I had a theory about this about 5 years ago as I started noticing that there was a correlation with my friends who had autism. I got a lot of heat for it though when I mentioned it, even as someone who is lgbt myself.
I’m probably autistic. That is, pretty noticeably hitting all of the checkboxes on the typical aspie profile but not quite to an extent that anybody who isn’t explicitly looking for such things wouldn’t write off as being eclectic; dare I say, not even “weird”.
I’m not deep into either community but I always feel we get really lost on this. We call autism a spectrum, but then seem to act like it’s a single dimension spectrum and that people who are “normal” aren’t even “on the spectrum”.
I would bet if we really pressed on dimensionalizing the spectrum we would find the overlap on this issue is on a pretty specific part. And perhaps are the same thing??
I have a suspicion about this, which makes me want a study to test if the strength of this effect is inversely related to acceptance of gender diversity in the social milieu in which individuals reside.
You get partial transitions, like men taking estrogen to grow breasts, or getting implants, but then keeping their dicks intact. Or getting castrated but nothing else. Or having 'nullo' surgery where both the cock and balls are sliced off to leave a smooth patch of skin with a little urethral hole to piss out of. Or the 'Salmacian' approach, which is having a castration to free up the ballsack, so as to surgically construct something that looks like labia, to surround a cavity that's meant to mimic a vagina, while again not carving away the cock but keeping it intact.
There's all kinds of weird stuff people choose to do to their bodies, if they can find a willing surgeon to help.
Hi. I am a person who wants to have one of the things mentioned in GP done to their body. I have since I was a child. Calling me insane is hurtful. I doubt you know what body dysmorphia is like.
Well, I'd be interested to understand your perspective because in your local coordinate system you're apparently doing the right thing, while to me it looks like madness.
It's very simple. My body doesn't match my brain. I've been interested in nulloplasty/glamorplasty for forever. It doesn't make me physically or sexually any less capable. There are surgeons willing to do it now, which there weren't in 2006 when I found out about it. The only thing that stops me from flying out to San Francisco yesterday is the cost.
It looks like madness to you because you have the correct body.
I'd be fine with either body, so long as it's functional, and that's because I don't identify with it. For example, the particilar shape of my hand - five fingers, etc. - doesn't make me feel it's "correct". That shape is common and functional, and that's all. If I had an extra dysfunctional finger sticking out from a wrong place, I'd fix it, but only because it's standing on my way. Having 6 functional fingers wouldnt bother me. I'd add that my attitude to my body is similar to my attitude to a rental car.
> transitioning between non-man/woman genders works
Read about the difference between sex and gender.
Gender is a societal role. There were societies with 3+ distinct genders in the past, even though most have two now.
Transitioning to a new gender (whether binary or in between) is usually as simple as just presenting yourself as that gender, although some people choose to have medical intervention (hormones, surgeries, etc.) to help.
Surgery helps with romantic relationships and also with "passing" as the target gender.
If everyone in society treats you as Gender X when you want to be Gender Y, then you're effectively just Gender X still (again, because gender is a social concept).
I tried to phrase my question such that you would answer the more difficult first question, which is a necessary prerequisite for the answer to the second question having any meaning. That is, what is the gender of man and how is it different from the gender of woman?
I didn't answer that question because you know the answer already, and your question was either rhetorical or just ignoring the concept of "gender" as it is used in modern anthropology.
In most societies, the differences include:
- clothing/hair/jewelry
- job expectations (easier for men to be truck drivers, easier for women to be babysitters, etc.)
- division of chores in a household
- pronouns
- certain rights, especially related to marriage and parenthood
I know that you know this because you live in a society and can (most of the time) guess someone's gender by their appearance.
None of these divisions are necessarily good. They're just what society enforces.
These were all supposed to be things that we're getting rid of. Now, not only are we not getting rid of it, we are going to celebrate it, and consider those who do things stereotyped by one sex as in the same gender as that sex? For example, we will accept that a male is a woman because they like cleaning? Not to mention that there exist people who do these thing and do not consider themselves the other gender. For example you will find that most women at sports events do not identify as men.
>None of these divisions are necessarily good
Why do you say that these divisions are "necessarily" good? Are they not downright bad? Either there is a vast, innate emotional difference between men and women, so much so that it makes sense to classify them as different genders, and on the more rare case where one person does not fit into that gender they change it, or there is not a vast difference between genders, and we should work to elliminate "what society enforces" on that sex, rather than try to keep these two arbritary lines and make cleary misleading claims such as that they are really born as men/women ect.
Rather than suppose dozens of genders with a "man" gender dominated by males and a "woman" gender dominated by females, which is itslef on a broad spectrum, some of which is forced and some of which is not, yes, we should not accept this insane idea of gender. Instead of trying to put children on hormone blockers we should just let them exist naturaly instead of like some sort of farm animal, castrated and souped up on hormones to fit in with what some deragned gender anothropologist says.
