I didn't know you were too good for Webster's.

You worded his thesis slightly differently, but his was in no way difficult to find or grasp.
hint It was the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph.

No, dude, he's not. Just because you don't like something, or someone, doesn't mean you're a -phobe or an -ist. This is one of those stupid things liberals have pulled. You don't like Obama? Racist. You don't like gays? Homophobe.

But the thing is, that's not what we are. We are people who have our own opinions and beliefs, and we are just as free to express them as anyone else, but labeling people is the way to write off those opinions and beliefs as something to be ignored.

I will be the first to admit that the right has been dicks to LGBT people; labels were used to write them off for years, and that was terribly wrong. The one great thing about this whole movement is that it has done a good job of making us see the LGBT community as people, instead of shadows in the dark to be feared or ignored.

But now, liberals are just writing off any dissent to their opinions, the same as the right used to do. EVERYONE is people, and EVERYONE deserves to be heard. But liberals have been trying to bump anyone who disagrees with them, out of being 'EVERYONE'.

There's a couple points here I'd like to address.

First, it is not irrelevant. If I call an elephants tail a leg, how many legs does the elephant have? It still has 4, because calling something, something else, does not make it so.

Likewise, changing the definition of gender to match the wishful thinking of a small minority of the population, does not actually change what gender means.

Secondly, there is a word for someone who feels like a person of a different sex than they were born as. That word is 'disorder' as in 'mental disorder'. Something is broken, and they need help, not to be mutilated so that their skewed image of themselves can take over their reality.

If a schizophrenic believes there's spiders in his skin, would you implant actual spiders into his skin so he wouldn't be wrong?

Look, I know this isn't a popular thing to say, and we'll end up with you writing me off as a -phobe, which you probably already have. But the fact is that these people need help, not 'support' being who they are, and all of this hullabaloo nowadays is simply destroying any chance of actual mental health professionals being able to help these people, which is what they truly need.

Oh, I've been on messageboards before, and I get how conversations go, but when I see this exact same derailment every time anywhere liberals and conservatives are "discussing" something, I feel that I should step in where I can and call people out on it. If you're not going to discuss the point of what someone says, why even bother acknowledging that they said anything?

Ignoring something doesn't make it go away, and I still have yet to see any cohesive argument against Cannoli's thesis.

Actually, yeah, I would, because then we could actually have a discussion about the whole point of the original post, instead of scattering to the winds and arguing about nothing.

But anyways, now we get back to your very light grasp on what a debate is. 2 people with different opinions, 'staring' at each other is basically exactly what a debate is supposed to be. They both have their thesis and supporting arguments, but the debate must be centered around their thesises? Thesi? Regardless, they are to discuss their points until a conclusion is reached.

I have no problem with changing my mind, and would be thrilled if someone on this messageboard managed it. However, that's never going to happen when someone opens a forum for a legitimate discussion, and everyone else ignores his points to make him look like a -phobe.