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"An eighth-grade language arts teacher from Maryland has been placed on administrative leave after school officials learned he allegedly authored two books containing questionable content under a pseudonym.
Local network WBOC News reports that the investigation concerns two books published by McLaw under the nom de plume “Dr. K.S. Voltaer,” and one is about a fictional, futuristic school shooting that goes down in history as being the largest ever in the United States.
http://rt.com/usa/182964-teacher-leave-shooting-book/"
This is lunacy. School administrators are terrified there will be another Columbine or Sandy Hook and are overreacting, or are they. What could they do to prevent one. Nothing, nil, zero. No need to ask yourself 'why', say thank you to the traitorous NRA , the propaganda arm of the small arms manufacturing industry, for blocking any form of gun control. They have successfully infected the country with The American Disease™ almost unfettered access to weapons of war that kill with brutal efficiency. Sadly there appears to be no cure.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The preceding paragraph was not up to our standards. The comments to this story are spot on. You expect better than this and we let you down. There are so many comments referring to this paragraph, we cannot just delete it, hence the strike-through. More to follow.]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by velex on Monday September 01 2014, @05:35PM
Oh, wow. Interesting thread. Let me interject a few things:
The reason it isn't sufficient is because when this 40-something who's financially secure starts dating 20-year old girls, then we call him a cradle-robber and a pedophile. On the other hand, we don't much care about 20-something girls who date 40-something guys; we just make sure to demonize the guy.
I watched my friend who was dating someone 10 years younger wind up completely ostracised because of this factor. Well, it didn't help that she lied about being raped, and one of the local white knights ran with it.
I'm not sure I entirely understand what you're talking about, and I think you're making a number of assumptions that might not pan out. Stem cell technology may be able to create functional male genitalia out of cells with an XX makeup, but I thinking it'll be more likely in those cases that one of those Xes will need to be swapped out for a Y from a close relative. Afaik, it's all still pure speculation. However, I could see the case where you end up with a man who only produces X sperm.
You touched on the possibility of growing a fully functional female reproductive system from XY cells. My gut tells me this is less likely, and a trans woman desiring this operation would need to obtain a different copy of X from a close relative if it's not possible to clone her X (maybe it would cause complications if one of the Xes were a clone of the other).
The are also a lot of unknowns in my mind if we want to talk about gender ratio when bringing in trans folks. Last I looked for numbers about a decade ago, nobody really knew but common estimates I heard were that it's a 3:1 ratio. There are 3 trans women for every 1 trans man, meaning 3 men become women and 1 woman becomes a man. There have been no studies that I know of as to why.
Then there's the question of access to such procedures. We all lose our shit when it comes to trans folks. The idea that a trans prerson might get any form of assistance for the medical aspect of transition makes blood boil. The thing is, though, that's in a culture that tells men they are sexual objects and servants of women, and if they can't find a woman to own them, they're nothing. Then the other half of the culture says it's true in reverse! What a mess. This is also a culture that does not have the technology to accommodate gender change without losing reproductive ability, which is apparently all that matters to this species.
Oh, and they worry too much about what makes them "gay" or not. (This is a conversation that seems inevitable when a trans woman dates a man. I think it's one part worry about being a homosexual and thus being less than a man and another part worry about being seen by others as a homosexual.)
Let's assume these miracle stem-cell gender change technologies exist. Under the current capitalist medical system combined with a healthy dose of screwball feminism, that leaves one essentially two options for having children if one wasn't lucky enough to be born with a womb. The first is to make enough money early on so that it becomes a better financial option for a woman to marry one and have children than not. Opportunity cost, etc. If one isn't able to provide a woman with better than she could do on her own, why would she marry? The idea of a "househusband" is too unworkable for this species, life isn't fair, etc, although I was glad to see an example in Madoka Magica. The other option is growing a new reproductive system and having it implanted is some radical surgical procedure that won't be cheap.
However, the existence of such a radical gender change procedure takes the wind straight out of the sails of the arguments for transphobia. On the part of the feminists, they're going to have a difficult time when the only way to tell the difference between an agent of the patriarchy and a "womyn-born-womyn" is by doing a genetic test. A genetic test would need to be a prerequisite of registering of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival! On the part of the other bigots, they're going to have a hard time calling someone who looks, acts, and sounds "like a woman" and is 7 month pregnant that they're really a man. (Then again, I can imagine how that would go. A: "You're a man, aren't you?" B: "Of course not! Can't you see I'm pregnant?!" A: "Ok, you have breasts, a womb, are pregnant, smell like a woman, have sex with men, have a female name, and will resume your period after delivering the baby, but you're still a man!")
