The Week In Trans 8/29/16
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Bea Sullivan-Knoff
A trans woman performance artist in Chicago has filed a lawsuit against the city in an attempt to overturn a law originally enacted in the 19th century that prohibits women from showing their breasts in any establishment that serves alcohol. Bea Sullivan-Knoff is the artist who often performs nude or semi-nude and she finds the ordinance restrictive and unfair since male strippers can show their nipples to any drinking crowd. She calls the law “sexist and transphobic.” If she wins the case a lot of strip club owners in Chicago will be filing for liquor licenses. Get the story from the Chicago Sun Times.
When it comes to being trans, is it all in your head? If you mean your brain then yes. With help from hormones. A five year long research study that examined the brains of transgender people and control subjects found that trans people’s brain structure before hormone therapy falls in the mid range between the two sexes. After hormones therapy changes occur that makes the brain more like the gender identity of the individual. This research shows that gender identity is not only a psychological phenomenon but can be determined biologically. Don’t let anyone tell you there is no scientific proof that trans people are real. Get the story from the Medical Press website.
Many “Christians” seem to be attacking transgender rights, especially the right to go to the restroom of the trans person’s choice. But does the Bible really say anything about being trans? The people marching through Target stores holding Bibles in the air and shouting hate at trans people seem to think so, but other than that part in Deuteronomy that condemns crossdressing (most probably because pagans did dress up for their rituals) there is nothing in the book against trans people. Check out an article in The Washington Post that addresses the subject.
Pageant founder So’oalo Roger Stanley.
In Samoa, an island nation in the South Pacific, homosexuality is illegal and the populace are strongly Christian. They also have a annual transgender beauty pageant that everyone looks forward to all year. The contest is called Miss Fa’afafine. It means “in the style of woman.” The “third gender” has been a accepted part of the Samoan society since the early 20th century. Learn more about the fa’afafine and the pageant on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. website.
The United States Department of Justice has created a new program to train police officers in how to treat transgender people whom they encounter while doing their jobs. There is a training video as part of the program, to help reach as many officers as possible. The Hill has more.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder is in charge of the case which will determine if North Carolina’s HB2 is legal or not. He tipped his hand a bit on Friday, when he ruled that the University of North Carolina system cannot enforce HB2’s restroom provisions on the transgender people who are a part of the case. It seems to be a narrow ruling, but it could be an indication of which direction the judge is leaning. Of course, the trial itself has not begun, so much could change. The Washington Post has this story.
According to a newly-released PRRI poll, 53% of American people oppose laws which would force transgender people to use the restroom which corresponds to the gender assigned at birth. Only 35% nationwide want “bathroom bills.” Nearly two-thirds of Democrats (64%, to be precise) oppose such legislation, and Republicans seem to be split, 44% for and 44% opposed. Those results will vary by region. You can find this in the first paragraph of PRRI’s press release.
Courtney Act
An Australian media company sent Australian drag sensation Courtney Act to a Donald J. Trump rally and had her interview Trump supporters. What a funny idea. Possible not. Some of the answers Ms. Act got from the Trump people were troubling to say the least. Read about it and watch a video of the interviews on The Huffington Post.
Speaking of the presidential candidate, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hauled out the old video from 2000 in which Trump runs into Rudy Giuliani in a department store but at that time the mayor is dressed in drag. Colbert ran the video and made humorous comments. Read about it and see the video on the Business Insider website.
Duke University Children’s Hospital has a gender clinic. It is the only gender clinic in the deep South that takes transgender teenagers as patients. Some families cross state borders to take their transgender children to this clinic. HB2 has affected pretty much every patient at the clinic in some way. NPR has the story.
Two years ago, a transgender woman named Mia Henderson was murdered in Baltimore. DNA found under her fingernails led to the conviction of her murderer, despite the fact that her body was nearly unrecognizable after the attack. It turns out that her younger brother, Reggie Bullock, is a reserve for the Detroit Pistons. He recently opened up about her murder. He does still use male pronouns, but then, they were closer when they were children, before her transition. Takeaway quote: “A person that can isolate the whole world out and not care about other people’s feelings is a strong person, to me. I think that was one of the biggest things that I got from him.” You can read the reaction on [in this case, the ironically-named] Deadspin.
