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Ask someone who believes or supports a trans person to define you what is a man or what is a woman and observe hypocrisy, contradiction in their own logic or downright detachment from reality.

Case in point: How Does the Women's March Define What a Woman Is?
Published on Jan 22, 2020 by What would you say? YouTube Channel.

Krunoslav 9 July 18
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I like the one that said that the human race could not reproduce without women!!!
Did she ever think women could not reproduce without MEN??????????????????

Serg97 Level 8 July 18, 2020
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We can tell immediately and automatically, without thinking, who is a man and who is a woman. These are basic-level categories, like "fish" or "tree" or "chair." They don't need explanation.

Now, there are some (a few?) people who transition and "go all the way" and appear for all intents and purposes to be the men or women they present themselves to be. I'm happy to gender them accordingly -- indeed, if they didn't say they were trans, I wouldn't be able to do so otherwise. Let's call them "transsexuals." They're the ones who change their bodies, voice, and social behaviors to completely blend in.

Then there are those who don't elicit that automatic categorization. They are "liminal" figures. That liminal state is what most people think about when they think about "trans" people today. There are a few subgroups here. There are those who want to go all the way, who haven't gotten there yet, but will sooner or later. They're transsexuals still in the process of transition. There are also those who want to, but won't manage it, due to issues of embodiment, finances, family relations, inability to re-socialize, what have you. They too are transsexuals.

Those who go all the way leave behind those who are trapped in the liminal state. Over time, it's become the liminal figures who led the trans movement. And they attracted the third type of transitioner, who are those who don't want to go all the way in the first place. These people are distinctly "transgender." They don't want to change their bodies to conform to one sex or the other (though they may want to change their bodies to be more androgynous, ambiguous, or confounding.) And they took over, so it seems.

When I first became of aware of trans issues as a second-wave feminist with lesbian separatist leanings, some twenty-five years ago, it was all about transsexualism, a biologically rooted phenomenon not unlike the biologically rooted phenomenon of homosexuality (or heterosexuality for that matter). I had no problem with it. Today, however, the term "transsexual" is practically verboten, it's now all "transgender" and includes every kind of person who wants to transgress gender norms -- drag performers, autogynephiles, non-binary people, gender benders and gender fluid people, you name it.

This transgender movement is distinct from the transsexual movement that preceded it. Transgenderism has been informed by Queer Theory (one of those Critical Theories) to embrace liminality, to push for it. They want to break down the category of sex and erase it in favor of a category of "gender" that is completely based on theories of social construction. No wonder the second-wave feminists have pushed back! And no wonder the third wave "intersectional" feminists have gone for the throats of the second wave, because it goes against Theory.

The reason for that is because the purpose of Critical Theory is tear down the existing power structure -- specifically, Western civilization. It's rooted in the Marxist (or formerly Marxist) theories of Michel Foucault, Herbert Marcuse, and Max Horkheimer. It's entirely destructive. They only want power, even if it's power over a wasteland.

Second-wave feminists didn't want to destroy Western civilization, they just wanted equal access to it.

How would you define or point to a difference between transsexual and transgender? I mean if asked, how would you word it.

Exactly!! Completely solid description of the distinction. @KrunoS: she did. Unless you were being just a little snarky!! The distinctions between transsexual - which I believe in the majority of cases would be those with a binary view of sex and gender - and transgender, which I think are 'non-conformists' to the binary models.

@tracycoyle I was not snarky I was attempting to open up a discussion.

Binary model? There are no other models to choose from? Its not a multiple choice kind of thing. Unless one does not understand basic biology. Biology is pretty well defined on this.

But feminist are correct in that "gender" is social construct. It is a social construct of language not biology.

I was asking about the definition and difference between transsexual and transgender, because I am not sure it is well researched by the original poster. In fact most people don't know much about it, they just accept what they hear today. Helping to legitimize culturally something that cannot exist biologically. I would think there is an obvious problem with that.

@KrunoS ok. My opinion is that @SophiaPistis gets it exactly right and I thought it was clear.

Yes, the 'binary model', with qualifiers, is the model for the human species. Is it possible there are variants, well, intersexed is a variant WITHIN the model. But biologically speaking, human species speaking, I and pretty much anyone associated with reality and having a brain, there is NO other model that defines/describes the species functionality. Gender, via most definitions, is tied to that model and explains behaviors in which biology plans a role - but societal and familial behaviors play a role also - so to call them a "construct", again, in my opinion, is to call a building a construct. Yes, it is. But you can't break it down without breaking it once it is there. Given it is built by the totality of society, trying to 'construct' something that ignores both the biology and the human foundations will FAIL, catastrophically....for those involved.

I agree the original post with the posed comparison misses some key aspect. I don't think the VAST SUPER MAJORITY of people understand there is any distinction between transsexual and transgender and looking to have something to point to would be beneficial for those wishing to have a good discussion.

I use this: Transsexuals biological and psychological self-identity are inconsistent with the binary model and they seek to realign them to it. Transgenders seek to establish identities, biological and psychological, that do not conform to the binary model. Some transsexuals are transgendered. Transgendered are generally not transsexual.

Whether you use 'gender' or some other word to define the behaviors overlaying biological phenotypes doesn't change the phenotypes.

I am certainly open to a better understanding of both gender and identity, but I think there is a portion of society that only seeks to destroy both.

@tracycoyle Well I would disagree on some points and agree with others.

Intersex for example is not a variant, its genetic anomaly, and since it does not serve a purpose of enhancing chances of reproduction, it must be qualified as genetic mutation that is not beneficial. In short, genetic mistake. A very unfortunate one I might add. Similar to being born blind. We don't call such unfortunate people a variant of human species, we refer to it for what it is. A birth defect. A genetic anomaly. Or result of some kind of genetic condition that is not favorable. We don't change the laws for the rest of humanity if someone is born blind. we try to help them live their lives as comfortable as its possible, but they are seen as what they are, and often they see themselves as such. Unfortunate individuals who are born as what some call now intersex, have the same problem as blind people. They are not new species , they have genetic anomaly that is not doing them any favors.

"Given it is built by the totality of society, trying to 'construct' something that ignores both the biology and the human foundations will FAIL, catastrophically....for those involved."

I agree.

Sex and Gender used to mean the same thing. Sex was preferred nomenclature in professional medial community, and to avoid confusion with sexual intercourse, "sex" was called gender in a more casual non medial company, such as casual conversation and or dinner. Technically from a biological point they still mean the same thing. Innate biological characteristics associated with process of reproduction.

Many of these are encoded so much into our DNA that they cannot be changed after the fact. They can tell if a person is a man or woman from skeletal remains, because there is a difference, much less a living person. No amount of surgery, make up and artificial hormones can change all of the innate characteristics. And its insane to try. I think you agreed on that as well.

"I use this: Transsexuals biological and psychological self-identity are inconsistent with the binary model and they seek to realign them to it. Transgenders seek to establish identities, biological and psychological, that do not conform to the binary model. Some transsexuals are transgendered. Transgendered are generally not transsexual."

Hmm. I have a problem with that. Especially the last part. Because it normalized psychosis state of mind as something else. Mental or social disorders or behaviours seen as generally unhealthy or excessive in a given individual, to the point where they cause harm or severe disruption to the sufferer's lifestyle, are often called "pathological" (e.g., pathological gambling or pathological liar).

If I identify myself as a couch and don't conform to what others consider to be a healthy human being, than I belong in a room with rubber wallpapers so I don't hurt myself. I do not have the right to dictate the laws under which others are guilty of not agreeing with me. Which is what we have in our society. In other words lunatics running the asylum.

Quote from the book about history of political correctness is: Other innovations in the semantics of sexuality are the forms bisexual from 1914 and transsexual from 1957 (in the US Journal of Psychotherapy).

I try to search for that journal but could not find it. However I did find a website with an archive of Psychoanalytic Journals, and I searched for term "transsexual". The first search result and oldest entery

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. CLI, 1970: Identity Diffusion and the Transsexual Resolution. Elliott Weitzman; Charles A. Shamoian; Nikolas Golosow. Pp. 295-302.

"The authors present an interesting and genetically well-documented paper. It traces the development of a thirty-three-year-old male through stages of feminine identification, homosexuality, and transsexualism, leading to an attempt at surgical resolution. It also contains an eighteen-month follow-up of the patient's current adjustment. The dynamic family configuration presents some variations from Stoller's formulation of such cases: a bisexual mother keeps her son too close to her body too long, creating an unending symbiosis, and a psychologically absent father fails to interrupt the process. The authors' central hypothesis is the regressive diffusion of the patient's fragile gender identity into primitive 'as if' and 'fusions of self and object' modes of infantile identification. The presentation is rich in concrete and human clinical details."

— Article Citation: (1971). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. CLI, 1970. Psychoanal. Q., 40:712

The last entry is from 2003, and it states:

Andy: A Boy Who Thought He Needed to Be a Girl - (2003). Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 58:19-34 by Alan B. Zients, M.D.

"In presenting the case of Andy, I hope to demonstrate the complicated multidetermined functions of feminine identifications and strivings in a boy with a diagnosable gender identity disorder. My patient's fantasies of wishing and needing to be a girl were not just the result of the influence of parental behavior and attitudes. Equipmental problems resulting from inborn factors and interferences with optimal development due to ongoing interaction with his environment were major contributing influences. Andy's experience of his body and his psychological elaboration of certain childhood events as well as his sexual and aggressive fantasies strongly influenced his feminine desires. [This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.]"

Fast forward to today:

Note on questionable sources. American Psychological Association Claims to be "the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 118,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members." I have my doubts. And I will discuss those later, but they describe transgender this way:

"Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else; gender expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice or body characteristics. “Trans” is sometimes used as shorthand for “transgender.” While transgender is generally a good term to use, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-nonconforming will identify as a transgender person. The ways that transgender people are talked about in popular culture, academia and science are constantly changing, particularly as individuals’ awareness, knowledge and openness about transgender people and their experiences grow."

they also write "Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves. While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender may differ."

But sex and gender mean the same thing. Except they changed the langue to suit new political ideas.

So one must ask. How did we go from 1950's and 1970's from serious psychoanalytical diagnosis of small number of cases to a widespread acceptance of any gender you want how ever many times you want, with no proper medical or psychoanalytical analysis? What happened between 1970's and now? Well, we already know, at least one part of the story. I've covered in detail the rise of what could be now called postmodernist left.