Then we would need to revise our attitudes. If one knew the only way they'd get grandchildren were by financing their son or daughter's gender change, that'd be a very different world!
Eh, who am I kidding. Technology for that would only be accessible to folks like Harisoo or Jennifer Boylan. I doubt it would ever be a significant factor. Add in that the estimate that may 1 in every 10,000 or 30,000 people assigned the male gender at birth transition. So the factor you're talking about, if I understand, as concerns the proportions of men and women in a given society, may be present but insignificant.
Young men these days face an overwhelming amount of sexism. If we ignore how school from elementary through college is a hostile environment where they experience discrimination on a daily basis—and sexual harassment that's built into sexist policy—, ignore the profusion of male-bashing in mainstream entertainment (I wonder if the feminists ever considered that the misogyny on multiplayer video games is retaliation and venting after having to hear the same jokes that just aren't funny over and over again), ignore how gay men have their identities violated every time they are presumed to be attracted to women and continually bashed about the issue of rape (why should I focus on gay men when every man who has not committed rape experiences institutional discrimination), we're really ignoring the elephant in the room.
And I'm not just looking at feminism or "all women" when I write that. I'm also looking at men—regular men who are a-ok with it because, hey, after all, guys can handle it! (Again, sexism.) I'm looking at that white knight who inevitably responds to me and tells me I'm only angry with feminism because I can't get laid. (Sexism and implicit homophobia.) Then if I feed the troll, the homophobia becomes explicit with the inevitable response that I'm mentally ill. I'm looking at the men's rights movement who send the signal to men that if they're not straight as an arrow, then they're an evil communist socialist.
Circumcision probably doesn't help, either. If circumcision worked out just fine for any particular individual, then great for them. If they like being circumcised, great. Except, for the 1 out of 500 men that circumcision goes wrong for, it can be a living hell, especially not knowing that one was even circumcised at all. Just that we don't even consider the idea that, if the "science" supporting the practice is good, then it should still be an individual man's choice, speaks volumes. What happened to "my body, my choice?" (Ok, so I am partially looking at the feminist movement here, except more in disappointment that they were so provincial and chauvinistic in that statement that they didn't even consider that it needs a much larger scope than they meant it to have, and I don't think they understand that for some victims of the circumcision gone wrong, it's a tough pill to swallow to be asked to support "my body, my choice" when the victim of circumcision doesn't even have any voices decrying what happened to him (/her?).)
In short, we have a big problem with misandry, and we are hopelessly slipshod in the ethics department when it comes to men.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday September 02 2014, @12:52AM
I'm glad this gained your interest.
Regarding age differences, this is part of the equality dissonance. Males and females grow to different sizes over different timespans, mature at different rates, gain verbal fluency at different rates and have different reproductive lifespans. Historically, a man would obtain one or more women after an extended period which allowed selective pressure. This model is akin to a silverback gorilla who gains access to a harem. More recently, a man would have established himself as a craftsman before seeking a wife. Nowadays, a man is shamed if he dates a younger woman while cougars are borderline acceptable.
Regarding genetics, my scenario makes many assumptions but I'm not aware of any limitation which prevents XX or XY cells splitting to X or Y gametes at the final step. Assuming this process works, hypothetical Y eggs would only be viable with X sperm. Therefore, XY women would have reduced fertility with XY men and the sex of children would be skewed to approximately 2/3 male and 1/3 female. Taking into account weight of Y sperm, this would be further skewed by a small factor. Overall, we would have situation where XY women are more likely to have XY children and XX men are more likely to have XX children. So, any swing in the male/female demographic due to fertile transsexuals would have a mild opposing effect in the following generation.
Ignoring genetics, the adage in transsexual urological surgery of "It's easier to dig a hole than build a pole" is going to be broken. Cell culturing and 3D printing will make it easy to produce a penis of any size. (Expect future pornstars to have two or more because, well, why chance having the old ones removed?) However, grafting a 3D printed uterus will be significantly more awkward than grafting a 3D printed penis.
