Gender identity is your sense of yourself as male or female or something else.
Terms:
- Sex is physical, between your legs. It is generally based on genitals and is assigned at birth by a doctor. Genitals are not always as clear-cut as you might think – especially if the doctor messes up the circumcision! Someone who seems to belong to both sexes is called intersex (fka hermaphrodites).
- Gender is psychological, between your ears. It is what you consider yourself to be. For cisgender people this matches their sex assigned at birth, for transgender people (fka transsexuals) it does not.
Gender identity is not the same as gender expression or sexual orientation. For example, butch lesbians are attracted to women (sexual orientation) and often dress and act in a more masculine way (gender expression), but still see themselves as women (gender identity).
Third genders: Many cultures have more than just two genders. There are the hijra in India, two-spirit in Native America, fa’afafine in the South Pacific, kathoey in Thailand, etc. In the US some people are non-binary or genderfluid. Facebook allows for 71 genders.
Old as dirt: There have been transgender people way before Caitlyn Jenner came out in 2015. Like at least 5,000 years before: in the Czech Republic archaeologists discovered a male skeleton buried as a woman.
Not as simple as XX and XY chromosomes: Even the Olympics no longer uses a chromosome test. There is not just XX and XY but also XXY, XYY, X, Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, Swyer syndrome (aka 46,XY), 17-β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase III deficiency, Progestin-induced virilization, and on and on. You can even be both XX and XY at the same time! Caster Semenya, the South African runner, is 46,XY.
Gender identity is not a choice. According to the American Psychological Association there is no known conversion therapy that can get someone to change their gender identity. Attempts to do so lead to high rates of self harm and suicide. Just ask David Reimer. That is why transgender people are allowed to take hormones and get surgeries to change their body to better fit their gender identity.
Causes: No one knows what causes gender identity. The current science supports, but does not yet prove, that it comes from the level of testosterone the brain receives while still in the womb. Because the brain forms later than the genitals, there can be a mismatch between brain and genitals – thus transgender people. That is a useful way to think about it, but it is not as simple as just that because there is:
No such thing as a female or male brain: There are plenty of measurable differences between male and female brains. But they all boil down to the averages of ranges that overlap. It is just like with height: sure, men are taller than women – on average – but that hardly means you can tell someone’s gender from their height. So with brains: scientists cannot tell a female brain apart from a male one.
– Abagond, 2019.
Source: mainly genderbread.org and “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Trans” (2018) by Brynn Tannehill.
See also:
- cisgender
- people
- Caster Semenya – intersex
- David Reimer – brought up as a girl after a botched circumcision, but thought he was a boy. Wound up killing himself.
- Janet Mock – transgender
- Norah Vincent – a butch lesbian who passed as male, stopped after 18 months because she started cutting herself.
- two-spirit
- gender dysphoria
- testosterone
- Tips on writing about transgender people
574
Abagond 
You’re either a man or a woman, all the rest is garbage.
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By revealing yourself as a troll who identifies as a big, big boy, you’ve disproved your own garbage.
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I remember when David Reimer’s suicide made the news. It really disturbed me what that man had to go through.
Wonder if Abagond would ever consider doing a post on the infant circumcision debate, in particular the concept of “body integrity” and if the person has the right to determine what is done with his own body. And maybe do another one on the issue of gender reassignment surgery to fix “botched” circumcisions.
I also remember when Kamala Harris asked Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing if he was aware of any situation in which a woman has the power to decide what is done with a male’s body. He said no, he didn’t.
But, both failed to recognize that over 100 million American men have had surgery done on their genitals without their consent, usually as infants or toddlers. And, in the vast majority of cases, it is the mother that makes this decision for her boy. So, I would argue that women have overwhelmingly made the decision on what to do with male reproductive organs (way more than the extent in which men decide what to do with female reproductive organs). Shouldn’t males have the right to choose what is done to their own bodies, especially their genitals? Should body integrity be a universal civil right?
Female circumcision is banned in the US (at least since the 1990s), even if the cultural or social practice of the female’s family calls for it, or at least condones it. Male circumcision is not banned at all. Is this sex discrimination?
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Women get breaks on everything in America.
Don’t have to signup for Selective Service either.
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@ Jefe
First of all, let me say that I agree with you on the overall issue of male circumcision.
But I do have some questions about this:
“And, in the vast majority of cases, it is the mother that makes this decision for her boy.”
Do you have statistical studies to back this up, or are you just making an inference?
Also, I would point out that in the U.S., it has been the medical profession which has pushed for standardized male circumcision. At the height of routine male infant circumcision in this country, the vast majority of doctors, including OB-GYNs, were male.
“I also remember when Kamala Harris asked Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing if he was aware of any situation in which a woman has the power to decide what is done with a male’s body.”
Do you know of any situation where a woman has the power to decide what is done with an adult male’s body? (barring cases of medical or legal incompetency where a wife or female relative has durable power of attorney)
Again, I don’t agree with the practice of male infant circumcision, but parents making decisions about what medical procedures are performed on their minor child is a different issue than adult men making decisions about adult women’s bodies.
“Female circumcision is banned in the US”
“Female circumcision” is an inaccurate term that sets up a false comparison. The closer parallel is a penectomy (amputation of the penis).
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Gender (identity) is a multi-billion dollar industry.
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@ Mitch
How so?
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It is unfortunate when sexual expression which does not physically or emotionally match a person’s deepest feelings of themselves causes them to want to end their beautiful opportunity of life.
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Ain’t no in between you’re either a man or a woman, all the rest is gender confusion cause by feminism and Democrats.
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Gender is a social construct and anyone arguing to tell others how to identify is woefully uninformed. Here is a post that explains that social conditioning re: gender begins at birth, heck – I saw a baby shower cake the other day for a baby that had football teams on it and all of this stuff which had nothing to do with the baby’s personality because it hadn’t even been born yet…
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Liberal nonsense , next men wearing dresses and boys playing with Barbie dolls.
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Liberal nonsense , next men wearing dresses .
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Being misgendered is not an awful sociological condition nor is it something that harms anybody. There should efforts to minimize stress on marginalized people..
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Welcome to Liberal America. Half boy or Half girl. You look like a man but you’re a girl inside.
God help us if Democrats win in 2020.
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@bigboy:
I bet you would look fantastic in a mini dress and a pair of stilettos!
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Being misgendered is not an awful sociological condition nor is it something that harms anybody. There should efforts to minimize stress on marginalized people..- Untoldstory
THE REAL STORY is … is that Black people appear to be invisible in Amerika, huh!
Being continually and intentionally mistreated simply due to the having melanated skin is an awful social condition. This is something that brings harm to almost every black person on the social plane. There should be sincere efforts to minimize racial, political and social oppression, stress and extrajudicial shootings intentionally targeting marginalized black people.
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@Mitch & Capt. FX
Exactly.
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@ bigbig40boy
Intersex people are physically both. Even if we remove trans people from the equation, you still cannot truthfully say that everybody is either male or female, because there is always going to be a small but real percentage of the population born with physical characteristics of both.
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@Afrofem
The non-profits, the foundations, the pharmaceutical companies, surgeons are all making money. People are authoring books, giving lectures, becoming experts on gender. Hollywood is cashing in. Youtube celebrities. Commercial enterprising are springing up around gender identity. Oh, and the politicians are getting campaign contributions based on their support that a man can become a woman.