The Lady Bunny
Yesterday (8/28/16) drag was rollin’ on the river in New York City. Wigstock, the cruise, set sail from Pier 40 and chugged its way around Manhattan. On board was Wigstock’s founding queen, Lady Bunny along with several other queens including Linda Simpson and San Francisco performer Glamamore. Read Michael Musto’s review of the cruise on the W Magazine website.
The City of Juneau, Alaska, has approved a new nondiscrimination law. It protects people from discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or national origin. While some of these protections already existed in federal and state laws, protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are new. The Juneau Empire has this story.
The West London Mental Health Trust of the NHS Trust has gone through the legal steps to notify the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross that it is taking steps to terminate its relationship with that clinic. The Trust intends to move the service to a new provider. Given the backlog of prospective patients, it might be good to add another provider while keeping the one that is already open, and advocates worry that patients and prospective patients could get lost in the changeover, but they chose to do it this way. The Trust says that things will continue as they are until a new provider is able to come on board. The Gender Identity Clinic says that they initiated the break, and that they did so in order to align with a different trust which is not related to mental health. They say that the Gender Identity Clinic is not closing. The Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross has been providing help to transgender people since 1966. Pink News has more.
According to Gay Star News, the change in providers is an opportunity, rather than a crisis. (Can’t it be both? Having to find a new place to live in a hurry can be both a crisis and an opportunity.)
Elijah Cross is a fifteen-year-old high-school student in the Battle Creek, Michigan, area. He transitioned to male last year, and he transferred schools during the year, but he found a place where he felt welcome. His story is in the Battle Creek Enquirer.
Kendra Bell
Kendra Brill is a transgender woman living in Virginia. She has not led an exemplary life, and she had a criminal record. Since her transition, she has behaved much better, and has had no run-ins with the law. She was able to change the gender marker on her driver’s license, but she has had trouble getting a name change. The judge in this case feels that it is important for parole records to be consistent. (Don’t they use something like Social Security numbers, to differentiate the various people named “James Johnson” who are in the system?) WHAG-TV in Hagerstown, Maryland, has a profile of her.
The State of Michigan has become the latest to allow transgender people to change the gender marker on a driver’s license or state I.D. without sterilization surgery. An applicant can present a valid passport, and the state will copy the gender marker from it. This move was previously announced, and now it has been implemented. This also settles a lawsuit brought by the A.C.L.U. The Detroit Free Press has this story.
Caster Semenya is a middle-distance runner from South Africa. She won a gold medal in the 800 meter race at the Olympics in Rio. There is controversy, because it was discovered that she has a high testosterone level. She has had to take medication to try to suppress her body’s natural production of testosterone. Yahoo Sports has a profile of her.
Audrey Tang
Audrey Tang is a 35-year-old transgender woman who is a consultant with Apple in Taiwan. She now has another job — on October 1, she will become the new Digital Minister for Taiwan. She is in charge of making data about the government available to people, so that the government can be “more transparent.” A profile of her is in Quartz.
NYU’s online masters in Communicative Sciences and Disorders program is working to educate the transgender community about the importance of leveraging a clinical guide in their process to finding their most authentic voice. The NYU faculty worked with the school’s communications department to publish an important resource for those seeking voice modification, Authentic Voices: Voice Modification for People in the Transgender Community. The article discusses finding an authentic voice in a safe and healthy way by working with a Speech-Language Pathologist.
A new report has been published titled LGBT Older Adults Highlighting Isolation, Discrimination, and Health Disparities. You can learn more and view the report on The Williams Institute website. Thanks to Josy C for the tip.
Those who monitor things like consumer spending have noticed an uptick in sales as people become more confident after a long recession. But while consumers are buying more there are some stores that are not doing so well. Among them are several women’s apparel stores like Banana Republic and Ann Taylor. Why aren’t their sales numbers up? Women, and those who dress like women, seem to hate their fashion offerings. Thanks to Jamie Roberts for the tip. You can read about it in The Washington Post.
Jamie also let us know about the steps being taken by officials in Maryland to create a more welcoming foster-care system of LGBT children and adolescents. It seems that many foster families were not treating the LGBT children placed with them very well. Learn more in The Washington Post.
Artist Henry Faulkner in 1940.