To add further assumptions, the general level of homophobia and transphobia may relax if they weren't regarded as an evolutionary dead-end. This means people who come out of the closet may be less likely to be forced out of their homes, dis-inherited or killed. Likewise, I would hope that people would be less homophobic and transphobic about sexual relations if anyone could procreate with anyone else. (To add a further assumption of political, financial, environmental and social pressure to have two children or less, dis-inheritance may be counter-productive if a homosexual or transsexual child is your only surviving offspring.) Well, that's the rational view. However, you note that it is one of those hot-button issues in which a subset of people lose rational thought. However, I see militant feminists and regressive religious people being fragmented by these advances.
Most feminists accept transgendered women due to their common experiences of sexual assault, attempted rape, rape, sexual objectification and economic opportunities. This acceptance will progress as the next generation of feminists mix with openly transgendered children. Germaine Greer's definition of female (XX, functional uterus) will become a fringe concept or functionally irrelevant. Oh, and the womyn-born-womyn festivals have already been invaded by the clandestine agents of the patriarchy. (Actually, I find this amusing because it riles almost everyone but for different reasons. In an age of equality, many people find womyn-born-womyn festivals to be gratuitous offensive discrimination. My opinion on this is fairly moderate. After reading blog posts about a woman who wanted some space at a gay festival and sex-segregated gymnasiums [soylentnews.org], discussing matters with rape victims and other experiences, I am convinced that sex-segregated activities are healthy for many people. However, it shouldn't be done in a discriminatory manner with no alternative. This is especially true if it involves the public sector. For example, a female-only space at a festival is acceptable if there are other restricted spaces and no-one gets to access all areas. The womyn-born-womyn festivals don't do this. Indeed, their policies for Female To Male transsexuals is mixed. Also, their existence is divisive to Male To Female transsexuals because some would never be able to slip in, many wouldn't want to be involved and others wouldn't be able to bring their friends. And then there's the people who don't self-identify as male or female.)
Regarding figures, approximately 1:3000 is the lower bound for self-identifying transsexuals and, yes, the ratio of 3:1 has been found between Male To Female transsexuals and Female To Male transsexuals. However, many transsexuals self-identify as gay or lesbian. In countries like Thailand, they don't make a big distinction between homosexual, transvestite, transsexual or other. Worldwide, it may be that more than 10% of males have transvestite tendencies and more than 1% of "males" are transsexual. The corresponding level of transvestism in women is unknown. However, I know from the experience of a Female To Male acquaintance that attempting to dress in a masculine manner can be maddening when all masculine fashions are socially accepted.
The common assumption is that Male To Female transsexuals are more common but this may be due to transvestism being more obvious and feminization of masculine features being less successful while Female To Male transsexuals have more limited surgical options, more relief (or not) via accepted fashion and/or self-identify as lesbians. If we consider the developmental effects of hormones in other animals [wikipedia.org], it may be the case that Female To Male transsexuals may be very common. Although self-identity and mate attraction are distinct, disputed figures for PCO [PolyCystic Ovaries] and PCOS [PolyCystic Ovary Syndrome] in lesbians may emphasize the significance of hormones. From http://lezgetreal.com/2008/10/lesbians-and-pcos/ [lezgetreal.com], http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533359 [nih.gov] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome#Epidemiology [wikipedia.org], 80% of lesbians may have PCO. The 80% incidence of PCO appears to be widely cited by lesbians but the corresponding figure for heterosexual women from one source is 8-25% and 32% from another. Reports of PCOS cite 38% for lesbians and 3.4%, 14% or 18% for heterosexual women. It is noted that some of the ambiguity derives from vague diagnostic criteria. Regardless, it could be an evolutionary advantage. If a woman has reproductive problems, it may be advantageous for such a woman to adopt masculine behaviors, such as attraction to women, for the benefit of a group.
Regarding access to healthcare, Cuba demonstrates that poor countries can provide good access to healthcare if there is political will. Even without this, the advance of stem cell biology, material science, 3D printing, robots and niche gadgets will make advanced surgery cheaper. I liken the current 3D printers to Johannes Gutenberg's first printing press. They will advance but their full potential may takes hundreds of years. Fortunately, we won't have to wait for their full potential to arrive. It is likely that limbs and organs will be widely available to patients within 20 years. This will be for essential surgery and cosmetic surgery. Perhaps you'd like smaller hands, catgirl ears or a tail? This is all possible. In the longer term, I believe that Iain Banks [wikipedia.org] suggested that people could transform themselves into a really outlandish form, such as a cloud.
Anyhow, if transsexualism became almost universally accepted and there was surgery which retained fertility, the number of Female To Male transsexuals may exceed the number of Male To Female transsexuals.
More to follow.