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@Mitch
I think I misunderstood your post. I was thinking you meant that billion-dollar commercial enterprises were built around the production, marketing and sales of clothing, cakes, decorations, personal hygiene / beauty products, movies, sports, toys, cars, vacations, etc.. all aimed at one of two perceived genders.
There are tons of profits to be made off of defining gender roles and pressuring society into raising their kids to identify with one stereotype or the other rather than simply being people. The post explains that there’s not differences in male vs. female brains. Does more testosterone chemically make males prefer toy trucks over toy kitchens? Does it naturally make males avoid skirts in the U.S. but wear kilts in Scotland? Does estrogen create a proclivity for make-up and more sophisticated soaps and pink shower scrunchies? I would argue that all of that is industry capitalizing on society’s misplaced stereotypes for profits.
I think you might be referring to sex, which is also not as simple as penis=male, vagina=female or XX=female and XY=male because there’s many other factors, many of which science has yet to understand because it hasn’t been all that well researched.
Interesting point about surgeons and pharma profiting off of transitioning though. I wonder if there would be as much dysphoria if society wasn’t so determined to pigeonhole us into one of two gender stereotypes.
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@ Mitch
You make some valid points.
I just wish Black trans women were on that gravy train. They are most likely to live in poverty and to be murdered just for being themselves. A recent CNN article notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/18/us/transgender-killings-hrc-report-trnd/index.html
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@Open Minded Observer
“The post explains that there’s not differences in male vs. female brains.”
There has to be a difference in male vs female brains. There are different organs and hormones that are connected to the brain which will cause different responses and emotions/feelings. My brain doesn’t know what it is like to have a uterus or how to respond to a pregnancy, let alone to give birth. My brain doesn’t know to tell me it is time to see a gynecologist. Maybe, I’m talking about the mind and not the physical brain.
@Afrofem
Maybe they are being killed because they are Black men. I know that sounded mean. Meanwhile, 17 children, all under the age of 16 with the youngest being 3 y/o, was killed due to gun violence in St.Louis over the summer. 17 in just one city, seems to me that Black children are at the highest risk of homicide.
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@Mitch
“Maybe they are being killed because they are Black men.”
They are being murdered because they identify as Black Trans Women. That is an identity that the people murdering them refuse to accept or feel threatened by in face to face encounters.
BTW, deflecting with homicides of Black children (deserving victims?) does not negate the high levels of violence against Black Trans Women—–or a need to end the slaughter of people based on their gender identity.
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Gender is fluid. It’s simply the range of your personality. Everyone should be encouraged to be who they are and children should have strong role models of the same sex. I think our gender roles and outdated ideas about what makes a man or a woman in a knowledge/technology based developed society needs to be reconstructed. Also embracing all of the parts nature gave you helps to.
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I think it’s interesting that these discussions (not just here on this forum but everywhere) always center around male-to-female trans and practically ignore female-to-male trans.
For example, Mitch’s statement:
“Oh, and the politicians are getting campaign contributions based on their support that a man can become a woman.”
Why leave out “that a woman can become a man”?
For that matter, why leave out “that some people identify as agender, or genderqueer, or genderfluid, so that a woman or a man can become both/neither”?
Why the single-minded focus on male-to-female trans?
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@ Mitch
“My brain doesn’t know to tell me it is time to see a gynecologist.”
Neither does my brain. I have to write that down in my calendar and set a reminder or I’d forget all about it.
Seriously, women have to learn this stuff. That’s why there are prenatal classes to prepare for labor and to learn how to breastfeed. That’s why girls have to be taught how to deal with our periods, how to chart our cycle, etc. We aren’t born magically knowing all about it.
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@Capt. FX
it’s unfair to say gender is a purely social construct. There have been studies of rhesus monkeys were they were given gendered toys (plush doll vs toy trucks) the male monkeys predictably gravitated to the trucks, female monkeys gravitated to the dolls.
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@Mitch
“Maybe, I’m talking about the mind and not the physical brain.”
Likely, because everything you described is learned. That’s my entire point. Gender is learned based on societal stereotypes that we associate with the sexes. If you had a uterus, you’re brain would learn what that feels like. If your parents raised you to play with dolls, you’d enjoy that until you encountered negative stereotyping from another source at which point you may be conflicted about that one tiny part of your identity. Imagine a world where that superficial crap didn’t matter. Again, I’m no psychologist, but I wonder if dysphoria regarding body parts/image would be as significant if society could wrap their heads around de-coupling sex and gender… ultimately eliminating gender and just letting people be people. In other words, are some people undergoing hormonal and surgical medical treatments simply to outwardly appear how society expects them to appear in order to match their personality? I don’t know, it’s a complex issue and being raised in the same system, it’s very hard to take several steps back and try to see a broader viewpoint.
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@Solitaire,
Sorry, a bit busy these few days.
I have books and copies of papers at home which quote information and some video documentaries too, but they are from the 90s and I cannot find them online.
Here are some organizations with links. It would take me a while to go through them and find the data, but I am sure it is there.
http://www.nocirc.org/
http://noharmm.org/
http://www.cirp.org/
Basically, it is normal that the parents make the decision for the boy and it is the mother more than the father as the mother is almost always with or near the child after it is born and is more accessible to doctors at the time the service is offered. Of course, it is not always mothers. Fathers or other people sometimes make the decision.
Well, originally it was not the medical profession that pushed it. During the Victorian era in late 19th century America it was promoted as a cure for masturbation. It became part of military practice during WWI, and further expanded during WWII. After WWII, it became more medicalized in the US and reached its peak about 1980.
Interestingly, after the British National Health Service (NHS) decided not to pay for it after 1949, circumcision rates dropped precipitously there in the 1950s and 60s such that by the 1970s, almost no were circumcised as infants. It was still occasionally prescribed as a therapeutic medical procedure later (often unnecessarily), but required a medical condition for it to be performed.
But you are correct that more persons performing male circumcisions were male, even though most persons consenting to the operation were female. Undoubtedly, many of the male doctors exerted some pressure on the mothers to have it done to their boys.
Some argue that it is a misnomer to call circumcision of male infants and toddlers a medical procedure as it is not performed as a cure for any existing health problem.
Of course we get your point, but I do not think it is fair to change the wording from what was in the original confirmation hearing so that you can make a separate point that you can probably back up with some “facts”. I would call this a strawman argument.
I am going to have to push back on this and push back on it really hard. In fact, I would say that by forcing a comparison to be an apples to oranges comparison instead of an apples to apples comparison, you are again constructing a strawman argument and attacking that (to discredit the original argument).
In other words, it is you making the false comparison.
To satisfy your need to make an apples to apples comparison, let’s compare the surgical removal of the clitoral hood to a standard male circumcision. The former is indeed a type of female circumcision and one which is completely analogous to the male version. However, this type of female circumcision is also completely banned in the US. Even nicking any part of the female anatomy for social, cultural or religious purposes is forbidden in the US. On the other hand, if a botched circumcision results in a penectomy for the male, the doctor will rarely be found guilty of criminal charges. In fact, he might even recommend gender reassignment surgery (as in the case of David Reimer) and will not be found guilty of any professional negligence for recommending such a thing. And, about 1 in 100,000 male infants even die from the circumcision. Again, the doctor can rely on his liability insurance to deal with this. He will not be charged with performing unnecessary surgery on an unconsenting minor resulting in death (which should theoretically be a type of manslaughter).