Gender dysphoria is a real thing though. If you are male, all you have to do is imagine you woke up with breasts and hips. There is a lot of science on this beyond gender. There was a famous case where a guy had his leg amputated because he didn't feel like it was his leg.
I think OC left out sexual preference too. All you have to do is imagine that if you like women now and think its completely normal, then suddenly the entire world thinks this is strange and rare, and not natural.
Cis-females already do tons of plastic surgery to modify their body to fit an idealized image even though they have the actual chromosomes and hormones. So your beef is with the female plastic surgery industry as well.
The tricky part is that if early intervention ends up having been the right choice, then it's good. If there is regret later in life...then its absolutely terrible. But if early intervention was avoided, and it was the wrong choice, then it's not optimal.
Would be good to see some research on this. But I think taking action and it being the wrong choice is far worse than any other negative scenario.
So we should call that sex dysphoria, gender would be a misnomer here (see above). And that may be the case, but it is hard to imagine that it is innate as transgender (another misnomer) proponents claim. And even if it is, it's hard to say that a surgery is the right solution. As you say it is like the leg amputee, clearly that is not the right course of action. Same with plastic surgery and steroids. But even there at least there one can say they now are strong or pretty (still debateable) but what can a male that removes his genitals say? I am female? Clearly not. I am a woman? A "woman" gender taken as the emotional state of a female is already a problematic idea, as I explained above. So we are left with nothing.
All this to say that feeling that you want to remove your genitals should not imply that you want to wear a dress. If it does then we must say that there is some innate difference between men and women beyond sex. Especially if we describe the "woman" social construct to be the result of a domestication process. If this were true, feeling that you are a woman would certainly not imply any domestication, as the person was raised as a man.
The last atempt would be to say that wanting to be a woman is a second order effect of sex dysphoria (in a male) caused by society. But then we have already given up on him being a woman to now wanting to be a woman as a sscond order effect of sex dysphoria. And it is of course counter to the claim that the surgery is gender conforming, as the surgery first order (ie. sex dysphoria) and gender is second order. Rather the gender change is sex conforming in this line of thought.
Now I agree that more research needs to be done on sex dysphoria, but unfortunately I don't think any unapproved conclusion will be allowed to be published or if it is we be labled transphibic and ignored.
> So we should call that sex dysphoria, gender would be a misnomer here (see above)
Agree.
> As you say it is like the leg amputee, clearly that is not the right course of action
When you talk about the "right course of action", this is subjective. How do you evaluate that? Surely it is personal long-term day-to-day happiness, and with some consideration for the happiness of family members and then society.
I think there are cases where people actually live a happier life from this amputation. It's a really strange thing. Like they are happier even though they now are disabled. I think normal people simply cannot grasp this because they don't have any analogous situations. Perhaps it could be simulated in virtual reality. It's really interesting to read interviews with these guys. https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/what-its-like-to-crave-amputa... They seem like normal people.
Regarding surgery, you could also imagine that one day you grew breasts and large female nipples/areolas. Would you be embarrassed to be at the beach with a top off? Would you want them removed if you could? Absolutely yes for me. And this is very different from manboobs. I just googled that and yeh it looks very weird and its a thing.
> Rather the gender change is sex conforming in this line of thought.
Hmm, interesting to think about. An interesting thought experiment is to imagine having lived a life as a male, and then waking up as a female. What would you do? How would you modify your life? Would you look at surgery?
I think its different with male to female and female to male. I always view the "female gender" as kind of a "male+". In that men are kind of like a default gender and then women have all these extra societal expectations. Like females can easily be males by just doing less female stuff - makeup, clothing, etc. Women dress in men's clothing all the time, but not the other way around.
What's interesting is when you ask the question to trans people: "why don't you just go along with the sex you were assigned", they always talk of a very strong inner feeling that they simply can't. I haven't been able to find someone to present it in a way that is understandable for a cis person...which does make me skeptical of the need to be seen as a societal woman, vs it being related to other issues (general depression and homosexuality).
But I think you are right in that a sex change shouldn't really require a gender change.
Cutting off one of your two perfectly functional legs, to match your mental image of having one leg - that is objectively crazy. You can rationalise and claim this makes that person happy. Maybe it does, but that would be indicative of a very serious mental disorder. Rather treat the mental disorder than cut off the leg, is what I propose?
The ironic thing is that in modern society, I feel like we should not treat people of differently based on sex/gender. The only time it really crosses my mind as a male, is that if there is a violent altercation or self-defense situation, you should never strike a female, and you should try to protect a female if they can't defend themselves. But this is generally because they are probably physcially weaker...unless they are an MMA fighter or something.
