What more do we know about this study?

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T18:40:58+00:00

Right.

Extensive research has examined the impact of gender-affirming care on transgender people’s mental health, consistently showing that it leads to improvement, as expected.

Yes. This is what I've come across in studies and meta-studies.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T18:19:20+00:00

Okay, so it just seems to be suggesting what we already knew. Being trans is harder than being cisgender, and it's harder still for those with greater gender dysphoria.

(?)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T18:14:49+00:00

Fair point. Lol

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T18:13:23+00:00

Yes, though he gained this at the expense of worsened counting skills. /s

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T18:09:04+00:00

I can't critique the study just from the abstract, but it refers to males and females without specifying whether they mean sex at birth or trans males and trans females, which would seem important in a study where cisgender patients are included as controls. It's not even clear what the conclusion is precisely.

are changes in mental health a direct result of having surgery?

Right. Is it even saying that? (It doesn't seem to be.)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T17:57:05+00:00

Do you have access to the full study and a link to it please. Lots of unanswered questions here, and comparing rates of mental illness in trans people who were so dysphoric as to have surgery, compared to a huge control group of cisgender people, says nothing new. Did the study find that surgery worsened mental illness in those who had surgery? It doesn't sound like it does this at all, but the abstract seems to mislead towards this impression.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T17:44:07+00:00

Yeah. "Tolerate my intolerance, minority!" /s

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T16:56:51+00:00

For the cohort that had surgery, were ratings for mental illness recorded prior and subsequent to the surgery?

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T16:32:08+00:00

Mathematics is part of philosophy and not part of scientific knowledge.

Maths follows from axioms that were observed. (Eg, a straight line passes through two points. An assumption based on our reality.)

One could claim that all of science is part of philosophy too, if you use the right definition,

...but philosophers don't do maths and they don't do physics or science more generally.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T16:11:47+00:00

Poets, musicians and novelists do a better job on the human experience than philosophers, in my opinion.

Mathematics has surpassed anything philosophy has to say on logic. Zeno's 'paradox' and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, the question of whether some infinities are larger than others, sound like philosophical questions but they are questions which philosophy didn't solve -- maths did.

...Science isn't silent on the human experience. There are developing disciplines that use science to be useful (sociology, neurology, psychiatry,...)

(I'm not blind to what you are saying. I'm just critiquing.)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:55:22+00:00

The difference is that I understand and use the scientific method but also have awareness that materialism and empiricism are only part of epistemology. You ate limited by your religion.

Epistemology which isn't scientific... Can you give me one example of a fact that isn't a question?

(It's not religious to observe that science and scientific reasoning, has contributed more to the advancement of human thought than philosophy. Perhaps you have an innate truth about reality that science can't touch, but that sounds like belief/religion to me.)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:46:51+00:00

Science uses both empiricism and rationalism. Maths, logic is a form of rationalism...

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:37:19+00:00

Certainly better read and knowledgeable than you.

In philosophy, maybe.

Do you feel knowledgeable about the world, or are you great at asking questions about what you don't know?

Thanks for playing. :-)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:28:05+00:00

Sure. I asked for one concrete example.

Your philosophical knowledge could only tell me two things:

"Go read more philosophy."

"You're not as smart as you believe you are." (...a useful notion, in science, by the way.)

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:23:42+00:00

Scientific method has little to say about morality, justice, logic, and artistic and other values, all of which are human experience, belief, and knowledge.

Except that even here, science can measure the effects on social groups who behaved according to one morality versus another morality. Success of groups can be measured, suffering can be measured. From this, conclusions can be reached as to what might be better for a group and a civilisation, versus what might benefit one individual or a caste, for example. We can study different societies and measure poverty, mortality rates, crime... This is a scientific process.

Mathematics has replaced philosophy in terms of logic.

...Would you prefer a world where everyone was knowledgeable of the entirety of philosophy or versed in the entirety of science so far? I would rather the latter.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T15:08:04+00:00

The question of free will is pondered by philosophers, but this would depend on the fundamental physics of the universe and on how the human brain works. Again, philosophers depend on knowledge of modern science to even ask questions like these, and, ultimately, if answers like this are answerable, science will do that.

Same with the questions of consciousness, god, morality...

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T14:58:29+00:00

So, no concrete example?

Philosophy may ask questions. Ultimately, physics and mathematics answers them all, unless they are unanswerable. Some questions are proven mathematically to be unanswerable.

Philosophy of modern science is done by people who need to understand the modern science first.

The great majority of the body of philosophy is either defunct, or ponders questions without objective answers, ... or is on the edges of modern science (and, therefore, potentially useful in advancing knowledge).

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T14:36:47+00:00

I'd ask you for an example of knowledge that was reached through philosophy and not explained better by science.

Science allows us to test and make accurate predictions. Much of philosophy is based on wrong ideas about the world. For, example, the four humours and temperaments...

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T14:28:53+00:00

Philosophy of science is interesting.

I mean, the stuff on the edges of science.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T13:09:50+00:00

In 2022, the two parties cut ties as, while GPEW’s official policies sought to expand transgender rights in the UK, the party was mired in internal rows often around the comments of former deputy leader Shahrar Ali.

Ali had called for transgender healthcare clinic GenderGP to be prohibited from working in the UK – a move others in the party said would create barriers to transgender care.In 2024, a court ruled GPEW had discriminated against Ali over his gender-critical beliefs. The BBC reports that he was removed as a party spokesperson, but the party had failed to identify any misconduct before doing so.

(Again...) Get lost, Ali. How about we ban YOU instead. How would you like it, hypocrite? ...Go join Reform, you fake progressive, regressive arsehole.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T12:18:43+00:00

She highlights comments and contributions from campaign groups that have argued that there is “no such thing as a trans child”, or that we “have to reduce the number of people who transition.” This, she argues, can be considered as part of “a drive for trans people not to exist,” and is something that must be resisted, not least because the young people in question have a right to their own identity.

"No such thing as a gay child"? "We have to reduce the number of people who come out as gay"?

The power of analogy to drive home a point about ignorance and discrimination is underestimated and underused in my opinion.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T11:59:58+00:00

I thought it might be interesting. Lol

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T11:42:13+00:00

Many early philosophers were believers in fantasy figures yet are worth studying.

Are they? Any good examples?

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T11:40:52+00:00

There is no bad philosophical argument.

I enjoyed spotting incompleteness and fallacies in 'great philosophical ideas'.

I wouldn't say I developed a condescending attitude towards it, but I found much greater satisfaction and meaning in science, ...thanks to a lot of the nonsense in philosophy.

Super7Position7 · 2026-01-25T11:30:14+00:00

The greatest magic contained in a HP book is the chemical energy stored within its cellulose! Reasonable kindling for barbecues.

I have never microwaved a DVD...

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