Preserving LGBT history is often a daunting task. So often people “back in the day” spent their lives trying to not become known as LGBT. Take for example the state of Kentucky. Many of the people who lived in that state, all the way back to the Civil War, were LGBT but they were not “out” and so they left the Earth without leaving any contributions to LGBT history. One individual who was out and did not care what people said or thought was an artist by the name of Henry Faulkner. Faulkner was ofter out and about in drag. And he knew a lot of the LGBT people who were keeping things on the down low about their gender and sexuality. Now much of his photos and memorabilia as well as many interviews with GLBT people in Kentucky are being made available through the Faulkner-Morgan Pagan Babies Archive of LGBTQ. Learn more in the Lexington Herald Leader.
TWITs
A new Monmouth poll shows shows Pat McCrory losing by nine points (CNN has him down by 6 points) in his bid for reelection as Governor of North Carolina. So, Mr. McCrory’s campaign has come out with a new ad which again gives us the lie that allowing transgender people to use the restroom of their preferred gender will allow sexual predators to enter the ladies’ room. (And what will keep others from entering that public restroom, witnessing the sexual predator in action, taking pictures with a smart phone, and notifying the police? That possibility would scare off any sexual predator who thinks, but thinking is not something that Governor McCrory does a lot.) Given that 74% of those who back HB2 support Mr. McCrory, while 72% of those who oppose HB2 support Mr. Cooper, this is hardly likely to get many new voters to his side, but it might motivate those who like HB2 to come out to the polls. (They are likely to do so anyway.) For spreading lies and debasing others, the McCrory Campaign gets a TWIT Award. Andy Towle has this ad.
A rodeo in Michigan apologized for comments made by a clown during their show. Lost Nations, the production company behind the event, says that they did not fire Robbie Hodges, but that he is no longer employed by them. It seems he was a local who was hired just for this one event. He claims that the comments (which were about who should use which restroom) were supposed to be entertaining, but they were hardly so. For not knowing the difference between entertainment and bigotry, Mr. Hodges gets a TWIT. If you really want to read his comments, they are on WILX-TV’s website.
The Ken cake.
What kind of a world do we live in? The kind of world where people get worked up about the darnedest things. Like The TWIT Award winning residents of Sacramento, California who have attacked a bakery on social media over a “truly disgusting” cake it produced at the request of a customer. What was it that made scores of people so angry they posted “ugly” comments on the bakery’s Facebook page? Something pornographic or violent? No. The cake is question was built around a Ken doll. It is a cake dress, which looks lovely as well as delicious. The Ken cake haters have started to back off but getting all worked up over it is why they got their TWIT. Read the whole story in The Washington Post. There’s more coverage on the Fox News website.
The owner of a Nissan dealership in Montana has a YouTube channels where he posts videos called Robert Allen Rants. Allen says that the videos were inspired by Tim Allen’s character on Last Man Standing. In his rants Robert Allen, not Tim, vents about various issues of the day. Nobody was saying much about why a car dealer was making opinion videos and not just keeping his head down selling cars until he posted one talking about the restroom issue. He said if “a transgender guy comes in my store, he’s sure welcome to spend his money and buy a car, but he probably ought to go in the men’s bathroom, not the ladies’, because if he’s in the ladies’ we’ll throw him out of the store.” Of course Allen means a trans woman as it would be perfectly fine for a trans man to use the men’s room. We’re awarding a TWIT Award to Robert Allen to go along with the derision he has gotten from local people and the order he got from Nissan to remove any links to his videos from the dealership’s website. The story is in the Independent Record.
Up above we told you about the new training video created by the DOJ that shows officers how to handle situations when someone complains that there is a trans woman in the ladies’ room. Of course it’s a great idea but Breitbart doesn’t see it that way. The right wing website headlines their story “Obama’s Transgender Video: Cops Must Ignore Local Laws, Science.” In the first place it isn’t “Obama’s video.” We don’t think he directed it himself. In the second place, they go on to say the video endorses “the transgender ideology” and that all Americans are being forced by the government to accept whatever anyone claims about their gender. The object according to Breitbart is to “blur, stigmatize and bar” Americans from recognizing the “diverse differences between the two sexes, male and female.” Or just possibly the point of it might be to let trans people use the restroom in peace. Another TWIT Award is hereby handed out to the twits at Breitbart for their continuing efforts to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Category: Transgender Community News
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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Dana: “There isn’t much difference in male and female brains. The only difference is the autonomic controls involved in sex at the base of the brain. They connect directly with the genitalia and the pituitary. There is certainly no detectable cognitive difference.”