Transsexual and or Transgender is the same problem just to varying degree. Its a person who is crazy and is a danger to themselves and need professional psychiatric help. There is no argument that can be made that psychologically healthy individual would have such thoughts and there is no real evidence for some kind of illness that would cause it. There is clear evidence of psychological problems that were treated for what they are not that long ago. The reason we don't do taht anymore is because its not "politically correct" to do so, even if its factually correct.

We have seen how feminist and other activists used language to change meaning of words and how they tried to discredit any trace of scientific, biological, psychological or philosophical finding before 1970's as well as denying the entire history up until that point and replacing it with the grand narrative of oppression. In effect they replaced gender with fashion. Biological truths are silence and neurosis is celebrated.

@KrunoS Regarding the blind person - in fact we DID change the laws to accommodate them. Americans with Disabilities Act mandates things to help the Blind (and others) to fully integrate into society.

I tend to be wary of studies that deal with tens or even hundreds of people because 1) the sample size is very small relative to the population - even if it is larger relative to the associated populations and 2) the environmental factors tend to be heterogeneous and there is some suggestions that those factors are important. Relying on the analysis of single individuals and trying to extrapolate that to larger populations is bias of the worst sort.

Intersex is a variant. I think we both agree with the binary biological model - as you seem to be relying on the reproductive purpose for it. I happen to agree, but recognize that homosexuality is not reproductively sound and from a BIOLOGICAL point of view, non-beneficial. However it exists in all societies across all races and has been noted throughout history. As such, it would be considered a biological variant too. We generally understand variants that do not confer a benefit, but we can't know with certainty.

I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder in my 20s and several neurological teams could not pin down the reasons. Two things: 100 years earlier such disorders were considered manifestations of demon possession by the general population and a mental disease by the medical community. We learned. However, in my case, my progressive case was stopped in it's tracks by going on HRT. Despite both my neurologist and endocrinologist's assertions that it COULD NOT be related, neither could explain how a medical condition that had been getting progressively worse over most of a decade could SUDDENLY (within a month) reverse completely. Our hormonal system affects much of our body's functions.

I was born male, will die male. That is biology. We are "assigned" a determinate sex at birth based SOLELY on secondary sex characteristics - our genitals. There is rarely a chromosomal confirmation and equally rarely a hormonal one. Maybe if it were done routinely, there would be some data to work from later.

Yes, gender identity disorder IS a disorder and as the body functions as it is designed to in 99%+ of transsexuals, that indicates a mental disorder. I don't dispute it - I don't think many rational transsexuals do. The issue, in the medical and transsexual communities has been what to do about it. I can tell you that transition significantly helped my GID, it does for most transsexuals. But we are also creatures of our environment and transitioning has it's own complications, familial and societal. My first year in transition was hell. I can't imagine doing it with additional psychological issues.

Understanding GID has been an ongoing process that has been helped by a larger population to work with - something unavailable prior to even the 80s. So, it hasn't been a matter of 'political correctness' or 'feminist or trans ideology' or even semantics. We have more data, more experience and more understanding - we've got a long way to go. Even now, studies are smaller than I bet anyone would like. My involvement in studies in the late 80s and 90s helped expand the knowledge base. I was followed and treated by the University of Chicago Medical School - Department of Psychiatry. Most people with GID are treated* by licensed and experienced therapists. It is part of the Standards of Care. I agree with and support the SOC.

*treated: transsexuals seeking medical intervention are required to be under the care of licensed and experienced psychiatrists or psychologists. So they ARE being treated in the sense of 'under the care of'. However, MY experience varied - with the support of my psychiatrist and psychologist (yes, I had both ongoing during transition) - because of my stability and lack of any other psychological issues. However, in my case, and in the case of MOST transsexuals, such treatment is palliative. It is the hormonal and surgical interventions that actually deal with the GID. I call it congruency and it has some cache in the medical community. Congruency is when our internal identity and our external presentation/reality match - like they do in you from your youngest understanding. Most transsexuals with other psychological issues usually have to have them resolved or at a minimum stable before they can move further into transition. And often there are issues due to societal demands (conformity) and abuse by parents, sibs and their immediate community. The fact that WE know we are WRONG/DIFFERENT and blame ourselves from early ages tends to reinforce any external abuse/prejudice meted out. The few of us that survive THAT, then the horror of puberty - and it is utter horror to see our bodies betray us at such a fundamental level - THEN the societal demands for biological and gender conformity to make it to knowledge of and acceptance for medical support is amazing. The fact that so many commit suicide is not solely evidence of the deep issues we are dealing with but the utter tyranny of the majority demanding conformity OR ELSE.

Gender deals with the aspects of human behavior external to the biological functions. Yes, it is based in the biological but we are human - we are not constrained by our biology. We are able to engage in rational and intellectual thoughts that exceed the limits of biology - we do more than instinct allows. Gender variants outside the binary model are MOST LIKELY sociologically based. Given most do not suggest or indicate they suffer from GID, they are not transsexual by definition.

MY opinion is that transgender is a societal issue. Non-conformity/rebellion towards normative behavior, have been elevated in parts of society such that they are inducing such in people that by themselves probably would not be considered such. Transsexualism is a function of hormonal mis-development (we are getting there, but it is NOT yet definitive). If confirmed, it will underscore the need to make the body conform to the internal self-identification because we can not repair such a system defect. Given the relief most transsexuals gain from transition, I will continue to hope we attain such understanding in the (near) future.

Bias against transsexuals began to wane as we moved into the 2000s, it has begun to climb again mostly in response to the transgender movement activism which is destroying support. I continue to use the words promulgated within the medical community to explain the issues - I don't need to change the terms but rather expand the understanding behind them. Activists, primarily on the Left, can not - DO NOT - care about those whom they claim to represent. They are making political statements, not medical ones. I reject them. I oppose them.

@tracycoyle “Regarding the blind person - in fact we DID change the laws to accommodate them. Americans with Disabilities Act mandates things to help the Blind (and others) to fully integrate into society.”

See, I have a serious problem with that. There is no moral or logical justification why the needs of a few should outweigh the needs of man. If you want to build a culture that helps on their own to help blind and disabled people who are worthy of such assistance, by all means I’m all for it. I will be the first one to help out. But if you want to force people by law to comply to any blind person, even if they are abusive asshole, simply because they are blind, then I cannot support that. That is identity politics which I do not support.
Other reasons are.

Number one reason is that the needs of few do not outweigh the needs of many. In fact, if there is any nobility to be discussed is when few sacrifice their needs for the good of the many. Somewhere along the way it got reversed.

Number two reasons is that if its mandate it by law, you are by definition taking away the rights of majority and in favor of the rights of minority. Why would that be? How can one justify that?

And I guess there is another reason why I’m against it. There is no effort put in by the people who got the rights and so many do not know how to value it. And as we have seen in recent decades its like a pandora’s box. Once you open something up where people can yell, I want rights and they get it, it never ends.

Civil rights movements in the 1960’s in America have gotten a hell of a lot and yet not only didn’t they stop they’ve gotten so much power that they are taking away the rights of others. That is not something I support.

And therefore the concept of civil rights is a very dangerous term. Its identity politics, and we have seen the destructing nature of it. If these various movements for rights get what they want by yelling oppression, they don’t stop, they can’t stop themselves, they want more and more and more and its never-ending. And we see the true nature of such movement, because they don’t give back the same to those they took rights away from, do they? In fact they make damn sure the others rights are constricted further. E.g. feminists, LGBT, trans, BLM and other Marxists pretending to be people.

If “rights” don’t come with obligations and duties I do not support it, because there is no incentive for people who got the privileges to value it, is there? Same is with blind people or any other group. I’am all for helping a blind person, but not because they are blind, but because they are a good person that deserves compassion. I do not want to be told by law to have to give up my rights for some blind person who is mega asshole, but has protection under the law to be an asshole. That is identity politics and I am very much against it.

@tracycoyle “I tend to be wary of studies that deal with tens or even hundreds of people because 1) the sample size is very small relative to the population - even if it is larger relative to the associated populations and 2) the environmental factors tend to be heterogeneous and there is some suggestions that those factors are important. Relying on the analysis of single individuals and trying to extrapolate that to larger populations is bias of the worst sort.”

I agree with that.

Too much is put in flawed studies because the as scientists have discovered, people will believe anything if you say scientists have discovered it. But off course scientist are not the same thing as scientific method or science. They can make wrong conclusion, preformed flawed studied, and in cases where sexuality is involved and people are asked to self-identify, that should be disqualified right from the start because its impossible to get accurate data. People lie to themselves because they have agenda, they are embarrassed, peer pressure, they don’t know themselves, or don’t understand what they are asked. And people collecting the data often have an agenda of their own or a bias.

With the studies like that, you can disprove gravity.

@tracycoyle “Intersex is a variant. I think we both agree with the binary biological model - as you seem to be relying on the reproductive purpose for it. I happen to agree, but recognize that homosexuality is not reproductively sound and from a BIOLOGICAL point of view, non-beneficial. However it exists in all societies across all races and has been noted throughout history. As such, it would be considered a biological variant too. We generally understand variants that do not confer a benefit, but we can't know with certainty.”

I don’t agree with “intersex” being a variant, I don’t even agree with term. The people who are born with serious genetic defects of their sex organs, its true cannot be easily classified as male or female, but they are certainly not a variant of human species because if given a choice no one would choose to be born in such a way.

It’s not a chocolate vs vanilla ice-cream choice, or red vs blue Ferrari. It’s a serious birth defect, that is more server than other defects because we are deeply impacts in our identity and sense of belonging based on how function sexuality. And if the main tools for the job are defected, it will create series of other psychological traumas and issues as a result. Therefore, it would be very difficult to find anyone with such a problem to be well adjusted human being. At best they are keeping to themselves and at worse they are in danger to themselves and others. Even with professional psychiatric help it would be hard to replace what does not work. And the individuals who do adjust to peaceful functioning adjust social life, would have to find meaning of life somewhere else and find indemnity in some other way.

Creating a political movement and redefining medical books to try to fit the world to one’s own unfortunate cirmestances as we have seen with activism is not a solution.