Another thing which bothers me is the gender specific terminology which is used. Any surgery on healthy female external reproductive organs is called Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). However, except for intact activists (aka “intactivists”), the term Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) is not used.
Anyhow, I think this discussion is rather moot, because technically, it is already illegal in the US to perform unnecessary amputation of healthy, functioning body parts on unconsenting minors. Imagine if a parent could consent to amputating a healthy toe or an ear of their child. This is why FGM is illegal. It just seems that this kind of illegal activity just does not apply to male circumcision. If a male after the age of 18 brings his doctor to court for amputating this body part when he was an infant without his consent, a judge would likely just toss it out.
Finally, regarding the need to compare control of ADULT female reproductive anatomy to ADULT male reproductive anatomy, I would argue that the control of male reproductive organs on unconsenting minors to be even far worse, especially one involving amputation. An adult female can go to another practitioner or hospital outside her local jurisdiction to seek an abortion – there are still some choices available. A male infant or toddler cannot go to another hospital or see another doctor to avoid circumcision. Once it is done, it cannot be reversed (although there are some reconstruction methods available, they do not replace what was lost).
How would you compare the issue of abortion bans in parts of the US to the issue of forced abortions, such as those practised in the PRC for decades? I think the situation in the PRC is actually much worse.
Finally, I see this as an issue of a man’s right to choose what is done with his own genitals. No one else should force a male to undergo unnecessary surgery without his consent. He can choose to do this “cosmetic” surgery when he reaches the age of consent if he wants. I find it disingenuous for women to advocate support for a women’s right to choose what to do with her own body and not recognize that there is another issue involving a man’s right to choose what to do with his own body that most women don’t really care that much about.
And if Medicare for All becomes a reality, I hope that this procedure is dropped from covered procedures (ie, non-therapeutic circumcision on unconsenting minors) just as it was from the British NHS.
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(Solitaire, my reply to you is in moderation, but I have an ancillary thought to it more closely related to the topic of this post).
This question is for everybody.
If a condition of gender dysphoria is diagnosed while the person is still a minor, should he/she be able to consent to surgery and/or hormonal treatment to help align their gender identity with their physiology (presumably if they get parental consent)? Or should the medical field wait until the person reaches the age of majority themselves to consent to treatment?
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@King Jah
Interesting. The one study I read seems to show that “male monkeys interacted significantly less with plush toys than did female monkeys. By contrast, males and females interacted with wheeled toys comparably, displaying no reliable sex differences.”
Both played with wheeled toys equally but males played with plush toys less than females.
The trial was conducted in a way that mixed age groups into one large housing unit, but sequestered test subjects during testing. So, one has to wonder if the maternal learned behavior of the older females was something that the younger females were modelling by playing with the plush toys. Now, certainly those behaviors can also be influenced by hormones as well as instinct because obviously the species wouldn’t survive if female monkeys didn’t at least nurse their young. That activity alone causes a level of bonding that is likely absent in males of their species. Whereas human males have the option of bottle feeding our young which (speaking from personal experience) can also create a significant emotional bond with our own young as well as altering our reaction to others. I’m an n of 1, so YMMV, but I hated babies before spending sleepless nights feeding my kids. Now, anyone can toss me their baby when they need a free hand and I don’t think anything of it. Learned behavior having nothing to do with my XY chromosome combination.
Anyway, I won’t argue that there aren’t physical, biological and developmental differences caused by genes and hormones. I’m just saying that all of the societal definitions we associate with sexes, collectively called gender, is a social construct.
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@ Jefe
“Basically, it is normal that the parents make the decision for the boy and it is the mother more than the father as the mother is almost always with or near the child after it is born and is more accessible to doctors at the time the service is offered. Of course, it is not always mothers. Fathers or other people sometimes make the decision.”
Yeah, this is all still inference. And since inference is the level we’re on here: you do realize most mothers don’t make a snap decision about circumcision alone in their hospital room when a doctor walks in to ask?
This is something couples discuss and decide on beforehand, especially now when most know whether they’re having a boy long before the actual birth. My understanding is that these days most parents communicate their choice to their doctor and the hospital before the birth.
If the father is not at all involved with the baby, sure, in that case the mother makes the decision alone — or if the parents are two women who used a sperm donor. Otherwise, I doubt very many women would choose to go against their husband’s expressed wishes behind his back.
“Of course we get your point, but I do not think it is fair to change the wording from what was in the original confirmation hearing so that you can make a separate point that you can probably back up with some “facts”. I would call this a strawman argument.”
You changed the wording from the original, not me. You wrote: “I also remember when Kamala Harris asked Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing if he was aware of any situation in which a woman has the power to decide what is done with a male’s body.”
But that isn’t what Harris said.
Her question, which she repeated twice verbatim, was:
“Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/politics/amp/kamala-harris-kavanaugh-male-body-roe-abortion-13209859.php
Please note that Harris said “laws” and “government,” not “women” as you erroneously wrote.
Abortion was the express issue at hand. Everyone wanted to know which way Kavanaugh was going to go on Roe v. Wade. That is clearly what was being discussed.
Also, please do not use that “we get your point” wording with me. You are not speaking for the group of everyone here against my lone voice. That’s just a (misleading) rhetorical device.
“To satisfy your need to make an apples to apples comparison, let’s compare the surgical removal of the clitoral hood to a standard male circumcision. The former is indeed a type of female circumcision and one which is completely analogous to the male version.”
And that type is also not anywhere as common as clitorectomy or excision.
“However, this type of female circumcision is also completely banned in the US.”
Actually, it isn’t.
First of all, the ban was only for girls under 18. Technically at 18 years old, a young woman should be able to make her own decisions, but in abusive families she could definitely be forced to undergo the procedure after her 18th birthday.
The ban also didn’t stop it from occurring illegally:
“In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report compiled with data from 2010-2013. The CDC report estimated 513,000 girls and women in the United States were either victims of FGM or at risk of FGM, with ⅓ under age 18.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation_in_the_United_States
But much more importantly, that ban was reversed last year:
“[I]n 2018, the act was stuck down as unconstitutional by US federal district judge Bernard A. Friedman in Michigan, who argued that the federal government did not have authority to enact legislation outside the “Interstate commerce” clause. As part of the ruling, Friedman also ordered that charges be dropped against 8 people who had mutilated the genitals of 9 girls.“
(same source)
“On the other hand, if a botched circumcision results in a penectomy for the male, the doctor will rarely be found guilty of criminal charges. In fact, he might even recommend gender reassignment surgery (as in the case of David Reimer) and will not be found guilty of any professional negligence for recommending such a thing. And, about 1 in 100,000 male infants even die from the circumcision. Again, the doctor can rely on his liability insurance to deal with this. He will not be charged with performing unnecessary surgery on an unconsenting minor resulting in death (which should theoretically be a type of manslaughter).”
I said in my previous comment that I do not approve of this practice. I was already aware of the death rate, etc.