What about the observable differences in the extremes of IQ testing? Males show up at either end of the continuum in greater numbers than females, right?
What about the role of the sex hormones? Inject a male with estrogen and he becomes docile, inject a female with testosterone and she becomes more aggressive (and more sexually interested). Those are simple brain functions.
MtF’s don’t just take estrogen to grow breasts and put on hip/butt fat. They say they become calmer, more gentle, less competitive, etc. Again, chemicals are affecting the brains, ie changing the male brain in a female way.
To deny the power of testosterone and estrogen is a denial of the reality we see around us from the moment of birth.
Nadia: “…misgendering people, like saying “sir” to someone who has been declared female in a court of law and socially presents as female, should be criminally punishable as a misdemeanor.”
Nadia, I enjoy your current post and your previous ones, but this is simply indefensible.
Insulting someone is not a crime. To argue such is to reject the Constitution and that sacred document’s most important protection – that of free speech.
And every single one of us would be in jail, right now.
Unless you’re claiming a unique protection from language only for trans people, in which case you would surely lose an immense amount of hard-earned sympathy from your fellow Americans.
Delia: “It’s not a choice.”
Nadia: “It’s a choice.”
🙂
I guess we can say “the science ain’t settled”…
Dana: “Gender identity is a not a useful term. It is a verbal expression, not behavior. Gender behavior is the best objective evidence.”
Well, what about all the trans people – Caitlin, for example, and all those macho guys who served in various militaries – who later transitioned?
In their own minds they were always secretly women, forced to hide from a hostile world which may have included everyone they knew, including spouses and children, and friends.
Behaviorally, they were super-masculine.
So no matter how they perceived themselves, ie their own female identity was/is trumped by their forced masculine behavior?
Dana: “Parents and experiences cannot make you transgender…”.
I wonder about that Dana. I met a fellow Vietnam Veteran in the early 70’s who told me he was so traumatized by his combat experience that he never wanted to be a ‘man’ again, and started crossdressing so he could be the gentler sex.
Apparently he never crossdressed at puberty or younger so I guess by my own definition, he would be accurately defined as a transsexual.
She was quite attractive as a young woman but deeply troubled, suicidal even, not from being trans but from that terrible war experience.
Obviously a very unusual story but your words triggered the long-forgotten memory.
(Hmmm, now I better find my ‘safe space’.)
🙂
Dana: “In my definitions, crossdressers include drag queens/kings, political protestors, theatrical performers and transgender people. Transgender people include transsexuals.”
Dana, this is why I keep reiterating the legitimacy of the word “transvestite” – to distinguish my kind of folk from drag queens etc. I love drag queens but our motivations are completely different! They don’t, as a rule, get turned on by the clothing and makeup. Unless RuPaul has said otherwise. 🙂
Likewise, in no way would I call protestors and theatrical people, “transsexuals”. Their motivations are not based on their inherent/felt identity as women.
Same with many (if not most) drag queens and female impersonators. I remember reading the old “Female Mimics” type glossy magazines when I was young, and the featured guys (always guys, no drag kings then) went out of their way to insist that dressing was for work only, they didn’t dress like or identify as women in their off-duty hours.
Of course, even then, there were FI’s who clearly were transsexual, with cosmetic surgery and early SRS, such as Coccinelle but most FI’s were gay, not transgender.
Now if a contemporary FI or drag queen says they are transgender then they are.
Dana: “But most transgender and transsexual people no longer get turned on by crossdressing after a time.”
I doubt that transsexuals-from-birth ever experience crossdressing to be arousing but I’m open to Angela’s TS readers to correct me.
To be aroused by feminine clothing is to admit to such a fetish, and TS’s see clothing as clothing, not as a means to masturbation.
On the other hand, classic/’true’ transvestites are defined by the fetish. It’s where it starts and it remains extremely potent, if not always expressed (who can stay aroused for hours/days/weeks, especially when the tv has maximum freedom and/or ages), especially in inappropriate social situations.
If the feminine fetish – and we might as well call it what it is – autogynephilia – does not differentiate the transvestite from the transsexual, then what does?