So I don’t think you can call it a variant, and I also don’t think there are enough people with that condition in the world to even qualify for such a term. If we want to be compassionate and polite about it, we can say it’s a disability. If we want to be medial about it, it’s a birth defect. A very unfortunate one, but still a defect.
It is true that homosexuality exists in various species other than humans and it has existed for a very long time. Can it be called a variant, that depends on the context. I’ll try to explain what I mean.

From evolutionary point of view, the process of natural selection does not have a mind of its own, it does not choose to favor homosexuals over heterosexuals because it has a political agenda, its simply a matter of the way process works.

Evolution is a process of genetic mutation and genetic inheritance. Genes mutate and many are not good, some are good for survival. Those genes that are good for survival are not enough on their own because when plant or animal dies, the genes die with it. And if there is not also instinct to reproduce and have offspring than all the genes die. And if non wanted to reproduce, we would not develop to anything more complex than a single cell organism which would die after first generation.

Therefore, it is critical for evolutionary process that genes are passed down to next generation. When a Zebra is born homosexual there are advantages to it. They don’t have to raise young, they don’t have to fight for mates they can use the energy and time for other things, like staying alive and better fed. But once that Zebra dies so do homosexual genes dies as well. Actually, that is wrong term to use. Homo is description for human race, but let’s say same sex preference. It will not appear in the Zebra gene pool until another random mutation happens. And since it does not perform the critical function of reproduction from evolutionary point of view, Zebra’s same sex preference for partners is a genetic mistake, a defect. Zebras don’t have LGBT activists so they don’t argue about it.

Human society is slightly more complex and therefore there can be arguments made in favor of homosexuality, but in a way that most homosexuals would not be happy about.

I suspect that in situations where homosexuality , an unchoosable position, was prosecuted over the centuries, the best way to shake of suspicion would be to get married and have bunch of kids, right? Unlike Zebras, humans have that capacity. So homosexuals could have not only be the result of random mutation like in other species, but they could also have passed down their genes, by having children and pretending they are not homosexual…. At least not officially. And since there was no easy way to test it, or even now its more a matter of trusting ones word, heterosexuality could have been faked, and social norms could have been followed.

Than there is also a matter of guilt one might feel for being born homosexual, like in various religious communities, something Zebras don’t have to deal with, and they could have tried to simply deny it, trying to blend in as members of society, being plagued by inner conflict and guilt.

This does not mean they could not have been productive members of society. Probably the best example that I can think of was Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564) one of the most influential sculptors, architects and painters of the Italian Renaissance.

He was almost certainly attracted to same sex partners but he lived in a time when that was not something you can choose to be and call yourself homosexual. He was also a deeply pious man and a devoted Roman Catholic at the time when Christianity was at its peak. So he never married, didn’t have children as far as I know, and most of his relationships were platonic, not sexual.

He did however express his sexual preferences in his art. But because he never had to provide for a family and deal with messy business of relationships he had instead marry his art and spend his all energy on being a big contribution to catholic church, which is why he was tolerated and even celebrated, and to Florence, Rome and Western Civilization in general. In other words, from evolutionary point of view his personal genetic defects, was turned into advantage by being free with time and resources to be a great contribution to society. And so his loyalty was not selfishly to himself it was to his art and to his country and to Church.

If all gay men and women were like that today, we would see boom in culture like we have never seen before, instead of them joining destructive selfish political activism and destroying the very same culture that brought them here and attacking those which genetics made them possible. How ungrateful and selfish is that.
If someone wants to practice homosexuality in their private time, I have no objections, but when someone wants to force by law everyone else to not only give them rights they didn’t deserve solely on the basis of the fact that they like to take it up the ass, that is something I do not support. Ones contribution and identity must go beyond his sexual preference. Otherwise we are in destructive are of identity politics we find ourselves now.

Take someone like Douglas Murray, a conservative British author. He is gay, but he is not gay and that is his sole excuse for existing. He is a smart, mature, sensitive author and social commentator that does not engage in identity politics, on the contrary no matter how much he would personally benefit from it, he is opposing it because he understands the destructive nature of it.

So much for homosexuality in other species and humans. Medically it’s a defect in other society, and in human society it can be a variant of humanity if it can mature enough to be above identity politics. Otherwise they get no sympathy from me, because they show no mercy to others.

@tracycoyle You mentioned HRT. I’m not familiar with the meaning of that acronym, can you explain it please? Another term is GID. Another one I’m nor familiar with. Can you expand on that please?

@tracycoyle “The fact that so many commit suicides is not solely evidence of the deep issues we are dealing with but the utter tyranny of the majority demanding conformity OR ELSE.”

What is the alternative? It is in the instinct of the group to outcast or even kill anyone who is different, to protect themselves. If they don’t, they are the compromised. If in the wild animal predator or prey, is born albino, they have very little chances of survival.

Albino, predator to the extend it relies on camouflage will have harder time hunting and will starve to death. And albino herbivore will be easily seen and picked off by predators. That way the chances of being that color are reduced by natural selection and those that have favorable genes for survival will move on, eventually leading to stronger individuals. It’s a perpetual arms race.

Being born Albino male in many more primitive societies is treated the same. In Africa they would cut hands of the boys being born Albino, thinking of them as evil spirits or demons.

In the more modern western sociality, we go to other extremes. We not only accept anyone we demand the majority lowers its standards to meet the demands of these who cannot keep up. We make arguments of compassion as to why that is, but at what point do we start to undermine ourselves as society. At what point do we start to allow tyranny of minority. As we do these days. Where someone proclaiming, they are transgender can get other fired for not agreeing with that proclamation and can get special privileges and force others to not only accept it, but worship it as if it’s the new norm. So, tell me, where is the line we should draw it? When does compassion become weakness instead of strength?

“MY opinion is that transgender is a societal issue. Non-conformity/rebellion towards normative behavior, have been elevated in parts of society such that they are inducing such in people that by themselves probably would not be considered such. Transsexualism is a function of hormonal mis-development (we are getting there, but it is NOT yet definitive). If confirmed, it will underscore the need to make the body conform to the internal self-identification because we can not repair such a system defect. Given the relief most transsexuals gain from transition, I will continue to hope we attain such understanding in the (near) future.”

I think I understand what you are trying to say and I don’t blame you. I would almost agree actually, but I have a problem with some of the terminology.

Transsexual or transgender is the same thing, since sex and gender mean the same thing biologically and they have been recasts as new terms for political reasons. Word “Trans” implies transition, which is impossible to make in the case of sex/gender. It can happen in ones head, but not in scientific terms. If it happens in ones head than the questions is, is it harmful to the person or not, and is such a person harmful to others or not.

If such an individual is not harmful to others and to themselves, then as far as I am concerned by all means more power to you. Hope it works out for you. If such an individual is in fact harmful to others and to themselves than they need to be placed under observation and protection for obvious reasons. Just like anyone else with any other mental issue.

As far as the word disorder is concern, I have a lot of problem with that word as well. It’s a terminology what was designed to be more efficient for the benefits of bureaucrats and drug companies and military.

The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 arose from a tradition filled with haphazard science and politically driven choices and I could go in great length about that, but I will keep it short and just say that that beyond having problem of medical malpractice and political agendas, from a simply common sense point of view, problem with word “disorder” that is so easily used to label everything and anything these days is that….

Mental health professionals use the manual to determine and help communicate a patient's diagnosis after an evaluation. Hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies in the US may require a DSM diagnosis for all patients treated. The DSM can be used clinically, or to categorize patients using diagnostic criteria for research purposes. but they are correlated with the pharmaceutical corps to for profit purposes. Some studies done on specific disorders often recruit patients whose symptoms match the criteria listed in the DSM for that disorder

There was extensive analysis and comment on DSM-IV (published in 1994) in the years leading up to the 2013 publication of DSM-5. It was alleged that the way the categories of DSM-IV were structured, as well as the substantial expansion of the number of categories within it, represented increasing medicalization of human nature, very possibly attributable to disease mongering by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies, the power and influence of the latter having grown dramatically in recent decades.

However, although the number of identified diagnoses had increased by more than 300% (from 106 in DSM-I to 365 in DSM-IV-TR), psychiatrists such as Zimmerman and Spitzer argued that this almost entirely represented greater specification of the forms of pathology, thereby allowing better grouping of more similar patients. In other words it helps bureaucracy, not the patients.

The evolution of the DSM has played a leading role in the medicalization of psychiatry, and has consequently sparked controversy. Proponents argue the hyper-specificity of DSM-V has led to more accurate diagnoses, while critics argue it has simply led to more.

The DSM is the bible of psychiatry; the go-to place to find out who is sick and who is not. Because it will radically stretch the boundaries of what is and what is not a psychiatric illness, DSM 5 will dramatically change how lives are lived. Under DSM 5's new definitions, millions of people now considered normal will be diagnosed as mentally ill, causing unnecessary, costly, and sometimes dangerous treatments for misidentified 'patients' who don't really need them. Will the DSM 5 destroy what is considered normal?

Power of language.

“The power to label is the power to destroy.”

  • Allen Frances, Saving Normal

So instead of looking at underlaying physiological problem and conflicts that might cause symptoms, all that is too much work so they ignore it and just look at the symptoms. They look at symptoms cross refence that with the manual witch ever more growing number of “disorders” and pretty soon everything is called disorders. I would call it lazy medicine and scandalous psychiatry. But its in fact good business and efficient bureaucracy.

That is why I’m very skeptical about this thing they call disorder. Every day there is a new one. I call it disorder of society gone mad.

@tracycoyle "Bias against transsexuals began to wane as we moved into the 2000s, it has begun to climb again mostly in response to the transgender movement activism which is destroying support. I continue to use the words promulgated within the medical community to explain the issues - I don't need to change the terms but rather expand the understanding behind them. Activists, primarily on the Left, can not - DO NOT - care about those whom they claim to represent. They are making political statements, not medical ones. I reject them. I oppose them."

I can respect that.

@KrunoS Whether it was good policy or not, it did happen. There are certainly parts of it that I thought were an attempt to "equalize" an outcome. Other aspects were no more intrusive than ANY OTHER LAW, which infringes upon rights, of which there are many (if not all).

In this country we protect the minorities rights in the face of the majorities will - that is the nature of protecting rights. We want to have majority rule as long as we protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. It is why we have a Republic, it is why we have the Electoral College, versus a pure democracy.