“Another thing which bothers me is the gender specific terminology which is used. Any surgery on healthy female external reproductive organs is called Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). However, except for intact activists (aka “intactivists”), the term Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) is not used.”
I was following the usage of terminology in your original comment. I’m fine with using the terminology of MGM and FGM if that’s actually your preference.
“I would argue that the control of male reproductive organs on unconsenting minors to be even far worse”
What about control of intersex reproductive organs of unconsenting minors?
Anyway, you’re the one who’s playing Oppression Olympics here. MGM performed on minors is a completely different topic than the reproductive rights of adult women. My objection was to your unnecessarily conflating the two and setting up a hierarchy of which is worse. And you did so by changing a quote by Kamala Harris to say and mean something it didn’t.
“An adult female can go to another practitioner or hospital outside her local jurisdiction to seek an abortion – there are still some choices available.”
Not necessarily workable choices. “Outside her local jurisdiction” may mean another state hundreds of miles away these days. And soon there may not be any choice available, if Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion is again made illegal. That is what Harris and Kavanaugh were discussing in the confirmation hearing.
“I find it disingenuous for women to advocate support for a women’s right to choose what to do with her own body and not recognize that there is another issue involving a man’s right to choose what to do with his own body that most women don’t really care that much about.”
I. Never. Said. That.
I said twice in my earlier comment to you that I do not approve of MGM performed on minors. Apparently I didn’t say it often enough to keep you from ignoring it and ascribing opinions and feelings to me that I do not have and did not express.
I was already familiar with almost every single statistic and fact you cited in your reply above. I have been aware of the issue since the 1980s. And guess where I first became aware of opposition to MGM? Feminist magazines like Ms. and Off Our Backs that advocated against it.
When my first nephew was born in 1990, I was one of the only members of my family to strongly and vocally support his parents’ decision not to have him circumcised.
You don’t have to convince me of anything on that front. But you need to actually listen to what I say instead of ascribing to me what you think some generic Woman believes.
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@Afrofem
You are the one that brought up Black trans women and violence when I only wrote about the money in the identity movement , so I took your violence, your subject matter, and so I mentioned the violence against Black children.
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@ King Jah
Oh yeah!
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@ Mitch
…I took your violence, your subject matter, and so I mentioned the violence against Black children.
Nice try.
This thread is not about violence against Black children. It is about gender identity.
I agreed with some of your assessment about the commercialization of the issue. I also pointed out who is suffering the most abuse when they declare their gender identity, namely Black Trans Women. The daily violence they face and the murders their community endures is a stark exception to the commercialization of gender issues other Trans groups might enjoy.
Black Trans Women are at an intersection of race, gender and often class that pushes them to the margins of the Black community (including their families), the LGBTQ community and the general economic system. Black Trans Men don’t face those levels of violence and abuse, nor do White, Asian or Indigenous Trans women or men. Latinx Trans women also face a fair amount of abuse, but don’t suffer the same violence or murder rate.
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DNA says different .
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@bigbig40boy
“DNA says different .”
Except that it doesn’t. DNA influences physical traits, genitalia, fat distribution, breast development, reproductive organs, muscle development, bone density, hair production and many other markers of sex. Gender is not a synonym for sex.
From dictionary.com
Gender: either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
The idea of gender (social and cultural differences) being biologically tied to sex is an archaic notion that we all seem committed to for no reason. Forcing people to choose an “identity” based on the social construct of gender is silly.
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The only gender identity is man and woman
Keep believing the white people ideas of gender all you want but God says differently.
Lol Democrats have destroyed morality in this country that’s why we have all these confusing sexual identities . Back in the ’50s and ’60s you didn’t have this crap Gender confusion. Even eunuchs knew they were still men.
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@ bigbig40boy
To add to what Open Minded Observer said, some intersex people have chromosomes of both sexes, so it is in fact encoded in their DNA.
Abagond talked about this in his post at the paragraph beginning “Not as simple as XX and XY chromosomes”
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@ jefe
Teenagers have notoriously bad decision-making skills, so wait till 18. But in the meantime they should go on hormone blockers which delay puberty and its ravages. Should they change their mind they can always go off of the blockers and their puberty will resume as normal.
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Mitch, bigboy:
There is a Black Friday sale on at Macy’s in the Women’s apparel and footwear section. Neither of you can be taken seriously, what with the claptrap you’re espousing.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if you liberal men started using tampons and wearing dresses since you’re closer to women anyway.
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Beta boys shouldn’t talk about gender issues.
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America gender issues = homosexuality because real red blooded Americans don’t have gender issues. and we know who’s a man or woman , only the liberals are confused.
I’m not limp wristed and i like women.
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RE: male and female brains and gendered behaviour
Mice are by far the best studied mammals and their gendered behaviour is pretty clear-cut: aggression in males, nurturing in females. And yet as far anyone can tell they both have the same brain with the same circuitry. What drives the split in their stereotypical behaviour are the pheromones they can smell. In other words, if you give a male mouse a female nose, he will act like a she. Different pheromones trigger different parts of the brain.
Among humans some of the gendered behaviour is learned through socialization but some of it is driven by hormones. It is not necessary for men and women to have different brains any more than it is for mice.
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Black trans women are the marginalized of the marginalized of the marginalized, the canary in the coal mine.
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@Herneith
What did I say?
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Penile Preservation Vaginoplasty
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If the doctor messes up the circumcision that doesn’t mean anything they still are boys.
They learn to be Gay by being born into this generation, and the government tries to shove Feminism and Homosexuality down your throat everyday.
Now you have little boys talking about wanting dresses and Barbie dolls, are you serious.
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@ bigbig40boy
Gender identity and sexual orientation seem to be pretty much wired in by birth. Whipping up bigotry against gay and trans people does not make them go away – it just drives them into the closet and needlessly increases human suffering.
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Are you serious .
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Lol, female brains.
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Nothing you liberals do surprises me, and
God help us if the Democrats win in 2020, talk about gender confusion. Most black Americans know the difference between a man and woman.
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@Jefe, Solitaire…
MGM/Circumcision
Not all ethical values are universal. For Muslims and Jews circumcision pertains to religious values/religious freedom. Since a person is free to be a part of or refrain from being a part of a religion….those parents who do not want to circumcise their boys can simply leave the religion. But for those parents to whom their religious values and the freedom to practice their religion is important—they should be allowed to safely and professionally circumcise their boys (rather than have it go underground in unsafe conditions). It is not right for Non-Muslim/Non-Jewish people to force their value system onto those who have a different set of value systems…..?….
Medical necessity is an important criterion for a medical procedure—but religious values are not automatically unimportant just because some people say so….A religious community has a right and a duty to decide its value systems. Such discussions should take place within the respective communities and adjustments made to their value systems if necessary….not forced on them by those outside the community because it does not “conform” to their set of value systems.
Colonialism, —built on the idea that “our” values are better, more civilized, than “theirs” —has already caused damage. It is time to put such attitudes to the rest.
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Happy Thanksgiving to you and all your readers.
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eh. with all this enhanced {enforced sensitivity training} understanding and empathy for thinking feeling people, bottom line you can really just be more assertive to say ‘hey back off a little, man’ if ppl are giving you a hard time for your wierdness, but some of this stuff is way extreme!
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Also the purity test has been superceded apparently.
