But something must have triggered the big bang.

That’s a separate claim you’d have to prove. We have no evidence of something triggering it, we don’t even know that it would need to be triggered. All of our observations occur inside this universe, therefore we have no idea at all if cause-and-effect even applies to the universe as a whole. The short answer is: we don’t know and have no reason to posit the need for something else.

What does it mean for something to be “beyond” everywhere or before time?

Costco’s business model is wild if you look into it. Pretty much every item they sell is a loss-leader for their actual money maker - memberships.

Ohh of course. You only wanted a civil discussion. That’s why you immediately compared trans health care to pedophilia and called your own statement an insane position. That’s also why you have continuously failed to provide evidence for a single claim you’ve made. Ya, you totally just wanted a calm discussion of intellectuals.

I am proud that you think so little of me. It warms my heart. The hate of bigots is the coal my generators need. You keep saying you’re going to stop responding but you don’t. You know you like it, come on…Keep it going…Fuel my generators baby.

What’s embarrassing is your absolute failure to provide even a shred of evidence for your fear mongering. What’s even more embarrassing is your weak ass attempt at civility politics. You can’t start out with a post conflating trans youth with pedophilia, acknowledging that it’s an insane position, and then act shocked when people aren’t nice to you.

Once again, fuck you, fuck your feelings, fuck your civility politics. Craw back into the cesspool you spawned from. You don’t deserve to be treated kindly. You deserve to suffer as much as the people your insane opinion would suffer if you got your way. Luckily, as this article shows, your opinions are not shared by most of the public. Have fun wallowing in obscurity you pathetic sack of shit.

Ahhhhh did someone get their fee fees hurt? Do you have a boo boo? Show me on the doll where the mean commenter hurt you. I can send you a bandaid if you need.

You could have just provided any evidence at all but I know that must have been hard for you. Your bald-ass assertion of bigotry deserves no respect and neither do you. But I guess you can’t handle the same vitriol you spew when it’s turned back on you, huh?

Fuck you and your faux civility.

Ahhh shucks, I love when bigots think I’m not being civil enough 😊.

Did I come here and post obvious bait to try and convince people? Does my opinion go against the people who study this for a living? Does my position have a complete lack of evidence to support it? It’s like you walked in here and posted some bait about the earth being flat, refused to provide a shred of evidence, and are now complaining about our positions not being on equal footing. They aren’t. If you want to convince people, and you want to contravene scientific evidence you are the one who has to prove it.

My position bears more weight because there is actual evidence and experts on my side.

Again, your bigotry deserves no respect and your “how very uncouth of you” does nothing. Save the whinging for the safe space you crawled out from. I’m sure all the other bigots will be there to hold your hand and congratulate you.

I kinda thought you might put it together, but ok. Yes, those were rhetorical and obvious.

Police are responsible for police culture so pointing to culture doesn’t absolve them or change any of the math here. Same with the laws, they may not directly make them or have a say in them (unless you count police unions), but they can choose when to enforce them, when to not, and against whom. Again, your arguments aren’t changing any of the math here.

The problems of police are caused by the police and sustained by the police so they are entirely the fault of the police. Your comment seemed to imply that at least some of the blame should be taken from the police since it’s not them it’s the culture and the laws. I’m saying, it’s still all them. The culture and the laws are still on them.

Are the officers not part of that culture? Do they have no discretion in what laws they enforce and when?

Don’t pull this shit again. You are against the use of puberty blockers because there would be no use for them after the person is done with puberty. You want them to wait until they are 18, when they are done with the vast majority of physical effects to start treatment. And the only reason you’ve given is “I just don’t think they need it yet, they need love not drugs.” Present evidence of harm or shut the fuck up. You’re fear-mongering over something you don’t understand and it has actual harm to other people.

If you think the use is so different that the dangers outweigh the risks then prove it. The institutions that study this don’t. The organizations that make policy based on those studies don’t. You don’t get to just “but it feels different” you have to provide evidence that it is different and harmful in a way the other studies wouldn’t have caught.