Identity politics has been a net negative - but I think recognition for others is fine. Let's lay the blame where it needs to be - Marxist ideology that infects much of the Left and it's destructiveness towards individual liberty.

@tracycoyle "In this country we protect the minorities rights in the face of the majorities will - that is the nature of protecting rights" Ok, But my question is what do people which ever group they belong to have a duty which they perform in exchange for the privileges given to them by others? I hear "right", I hear "privileges" but "R" responsibility or "D" duty must be silently pronounced because I can't hear them.

@KrunoS So we agree that using two single account analysis' and trying to reach any conclusion for a large group is of no value.

Let me offer a point about 'self identification'. GID relies upon the patient to describe their issues - we can't measure it in a lab (at this time). Let me offer another example: Six years ago I developed an infection in the bone of my spine. As a result, they removed two vertebra and three discs. They replaced them with A LOT of metal to hold a 3" cage around the newly exposed spinal cord. The cord did not appear damaged during the 19+ hr surgery. However, what I felt when I woke after 6 days in a coma and another 20 days with no ongoing memory was unquantifiable by doctors - they had to rely on my 'self identification' of the issues. It took another 4 years for the damage to be detectable (it is progressive) and measurable. We rely on people to tell us what is going on inside them. Pain levels are another place where 'self identification' occurs regularly. Does self identification come with issues? Duh. EVERY situation that relies upon human perception does. Can it be abused? DUH again. There are people that will abuse any opportunity. Doesn't negate the value, the purpose, the NEED for such self identification.

We simply lack the tools to be able to analyze every situation objectively. For now. That is the advantage of living right now - things are changing every day. That is the disadvantage of living right now - we don't know enough.

@tracycoyle But your example does not require every doctor in the country by law to change their medial practice. It is practiced on individual case by case basis with both doctors and patient cooperating willingly. Various activism and identity politics does not operate in that way. They demand everyone bend the knee. That is tyranny by other means. By means of language.

If your example was for individuals who choose to identify under whichever identity they prefer, I wrote about that in my response. If they are not harm to themselves and others, they can identify as a couch as far as I'm concerned, its their problem. But self identification cannot be used as a legit measure for forcing others on agreeing the same thing.

In human history this has been done many times. And we call them religious wars. My god is better than your god. And than we kill each other. If you want a civilized society, and don't want to fight religious wars, there must be stronger argument than I self identify as.... blank.

@KrunoS variant: a form or version of something that differs in some respect from other forms of the same thing or from a standard.

It puts no value to it. When it happens once, I agree that to name it something else makes no sense. For it to happen REPEATEDLY, even if rarely, then we can name it something that reflects similar outcomes. Variant has no positive or negative connotation. Being an albino is a variant - yes, it's basis is a genetic defect.

GID: Gender Identity Disorder - the medical communities definition of what is going on within transsexuals.

HRT: Hormone Replacement Therapy.

HRT can be used with non-GID situations. Women that have a hysterectomy are often put on HRT.

@tracycoyle But we don't call blind person a variant of a normal person , because we recognize it for what it is. Why would a birth defect in another area of the body, be called differently, which happens even more rarely. But if you want to make the argument that word put no value to it, I can live with that.

@KrunoS Your thinking with regard to homosexuality - I can see your perspective, I just disagree with it.

My only point is that we have created laws that give benefits to people for certain behaviors - like getting married and having children. There are lots of arguments FOR such laws, but it puts those that do not get married and have children, legally, at a disadvantage. Getting rid of those laws would disrupt too many people so we have MORE laws to try and balance it out.

I supported gay marriage because I support marriage. I think marriage is a net positive to society and more of it is better than less of it. The arguments against gay marriage based on Scripture or tradition were seen for what they were - identity politics.

@KrunoS There are elements of your thinking about DSM-5 that are commonly accepted. But we have 'specified' in greater detail many other medical specifically but scientific generally, issues. It is the nature of the beast that as we understand things better we are able to categorize differences. There is no reason not to do so when appropriate and it is such more often that not.

BTW, my definition of normal: A system or organism that functions within the environment for which it was created, without modification.

@tracycoyle Gay marriage? That a tricky one. If it was only about people in love, than I would agree with you and for some it is. But we have seen that it does not stop there. Than its adopting children. Or that famous incident where someone din't want to bake the cake for gay couples and they were prosecuted for it? That is not about love or tolerance , that is very much political. And its a slippery slope that seems to be only going in oen direction. More privelages less responsibility.

In regards to sociaty helping those that have children. Another sleery slope. Are they really helping a family or are they making laws that help one person, usually woman over the other. Because the laws are very uneavin and favor women, thanks to feminism. Child support , wealtfare states etc. Payed by others, mostly men.

With fathers out of the day women started to use them as a way to get money from child support and wealtfare and the critical component of father in a family is thrown aside. That is not, what helps anyone.

Off course at the core of all of this, is that there is no responsibility being trade for preivelages, but the demand not even argument is based on identity politics.

As for Scripture and Tradition, they have an argument in their favor. They have been tested over many thousands of years and exits in part because they work. They need to adopt and evolve themselves, but they have trial and error of generations to their favor, which the other side does not. Its not just my option vs yours kind of argument, there is history on their side.

@KrunoS There is a medical distinction between transsexual and transgender. They are not, functionally and semantically, the same.

@tracycoyle BTW, my definition of normal: A system or organism that functions within the environment for which it was created, without modification.

You mean biological normal? But if that is normal than that would exclude homosexuals and everyone else pretty much except heterosexuals. Are you making an argument against your previous claims?

@tracycoyle other than that of language, what is the distinction between transsexual and transgender? With lose language I can see it being made, but outside of language argument, what is the difference?

@KrunoS I think your position with regard to rights and duties reflects your understanding of the term 'right' and 'duty', ie responsibility. I don't agree with your position and it is not reflected in our general understandings of the terms.

Similarly, having a right is not a privilege. Gaining a right previously denied is not a privilege either. Because something was a way in the past did not make it correct, or even preferable. We recognized (after thousands of years of human civilization) that slavery was wrong. It was not a "privilege" blacks attained to be treated the same as whites. Giving women the 'privilege' of voting was only equalizing the 'privilege' men had to do so.

I don't agree with anti-discrimination laws, but I understand that there are MILLIONS of assholes out there that just can't be respectful of others different than themselves. I do agree that we have gone too far with it but majority rules and all....

@KrunoS Being blind IS a variant - because that term is not commonly used does not make it so.

@KrunoS I was in a lesbian relationship for 18+ years. My partner adopted a baby girl from China that had been abandoned by her biological parents - left in an abandoned building on Christmas Day. I was not able to adopt her because we were not allowed to be married. Yet, we were a family. My partner passed 9 years ago and I adopted our daughter. That legal relationship gave our daughter 'rights', it didn't change my responsibilities - though she was an adult at the time.

Historical support for something that was enforced by edict/law or tradition did not make it 'naturally better'.

@tracycoyle What do you mean... "I think your position with regard to rights and duties reflects your understanding of the term 'right' and 'duty', ie responsibility. I don't agree with your position and it is not reflected in our general understandings of the terms."

Freedom is not free. Nothing comes for free. Only reason you can have your "rights" is because of events and wars fought for you to have the luxury. How long before one abuses that "right" to the point of not having it anyone? We are close in the west to that. Marxist coming full force. And your "rights" will no longer exist. If you want them you will have to fight for them. That is a duty. A responsibility of a citizen.

" Gaining a right previously denied is not a privilege either" errr,,, yes it is. Someone gave you that privilege, and someone else had to work very hard for it. Eurasians were enslaved, conquered, killed, plagued by disses, poverty you name it. But you don't hear them complaining about some privileges from the past they didn't get. Everything they have they work hard for it and fought for it. That they are owed something they didn't get themselves, that is Americans narrative that most of the world looks at with not much sympathy.

"We recognized (after thousands of years of human civilization) that slavery was wrong."

There is no evidence that that statement is true. On the contrary there is more than enough evidence to show not only is slavery in its many forms natural to human society but it is very much alive and well in the USA and in much of the world.

You can make the argument in being ethically wrong and I would agree. You can make the argument that traditional form of slavery is illegal in much of the world, but you cannot make an argument that "we" I assume humans in modern society recognize that slavery was wrong? If we did that we would not be practicing it so widely.

What was slavery? it was use of human labor with no rights given to the labor. There were other forms of slavery focused on entertainment and sexual tasks, but majority of it was physical labor. It may be illegal to own a person in the same way today and call them slave, but in your corporate culture we are more than happy to exploit people with highly one sided contracts, and put their economic usefulness above their humanity, as demonstrated by endless lay offs when they are no longer useful. Thrown away like old shoes. Sex trafficing, human trafficing, grooming gangs, etc. all alive and well and protected by our "enlighten modern society".

I see no evidence that we have stopped protracted something that is like slavery but hides another other names. I don't see evidence what we are "enlightened" I see the same laws of economics being used as in other parts of human history. if its not your immediate family or someone you like personally, you are judged on your value in the marketplace, and if you are not of value, no one cares about you. We don't value some intrinsic humanity over economics, we can't afford it. We only do that in tightly nit family groups or small tribes. Otherwise is business as usual, even if we call it something else.

@tracycoyle I disagree on the variant usage of language.

@KrunoS

What do you mean... "I think your position with regard to rights and duties reflects your understanding
of the term 'right' and 'duty', ie responsibility. I don't agree with your position and it is not reflected in
our general understandings of the terms."

I think your comments following the above clarifies it. I don't agree with your comments about rights and responsibilities and privileges. Or slavery for that matter. We could spend HOURS and huge missives about them, but I don't think we'd fundamentally change our opinions or approaches.

I will add another layer of definition into for your consideration. My rights can never be taken away - they are inherent in me. However, the liberty, the freedom to assert them CAN and is often taken away. Those rights are often, usually, infringed upon by laws (and others) but they are not removed. They still exist.

It might be considered semantics, but that is wrong.

@tracycoyle Gay couple might provide love and other support but what it cannot do is provide something that every child needs, a male father and female mother. That is in our DNA that we need that. When a gay couple tried to play the role of a mother and a father, it is going to inevitably screw with the psyche and self identity of the child.

