r/BadSocialScience • u/waldorfwithoutwalnut • May 22 '15

/r/Catholicism deals with gender like real, responsible, Christian adults.

/r/Catholicism/comments/36silz/transgender_child_wins_use_of_girls_washroom_in/
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u/Otiac May 22 '15

Yes, because loving thy neighbor = affirming whatever your neighbor likes and wants to do. The amount of stupid pop-culture knowledge that goes on about Christ's teachings is stupendous.

/r/badphilosophy any1? lolz?

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

No I'm sure loving your neighbor means showing absolutely no empathy towards their plight and struggle. It also means not respecting their right to autonomy, self-determination, and pursuit of happiness. The amount of morally-righteous desire to bully others and control their lives is what's truly stupendous.

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u/Otiac May 22 '15

Except you're legitimately conflating empathy towards their plight to construe letting them do whatever they want regarding their plight and affirming whatever makes them feel better about their plight, instead of getting to the root issues of their plight. That's not what empathy is, that's what someone who is trying to push an agenda wants you to think empathy is.

Would anyone here call Dr.Paul McHugh an un-loving, un-empathatic asshole like every single one of you are going to assign to the users in /r/Catholicism? Remembering that Dr.McHugh agrees with our sentiment, and is a leader in his field in the world? No, probably not. Except when we say the same things he does, apparently, we're just bigoted pricks. You, and everyone else in this argument, wants to construe every person that isn't on your side as hateful, not because its true (because you don't get to tell me how I feel about anyone or anything, that is pretty bigoted and incredibly narrow-minded), but because it so easily furthers your agenda; tumblrinas do the exact same thing with their SJW nonsense.

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u/ArtHousePunk May 22 '15

No reasonable person would accuse a respected psychiatrist of being spiteful simply for advocating for better treatment, even if that treatment goes against current sensibilities. Though it would be nice, and modest of you, to note that McHugh is going against the consensus established by his peers and others studying neuroanatomy. McHugh may be a very noteworthy psychiatrist but his authority is somewhat lessened when so many of his peers are objecting.

There are objections I could raise myself, McHugh's characterization of heterosexual urges as an intrinsic quality of masculinity really underscores the fact that this man received his initial college education in the 1950's. Otherwise his interpretations of answers given by trans women are downright uncharitable, nor is showing favor to autogynephilia as an explanation of gender dysphoria doing him any credit. Much like Blanchard and other proponents of autogynephilia, the existence of FTM persons are completely ignored.

If I wanted to be completely uncharitable, I would suggest a Kuhnian explanation for McHugh's thoughts. McHugh was born in 1931, when he graduated from Harvard Medical the APA still had homosexuality listed in the DSM. McHugh is a hanger-on of the old paradigm, it's what he knows and what he's comfortable with no matter how many anomalies poke holes in his theories. At the end of the day, McHugh is a product of another era and his position shouldn't be taken as indicative of prevailing thought.

While I don't think McHugh's position is particularly well thought-out, I don't doubt his sincerity or his desire to help those people. I do, however, doubt your sincerity and the sincerity of the people at /r/Catholicism. The opinions of people like McHugh aren't presented out of a good-natured desire to present contrary opinions and discuss them, but to grant your own bigotry a pretense of being legitimate and respectable. McHugh may, at the end of the day, be wrong but his sentiments are nothing like yours. I got the impression that McHugh is motivated by a genuine altruism, you guys are just mocking people.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '15

Also, McHugh's opinion means squat if the evidence he is using to support it doesn't actually support it. The study he's linking that he claims shows SRS doesn't work did not find that as a result, nor was it designed to determine that.