I feel compelled to throw my two cents into the debate as to whether TS identify is something you are born with and can be scientifically proven, or if it should be treated as a matter of personal choice and freedom of expression.
On the one hand, for *SOME* t-girls (emphasis critical) the TS condition is most definitely in-born and beyond reasonable dispute – these are the ones that Delia talks about, the ones who knew without any doubt that they are in the wrong sex at age 2 to 5. I know these full well: my personal inspiration Lynn Conway knew when she was 4.
But like others in this comment thread, I feel great unease about focusing one’s view of transsexuality solely on those who knew that young, because such focus is a recipe for denying TS treatment to those who don’t fit that criteria. Like KoolMcKool said, what if you feel 100% in your heart and soul that you should be the opposite sex, but they run the tests on you and tell you “nope, sorry, you are not TS per valid scientific criteria”.
My own case as an example: I have always been different since my earliest childhood, but most of my issues involve things other than gender. I suspect that I have always had at least subconscious gender dysphoria buried under my other myriad of issues, but it’s impossible to prove one way or the other. The only objectively measurable fact in my gender story is that in my 30s, after reading a lot of classic TS stories I made the big decision that being a woman is a better choice for me than being a man, and I chose to pursue complete TS transition. I’ve been on hormones and living as a woman for about a year and a half, I’ve got my legal name and gender change done, and I would like to get SRS if I can save up enough to pay for it purely in cash – I am philosophically opposed to using insurance.
What I am arguing is that every person should have an inalienable RIGHT to choose which sex they would rather be, have their chosen sex legally recognized (misgendering people, like saying “sir” to someone who has been declared female in a court of law and socially presents as female, should be criminally punishable as a misdemeanor), and have a legally enforced right to alter our bodies to match our publicly declared gender aka sex-of-choice – SRS surgeons should be legally prohibited from denying the treatment to those who present a government-issued document identifying them as female, i.e., I should be able to present my court order declaring me as female to an SRS surgeon IN LIEU of WPATH letters.
In other words, I find the arguments that “being TS is not a choice but an in-born condition” to be damaging to the civil rights of those of us who do pursue TS transitions *as a matter of personal choice* and who are not able to prove having felt like being in the wrong body since the age of 4. I don’t know whether or not I felt gender dysphoria at age 4 – if I did, it was masked by other issues (the severe abuse to which I was subjected); I prefer to think that I did, but I’ll never be able to prove it. But what I’m arguing now is that it should not matter: those who CHOOSE to become the opposite sex socially, legally and physically purely as a matter of free choice should have EXACTLY THE SAME RIGHTS as the “true” transsexuals who have been sure of it since age 4.
The way I express it is that we are born with a gender behavior predisposition which enters into our decision making process, just like the tendency to use one’s left or right hand for certain tasks. That predisposition may never win out in our decision making processes but it is always there. I agree that people should have a right to alter their bodies the way they decide including alterations in sex organs, just as they get tattoos and piercings to make them more attractive in their opinion. I have done the former but not the two latter. Mental health professionals have claimed control over sex organ body modifications by classing being transgender and transsexualism as pathological states but that is about to end. (See my Transgender Client Bill of Rights blog post). They have already backed off from controlling such operations as breast implants, and feminization/masculinization facial surgeries. The still retain control over transsexual genital plastic surgeries. But people are truly free and they can shop around until they get permission.
People should also be free to get sexually aroused by whatever means they choose as long as it does not do harm to someone else. This includes crossdressing. Have fun! But most transgender and transsexual people no longer get turned on by crossdressing after a time.
“How do I delete this account this bs”
Kool: “Dude this site usually has ZILCH for comments
Enjoy the smörgåsbord.”
Kool, I think he (ze? hir?) wants a refund of the membership fee.
Hee hee.
Notice it is testosterone that defines the behavior of the teenage transvestite. “T”, not estrogen. The quintessentially male hormone.
Hmmmm….
Lesleyanne: “If they consider themselves transsexual, then that’s what they are.”
I should address my own comment. If those transgenders grew up as boys and basically only discovered their attraction to feminine clothing when they hit the surge of testosterone in puberty, rather than believing with all their hearts that they were girls from their beginnings, then they are transvestites.
That’s the difference that I started out with: transsexuals get no sexual arousal from feminine clothing; transvestites, when puberty hits, can barely think of anything else.