It’s “not at all” for puberty blockers because, again, you want kids to go through puberty before undergoing any gender therapy. If you had studied this at all you’d know why the medical organizations recommend starting before puberty. Puberty is the harm they are looking to alleviate and you can’t do that by waiting until after puberty to start treatment.

I’ll read your intentions as much as I want because you’re a fucking book. It’s easy to see exactly why you are here and making the arguments you are. Do you really think this is the first time most of us have seen a “just asking questions” and “this is pedophilia” argument? You don’t have to tell me you’re a duck, you already walked and talked like one.

I don’t give a fuck about your family or friends. Do you have a medical degree? Did you do any studies on this matter? Do you have any relevant training or expertise?

They are changing, but not in the way you think. I’ve read this book before, I know how it ends. That said, I’m enjoying wasting your time and calling you the bigot you are. I have a feeling you don’t hear that enough in your life so I’m happy to provide that for you.

You are advocating for your own feels. If you actually gave a flying fuck about the kids this affects you’d follow the recommendations of the people who actually studied this shit. Or at least present even one piece of evidence.

I could manage it, but bigotry doesn’t deserve respect or civility.

Do they have to be independent to be different things?

Why should your dumbass opinion backed by literally nothing but “my experiences” deserve to be discussed or considered at all? Do you have any skin in this game at all or is being a bigot just a fun pastime for you? Do you have any training in these fields? Any new data to discuss? You’ve got an uneducated opinion backed by nothing and discounted by the people who actually study this that you think is hot shit because you like the smell of your own farts.

I didn’t ask you for anything and you didn’t explain anything to me. This was my first comment in this thread. Maybe take some time and see who you are responding to first?

You can shove your civility politics up your ass. Being civil doesn’t make it not bigoted and doesn’t make you right.

Since you are too lazy to look them up yourself and do the legwork, I’ll do it for you:

Sex refers to a set of biological attributes in humans and animals. It is primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy. Sex is usually categorized as female or male but there is variation in the biological attributes that comprise sex and how those attributes are expressed.

Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people. It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, and the distribution of power and resources in society. Gender identity is not confined to a binary (girl/woman, boy/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time. There is considerable diversity in how individuals and groups understand, experience and express gender through the roles they take on, the expectations placed on them, relations with others and the complex ways that gender is institutionalized in society.

Sexuality is a person’s identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are sexually attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, etc.

If your definition is as broad as you imply, everything is your sexuality and therefore kids doing anything and having any options at all are sexual in nature. Your definition is useless.

How about you use a fucking dictionary or the google button on your phone and look it up yourself.

Gender == sex == sexuality

Gender isn’t about who you sleep with, or what’s in your genes/jeans.

If you want to come here to convince people then do the leg-work yourself.

On your first point, does the evidence show that taking puberty blockers makes you more socially isolated? I have seen no evidence of that at all, and instead there’s a mountain of evidence that social transition and puberty blockers lower suicidality in trans kids and increase mental health outcomes.

We’ve been using puberty blockers, not just for trans kids but for precocious puberty for decades and have more than enough long term evidence of their effectiveness and safety. No drug or procedure is without risk, but why is that only a problem for this issue? Are you also against kids getting chemo? I mean, they certainly don’t fully understand the risks of chemo do they?

The question of consent and knowledge of risk is a red herring. Kids can’t consent to any medical procedures or sex because we’ve defined consent that way. But consent from the patient is not always needed for medical procedures, especially when the patient is unable to give consent. Should coma patients still get care that has risks? They can’t consent right?

Consent is given by the parents and the medical professionals who have the authority to make those decisions. You can ask the kid, and they usually do, but their consent does not matter. That’s how all medical procedures work with kids.

