actually can help communication by serving to remind all parties that some things are fixed, and some things are not. This counters both the "everything is fixed and so is your gender" intolerant-and-wrong people, and counters the "everything is fluid and reality is whatever I say it is" people, who are wrong, and who are also offensive, albeit in an intellectual way rather than an archie-bunker way.

        It can encourage people to put down "all" and "everything" and "always" and "never" and accept reality, and work from that. That sure seems to need doing.

        -----
        * Sure, your DNA with its XX, XY, YY isn't going to change in most of your cells, but that's only one thing that goes into gender, and not always the most important one at that. Other things that go into gender, such as what gender-related equipment one has, is relatively stable but can change. And one's self-identity is what it is regardless of one's DNA and equipment. So though parts are unchanging, gender itself isn't, and it's perfectly normal for people who experience a mismatch on these three factors to want to resolve it. Since it seems that most people match on all three (all three indicate the same gender), most people are in a position to have trouble understanding that issue without compassion. Sadly, someone saying "reality is whatever I say it is", even if they strongly-but-wrongly feel that's the case, makes it worse (turns n problems into n+1).

        ** For some people, their appearance and the appearance of their baby genitalia at birth may have been ambiguous, and they may have had parents and doctors make some decisions for them (modifying the genitalia to more closely match a particular gender, for example, and then enshrining that artificial choice socially and legally). If the decision matches up with the intrinsic self-image, then great--dodged a bullet there. But if it doesn't--then what insane and unnecessary problems compound on top of any initial ones.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:25AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:25AM (#760245)

          > people with problems should get nothing but support

          until their problems extend beyond themselves. Psychopath dumping mercury into the stream can be physically stopped from destroying lives and nature, even he resists.

          The line is hard to find. What about someone advocating violence, but not enacting it? What about dogwhistling? What if you don't know it' s dogwhistling? (One of my siblings' favorite players in the 90's and 00's was #88, he only recently got told he's gotta stop wearing his favorite ratty jersey!)

  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday November 09 2018, @04:48PM (1 child)

    by epitaxial (3165) on Friday November 09 2018, @04:48PM (#759925)

    To quote Ted, there's no such thing as girls with dicks, only guys with tits.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Friday November 09 2018, @05:39PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @05:39PM (#759958)

      Says someone who's never been to a (good) drag show!

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.