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@bigboy:
I am a cis-gendered female, ‘bigboy’.
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Anyone here actually knows any transgendered people? It’s one thing to write in the abstract, another to have personal experiences with them.
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In passing, not socially.
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@ v8driver
“Also the purity test has been superceded apparently”
You’ve made similar comments before when trans issues are being discussed, and I’m not sure why? I remember the purity test, and the questions were about what types of sexual activity the test-taker had engaged in.
Being trans isn’t the same thing; it’s not a sexual activity that determines someone’s relative “purity” based on how sexually experienced they are.
I know someone who is male-to-female trans who also identifies as asexual, meaning she isn’t sexually attracted to anyone and has no interest in sex. This is not a medically-induced result of her transition but the way she has always felt.
I have come across blogs, articles, etc. by female-to male trans people who are asexual.
There also seems to be a high level of asexuality among those trans folk who identify as genderfluid, agender, etc.
Theoretically someone who is trans and not asexual could still not be sexually experienced due to, say, taking a religious vow of celibacy.
Trans has to do with what gender you are, not what type of sexual intercourse you do (or don’t) have.
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@abagond
“Gender identity and sexual orientation seem to be pretty much wired in by birth.”
I’m sorry, but how is an identity wired when it’s a construction? It’s sounds like you mean to say someone’s personality is wired by birth. Also, most experts agree that sexual orientation has environmental and psychological, as well as biological influences. There was a recent study, the largest of its kind that, that found that there is no “gay gene.” To be honest, I do suspect there are genes that make people more empathetic and society tends to consider those empathetic males as homosexual. Basically they turn gay because there society/culture/environment make that determination for them.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-evidence-that-gay-gene-exists
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/genetics-may-explain-25-same-sex-behavior-giant-analysis-reveals
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@ anon
You make a good point, but no one was talking about outlawing it altogether. Why couldn’t it be postponed until a boy grew up and could decide for himself? In a number of Muslim countries, it’s already seen as a rite of passage that’s not performed until after infancy, but still sometimes the boys are only around six or seven years old, too young to truly decide for themselves. Why not wait until he’s 18 or 21, when he can make his own decision?
And yes, it is a sign of belonging to the religious community, but what if after the boy grows up, he decides that he doesn’t believe in that religion? What if he leaves Judaism or Islam? Then he’s still carrying the physical marker of something he no longer believes in, and he has no real way of reversing what was done to him.
Finally, I would point out that the removal of the clitoris (and often the labia) is also largely seen as a religious value in those communities that practice it. Do you believe it should be legal in the U.S. to perform this operation on a child, as opposed to a consenting adult?
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I think I’ve got something to hit your lbgtq-friendly fans. In short, wherever there is a mismatch between any two or more of these four structural parts, there is a fault, and whenever is a fault, there comes suffering.
Therefore I see no use in speculations on gender issues, for they are false attractors drawing attention from social issues to private ones, which, again, should never be any matter of a public concern.
Therefore those who try to change by means of surgery their own or other’s biological bodies are involved into fruitless and useless activities.
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@abagond
Whipping up bigotry against gay and trans people does not make them go away – it just drives them into the closet and needlessly increases human suffering.
So does drawing public attention from social to gender issues, opening all these Overton windows big and small, making lbgtqs martyrs just because they are ‘special’, any positive stygmatization or new mythology like ‘lbgtqs are the new Blacks’.
[No, they are not].
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@Herneith
Anyone here actually knows any transgendered people? It’s one thing to write in the abstract, another to have personal experiences with them.
– I’ve met some when living on Russian underground scene in St. Petersburg. Most of them are dreks with drama, boring and insane.
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@solitaire aint often but i will say sit down. Its some other ish. But in the main current its like a phenotype? That u changed la dee da to whateber and have new words and wanna teach my kids before i can process
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@ v8driver
I’m sorry, I didn’t really follow all that. Seems like you’re saying you don’t want other people teaching your kids about trans issues, but I’m not exactly sure if that’s what you meant?
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What’s considered “masculine” in white and Asian American communities is considered “feminine” in the African American community. I wonder if y’all think that’s set from birth or simply cultural.
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Any notice that the bourgeoisie is more feminine than the rest of society, while the hood is masculine? Or that more feminine countries are richer?
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@King Jah
What’s considered “masculine” in white and Asian American communities is considered “feminine” in the African American community.
– Any example?
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Look at all these beta males on TV and if they aren’t conservative males then they are feminine liberal beta men.
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It’s just one of examples among many attempts to create negative publicity for liberalism, making a false connection between being and effeminate male and being liberal.
So many people guided by an uncanny valley effect would choose for conservatism.
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Lol, i just watched a video of liberal men trying out women Maxi Pads on Youtube to see how it feels LMBAO.
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All this talk for nothing, either your straight or homosexual, anything else is your choice.
It’s like Gay marriage and Adultery in this hookup culture. Why even get married if you still want to have sex with other people. Now all liberal men want to be Gay.
I guess i’m the last of the red blooded America men.
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Hardy har har!
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I find it fascinating that patriarchal men define themselves by what they are not, rather than what they are. Patriarchal male identity is defined as not female and not feminine. Patriarchal masculine identity seems obsessed with control of women and entities defined as feminine, such as the Earth.
There is a belief in patriarchal societies of maleness and masculinity being a human default instead of mere gender identity. Such ideas of masculinity border on fetishization—-complete with a worship of specific male body parts by many men and women in patriarchal cultures.
Perhaps that is why there is such intense antipathy toward male to female transgender people. Likewise with same sex loving men. They are considered traitors to the cause of patriarchal masculine identity. Gay and lesbian sexuality also demolishes the phony argument that sex is only for procreation—–a favorite talking point of religious hypocrites.
There also seems to be a racial analogy in that many White people base their identity on not Black rather than an affirmative definition of Whiteness and peoplehood.
Groups that define themselves by what they are not versus what they are expose a basic insecurity in their identity.
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I find it funny too that feminist are trying to change men into women but real men will always be real men. You liberal women have messed up the beta boys. Real men are conservatives and they don’t like to wear dresses like liberal men, and Conservatives aren’t mixed up in the head about gender identity like leftwingers.
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This like making me start my book the cliff is just crumbling, one story to tell about this? I have to be in front of a computer not on my busted up phone on the trolley
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@ King Jah
Those sorts of differences would be mainly cultural.
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@ King Jah
From what I understand both gender identity and sexual orientation are most likely set by birth or very soon after. That would explain why conversion therapies generally do not work. And why people persist in being gay or trans despite bullying, being disowned by their families, homelessness, suicide attempts, etc.
Neither has to be genetic for that to be true. For all we know they could be determined by the mother’s diet, like the level of iodine. No one has nailed down the cause of either one, so who knows.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
Trans people are no more imagining transphobia than Black people are imagining racism. The discrimination they face is real – and it is made worse by precisely the same racist fearmongers who fear and look down on anyone who is different:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/how-to-become-white/
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@Herneith
“Anyone here actually knows any transgendered people?”
Once upon a time.