In reality, your statements lay bare a bias, which is why you’re getting downvoted. You only seem to care about risks and consent for this specific highly-politicized topic and not medical procedures broadly. Because this is not about a broad critique of consent, it’s about trying to excuse your uncomfortablity with this one subject and trying to justify it in any way you can.

You don’t have to understand it, and you don’t have to agree with it, but you should at least recognize why the majority of major medical institutions make the recommendations they do. And, shockingly, it’s not because they somehow forgot it was involving kids, it’s because they know a little more about the topic and nuances than you do.

Do you care to back up your claim at all or are you just going to go with “these two distinct words with distinct definitions actually mean the same thing because I said so” the same way TERFs and transphobes talk about sex and gender?

Is it possible to support the black community in America without supporting black separatism?

I would imagine that would be less the case in places like Nevada that have legalized and regulated sex work.

Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about people and other jobs? Like, do you feel as bad for the line cooks at McDonald’s?

Are semi trucks regularly driving down residential roads backwards?

How is the front height of a truck (not even specifically the bumper, you could have a low bumper but a giant hood that makes seeing a small child or animal almost impossible) and the rear height of a semi even comparable?

You realize car safety is about more than the height of the bumper right?

Also, YES all cars should have the same bumper height so cars who hit each other are less likely to do fatal damage to the occupants. Bumpers reduce the total impact felt by the occupants and decrease the damage done to the vehicle itself. You can make the bumper any height and still have the rest of the car as tall or short as you want. Do you even know why semi trucks have the lower bumper on them?

They haven’t been banned yet because the American auto industry has a really strong lobbying arm that both parties bow to. Why do you think Biden just announced a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs while specifically saying it was to protect the US auto industry?

Ya totally, we’ll just do a quick leftist Jan 6th. I’m totally sure the police will be nice and respectful to us and not immediately shoot everyone on sight. It’s totally a real possibility for a handful of regular leftists to kill all the politicians they don’t like and the government totally wouldn’t immediately send in the troops and use it as an excuse to ban being left of Clinton for the next century.

I swear to God you people are more delusional than the “gotta keep my Walmart brand AR in my bedroom in case the feds try to kill me in my sleep” kind of conservatives.

Wait, so you admit that you, in your spare time for fun presumably, look for things the worst part of any groups do so that you can give other people excuses to hate them? Do you have any idea how retarded that is on every level? You just like to hate groups of people and go looking for excuses for it, it’s like someone made a recipe on how to trick yourself with confirmation bias into being an even bigger bigot.

Also, just for fun, have you ever done that same thing with groups you belong to? Like, say for example, men, white people, heterosexuals, cisgenerders, neo-nazis, zoophiles?

No, of course you don’t hate them, you just think people are justified in hating them as long as they are in public. Don’t you know people will just get over their biases if other people never confront them and they never see the people they hate? We just have to make every disliked minority disappear from public view and the bigots will magically get over it.

Don’t you remember when black people gained equal rights in the law by disappearing from public for a while? It was only when they stopped being so in your face about their mistreatment that the bigots accepted them and gave them rights, right?

Why don’t people like you have the fucking balls to just say what you think? Why is it always this, “Oh I’d be fine with them if they’d stop asking for me to be fine with them” kind of wishy-washy bullshit. Just fucking grow a pair and say you don’t like seeing gay people in public because you think they are gross and weird.

Or you could just read a little about it.

The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.

It did not start with militant anarchists and has nothing to do with whether violence can save us or not. It was, and is still, about whether or not you support ML dictators and brush away their obvious failures.

There is no McCarthy Committee today looking for Tankie supporters in the US. There are people who make excuses for the genocides and repression of dictators who wore red, and there are people who don’t want a movement to free humanity tied to the shackles of its worst attempts.

I use the term because I don’t want my advocacy for a system designed to improve the lives of every person on earth, granting them maximal freedom, to be defined by the failures of men in the past who thought the only way to accomplish that was to murder and silence everything in the way of their personal pursuit of power.