Please see this post:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/27...

Individuals have rights, certainly, but those rights can absolutely be revoked on a group basis. To deny this is to deny reality.

And no, simply making a decision is not the only definition of discrimination. That is one definition, yes, but it is not the only definition.

From dictionary.com:

dis·crim·i·na·tion
noun
1. an act or instance of discriminating, or of making a distinction.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.

It seems to me, Hiraghm, like you're trying to say that only definition #3 is valid, and that definition #2 is not. Unfortunately, that's not how language works. Words can and do have multiple meanings, and all of the definitions are valid. In this case, the one I'm talking about is definition #2. But thank you for demonstrating your lack of understanding about the English language.

LGBT people are absolutely minorities. Gender identity and sexual orientation are controlled by biology, and are just as immutable and irrevocable as race.

And you clearly don't understand the scientific aspects of this issue. Every single medical association in the United States, Canada, and most of Europe disagrees with your stance. Transsexuality is absolutely based on biological factors which are scientifically measurable and testable. It not based purely on feelings.

Here's a quote from a professor of Human Sexual Behavior at Stanford University:

"Another region of the brain that shows a sex difference in its average size, don't even worry about the name of this, it's called the bed nucleus of the stria-terminalis. It's where the amygdala beings to send its projection into the hypothalamus. Another one of those gender differences, there's one type of neuron in there with a certain type of neurotransmitter, where very, very reliably it is about twice the size in males than in females. Sufficiently so that even in human brains you could very confidently determine the sex of somebody by seeing the number of these neurons. [...] It's just another one of those differences, a dimorphism in a region of the brain, a really, really reliable one. And this was a study done by some superb neuroanatomists looking at transsexuals. And what they showed was very interesting, which was very, very reliably, and a very powerful effect, what you would see in their large sample size of transsexuals' brains postmortem was people would have this part of the brain the size not of their sex they were born with, but rather of the sex they insisted they always actually were."

You can watch the video of the actual class here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOY3QH_jO...
Now the above video is an hour and forty minutes long, so I don't expect you to watch the entire thing, but you should at least watch the parts where he talks about homosexuality and transsexuality, which are at the following time-points in the video:

Homosexuality:
1:13:27 - 1:24:40

Transsexuality:
1:24:40 - 1:29:45

There's also a paper on the topic which you should read:

Intersexes in Humans: An Introductory Exploration, by Duane E. Jeffery:
http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-conten...

The real, objective, scientific evidence, which is measurable and testable, does not support your argument, Hiraghm. It refutes it.

You obviously haven't done the slightest bit of research on the topic, because you clearly don't understand what transition for kids involves. Transgender kids aren't even allowed to get surgery until they're 18. Until then, transition merely involves dressing in the clothing of the desired gender, and then puberty blockers at age 10 or 12, and cross-gender hormone medication at age 14 or so. That's plenty of time for the kids to work who they want to be.

Homosexuality and transsexuality cannot be changed by psychotherapy. They are genetic conditions, controlled and predetermined by unchangeable biological factors. Talking to a counselor isn't going to change a person's biology, and quite often LGBT children are not provided with genuine, helpful therapy, but rather are subjected to inhumane techniques known as conversion therapy, which has actually been incredibly harmful to the children who are forced to endure it. So much so that several states are seriously considering outlawing conversion therapy entirely.

Now of course trans* kids and their parents should certainly seek the help of professional psychologists, but that help should be aimed at assisting the child in figuring out which way they want to go, and not trying to "fix" them or coerce them into taking any one particular path, and certainly not with the intention of forcing them to conform to some misguided and faulty notion that only heteronormative behavior is acceptable, because THAT would be the real child abuse.

Here, watch this:
http://katiecouric.com/videos/exclusive-...

LGBT is not a minority, any more than diabetic.

What destroys the lives is not an employer expecting a mentally healthy employee, but people with mental illness not seeking appropriate help.

No, I don't think the Affordable Care Act is a workable solution. Healthcare in the U.S. certainly needed some kind of reform, but the ACA isn't it.

In the case of the LGBT community (especially the trans* community), all that was really needed was anti-discrimination legislation.

As for the general population, I think a more effective solution would have been to try and figure out why healthcare costs are so horribly inflated in the U.S. (the price of healthcare is significantly lower in other countries), and see what can be done to bring those costs down. Instead, the Affordable Care Act essentially leaves healthcare costs where they are, and attempts to enable people to afford the higher cost by making it a legal requirement to have health insurance, and then increasing everyone's premiums so we all have to pay even more. Apparently the word "affordable" was meant ironically...

But anyway, to get back on topic, I would say that no, employers should not be able to make hiring or firing decisions on absolutely any criteria they want. There are (and should be) legal limitations. Unfortunately, those limitations rarely include protections for the LGBT community (unless of course ENDA passes in the House, but that's still up in the air).