@Afrofem
Interesting insight about people defining themselves by what they are not! They do seem to act threatened whenever something expands how others may perceive their identity as well. Unrelated/related, Ford recently revealed a crossover SUV as the 2021 Mustang and many owners for whom the current 2-door “muscle car” iteration of the Mustang is part of their identity reacted very negatively. Suddenly, enduring the impracticality of a small, 2-door, rear drive, big motor vehicle for the sheer joy of driving lost all meaning as they turned an icon into a practical suburban transporter of families and sports gear. I suspect people like BB40B place so much value on other’s perception of what “manhood” means that altering, blurring or even erasing that by being able to simply change how you identify must feel very threatening to him. My guess is those people have no idea who they would be without society’s convenient labels telling them who they are.
@Abagond
“From what I understand both gender identity and sexual orientation are most likely set by birth or very soon after.”
By that, do you mean the predisposition to behavior patterns that society will categorize into one gender or another or do you believe that there are clusters of masculine or feminine traits that occur together with enough frequency to support gender identity as biological rather than social?
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@ Open Minded Observer
“Does more testosterone chemically make males prefer toy trucks over toy kitchens? Does it naturally make males avoid skirts in the U.S. but wear kilts in Scotland? Does estrogen create a proclivity for make-up and more sophisticated soaps and pink shower scrunchies? I would argue that all of that is industry capitalizing on society’s misplaced stereotypes for profits…. I wonder if there would be as much dysphoria if society wasn’t so determined to pigeonhole us into one of two gender stereotypes.”
&
“By that, do you mean the predisposition to behavior patterns that society will categorize into one gender or another or do you believe that there are clusters of masculine or feminine traits that occur together with enough frequency to support gender identity as biological rather than social?”
Interesting questions, which I’ve also been pondering for years. I know your last question was directed specifically to Abagond, but I hope you don’t mind if I add my $.02 worth.
My current theory is that there is something deep in our core that makes us feel male or female (or nonbinary). I also think that this deep feeling of gender identity is hard to define or explain. We have it, but we don’t have a clear way to describe how we know our gender identity. So most people tend to latch onto whatever their particular society tells them is masculine or feminine as a way of expressing it.
I do agree that people may experience confusion or dysphoria when their likes and dislikes don’t fit into those gender pigeonholes. But I also have known boys who liked to play with dolls and dress-up, and girls who liked toy trucks and baseball, who grew up to be cis heterosexuals. So I’m not quite sure what to think; I don’t know how often societal messages about acceptable gender expression and gender roles cause or contribute to body dysphoria.
I also believe some trans people in the past actually were dealing with internalized homophobia rather than dysphoria. I hope this phenomenon is decreasing as societal acceptance of gay people increases.
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@ bb40boy
“Real men are conservatives and they don’t like to wear dresses like liberal men, and Conservatives aren’t mixed up in the head about gender identity like leftwingers.”
You are still defining masculinity by what it is not. Opinions vary, just like definitions vary. The terms “real men”, “conservatives”, “liberal” and “leftwingers” are very subjective and are defined differently by various people.
bb40boy, how do you define those labels? For example, do you have a definition of “real men”, that is positive and life-giving? Do you have a definition that has nothing to do with femaleness or femininity?
Further, can you provide links to photos or video of “liberal men” who wear dresses (a clothing item most women no longer wear on a daily basis in the Global North)? I want to understand exactly which men you are talking about.
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@ Open Minded Observer
That is a great Ford story! The Mustang has built up quite a fetish cult over the past half century. Now it transitions from “vroom” to “baby on board”. chuckle
“They do seem to act threatened whenever something expands how others may perceive their identity as well.”
Your point is well taken. That is a major weakness in relying on negative definitions of identity. If the people you base your identity on alter their identities in any way, then you must change too or become irrelevant. For people used to cloaking themselves in any type of identity privilege (be it color, gender, class or education) becoming irrelevant is as bad as subjugation. They can become disoriented, angry and in extreme cases, aggressive and violent.
One example is how some people in England after observing proud, vibrant Caribbean festivals and various Asian festivals, etc. over the years began to feel irrelevant in their own country. In response, they revived the holiday around the figure of St. George and started flying the flag of St. George.
There are echoes of that behavior in this country among neo-Confederates who drape themselves and their belongings with the stars and bars. White was no longer sufficient by itself, the identity had to be reinforced somehow. What better than a symbol of slavery, rebellion and lost causes?
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The Gay and Feminist agenda is to blame for. this gender confusion . Pretty soon all liberal boys will be acting feminine and demanding stores have feminine men products too.
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Don’t need to show links or video.
Go to a Gay parade or look at all the betas using makeup and and dresses on Youtube.
I know I’m a man because i was born in the ’60s
when we had real men not these gender confused people.
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@bb40boy
“Don’t need to show links or video.”
Of course you can’t provide proof for your assertions because you are talking out of your southern orifice. The things you have been writing have no basis in fact.
You would not know a “real man” if he winked at you at a Pride Parade.
Thank you for confirming my understanding of you, bb40boy.
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From the Human Rights Campaign
Transgender FAQ page
What is gender identity and gender expression?
Gender identity refers to a person’s innate, deeply-felt psychological identification as a man, woman or some other gender.
Gender expression refers to the external manifestation of a person’s gender identity, which may or may not conform to socially-defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.
What’s the difference between sex and gender?
Sex refers to the designation of a person at birth as either “male” or “female” based on their anatomy (e.g. reproductive organs) and/or their biology (e.g. hormones).
Gender refers to the traditional or stereotypical roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society consider appropriate for men and women.
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If you’re too stupid to look it up for yourself that’s on you. You have your head to far up homosexuals asses to see anything with this gender identity bs. If they can’t tell that they are man or woman then they have mental issues too. Only the young blacks are into homosexuality anyway and they act just like white people.
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no when i was married the 1st time and i sat down and tried to quantify my fuckin 2 rape experiences i encountered transsexual porn way back in like 03
but it really didn’t help explain anything? wierd and whatever, again the whole baphomet/knights templar resolving the duality but it’s basically extensive body mod sorry leah is going to earn her name just a tattoo going on me!!!
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and it used to be called usenet, it’s way deprecated now.
this light skin guy with like whole swaths of red, yellow, blue, tattoos, like
you had to download this porn right alt.{whatever yer twist}
and there were threads and channels but it was baciscally a data flow
so in and out over a few days this guy wound up with his penis like dissected and omg it waacked out he had the most dilated eyes it was wierd building up to it with a cleaver and wierd ish wow that was around the same time and idk i would never hurt myself down there
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@Solitaire
Thank you for your $.02. I don’t disagree that we have deep psychological and probably biological factors that influence how we feel and choose to identify. I suppose my question is one of the identity we’re selecting. The traits that make up my identity for me and BB40B likely have some overlap, but are also very different. Society would classify us both as men and for BB40B that appears to be very important. If we boil feminine down to the desire to birth, nurture and raise young and boil masculine down to the desire to compete with other males for the most desirable female(s), then ok… biology and evolution explain those things and biological factors can vary significantly enough to cause those to misalign with the physical reproductive organs. I just feel like we, as a society, add so much more baggage to gender identity that isn’t hard-wired but is instead indoctrinated. That’s why I ask what masculine and feminine mean to people because it can mean very different things to each of us. Much like race equates to skin color + any number of random other factors that are not exclusive and cannot be definitively used in definition of a race, gender seems to boil down to reproductive organ + any number of random social personality traits, none of which are exclusively masculine or feminine. It’s like a scale.. pile traits on each side of the scale and if it tips masculine, you must be male or vice versa. Just seems like such nonsense to me, but I’m definitely the outlier in that opinion.