Especially in the workplace, and especially when working on the internet. It would be wrong to treat someone differently based on sex/gender. Which is why all the gender pronoun insistence is a bit strange.
The only other time is to do with romantic relationships or sexual interest.
An interesting question is what about women interests men, and is it environmental vs innate?
I think its clear that innately men are interested in roughly the same physical characteristics of women.
But for the societal adjectives/behaviours used to describe "femininity"...are these innate to females? Or do women simply fit the stereotypes that were universally desireable for men innately? Or are these feminine stereotypes (or male's female behavioural preferences) a relic passed down from past societies.
As a hetero male, it's interesting to think about why you are interested in women. Your first girlfriend, why were you interested in her. And before you were even old enough to be interested in sex. For me, if I recall it was extremely innate. The shape of their face, the sound of their voice, that kind of thing. Nothing sexual initially. And not really any distinctively feminine behaviour. You do also have societal things like females dressed in a certain way and had long hair, but these don't appear significant to me.
Therefore, I would argue that for most people there is a very strong inate preference for physical characteristics that match the opposite sex - which makes sense evolutionarily.
Most people are strictly interested in the opposite sex. I think there is also a repulsion against sexual interest from the same sex (which probably explains a lot of bigotry too). I don't think a lot of people have experienced this, and I'm not sure if its cultural either, but I do posit that if it exists, then its a big men discriminated against homosexuals, or even the reason why it was entered into religious texts which may have just reflected the instinctual feelings of ancient societies without an understanding of the harm this would cause.
So back to my original line of thought. If someone is asking me to treat a trans-female as a female, nothing in my behaviour will actually change nor should it. And the only time it should as I said earlier, as in a physical altercation, the physically inferior rules no longer apply.
So it begs the question of what this societal recognition actually is?
For sexual interest, humans are extremely sensitive to even minor physical attributes, so that most of the time they will be able to tell the birth sex.
But in the cases where they cannot tell the difference...is this actually the ultimate recognition that trans people persue?
I think it's this scenario that may cause a lot of bigotry too, because I think people may feel they are tricked into a homosexual desire, and if they have an innate repulsion to such feelings, then you could understand it triggering an emotional response. But a big question is whether this is "innate" or whether its societal which I will admit it very much may be - in the sense that being gay was traditionally viewed as a weakeness and not fitting desired masculine characteristics that determine hierarchy and power in male friend groups, and also self-esteem.
In terms of genatalia though, I think humans are even more particular, and so even if a trans female was able to look like a female at a distance, and feel like a female on closer examination, a sexual relationship with a hetero male is probably still very rare. But then you have to appreciate that two heteros matching is still not a given.
It's contextual based on where you are and who your around. That's how social constructs work.
'passing' as another gender is just learning and performing that role.
Your definition of a gender is just the stereotypes you've amassed over time based in interactions with people who share similar traits (physical or otherwise)
Surgey isn't a hard requirement. Especially if you were lucky enough to get on blockers before the wrong puberty hit.
>'passing' as another gender is just learning and performing that role.
What role would that be in an egalitarian society? And if it's different in every society, how can you be 'born' as a woman, which is a social construct?
@l3uwin your comment is [dead] so I can't respond (I didn't flag you) but when I said "how can you be 'born' as a woman, which is a social construct?" I was refering to people who claim to be born as the opposite gender, such as a male saying they were really born as a woman. If gender is a social construct, this claim makes no sense.
So then what you're describing is essentially just another word for personality?
Also, I said nothing about sex. I said I understand the genders man and woman. I don't understand any of these (50+? More?) other genders. So I was hoping someone could list some of these lesser known genders and explain how transitioning from one of them to another one would work.
Since I don't know their names, I'll just use placeholders and ask how does one transition from Gender R to Gender S? I'm asking for examples.
I’m of Asian descent. I was raised in a white community and don’t know much about Asian culture. I am ethnically Asian, but if you were to try to infer things about me through an Asian cultural lens you would largely be incorrect. American white is largely my cultural identity. I largely relate to white New England Americans. It’s not necessary or relevant to imply I have “transitioned” from something Asian.
Personality is an overlapping but poorly fitting term to describe identity.
Transitioning gender is not so much about changing how you perceive your personal identity in a self reflective way so much as a term for publicizing it so that others have a frame of reference for understanding where you’re coming from because it’s uncommon and non obvious and helpful to them if they’re open to accommodating your own identity, imo.
The types are not important, imo. But a simple thing may be that you feel very uncomfortable being seen as a thing of sexual or romantic interest from heterosexual men (or anything) and you want to make it clear that this is not a social role you want to play. Can you stop dudes from
feeling that way? No. But perhaps you can create a social norm that such feelings are not brought up much as it’s generally not cool for gay men to openly hit on openly straight men in public.