If the argument is, that it better than alternative, than I can go along with that, but argument I can't agree on is that its the same as a male father and female mother. It is not and its part of the child's need to have it. Single parents have the same problem. And many single parents exists today because of feminist push for one sided laws and wealth fare state, which replaces the father materially but cannot replace the role of father in parenting.

This is downward spiral since than feminist raising daughters or sons tend to raise children how end up in similar situation . Women pick wrong men and end up single mothers, that is if they don't kill the baby. And men end up with screwed up women because their mother was screwed up and father was absent. Same problem. Evidence of this vicious cycle is all around us.

That is why privileges must not be given without duty traded. Any nation that does that has sign its own death warrant.

@tracycoyle "I will add another layer of definition into for your consideration. My rights can never be taken away - they are inherent in me. However, the liberty, the freedom to assert them CAN and is often taken away. Those rights are often, usually, infringed upon by laws (and others) but they are not removed. They still exist."

What do you mean? Someone can kill you or imprison you with no trial and take all your privileges you call rights away at any point. And if you don't fight for them, you can bet that is what will happen. Nothing is free. You don't have rights you have privileges someone else secured for you. You didn't fight in American war for independence did you? You didn't wrote declaration of independence? You didn't build the economy that secures you so much in your country? You didn't go to various vars and build roads? You didn't maintain law and order on the streets by paroling the area so criminals don't take away all you got? Someone had to do that for you? That was their responsibility so you can enjoy your privilege under the law.

If you take that for granted , you will lose it, as a nation and as an individual. That is how the world works. Freedom is not free. "Rights" only means something if you can enforce the law that protects them. And someone has to enforce that law for you, you can't do it yourself. its a privilege, make no mistake about it.

@KrunoS By all accounts, our daughter is well adjusted, happy, very heterosexual, in a loving relationship and stable. I know lots of children of heterosexual couples that are NONE of the above. My partner died when our daughter was just about 17 and a junior in high school. Hardest 18 months of my life.

What a child needs is loving, capable parents. I note parentS. However, I know a young woman raised by a single mom who is by all accounts, happy, well adjusted, heterosexual and stable. So, the optimum is a mother and father - but sub-optimum situations does not mean sub-optimum results. And making laws that demand the optimum is just as much an infringement upon individual liberties and those that punish the sub-optimum.

@KrunoS I can be murdered. That ends my ability to assert rights because it ends ME. You can argue the rights go away when I die, and I accept THAT argument, but I can be imprisoned and that also denies me liberty to assert my rights. But the rights don't disappear.

This is the situation I indicated above. Our difference of opinion on rights/privileges/responsibilities informs our behaviors and functionally doesn't change how we deal with society - and by 'we' I mean you and me personally.

Our differences are generally on the same side of the ideological divide.

@tracycoyle "What a child needs is loving, capable parents. I note parentS. However, I know a young woman raised by a single mom who is by all accounts, happy, well adjusted, heterosexual and stable. So, the optimum is a mother and father - but sub-optimum situations does not mean sub-optimum results. And making laws that demand the optimum is just as much an infringement upon individual liberties and those that punish the sub-optimum."

Fair points. You can't argue that via law based on identity, but on other characteristics and many unknown factors that might influence a child over its lifetime. Arguments in legal framework I hear are not adequate for making gay couples same as non gay couples.

It is far more individual thing as you pointed out. And this is were laws are way to crude. However all things being equal, things are not equal. A child needs a male father and female mother that work well together. The rest depends on many factors beyond our control.

@tracycoyle "can be imprisoned and that also denies me liberty to assert my rights. But the rights don't disappear." But rights are not just arbitrary language. If they are not honored by others, they cannot exist outside your own mind. Which is not much of an argument.

"Our differences are generally on the same side of the ideological divide."

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Can you explain please?

@KrunoS I mean: We are making distinctions about terms and beliefs, but in the end, I suspect we support individual liberty, "conservative values" and freedom. That we oppose 'identity politics', ie Marxism.

@tracycoyle More or less. Yes. But I think we mostly disagree with is that where you see individual liberty "as right" I see is as "privilege" which comes with responsibility and duty. "conservative values" I guess that is why you put it in quotation because what is conversation value probably varies between us. Yes.

And freedom.... I guess we didn't discuss the word freedom, but yeah I guess we mean the same thing. Few definitions more or less. 🙂

And yes, absolutely I oppose 'identity politics', ie Marxism. Completely. Yes,

@tracycoyle Thanks for the discussion. I think we touched on many of the key points. Thanks.

@KrunoS

I make a distinction between sex and gender. Yes, these words have been more or less synonymous in many circles, but not always. Language has a tendency to shift and change over time, based on usage rather than rules. So let me be precise in the distinction I'm making -- if there are better words to use, I'm all for it; I don't want to get into language games or a battle over semantics.

By "sex" I mean embodiment, as it pertains to presumed reproductive function, which is (obviously) binary. By "gender" I mean the social conventions that have arisen from the binary sexual model.

Transsexuals wish to change their embodiment to match the opposite sex. Transgender people wish to change the social conventions associated with sex. Some transsexuals are transgender -- and certainly all of them are during the period of transition. I would argue that those who maintain a social identity of "transsexual" when all is said and done are also transgender. Those who completely blend into society, on the other hand, could be said to have "transsexed."

@SophiaPistis

I see. I disagree. But I understand your perspective.

I cannot agree on what you are saying, especially in the usage of sex and gender, because you are using terminology that didn't happen by accident, therefore its not a matter of semantics, it was engineered that way for political reasons. I have traced in my research reasons why and how the distinction happened, and I assure you it is engineering of language.

In their famous article, “Doing Gender,” West and Zimmerman report making the sex/gender distinction in their sociology classes starting in the late 1960s. I’m guessing this really started to catch on among sociologists in the 1970s, based on this diagram I'll post bellow, of “social construction of gender” and “social construction of sex” as percentages of all uses of “social construction” in American English. Notice anything peculiar?

The spread of this distinction in the popular understanding — and I don’t know how far it has spread — seems to be credited to sociologists, maybe because people learn it in an introductory sociology course.

Sociologists make a distinction between gender and sex. Gender is the perceived or projected component of human sexuality while sex is the biological or genetic component. Why do sociologists differentiate between gender and sex? Differentiating gender from sex allows social scientists to study influences on sexuality without confusing the social and psychological aspects with the biological and genetic aspects. As discussed below, gender is a social construction. If a social scientist were to continually talk about the social construction of sex, which biologists understand to be a genetic trait, this could lead to confusion.

Note: Gender is social construct, construct of language engineering. Sex and Gender are one and the same biologically.

"The distinction between sex and gender, a building block of feminist theory since the 1970s, seems to be widely accepted today. What is female and male biology and physiology are considered genetic and hormonal outcomes, while the rest of what is feminine and masculine is considered socially and culturally produced." — Judith Lerber, Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, (CUNY), 2011

If I cannot agree with the distinction between gender and sex terminology, I cannot also accept words that escaped, or should I say hijacked from the medial community into sociology and political community. Trans-sexual or trans-gender.

I've written enough on this thread on the topic, so I suppose I can assume that we agree to disagree on this?

@tracycoyle

You say, "I was born male, will die male. That is biology. We are 'assigned' a determinate sex at birth based SOLELY on secondary sex characteristics - our genitals."

We generally don't see people's genitals out in the world. We make sex assignments based on secondary sexual characteristics instead -- in particular, the embodied changes brought about by an estrogenic puberty versus an androgenic puberty -- and then gender people accordingly.

But in addition to that, we also go by how other people "do gender." You might elicit female gendering at first, but that could change. Your mother might talk about what you did when you were a boy, or call you "my son." You might say you transitioned. Or you might exhibit male socialization behaviors instead of female socialization behaviors, such that someone might question their initial read of you. You might then have to request of the person who just met you to please continue to gender you female.

I would say, to the extent you have to ask people for different gendering than you're currently eliciting, you're transgender.

@SophiaPistis I say 'assigned', I mean at birth - a necessary distinction.

As adults, we tend to conform to binary representations that give others 'clues' or details as to gender. When someone is non-conforming to the point where direct observation is insufficient, then we have to rely on self identification. People need to recognize that issue and allow for it - the non-conformists have to allow for the 'mis-gendering' at the initial contact, correct and move on rather than scream about it.

The goal of the transsexual is not to be misgendered - they seek to pass as the gender they are transitioning to or have transitioned to. Once 'transition' is done, they don't consider themselves 'trans'. Certainly there are those that continue to identify as such and I respectfully don't seek to dismiss them in any way, but I don't consider myself "trans" - I completed the process. Many others I have talked to agree.

GID defines a transsexual. Generally speaking transgendered do not suffer from GID as defined.

Your comments to @KrunoS: I agree with you and where I don't, it is just semantics.

@tracycoyle "When someone is non-conforming to the point where direct observation is insufficient, then we have to rely on self identification. People need to recognize that issue and allow for it - the non-conformists have to allow for the 'mis-gendering' at the initial contact, correct and move on rather than scream about it."

We can rely on psychiatric evaluation as we have done before it became politically correct not to do so. And we should not allow someone to claim something we know its impossible biologically, but its possible psychologically. And than it becomes a matter of is that person insane or not. If they are not, than they need to make a stronger argument than I self identify, and if they are insane there are methods of psychoanalyses that have been developed and would detect it.

Next question is are they harm to themselves and others or not and based on that decision should be made what to do next. If they are not a treat than its their business what they want to believe. if they are treat than for obvious reasons the people in charge need to move in.

If this process was not politically undermined it would work just fine. As it happens it was and there is plenty of evidence to support that as well as claims from those that did it.

"The goal of the transsexual is not to be misgendered - they seek to pass as the gender they are transitioning to or have transitioned to. Once 'transition' is done, they don't consider themselves 'trans'. Certainly there are those that continue to identify as such and I respectfully don't seek to dismiss them in any way, but I don't consider myself "trans" - I completed the process. Many others I have talked to agree."

But that has no basis in medial arena that is more akin to religious person claiming they have had some "spiritual" experience. And in that matter the way I see it, is that if you want to choose your religion by all means do. Choose whichever shoe fit you. But don't try to force me to wear it.

It seems to me that you personally have found the proverbial shoe that fits you and some activists did not stop there and that is the problem I think we both agree on. They try to make others wear their shoe and workshop the beauty of the shoe. That is religious fanaticism. And we said we both are against it if I'm not mistaken.