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@Afrofem
“There are echoes of that behavior in this country among neo-Confederates who drape themselves and their belongings with the stars and bars. White was no longer sufficient by itself, the identity had to be reinforced somehow. What better than a symbol of slavery, rebellion and lost causes?”
Brilliant!
Also, full disclosure, I’m in the #NotAMustang camp and I’m grieving that part of my identity. But, that’s a brand name placed on a car made by a corporation for consumers. I feel it is perfectly OK for those consumers to provide input to the manufacturer of a product. I do not feel it’s OK for people to try and mold the gender identity of another simply to bring it in line with their own.
At the core of the issue is the concept of either/or identity choices. People are more complex than that. A bi-racial individual raised in a largely White environment often struggles with racial identity in much the same way many people struggle with gender identity. I just don’t understand why we cannot simply accept people rather than foisting our expectations on them. But then I guess part of my identity is being different and I dislike realizing how unique I’m not. Maybe we categorize each other because deep down we enjoy the camaraderie/comfort that comes from belonging in a category.
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@ Open Minded Observer
“Just seems like such nonsense to me, but I’m definitely the outlier in that opinion.”
No, I’m mostly in agreement with you there. Almost everything we designate as masculine and feminine is culturally constructed, nor are these designations exactly the same from culture to culture.
Even within our own traditional culture, there has always been a little flex room. Cooking was supposed to be women’s work, but all the top chefs until very recently were men. Fashion was supposed to be women’s preoccupation, but the top designers were men. And so on.
Even in that very biological feminine area of child-rearing and nuturing, men like Dr. Benjamin Spock were seen as the experts.
Some feminists have criticized trans people, especially trans women, for embracing the extremes in gender stereotypes. (Although it’s important to note that not all trans people express their gender in overly stereotypical ways.)
I have struggled to figure out all the various dynamics, and I still don’t have a firm grasp on it. But I think there is something inherently physiological that makes someone trans, and I think that physiological thing doesn’t necessarily make people prefer stereotypically gendered clothes etc. Rather, they learn from society very early in life to express their gender in those ways.
At the same time, I would also like to see society relax those gendered standards more, to give more freedom of expression to everyone who feels stifled, whether they are trans or cis, straight or gay.
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@ v8driver
That doesn’t sound like normal trans stuff but rather a fetish for body mutilation.
It also sounds like something traumatic to watch, especially since you stumbled across it unaware. There’s not enough eyebleach in the world to unsee something like that.
There’s wide variance in the trans community as far as surgery goes. Some choose never to have any type of gender reassignment surgery, for a variety of reasons.
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it was like the red yellow and blue fellow was trapped or something, idk what happened but every day or two through the matrix a picture popped out, and then eventually his junk was on this butcherblock table, and then a pic of a cleaver sideways? blocking his junk and then like pinned open jesus h christ it makes me want to throw up
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and some ppl tie rubber bands around their nuts too but whatever, i’m just saying, i mean it’s basically saying you don’t want what ‘the good lord gave ya’ no more
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it’s one thing seeing what it can do, chopping it off or inverting it for a ‘sensitive custom designed’ gentalia of the other gender, hard pass! psychologically? well, don’t worry, they’ll catch up eventually, your therapist is still in high school
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@v8driver
Your comparison of sex reassignment surgery to self-mutilation fetishes seems way off base to me. But, I know little about what motivates people to do the things you’ve described, so who knows.
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@ Open Minded Observer @ Solitaire
Solitaire said:
I pretty much agree with that.
It is like if someone secretly poisoned your food and you started vomiting. The vomiting is a side effect, not the poison itself, but it is the clue that something is not right. So you latch onto it.
Sometimes gender variant behaviour is the sign of something deeper, but sometimes a Barbie is just a Barbie.
In most cases I know of it is the reverse. Being gay is better known and more accepted and more plausible, so some trans women go through gay phase first. Only later do they find out that effeminate gay men still see themselves as men, not wannabe women. Just as butch lesbians are not wannabe men:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2019/10/26/norah-vincent-self-made-man/
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@ Abagond
“In most cases I know of it is the reverse. Being gay is better known and more accepted and more plausible, so some trans women go through gay phase first. Only later do they find out that effeminate gay men still see themselves as men, not wannabe women.”
I agree that this experience is far more common, and it happens that way with some trans men, too.
What I was thinking about are some cases from way back when, like the 1960s and before, where later in life the individuals reverted back to the gender they were assigned at birth but began identifying for the first time as gay or lesbian. I don’t think this experience is very common, and I also think it’s much less likely to happen now.
Overall, there doesn’t appear to be that strong of a link between sexual orientation and being trans. Trans people can be straight, gay, bi, pan, ace, etc.
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@ Open Minded Observer
“@v8driver
Your comparison of sex reassignment surgery to self-mutilation fetishes seems way off base to me. But, I know little about what motivates people to do the things you’ve described, so who knows.”
There are a number of different motivations, but two primary ones — in our society, at least — seem to be expressing individuality and the neurological effects of pain.
Body modification is often described by practitioners as a type of art using the body as a canvas. It is valued as a form of self-expression, a way to be unique and different.
The high level of pain experienced in body modifications of the type v8driver described causes a rush of endorphins and adrenaline. This biochemical process can trigger positive sensations and an anaesthetising effect, which in some people can become addictive. (This is similar to those people who get addicted to high-risk activities because of the rush they get.)
Also, v8driver appears to be suggesting that body modification is rooted in mental illness (e.g. “psychologically? well, don’t worry, they’ll catch up eventually, your therapist is still in high school”). While it certainly needs to be studied more, my take on it is that body modification is linked to mental illness in some practitioners but not all. There does seem to be comorbidity in some individuals with childhood sexual abuse, anorexia, depression, addiction, and so forth, but not with everyone.
Now, considering the typical trans experience, most individuals who seek gender reassignment surgery aren’t looking to stand out but to fit in. They are trying to align their body with their gender identity, and they have an end goal in sight, not a continual process of ongoing body modifications as self-expressive art.
And typically, trans people want gender reassignment surgeries to be performed in the hospital by medical professionals under anesthesia and with adequate pain medication.
As far as mental illness is concerned, until very recently transgenderism was treated as a mental illness, with horrible results. Current research has not yet pinpointed any physical causes but strongly suggests that this is indeed the case.
I believe it is common — and even healthy — for cis men to have a cringy cross-the-legs-and-shield-the-groin reaction to thinking about this, but I also feel it’s important not to use that response as a lens through which to understand being trans.
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transgender is literally having surgery change you, hormones, etc. transsexual? tg lite, just the hormones maybe. i’m just a telecom/networking field hand who should have been dead 10x over. what do i know? except how do i explain this to my children, it’s public stomping ground now, the bathrooms, etc. i know this person jack, at my homegroup, who identifies and transgender and has a transgender wife, and they have a child, and it is hen’s world, don’t be so judgey!
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You have some weird friends.
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@Abagond
“Sometimes gender variant behaviour is the sign of something deeper, but sometimes a Barbie is just a Barbie.”