The LGBT community is faced with discrimination in a unique way because their status as minorities might not be discovered until after they've been working at the company for a while, meaning that an employer can unknowingly hire an LGBT person thinking they're just a regular straight, cisgender person, and then fire them after they come out of the closet. That sort of thing can destroy people's lives, and it should not be legal.

Same thing goes for insurance companies.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough....

GROUPS DO NOT HAVE RIGHTS. PERIOD.
No conditionals. Only individuals have rights.

Discrimination is an act which attempts to discern superior quality, based upon whatever criteria matter to the individual required to discriminate.

It is not persecution to behave as if a nut is a nut. YOU are the one hurting people, by pretending they're healthy when they need help.

It's child abuse to get your child cut on when s/he needs psychiatric help.

Would it be child abuse to not let your child express his liberated spirit... by going to school nude? Would it be child abuse to not let your child express his inner self if that inner self was a mass-murderer?

Parents of children suffering from homosexuality are negligent if they don't attempt to get the child psychological help.

You're a monster. How in the world can it possibly be considered child abuse to allow a child to express their inner self? If anything, the REAL child abuse would be to not do so. Transsexuality is a genetic condition, and the parents who truly love their child are going to support them in being who they are.

I suppose you'd also say that parents of gay kids who allow their children to freely express who they are are also engaging in child abuse?

I'm not arguing against a reductionist approach to human rights. The idea that a group cannot posses any rights which are not also possessed by the individual is a perfectly valid theory, and a sound approach to dealing with the issue of rights.

However, the fact remains that discrimination is an act which denies individual rights to members of particular groups.

And I'm not saying people should be forced to embrace anyone, merely that they should be forced to stop persecuting minorities. If you're attacking someone, and I tell you to stop, that doesn't mean I want you to embrace that person or like them, just that I want you to stop actively hurting them.

"deny a particular group of their basic human rights"

GROUPS DO NOT HAVE RIGHTS. ONLY INDIVIDUALS HAVE RIGHTS.

And forcing others to embrace one's mental/emotional issues is not a right.

I'm all for going after trans, kids, too. Actually, I'm in favor of putting their parents in jail for child abuse.

I've never had any trouble figuring out that I need to use the men's room. But, then again, I never had any trouble figuring out what my genitalia are for, either.

Generally speaking, transgender individuals don't have any trouble figuring out which bathroom to use. It's other people who can't figure it out...

By the way, that last little bit actually got posted here about a month ago:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/d1...
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/d3...

http://www.transadvocate.com/family-of-c...

I'm not talking about them saying hateful things. If it was just speech, there would be no problem. But simply saying hateful things about a particular group isn't persecution. Persecution is taking actions which deny a particular group of their basic human rights which are granted without question to the rest of society.

From the article:
---
Until Raymond’s NCHCT position paper, the federal government supported trans care as medically necessary. This meant that poor trans people could access psychological and medical care because public and private insurers had no official basis upon which to reject coverage for trans care. Raymond asserted that trans medical care was a new and unethical phenomenon, and that legislation should block trans medical care and instead institute a national program of reparative therapy.

It was only after the NCHCT pushed Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that the government reversed course in 1981 and took up Raymond’s views and rhetoric. Raymond’s bigotry became the government’s stance. This official anti-trans policy soon spread to private insurers, and the American trans population soon found itself without access to medically necessary health care.

During a time when employment discrimination against trans people became legal due to an appeals court ruling that trans people were not covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Raymond helped dismantle the trans community’s ability to access trans health care through public and private insurance. Raymond ushered in the era in which trans people (many if not most of whom were unemployed) had to pay out-of-pocket or go without. In essence, Raymond helped ensure the future of a medical system that was unresponsive to the needs of the trans community at every turn.

[...]

In the past few years, TERFs have tried to make their anti-trans movement a bit more personal. TERFs have acted to out trans people to their employers and to intervene in legal name/gender changes and medical care. Moreover, they’ve shown that they’re willing to go after trans kids, too. Recently, Cathy Brennan, an attorney who heads a particularly hateful TERF group, outed a trans youth at school and even went so far as to work with the ex-gay group Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) in targeting a sixteen-year-old trans girl. Brennan’s group acted as PJI’s mouthpiece, joined them in misgendering her, and promoted PJI’s bullying. The girl was pushed to the brink of suicide and was placed on suicide watch.

The trans movement isn't trying to force the TERF movement to do anything except stop persecuting them. A group that fights against discrimination is not on the same level as a group that perpetuates and engages in it. Seriously, that's like saying that the KKK and African Americans both have equally legitimate arguments regarding racism.