Kool: “I know crossdressers who do consider themselves transsexuals, but for reason for family, heakth or other they choose to go no further.”
No, no, no! They are one or the other. If they consider themselves transsexual, then that’s what they are. Their crossdressing is just behavior that they can get away with.
That’s why we need to bring back the perfectly fine term, ‘transvestite’. Since both tv’s and ts’s ‘crossdress’, the ‘tv word’ would return clarity to the language (which sorely needs it).
But clarity is not what the transgender activists want – they want OUR (tv’s) numbers to boost their apparent population, which is extremely low (.1-.3%). With us they can claim to be three times as large. At the same time they tend to denigrate crossdressers in their agenda.
>But clarity is not what the transgender activists want – they want OUR (tv’s) numbers to boost their apparent population, which is extremely low (.1-.3%). With us they can claim to be three times as large. At the same time they tend to denigrate crossdressers in their agenda.
I agree 110% with the above
Delia: “Kool, a person who knows would always be more precise. And more tolerant.”
Well, since both Kool and I are transvestites and know/knew transsexuals (assumption for Kool, I did), then we are more “precise” than the wife/friend of such transgenders.
>Well, since both Kool and I are transvestites
Whoa, whoa, whoa
I am a post-orchi, post-FFS, transwoman, who spent about a year living as a woman, tellings other I was a woman, and about 3 years on estrogen.
I did bot like what estrogen was doing to my body, it made me fat, weak, and stupid, so I stopped taking it.
I have never changed my legal name or gender, I now work as a nurse using my legal name.
It is not unusual for patients to ask me what I am, or how they can become like me.
I have never faced discrimination from my hospital employers and I live in Georgia.
So sorry Kool! I shouldn’t have made that assumption!
You have a fascinating history, that’s for sure.
🙂
Delia: “Or on the contrary- if you speak nonsense, he/she would….”
Go on, please, I want to hear the conclusion of that sentence.
Delia: “…do I have to tell you??”
Of course not, but I’m glad you did – it explains your concern.
BTW, there is no such thing as a “cd/transsexual” – the person is either a crossdresser OR a transsexual, not a hybrid.
I thought that distinction was one we had already agreed on?
Delia: “Children are never created to be transsexual.”
Say what? If they are born that way (ts), then they were created that way, ie genetically.
I thought that was your entire argument.
What am I missing?
In my definitions, crossdressers include drag queens/kings, political protestors, theatrical performers and transgender people. Transgender people include transsexuals.
Delia: “Start with Hary Benjamin Transsexual phenomenon. I will put more, when I have time.”
I read that book when it came out in the ’60s. Yes, I am that old.
I’m pretty sure the research being done today far eclipses what old Harry had via his personal interactions with TS’s.
But I do want to say I enjoy your posts and discussing this issue in a civil manner. That’s not always the case on the impersonal internet. 🙂
It’s possible, Lesley. You see, there were heart surgeons 100 years ago as well, but it doesn’t matter there are no others.
Delia: “If your opinion opposes science, then, it is not opinion.”
I think you mean it is not a ‘fact’.
And the science is not ‘settled’ or ‘they’, as I mentioned, would not still be looking for more evidence for your theory.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether transsexual children are born or they are created by their environment – or some combination. Transsexualism is real and those people, like everyone else, has a right to want to live their lives as they choose. THAT is the ‘choice’ that matters.
Children are never created to be transsexual. If you maintain this, you have nothing to do with transsexual people.
Creation implies that someone made a decision to make their offspring transgender but that does not happen. Parents and experiences cannot make you transgender, although parental abuse against transgender children goes on because it is culturally sanctioned.
Delia: “I am a genetic woman.”
Well, I never expected that. 🙂
IOW, you were “assigned” female at birth. But for the flip of the ob-gyn’s coin, you could have been “assigned” male.
Sex is not real, don’t you see – genitals are only significant to 99.7% of the population who just by sheer chance have their minds correspond to their bodies.
And that’s the level of rationality in the current state of transgender theory.
We live in bizarre times, where language has, shall we say, a very flexible meaning.
If I may be so bold, may I ask why the subject interests you?
Well, there might be many reasons: my husband is a crossdresser, I have o friend who is cd/transsexual, I have trans people in my family/among my friends… do I have to tell you??