That’s the part I can’t seem to wrap my head around. To me, a Barbie is always just a Barbie. I feel like it’s just society’s arbitrary construct of gender which dictate whether playing with one is normal or “gender variant behavior”.
@Solitaire
Thank you for that insight! It’s interesting to wonder about comorbidity. So often we see behavior that differs from ours combined with mental illness and assume the illness led to the behavior. So much of mental illness treatments are based on neurotransmitters and receptor regulation, it makes me wonder if the stress of living different causes the mental illness in some cases. It’s easier to jump to that conclusion in terms of self-medication/addiction but I’ve known and worked with some of the leading psychiatrists in the world and psychopharmacology is largely evolving. So, who knows.
@v8driver
“except how do i explain this to my children”
Tell them people are different, focus on who they are/want to become and worry less about where other people are headed. OMG the bathrooms… if you’re worried about it, use a stall.
“don’t be so judgey”
That’s what I’m sayin’
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@ Open Minded Observer
“I feel like it’s just society’s arbitrary construct of gender which dictate whether playing with one is normal or “gender variant behavior”.”
I would agree it’s society’s arbitrary construct of gender that categorizes one toy as masculine and one as feminine.
Maybe it would help to make up a hypothetical situation to get us thinking outside our own culture and society.
So let me try that.
Let’s say in this imaginary culture, men and women both wear their hair long, but the men wear their hair in two braids and the women wear theirs in six braids.
Let’s say that in this imaginary culture, ceramic toys are considered appropriate for girls, while plastic toys are coded as masculine.
Most all of the cis kids at some point or other will do up their hair the opposite way out of curiosity, or play occasionally with the other toys with their opposite-sex siblings or friends. There are going to be some cis boys and cis girls who find that they really like the hairstyle or toys of the opposite gender, maybe even prefer them.
And a few of these cis kids, when they grow up, may come to believe that all this gender coding is just arbitrary nonsense. They will question why plastic toys are only for boys and ceramic toys only for girls. They may continue at times to push against their society’s gender constructs in their own adult choices of what to wear and how to act.
The difference with the trans kids is that they feel, early on, that they’re trapped in the wrong body. They feel like they should have been born the other gender.
When they choose ceramic toys instead of plastic ones, when they insist on wearing their hair in six braids instead of two — or vice versa — they are sending out a signal about how they feel inside. Their expression of gender variant behavior is how they try to communicate that they are trans, not cis.
The type of behavior expressed by a trans child is shaped by a given society’s cultural constructs about gender. But the message of the behavior is the same.
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Lol, you liberals on here want boys to be Gay so bad it ain’t funny. Look at the TV The Big Bang Theory, can’t anymore Gayer than them.
I’m last of the real men in America who isn’t a homosexual, millennials are a different story, Gays, Bull Daggers, Chucks and Hen pecked boys. All this gender nonsense is crap either you’re a man or woman anything else is mentally unstable people.
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@ Open Minded Observer
I think the gender stereotyping and policing in the US is extreme and ridiculous, driven by sexism and homophobia.
Example: I am pretty sure the reason my sister never got an Easy-Bake Oven when she was a girl is because I wanted one too and my parents thought it would turn me gay. They were like that. To me it was a machine that made cookies. What is there not to like? So, my sister was reduced to making mud pies and I was reduced to living on rice and beans when I was single. But at least I did not die of AIDS!
That said, I think gender is partly rooted in biology. It is not purely a social construct.
Example: The doctor who made David Reimer into a girl after botching his circumcision believed that gender was just a matter of upbringing and being equipped with the right body parts, He was tragically wrong: Reimer wound up killing himself. (I should probably do a post on Reimer.)
My guess is that what we think of as gender is 20% nature, 80% nurture.
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Are you serious you wanted a Easy Bake Oven too, don’t no boys that have real men for Dads act like girls if they do then it’s weird.
All i wanted was a pellet rifle and GI Joe .
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So gender reassignment surgery isn’t cutting by proxy with a wierd sex component.
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@Abagond
“I was reduced to living on rice and beans when I was single.”
LOL! I’m not sure knowing how to make cookies with a light bulb would have changed that. I mean, you made rice… boiling water and everything! I had the gas company accuse me of tampering with the meter because I never used any (the apartments had free baseboard heat so the gas stoves were our only means of consuming our own gas). I told them that microwaving hot pockets doesn’t use gas!
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@ v8driver
Trans people have high rates of self harm (cutting, suicide), but in gender reassignment surgery it is not the self they are harming but the parts of the body that do not fit the self and its gender identity.
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Trans men (individuals assigned female at birth) appear to be significantly more likely than trans women to engage in non-suicidal self-harm behaviors:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1743609516000801
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26329283/
Gender reassignment surgery has been found to lead to a marked decrease in suicidal ideation and suicide attempts:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-49363-001
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For that matter, recent studies indicate that when trans children grow up in a supportive and understanding environment, suicide rates drop substantially:
Click to access peds.2013-2958.full.pdf
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Not all trans people experience dysphoria:
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/not-all-trans-folks-dysphoria/
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@bigbig40boy
Comment deleted for moderated language.
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I hope i didn’t offend your liberal Gay friends or the the dark skinn girls that hoy love so much Lol. Liberal Disney Land.
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I really cant grok that
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King Jah,
The headline for the first link states there is no “single gay gene.” While the content in that link says based on the SNP’s studied “8-25%” variance (for gay behavior) may be accounted for by said SNP’s.
The second link’s headlines actually says there may be a 25% link based on the SNP’s studied. Even though the first headlines is misleading, considering it’s rare for single genes to explain most behaviors; the study researched 5 SNP’s which were previously associated with same-sex behavior, so a single gay gene was not possible.
Either way these links don’t support your assertion there is no “gay gene,” (even though that phrase is misleading). They only reflect an inability to predict same-sex behavior based upon these SNP’s.
We present the gay question from a bias and misleading stance. For brevity’s sake I’ll just ask, how did you become straight?
Regarding identity, before you add the gender category, where do you believe this sense of an “I” comes from?
Gender expression is influenced by our society and the labels we ascribe genders are due to societal construction, but the case of David Reimer should challenge all of our presuppositions about gender being only a societal construct. If that were true, it should have been relatively easy to convince David he was a girl.
The gender given to him never fit his identity. His case inadvertently gives credence to the idea there is more to identity than just a social construction (maybe biological instead of genes). This may impart information and have some impact on the Trans identity experience.
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@bigbig40boy
Comment deleted for use of moderated language.
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Gays are MENTALLY MIXED UP IN THE HEAD just like liberal scum.
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@big40:
You doth protest too much!
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@bigbig40boy
A fictional similarity between gays and liberals is a sort of mental virus planted worldwide into collective unconsciousness to wade people off the liberalism.
First appeared in Russian political discourse to make people feel disgusted by European liberal values.
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@ duskor i dont see it like that, viral, indeed, in the ‘inclusion’ of ‘trans rights’ in terms of its speed, swooping in on the coattails of ‘gay rights.’ I mean it’s only really showing up in my social media feed (ymmv) in a couple of gay/queer friendly friends policy statements. One even, just came out like last month but damn if she’s not trans this trans that, its a bit much for me but what do i know.
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