@KrunoS

Then let me not use "sex" and "gender" as you have strong preference for how those words are used. Like I said, I'm not that interested in playing the language game. I will not use the word "gender" at all here, and "sex" only to refer to embodiment.

What I'd like to converse about is the distinction between embodiment and the different behaviors we have which are based on that embodiment (you do agree that embodiment and behavior are not the same, yes?) and which of these distinctions have been emphasized between the "transsexual" movement of the twentieth century and the "transgender" movement of the twenty-first century. These movements use different words and have different purposes. It's the different purposes that are important here.

Obviously, men have different bodies than women, and these differences are immediately perceptible, which impacts behavior. Men behave differently towards women than they do towards men. Women behave differently towards men than they do towards women. This has nothing to do with language. Much if not most of these behavioral differences are rooted in biology (mating strategies) and some of these differences are rooted in culture (like using different pronouns for people of one sex or the other, which isn't universal across all languages).

The transsexual movement of the twentieth century was mostly about gaining access to medical technologies such that a transsexual could change their body sufficiently to be seen as the opposite sex. It was about changing embodiment, which, if sufficiently done, would lead to eliciting different behaviors towards that person, behaviors normatively associated with the opposite sex.

(It seems likely to me that such a person has some kind of neurological disorder -- and to be most generous, that there's some kind of "map" of their self in their brain that's "hardwired" to the general categorical map or model or schema they have of the opposite sex -- I say "hardwired" because the literature suggests a goodly number of them can't be talked out of it. This is likely another conversation. Please excuse my digression.)

I see the transgender movement of the twenty-first century repudiating the transsexual movement, and insisting that the different kinds of behavior that emerge from having different kinds of bodies has nothing to do with biological differences or bodies at all. They claim that all such differences in behavior are purely social constructions and arbitrary ones at that, and that by "coming out" (that is, by presenting a narrative, which is definitely a kind of language game) everyone else should conform to their narrative. They are focused almost entirely on behavior (with the caveat that a good many of them seem to want to take opposite-sex hormones).

The connection between the two has to do with the fact that transsexuals can't change their bodies overnight, and many can't change their bodies sufficiently at all, so they have to rely on "social conventions" (asking people to treat them differently) to elicit the behavioral differences from other people until they can change their bodies. And by "change their bodies" I mean more than phalloplasty or vaginoplasty -- they have to change their secondary sexual characteristics to be taken as the opposite sex in the vast majority of social situations. My informants tell me that they were required to make those requests in order to gain access to the medical technologies necessary to change embodiment; they were also happy to change their own behaviors to conform to what was expected of the opposite sex. This is very different from what we see in the "trans" movement today.

@SophiaPistis Now that is far more sensible and reasonable descriptive overview that I can agree on. Yes.

On a less descriptive and more condemning note of the movements.... Language is important, because who controls the language controls the narrative and that has real world consequences. And off course these movements didn't show up out of nowhere and are linked to many ideologies and movements before them that paved the way, and these movements are not constrained to some unfortunate individuals in some secluded places. They are mainstream and they are responsible for hosts of attacks on others under banner of activism , and now in sufficient number they are called "cancel culture" and have gone on to become riots on the streets, adopting along the way as many excuses as they can why they are doing it. That is why words and their meaning is important. Feminist have released the monster that it attacking them as well when they played with language.

@tracycoyle

You say you're not trans anymore, yet here you are on IDW identifying as a transsexual. Perhaps it would be safe to say that you practice a sort of compartmentalization -- you are trans in a few social milieus, and not trans in other social milieus?

Or perhaps this is a semantics issue again -- when you say you're not trans anymore, what you mean is you're not gender dysphoric anymore?

I take it you have a social life where people don't know you've transitioned?

@SophiaPistis I try to make a distinction in discussions and in my personal life. I am post-op. That suggests transsexual. I clarify that I am a Classical Liberal when talking to Conservatives, when talking to someone on the Left I just say Conservative. There are levels of distinction, nuance if you will, in stating things relative to the audience and context.

Correct - there are places in my life where my specific past is not known. I don't fear being outed, the people in my life where it is relevant all know. I no longer have GID. It was resolved with transition.

@SophiaPistis Your characterization of transsexual and transgender is very good.

@KrunoS

Ah, now I understand your emphasis on the language game. You don't want the word "gender" to refer to social conventions or behavioral differences, you want it to exclusively refer to sexual embodiment, because of what you see as the political ramifications of such usage? I suspect you're railing against the "social constructionist" philosophy.

While I appreciate the sentiment, especially given the odiousness of the current political movement, I have to admit I do like the ease of using the word "gender" to refer to sex-differentiated behavior and social conventions, especially when using variants of "gender" as a verb, adjective, or gerund, as opposed to using it as a noun. "To gender" someone as male means to treat them as male. Someone who has elicited male pronouns in third-person conversation has "been gendered" as male. Indeed, "he/him" are gendered pronouns, and the whole ritual system of sex-differentiated behaviors from and towards men can be called "male gendering." But to use it in this fashion requires to always make sure that we're talking about behavior and not embodiment.

The current transgender movement does the opposite. They have conflated sex and gender, such as, when they say, "My gender is male," or "My gender is non-binary." They use the word "gender" in a way to erase sex; their language game is to cancel the word "sex" so as to erase the notion of biological sex altogether. This is not the same language game of fifty years ago; likewise, it's not the same political game, either.

So I'm not sure I agree with your tactics in this regard. While I agree that the social constructionist position of early feminism and sociology is politically motivated and certainly incorrect (I'm very much in the camp of evolutionary biology), strangely enough, I think it may better suit our purposes to insist on talking about sex, and redirecting the use of "gender" to behavior, without conceding that such behavior can only be "socially constructed" or arbitrary.

@tracycoyle

What differences have you observed between people who knew you from before your transition, those who came to know you after you transitioned but now know of the transition, and those who know you now but don't know you've transitioned?

@SophiaPistis

"Ah, now I understand your emphasis on the language game. You don't want the word "gender" to refer to social conventions or behavioral differences, you want it to exclusively refer to sexual embodiment, because of what you see as the political ramifications of such usage? I suspect you're railing against the "social constructionist" philosophy."

No, not entirely against just some harmless philosophy or talking points. Not philosophy as some kind of debate, but rather a discrimination. Marxism packaged as "human rights".

Probably the most famous example is now famous Jordan Peterson and Bill C-16. Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, one of the biggest university and most important ones in Canada.

On 27 September 2016, Peterson released the first installment of a three-part lecture video series, entitled "Professor against political correctness: Part I: Fear and the Law."

In the video, he stated he would not use the preferred gender pronouns of students and faculty, saying it fell under compelled speech, and announced his objection to the Canadian government's Bill C-16, which proposed to add "gender identity or expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and to similarly expand the definitions of promoting genocide and publicly inciting hatred in the hate speech laws in Canada.

Basically they, activists in Canada pushed for the law to force normal sane people to call insane people by their chosen pronouns. He was the only one in university to stand up for free speech and against discrimination.

In UK they have though police and though laws, where police comes to your door to "check your thinking as they say it" because you refuse to agree with someone on Twitter over this. I shit you not. You get criminal record. Now if you feel that is not Orwellian enough, and its just some harmless symatics of language. Think again because by the admission of feminist themselves who started this, its engineering of language for political purposes. Except that is one genie you don't put back in the bottle.

I'm sure you have herd about TERFS vs Trans etc. Where feminist are also attacked because they lost the control over this monster they created.

TERF (/ˈtɜːrf/, also written terf) is an acronym for trans-exclusionary feminist. Coined in 2008, the term is applied to a minority of feminists who espouse sentiments that other feminists consider transphobic, such as opposition to transgender rights legislation, the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, and the rejection of the assertion that trans women are women.

There is now clinics (butchers shops) all around the world where kids are subjected to surgical procedures that are not reversible and do not follow science by crazy religion. And this is not one case or two cases, this is on mass kids, young kids being butchered. The activists are trying to now push for pedophiles to be as accepted as trans. Kids in school at young age are being indoctrinated where drag queens are preaching about anal sex and god knows what.

All because of harmless little "gender" vs "sex" idea. That is one genie you don't put back in the bottle.

You said: "The current transgender movement does the opposite. They have conflated sex and gender, such as, when they say, "My gender is male," or "My gender is non-binary." They use the word "gender" in a way to erase sex; their language game is to cancel the word "sex" so as to erase the notion of biological sex altogether. This is not the same language game of fifty years ago; likewise, it's not the same political game, either."

Yes. its a weapon and a very dangers one too. For example they pushed for By intimidation, cultural pressure and politics they managed to also not only make themselves virtually immune from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) as mentally screwed up by they also managed to push for masculinity traits to be treated as mental illness. Talking about lunatics running the asylum. They are also realized that if they push for laws to change, in democracy another party can come to office and change the laws. So they are pushing for human rights. Because if they pass that than they can be untouchable by law. And they are succeeding.

“Today pluralism operates as a court religion, while having less and less intellectual credibility. Betraying the plastic terminology in which its directives are framed are the additions to the “Human Rights Code” passed in the Canadian province of Ontario in 1994. The Code cites “human dignity” to justify the criminalization of “conduct or communication [that] promotes the superiority or inferiority of a person or class because of race, class, or sexual orientation.” The law has already been applied to prosecute scholars making hereditarian arguments about social behavior, and its proponents defend this muzzling as necessary for “human dignity.” But never are we told whence that dignity is derived.

We are not speaking here about the dignity of nonengineered academic discourse, an act that the supporters of the Ontario Human Rights Code consider to be criminal if judged insensitive. Yet the pluralist advocates of human rights codes that now operate in Canada, Australia, England, and on the European continent assume there is a human dignity. Indeed this dignity is so widely and passionately accepted, or so it is asserted, that we must criminalize unkind communication. In the name of that supposedly axiomatic dignity, we are called upon to suppress scholarship and even to imprison its authors.” ― Paul Edward Gottfried, After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State

“Within three hundred years Jesus went from being a Jewish apocalyptic prophet to being God himself, a member of the Trinity. Early Christianity is nothing if not remarkable.” ― Bart D. Ehrman

In just a few decades or less than that, Trans activists went from "we are different", to "we want equality", to "we want the whole word to adopt to us", to "we want schools to teach our fictional history and our doctrine, enforced by law and anyone who does to call us by our preferred pronouns would go to jail," as is the case in UK.