By the way I really don’t think a person needs to know TGs, TSs, know different races or religions, know gays, to understand and support their inalienable right to live free.
Kool, a person who knows would always be more precise. And more tolerant. Or on the contrary- if you speak nonsense, he/she would….
Delia, also if you re-read what Kool said, she never said transsexualism is a ‘choice’. To paraphrase, she said it doesn’t matter whether it is or isn’t as far as our rights to express our true selves matter.
Delia: “The “opinion” Kool expresses is not right.”
So what! This is America and we have free expression and that includes the right to be wrong.
But yes, I’d be appreciative of links that ‘prove’ transsexualism is genetic. As far as I’ve read, the evidence is inconclusive, which is why ‘they’ keep studying hormone levels, etc.
Start with Hary Benjamin Transsexual phenomenon. I will put more, when I have time.
Delia: “And that doesn’t mean they are emotionally/mentally fragile.”
But all the statistics say many transsexuals are very fragile – the suicide rate, the immense psychological-social-financial problems they endure, etc.
Just to clarify, are you saying you’re a crossdresser, not a transsexual?
I am a genetic woman.
Delai: “They are capable of discussing and expressing their opinion.”
But when you tell Kool that HER opinion is damaging to transsexuals, how else is one to interpret that except that you would prefer her to not express that opinion.
IOW, shut up, Kool!
The “opinion” Kool expresses is not right. Because transsexualism is not a choice. It is a wrong “opinion” and I can prove it. And I talk only about (GID) Gender identity disorder, not transvestites.
How would you react to me saying that our Earth is not round, but…. would you agree that I express my opinion? Opinion is a limited thing. If your opinion opposes science, then, it is not opinion.
The spherical nature of Earth has been proven over thousands of years using the scientific method and other analysis.
There is one Earth, there are 8 billion humans, if you can show me science that gets it right in 8 billion people I will make the same analogy
Delia: “And that is the greatest problem. The term “transgenderism” is an umbrella term for the whole community, but when precise things are discussed there should be some difference in them.”
Exactly.
Delia: “People like you, who think that being trans is “a choice” makes a very negative impact on transsexual people.”
Maybe you should not give such power to someone who simply disagrees with you.
You can start by ignoring Kool’s future posts. I, personally, enjoy the thoughts of such a free thinker and articulate poster.
But then I’m not transsexual and I’m not emotionally/mentally fragile; YOU, of course, have every right to express your own feelings and opinions.
As long as Angela, whose house we visit, accepts free expression. 🙂
Well then, I am not a transsexual too. I just read and am capable of finding information. And I have seen people transitioning and witnessing their stories. And that doesn’t mean they are emotionally/mentally fragile. They are capable of discussing and expressing their opinion.
Delia: “Gender identity is what you are born with.”
Arguably. But let’s concede that – what that means is that .3% of people are born transsexual and 99.7% are born with minds/souls that match their bodies.
And there is literally no evidence than transvestites/crossdressers have other than male brains, since the behavior arises from specific conditions in a boy’s youth that triggers a fetishistic response that manifests itself in puberty.
In other words, transsexuals and transvestites are quite different beings and the currently accepted term “transgender” is very inaccurate. Which I think may be intentional since transsexuals can claim us transvestites as their own and thus expand their ranks by a factor of 3x.
I am talking about transsexuals, not transvestites. I know the difference. And that is the greatest problem. The term “transgenderism” is an umbrella term for the whole community, but when precise things are discussed there should be some difference in them.
I know crossdressers who do consider themselves transsexuals, but for reason for family, heakth or other they choose to go no further. I also have known some post-ops who are so poor in their presentation they might as well go back to being transvestites
Oh, I’m sure there are. There are mistakes everywhere. Sometimes people die when they sleep. But that doesn’t mean people can’t sleep anymore.
In my previous post that you responded I was talking about transsexuals. Crossdressers is a different matter.
I am sorry for my humor here…I know there are mistakes. But they are just what they are-mistakes. Transsexuals make mistakes, their doctors make mistakes, transvestites also make mistakes, because they think they are transsexuals. But it doesn’t mean they are all the same. 90 percent of trans people don’t make mistakes.
I never said that crossdressers are not males or they have other than a male brain system. Either I missed something that Angela wrote or I misunderstood your point.
