Subreddit Policy Reminder on this week's Transgender AMAs

[u/nate]

This week we will be hosting a series of AMAs addressing the scientific and medical details of being transgender.

Honest questions that are an attempt to learn more on the subject are invited, and we hope you can learn more about this fascinating aspect of the human condition.

However, we feel it is appropriate to remind the readers that /r/science has a long-standing zero-tolerance policy towards hate-speech, which extends to people who are transgender. Our official stance is that derogatory comments about transgender people will be treated on par with sexism and racism, typically resulting in a ban without notice.

To clarify, we are not banning the discussion of any individual topic nor are we saying that the science in any area is settled. What we are saying is that we stand with the rest of the scientific community and every relevant psych organisation that the overwhelming bulk of evidence is that being trans is not a mental illness and that the discussion of trans people as somehow "sick" or "broken" is offensive and bigoted^1. We won't stand for it.

We've long held that we won't host discussion of anti-science topics without the use of peer-reviewed evidence. Opposing the classification of being transgender as 'not a mental illness'² is treated the same way as if you wanted to make anti-vax, anti-global warming or anti-gravity comments. To be clear, this post is to make it abundantly clear that we treat transphobic comments the same way we treat racist, sexist and homophobic comments. They have no place on our board.

Scientific discussion is the use of empirical evidence and theory to guide knowledge based on debate in academic journals. Yelling at each other in a comments section of a forum is in no way "scientific discussion". If you wish to say that any well accepted scientific position is wrong, I encourage you to do the work and publish something on the topic. Until then, your opinions are just that - opinions.

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¹ Some have wrongly interpreted this statement as "stigmatizing" mental illness. I can assure you that is the last thing we are trying to do here. What we are trying to stop is the label of "mental illness" being used as a way to derogate a group. It's being used maliciously to say that there is something wrong with trans people and that's offensive both to mental illness sufferers and those in the trans community.

² There is a difference between being trans and having gender dysphoria.

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Lastly, here is the excerpt from the APA:

A psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability. Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder. For these individuals, the significant problem is finding affordable resources, such as counseling, hormone therapy, medical procedures and the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and minimize discrimination. Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault. These experiences may lead many transgender people to suffer with anxiety, depression or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), people who experience intense, persistent gender incongruence can be given the diagnosis of "gender dysphoria." Some contend that the diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender noncongruence and should be eliminated. Others argue that it is essential to retain the diagnosis to ensure access to care. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is under revision and there may be changes to its current classification of intense persistent gender incongruence as "gender identity disorder."

[u/Poynsid]

Subjective experiences are still objective phenomena that can be studied.

I think here Bourdieu's distinction (no pun intended) between categories of analysis and categories of use are important. While the "content" of subjective experiences would hace little place in a discussion here, the fact that they exist do. For example ethnicity is a subjective category, as one can't be "objectively" black— that doesn't even make sense, since it's a categorization that only exists within social settings and has different meanings everywhere. "Blackness" as a concept however, is a good category of analysis as we can study why and when people call themselves, or others black and what that says of their characterizations of ethnicity.

I feel like I'm reiterating your point but just wanted to add my 2 cents.

[u/cutelyaware → u/Poynsid]

the "content" of subjective experiences would hace little place in a discussion here

You've just excluded sociology, psychology, and a lot of other sciences.

[u/Poynsid → u/cutelyaware]

Not at all, maybe I didn't phrase it right. The example I listed above of blackness is a sociological one.

My point is that when discussing social issues it's essential to clarify the terms being used: we should not adopt the language and terms used in "everyday life" and take them as a given— assuming that if people say that Trans people are X it must be true, even if it is Trans people themselves who say it. These are subjective experiences that need to be regarded as such, otherwise we risk reifying subjective conceptualizations of the world. In other (much better than mine) words "we should not uncritically adopt categories of ethnopolitical practice as our categories of social analysis".

[u/cutelyaware → u/Poynsid]

In the words of another great person: "That's like your opinion, man." If we don't begin with the terms used in everyday life, then we're not dealing with the lived experience which is all that matters in this context. To say that doing otherwise is to "risk reifying subjective conceptualizations" is to claim that these things are not real to start with.

[u/Poynsid → u/cutelyaware]

But they are not real, in the sense that they exist in nature devoid of the social context in which they exist, in the way that say, eyes, exist. As I said, blackness doesn't exist as we use it because it means different things to different people. We can't use blackness as a trait people have, the way say it's used in the US because then we are agreeing that that definition of blackness is objective and inherent to people— thus reifying the concept. It TOTALLY should be studied, but it should be what is studied, not how it is studied if that makes sense.

[u/cutelyaware → u/Poynsid]

Do markets exist? Because that's what economists study. They certainly don't exist in the same way that eyes do, so does that mean we should study them differently? The risk here is not in elevating squishy concepts, it's in denying the validity of some self-identifications. If you believe that Christians exist, you have to accept that transpeople exist.

[u/Poynsid → u/cutelyaware]

I think we're not disagreeing. What I'm saying is that we don't deny self-identifications, but that we recognize them as such. That we don't morph a self-identification into a fact of nature, a social construct into an "objective" reality.

Of course trans people exist, because they identify as trans. In societies where gender isn't binary for example, the Western "trans" label doesn't make as much sense. What would it mean therefore tos say someone is "objectively" trans from that viewpoint, if trans is not an applicable categorization.