This is not a harmless idea, or semantics, on the contrariety this a very dangerous idea and that is why language matters. It has real power.

@SophiaPistis, you said "This is not the same language game of fifty years ago; likewise, it's not the same political game, either."

No it is not. The word "Sex" used to mean that same thing as word "gender" before the feminist started weaponizing it.

Sex means same thing as Gender. But because of politeness in society the word sex was replaced with the word gender to avoid confusion of "sex" meaning sexual intercourse. And so in medial field sex was used most of the time and in casual dinner talks gender was used for obvious reasons. Perhaps that is era from which you come from and are used to it.

But as far back as 1949 the seminal feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir made this programmatic recommendation: “Language is inherited from a masculine society and contains many male prejudices . . . Women simply have to steal the instrument; they don’t have to break it or try a priori to make it something totally different. Steal it and use it for their own good” (1972, p. 123). The response came much later in the form of various examples of feminist redefinitions in publications mainly or exclusively written by women. These have expanded from Oz (launched in February 1967) and Spare Rib (launched in June 1972) to become a new genre, concerned with the redefinition of experience from a woman’s and a feminist perspective.

Gender traditionally referred to an abstract grammatical notion, but has in recent decades been used in expanded areas of reference. As the OED puts it, somewhat awkwardly: “in modern (esp. feminist) use, a euphemism for the sex of a human being, often intended to emphasise the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological distinctions between the sexes.” The dictionary’s earliest key quotation is from Alex Comfort’s Sex in Society (1963): “The gender role learned by the child of two years is for most individuals almost irreversible, even if it runs counter to the physical sex of the subject.” Other formulations are “gender identity,” “gender models,” and “gender gap.”

Roger Scruton, in an editorial in the Literary Review, insisted that the change was engineered:

"During the 1970s American feminists seized on the idea of gender as a social construct, and used it to hide the truth about sex as a biological destiny. By replacing the word “sex” with the word “gender” they imagined that they could achieve at a stroke what their ideology required of them – to rescue sex from biology and to recast it as a complex social choice." (December 2002/January 2003, p. 1)

Not everybody was persuaded that this important semantic change had come about symbiotically.

Indeed: Roger Scruton made a key observation, which is that feminist understood, they cannot win in direct competition with men, so in a sneaky way they saw opportunity in hijacking the language of the sociaty and turning it into political weapon. " As far back as 1949 the seminal feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir made this programmatic recommendation: “Language is inherited from a masculine society and contains many male prejudices . . . Women simply have to steal the instrument; they don’t have to break it or try a priori to make it something totally different. Steal it and use it for their own good” (1972, p. 123)."

Feminists — including feminist sociologists — have made important progress by drawing the conceptual distinction between sex and gender, with sex the biological and gender the social categories. From this, maybe, we could recognize that gendered behavior was not simply an expression of sex categories — related to the term “sex roles” — but a socially-constructed set of practices layered on top of a crude biological base.
Lucia informs me we can date this to Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex. In 1949 she wrote:

"It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity."

Later, she added, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” And this is what Judith Butler put down as the root of the gender/sex distinction, calling it “the distinguished contribution of Simone de Beauvoir’s formulation”:

"The distinction between sex and gender has been crucial to the long-standing feminist effort to debunk the claim that anatomy is destiny… At its limit, then, the sex/gender distinction implies a radical heteronomy of natural bodies and constructed genders with the consequence that ‘being’ female and ‘being’ a woman are two very different sort of being."

In their famous article, “Doing Gender,” West and Zimmerman report making the sex/gender distinction in their sociology classes starting in the late 1960s. I’m guessing this really started to catch on among sociologists in the 1970s,

"The distinction between sex and gender, a building block of feminist theory since the 1970s, seems to be widely accepted today. What is female and male biology and physiology are considered genetic and hormonal outcomes, while the rest of what is feminine and masculine is considered socially and culturally produced." — Judith Lerber, Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, (CUNY), 2011

And the rest is as they say history.

@SophiaPistis Interesting question. First, I have friends NOW that I knew but not well in High School. EVERY instance in which I told a 'friend' of my past after they got to know me, sans one, abandoned or left. The one was my partner of 18+ years. I know others that were told of my past by my partner (without my knowledge or agreement) and they have remained the friends I knew without my understanding they'd been told.

So, my experience is that when there is another relationship involved, people remain friends BECAUSE of that relationship. Otherwise, they've abandoned the friendship. The vast number of people that I have interacted with online in which my past was a factor, generally continue the conversations but no friendships have developed from it.

Based on my conversations with others in the same age cohort and experiences, the results have been similar. I understand people think they've been lied to by us at a fundamental level and feel betrayed - that was the 'initial' reaction of my partner, she however came to the point where she understood my reasoning.

@tracycoyle

Am I mistaken in my assumption that you currently have close relationships with people who don't know your past -- who know you as a woman without knowledge of your transition?

@SophiaPistis Depends on your definition of 'close'. I have a mix of people that know and don't. I would consider four to be close - two know. Of all the people that know, I told none of them. Most are friends of family members, a couple from my high school.

@KrunoS I disagree with your characterization of the foundation/start of the word gender. We, society, used the terms sex and gender interchangeably UNTIL it was recognized that there were people (60s into the 80s) for whom they WERE NOT interchangeable. Transsexuals broke the connection most people believe🍸 existed. My gender was inconsistent with my sex. This is EXTREMELY hard for people to comprehend. Many - I think you are one - simply believe it is a political, semantic effort rather than something profound that we('ve) struggle🍸 with in a deeply personal way. Yes, that struggle is being used by the Left in a destructive way - which is why I call out the 'trans activist' as harmful to transsexuals specifically. Lesbians note it is destructive to them also.

I always ask people to separate the Leftist political power struggles from the actual people they PRETEND to represent. These people at the heart of issues, racial, sexual, are dealing with real personal issues - that are being USED for political purposes almost exclusively without their concurrence.

@tracycoyle

You might be familiar with a game called Mafia, or Werewolf? It's an elimination game, where maybe 25% of the players are Mafia and know who is Mafia and who isn't, while everyone else (the Townies) have no clue. The town votes on who to execute during the Day phase, and of course the Mafiosos are trying to get the clueless townies to hang one of their own. During the Night phase, the Mafia get to kill a townie of their choosing. And there might be special powers among the Townies as well -- usually there's a Sheriff who can investigate a player and determine conclusively if they're Town or Mafia. It's a challenging game -- the Mafia have to pretend they don't know what they know, and the Townies have to figure out who might have hidden information.

Among your close four friends, what differences have you observed between the two people who know and the two people who don't, with respect to how they behave towards you?

I would imagine there's some difference, perhaps slight, but I would imagine there's a difference that would be discernible over time. And perhaps there's a difference in how you relate to them as well?

@tracycoyle I find it hard to separate two personal from political in these matters because the political influence is so widespread in all of the organizations one would have to go trough to make the "change" as it were. You may disagree on the origins of the language and how it was endangered but you would have to offer strong evidence to the contrary or it feels a bias belief on your end since you depend on it. You want what you are saying to be true, because it is what you want. I am ok to agree with you but you would have to do research and find the alternative evidence that points to where and why the terminology came from. For the moment I think I've done more research on the topic than you have so I'll trust my research until I see evidence to the contrary.

As for separation of personal and political , like I said. It is hard to do, because they are so very much linked. I understand what you want to do, but I don't think that is possible if the political change was made on institutional level on which you depend for procedures and diagnosis and everything else. You can self diagnose off course, but how can you confirm it. Other than I self identify, you haven't provided a strong argument that goes beyond your personal feelings. And that just is not enough for me or good enough argument for changing of the laws and medical terminology.

@tracycoyle

With respect to your latest comment towards @KronoS, you might be using a different definition of "gender" than he's been railing against. I think you're using the word "gender" to convey your internal map of yourself with respect to the kind of sexed body you think you should have, as well as the social conventions that go along with such a sexed body. He's talking (I believe) about "gender" as the socially differentiated behaviors that people have based on their sex and towards people of different sexes. (And of course, the radical feminists used "gender" to refer primarily towards stereotypical sex-roles, predefined as having an oppressive power relationship, which is why they -- ironically enough, for this conversation at least -- are the ones who've trumpted "Abolish Gender" as a battle cry.)

@SophiaPistis Interesting game idea. A long time ago I was into RPG or MUG but a really bad experience (ok...it was 25 yrs ago!!!!) turned me off them, apparently forever!

The difference is in the types of conversations that we have. Conversations with the two that know (a Leftist and a Righty) tend to include the perspectives that I have because of my unique past. Conversations with the two that don't know (a Leftist and a Righty) tend to have less "personal" in them.

How they treat me does not seem to vary - my personality is VERY strong. The two that know and I have very deep and personal conversations that never happen with the other two so it changes the dynamics of the relationship and our approaches to each other, or at least MY approach to them.

@SophiaPistis Yes, but there is enough of an overlap that I get where he is coming from and yet I think misses the mark. I don't think he is working up against a strawman, but you are right that the definition of gender is so broad as to be able to stand on opposite ends internal to the definition and still be talking past each other.

@SophiaPistis, @KrunoS The problem with GID is that it MUST be self identified - there is no medical way to confirm it (yet). So, there is no way to resolve your issue with it.

As to support for my opinions on the topic of gender identity and of the distinction between those involved and those trying to politicize it, it is based on almost 50 years of personal involvement that dates back to close to the origins of the issues. I spent years TEACHING the medical profession how to deal with MY issues because there was little out there for them to learn from. I still do it.

Concurrent to the political was the medical. I acknowledge that feminists approached the issue in ways that defined the discussion for decades and continues to do so - but. Internal to the medical community and the transsexual community, the discussion is less about the political and more about the personal. Because of my closeness to the issues, it DOES dominate my opinions.

I don't appeal to authorities to support those positions, never felt the need to because the authorities are all over the map.

@SophiaPistis For me: gender is a combination of the self identity I see in my mind and the mirror along with the societal perceptions of me in daily life. I've been a woman longer than I was ever a man/boy. Society sees me as a woman, treats me as one and that makes me happy!