Wooo hoooo! Acording to some comments I just found out that gender identity is a “Freedom of expression”! Wow! What a 21st century description. Gender identity is what you are born with. I wonder what does a 5-year-old child who says he/she is the opposite sex and would cut their genitals of understands about “freedom of expression”. And the majority of transsexuals felt their first signs of disorder at that age! And yes, there are scientific tests that prove that male to female transsexual brain (hypophysis) to be more precise has a very similar hormon level to that of genetic female. The tests were taken after their death.
“I have no desire for transgenderism to be measurable, quantifiable, or tracked within a range of acceptable parameters.” Kool, nobody cares if you desire it or you don’t- what matters is what it is, not what you think it is. People like you, who think that being trans is “a choice” makes a very negative impact on transsexual people. Reading such makes me…………..
I believe freedom of expression is the most applicable, most accepting to the largest majority of citizens. I am sure there are difference between races, between, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim brains, we do not use science to determine how black a person is for employment law.
>I wonder what does a 5-year-old child who says he/she is the opposite sex and would cut their genitals of understands about “freedom of expression”.
Children are very inconsistent in their claims. Children are poor representatives for transgenderism
>And yes, there are scientific tests that prove that male to female transsexual brain (hypophysis) to be more precise has a very similar hormon level to that of genetic female. The tests were taken after their death.
I doubt these tests have been validate by peers, and I am sure there are brains of those who are transgendered in every way from crossdresser to post op that do not show these hormone level prior to any HRT regimine
Well said, Kool.
Gender identity is a not a useful term. It is a verbal expression, not behavior. Gender behavior is the best objective evidence.
How do I delete this account this bs
Dude this site usually has ZILCH for comments
Enjoy the smörgåsbord
“They demonstrated that gender identity is reflected in the brain, including the brains of transgender individuals, formerly also known as transsexuals.”
See this is where the currently accepted terminology is confusing, rather than illuminating, things.
Since 90% of “transgender” people are in fact transvestites, not transsexuals, I wonder if that study about trans brains had transsexual AND transvestite subjects? (Just to clarify, there is no evidence for female ‘transvestites’; ordinary women crossdress all the time but the motivation is style and comfort, not erotic expression. Maybe some butch lesbians get off on wearing male clothing, but then they don’t consider themselves trans in either sense of the word.)
My impression (based on my own life and experience) is that your typical crossdresser who doesn’t claim to have a ‘female soul’ and to be ‘born that way’ would not test ‘in between’ the genders. Crossdressers are male – and men – and would seemingly test on the male side of the scale, UNLESS wearing feminine clothing and having erotic feminine fantasies by themselves reorganize their male brains over time.
I highly doubt that, but the researchers could make that their next project. I’d volunteer my old tv brain in the interest of science. 🙂
Hold on just a minute!
“This research shows that gender identity is not only a psychological phenomenon but can be determined biologically.”
I’ve been told for the past 4 decades by 2nd wave feminists that there is no such thing as a ‘male’ brain or a ‘female brain’ since acknowledging such would verify that men and wimin are “different”, in the head.
Both can’t be right.
>Both can’t be right.
This is true, which shows the folly of looking for conclusive, irrefutable proof that transgenderism can be proven in a research project or scientific study.
>Don’t let anyone tell you there is no scientific proof that trans people are real.
Let’s say this science that so many seek for validation leads to the following: An established criteria or threshold for transgenderism. These diagnoses exist for many neurological syndromes, classifications, and diseases.
Now, what if they scanned your brain and the results determined you do not fit established scientific criteria for transgenderism.
I have no desire for transgenderism to be measurable, quantifiable, or tracked within a range of acceptable parameters. What I do believe is we (humanity) all have freedom of expression in many areas we are familiar with: speech, thought, worship, and presentation. Freedom of gender presentation is relatively new to human civilization, but speech, religion, and conscience are now accepted as inalienable as no scientific study could ever take them away.
“Now, what if they scanned your brain and the results determined you do not fit established scientific criteria for transgenderism.”
OOOPS!
Great point Kool.
There isn’t much difference in male and female brains. The only difference is the autonomic controls involved in sex at the base of the brain. They connect directly with the genitalia and the pituitary. There is certainly no detectable cognitive difference.