My sex only comes into play when my body is the focus. The biological foundation (male) has not been a factor to me in almost 30 years. I simply SEE a female, FEEL female. There is no conflict between the sex and gender BUT intellectually I understand that 'male' is still my biological foundation. That is why I say that transition resolved the GID.

@SophiaPistis Yes, exactly. I think she was thinking of something we might call I guess gender identity, that is to say how one experiences one self in relation to their sex or gender. And that identity does not have be based on biological destiny only, although often that is where the foundation lies.

I was railing against , as you so eloquently put it, against deliberate separation of word sex from the word gender in the name of political agenda. And the disastrous consequences of that.

@tracycoyle Yes "Gender Identity Disorder" is a problematic concept because it relies on self identification, but there is a way to resolve the issue, as I've mentioned before with qualified psychiatric evaluation, one not tainted by party politics.

Furthermore, its is possible to trace the origins of the term and usage for GID. And if you do that, as I have it become crystal clear that is was a political move that has nothing to do with medicine or psychiatry or biology. You can clearly track the way it has been added to the infamous Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and why it was made, who made it and when. And its quite clear that has no medial legitimacy.

You do not want to believe that because it would take away the justification you need for your state of mind. And that is off course partly the reason why it was created in the first place. As you pointed out you are bias.

DSM is like a bible to trans movement, because it provides medically approved, no matter how politically corrupt, support for what they claim to be.

"I don't appeal to authorities to support those positions, never felt the need to because the authorities are all over the map."

You may not. And if you were a sole individual that would not be a problem. As far as I know you are not trying to force others of anything. But off course you are not the reason why we are all having this discussion in the first place.

@KrunoS Before there was the DSM, there was Harry Benjamin, then John Money. Benjamin created what became the Standards of Care that defined the issues and approaches to deal with MEDICAL cases that were beginning to show up in the 50s. None of this was political. It was all the medical community trying to deal with something incomprehensible to the average person - or doctor. Concurrently, feminists were trying to break sex based stereotypes - transsexuals were the living embodiment of that FROM THE OUTSIDE. The vast majority of us were HAPPY to be part of the stereotypes we were transitioning to!

Anyway - the foundations of GID are in medicine and DSM was a late arrival to the party.

@tracycoyle "Before there was the DSM, there was Harry Benjamin, then John Money. Benjamin created what became the Standards of Care that defined the issues and approaches to deal with MEDICAL cases that were beginning to show up in the 50s. None of this was political. It was all the medical community trying to deal with something incomprehensible to the average person - or doctor."

Yes that might be true. But it was based on individual cases. Something seen even before Harry Benjamin or John Money. But there is quite a bit of controversy in methods of research and conclusions made by them including Alfred Kinsey.

I don't agree that it was incomprehensible, just something someone such as yourself who is involved would find hard to comprehend perhaps. For me its perfectly comprehensible.

"Anyway - the foundations of GID are in medicine and DSM was a late arrival to the party." I agree. But it was critical to make it mainstream which could be than used to influence law makers.

People you mentioned like Harry Benjamin and John Money or Alfred Kinsey are people who would be beneficial to your case of argument. On my side they are controversial in their methods, so one must assume that they could be wrong. That they found what they wanted to found and now they are heroes of people who are looking to find the same thing, because they made the way.

We could investigate their research methods and dissect their methodology and conclusions but I suppose that would not change your mind. Maybe not even mine.

I have written on my side of argument from evolutionary stand point, so I won't try to repeat it, but I think that is a solid argument that I'm yet to hear being disputed by counter argument. I also made an argument for psychological evaluation of someone not politically involved but qualified.

My problem with most sex researchers is that they seem to have a wish to "discover" something not yet found. I suspect that is why they start their research in the first place. Some personal reason. I mean when you read biographies of all the famous sex researchers they are very colorful biographies. And when you read about the methods of research there is plenty to be suspicious off.

I suppose that is why human sexuality is so difficult to research. It relies too much on self proclamation by the subjects and preconceived expectations of the researches. I bet if a Muslim were to conduct research in Muslim country they would find different results and people would express the sexual desires in different way because the religious and cultural influence of their country. It would taint the results. Same I suspect happens in America, especially in 20th century. But to me its a bit too suspicious because of factors I mentioned.

The arguments should be made on more primitive level, like we can observe animal behavior. But somehow we humans like to always ignore the animal side and position ourselves way above it as some kind of special creature that is completely different. And I find that naive way of thinking, because we have so much of DNA in common with animals and for the same reasons that there is no way we can escape it, especially in the case of something so primitive as sexuality. Yes we are different than animals, but there is more animal in us than we find comfortable to accept as well. I don't find that side of argument very often. Why is that?

Maybe its because it does not support the notion that we are above it all and free willed as we would like to think. Maybe animals can teach us about ourselves more than we would like to admit. Or maybe its just no politically correct to say that.

@KrunoS Because the number of transsexuals is so small, EVERY study is susceptible to valid criticisms. As far as different societies, transsexuals, by my definition and that of most people involved in the community are found IN EVERY COUNTRY. With very similar etiologies. This is not a 'western political' ideology. I am sure that there is political essays that lay out timelines and voices - but that doesn't define GID.

Your criticisms of Benjamin and Money are biased based, on your commentary. Their findings and efforts are suspect because you find their conclusions unpersuasive relative to your approval of alternate ideology. That is fine - your opinion. I don't think you are attempting to marginalize transsexuals so it matters not to me. However, after 30+ active years in the community, 50 years of being a part of it, only the last 10 years has there been a political component - attempting to tie it back to the feminist movements of the 60s and 70s is retro-judgmentalism. I will speak of Benjamin only because of my personal involvement with the Society, there wasn't a bone of political ideology in their efforts. It was driven by a need/desire to help people with a disorder that borders on BIZARRE! And even today, the attempts to describe what is going on is STILL an exercise in self identification.

That is different than 'self definition' that is going on now via identity politics. And it is very destruction to the community of transsexuals just trying to live their lives.

@tracycoyle Valid point, it probably is not Western ideology on an individual level and I imagine there has been cases around the world for hundreds for years. To me its not a medial issue but one of psychology. A way to escape some inner conflict, trauma or something similar. As I've said in the past, as long as individual is not harm to themselves and others, its their problem and they are free to chose their own solutions as far as I'm concerned.

It is dangerous when its normalized as we have seen than its also politicized very quickly after that. And that is something we need to keep a close eye on as a society.

My criticism is biased, another fair point. Same as yours for the opposite reasons. So I guess the only way to make sure would be to subjugate their studies to scrutiny because the researchers and subjects were no doubt bias as well. Fact of human condition.

" It was driven by a need/desire to help people with a disorder that borders on BIZARRE! And even today, the attempts to describe what is going on is STILL an exercise in self identification."

Fair enough.

That is different than 'self definition' that is going on no"w via identity politics. And it is very destruction to the community of transsexuals just trying to live their lives."

I suppose that highlights the danger of self identification, would you agree? Its so easy to hijack for any political purpose.

@KrunoS yea, but even if it is politicized in a dangerous way, you should not destroy the individual community to root out the ideological attempts to politicize it. And for the majority, we are not suffering from a trauma, but rather a 'birth defect'.

But many people that oppose transsexualism in general consider our desire to transition to BE self-harm and by the medical community's acceptance of the treatment to be 'normalization'. I call it removing the stigma and it is a good thing. Your approach is in direct conflict with mine.

@tracycoyle "Your approach is in direct conflict with mine." I suppose it is.

@KrunoS I strongly support the Standards of Care which includes treatment by qualified and experienced therapists - that don't just rubber stamp a self diagnosis - and that the treatment is ongoing. THEN identification should carry some societal accommodation, ie don't arrest me for wearing women's clothing because it is REQUIRED under SOC.

Most of us prior to the last couple of years had to use, did use, (speaking specifically of Male to Female trassexuals), women's bathrooms and lockerrooms prior to surgery and in some cases even hormones. It was NERVE wracking and very dangerous TO US. Yet, we did what was necessary and got OUT quickly. We were, ARE, no threat to women or children.

Are there predators out there seeking to take advantage? Yes. So? There are such in EVERY group - but given our population it is practically non-existent.

I, and most others, oppose self-identification giving blanket access to gender spaces and activities - I want the proverbial 'doctors note'.

@tracycoyle "I, and most others, oppose self-identification giving blanket access to gender spaces and activities - I want the proverbial 'doctors note'." I would love to see that and one that is not based on politics but genuine medicine and psychiatry. In today climate, that would be very hard to achieve. Everything is political now. Even Burger King. This leaves chaos for the time being. America seems to be griped in inevitable civil war, if it has not started already, so anything is possible.

@KrunoS You are approaching it from the outside from a political point of view. I know MANY medical practitioners that are NOT politically motivated but seek to help the patient in a safe and healthy way. The practitioners range from nurses to doctors to therapists across the country in both public and private practices.

I still have my surgical recommendation letters - the evaluations of a psychiatrist and a psychologist of my suitability for gender reassignment surgery. Sorry, they will never be posted in any way to the internet! Not even email!

The phone call made to my parents by my psychiatrist, from a well known University Medical Center, helped them deal with my transition.

Work against the politics of identity - but recognize there are individuals at the core that are dealing with true, deep issues that need support.

@tracycoyle Well, there is politics involved in the training process, and institutions who give diplomas to medicals professionals etc. Especially in the United States, you know this. Privet practices, lobbyist, big pharma, various lawyers, insurance companies etc. All have an impact on the training of medial staff and constrict or encourage certain behaviors. Even if you exclude the whole "Woke" thing there are many special interest groups, lets call them that are part of the system. more so in United States than in some other countries.

There are real problems with this in many fields of medicine and psychiatry is on life support being pushed out by big pharma. So even if you don't include woke politics of the day, the erosion has been happening for decades. There is also push for various quacks and alternative medicine etc. All that was introduced with New Age of the 1970's.

Best time for medicine was after WWII and before 1970's. The technology got better but ethics and training got worse since than.

That is why I am very skeptical about the motives and expertise involved.

@KrunoS I prefer to impugne people for which I have personal experience being 'woke' or politically motivated - rather than large segments of the population or communities because of....political ideology.

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I think the inability to define what they are in a way that is functionally objective - is the strongest sign that "woke" culture has destroyed reasoning processes in a significant portion of society.

I suppose that is the trick. If one stops and thinks, one cannot believe. And belief is critical to success of this thing.

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