Anything that is subjective and not discrete inevitably ends up lost in semantic arguments that achieve little.
It’s useful to have a high level archetype, but the clusters are always fuzzy and we don’t gain much by carving out new names for things along the periphery.
Identity politics get screwy due to in groups trying to maintain order and rigid rules while some are inflexible. How many times do you try to see a conversation about an idea get lost in a debate about whether the idea falls under a particular ideology rather than the merits of the idea itself? What’s socialism? What’s feminism? What’s a conservative? What’s queer?
We make up buckets and get flustered when people define buckets differently or when some examples cross the boundaries. Then some people begin to believe that the definitions hold objective authority and place great significance on minor differences. Then people who feel they don’t fit exactly a definition declare they must be something new. Then two niche subgroups fight because they share a similar space and want the other to be made illegitimate. Then another body wants to maintain unity across the broader community so they declare all things are legit. Then the community looks stupid and confusing because it’s got so many niche classifications.
Gender identity, Christianity, political ideologies, etc. take your pick. People trying to define things that are not actually discrete is just an invitation for nonsense.
It’s fine to be “like Group X but different with respect to some qualities” and not make that a whole new taxonomical sub group.
I think that's the issue though right? If we accept that it won't necessarily make sense or follow any logical consistent rules because its subjective, then how exactly can we expect other to take it seriously? I'm not trying to be dismissive either, but my mind works logically. If I'm told "we're just making it up as we go and it's different for everyone" then you can't expect me to believe I need to actually take it seriously.
It really does sound like people are just taking the concept of personality and tryin to overlay it on something where it doesn't fit, only leading to increased confusion. Ultimately, what is the point? What is the goal?
I do think people that identify as incredibly niche sub types are doing something dumb. Similar to the vast majority of people that do this for other dimensions of their identity or attempt to do it for others’ identity.
But believing this to be the case isn’t incompatible with respecting that they feel different from the “normal” archetype or just generally acknowledging their preferred identity as it’s the closest thing they’ve got to describe themselves.
Most people aligned with a given label are pretty reasonable and won’t demand you do anything too out of your way. Yes there are many exceptions but such is the case for every dimension of identity. This one is just a dimension that many people are eager to assert doesn’t exist.; Sometimes asserting that if you can’t cleanly identify as something easily defined that you’re just making up your differences which is of course also incorrect reasoning.
People suck at such types of thinking and most cultures encourage against it to empower in group unity.
One could argue that it creates an incredible imposition on logically oriented individuals to tell them that they are bigots if they're not willing to play pretend.
No not really. You’re not being logical if you reject someone’s preferred identity on the pedantic assertion that it’s an approximation of their collective beliefs rather than a rigid classification; and conflate that pedantic assertion with some additional implication that their person beliefs about themselves are less valid.
You’re not a bigot for doing this. You are being an asshole nonetheless. And you don’t come off as more intelligent, just more clueless; even if you are in fact more intelligent.
That's simply not true. If I see an apple and someone tells me I must refer to it as an orange because that is what they want to pretend it to be, then the best course of action is to either tell them that it is in fact an orange, or to just ignore them. It is never the right answer to encourage their incorrect demands.
Would you also suggest we pretend the voices that a schizophrenic hears are actually there and real? If not, why not? It's real to them..
If you cannot understand the difference between physical sex and gender identity then you’re not capable of having this discussion. You’re not addressing the premise at hand. Not very logical fwiw
I never brought up sex. I asked for some examples of genders that aren't man/woman, and then for a description of how one transitions from one of those to another.
Nobody seems prepared to answer that question, yet it is a requirement to define this. Unless the argument really just boil down to "we make shit up as we go and you need to accept it or you're a bigot".
You are again asserting that someone has to transition to something rather than decide it’s a better descriptor for themselves than another term.
Someone may simply feel non binary as a high level and honestly descriptor of their gender. Which is to say that they feel the gender implied by their sex is a bad fit.
The existence of some people that take this to extreme labels that seem unlikely to be distinct and noteworthy classifications does not invalidate others who take more moderate steps that are probably genuinely more accurate assessments.
Well they're not saying anything incorrect there. The concept of gender identity was only invented to try to provide some cover explanation as to why some people want to be the opposite sex.
It's a way of legitimizing the whole thing, so e.g. rather than men saying "I want to be a woman", they can lean on this idea of gender identity and say "I am a woman", where "woman" has been redefined as "anyone with a female gender identity". And per the definition of gender identity, a man can be said to have a "female gender identity" if he wants to be a woman. Naturally, this redefinition has turned out to be quite controversial.
You're the one trying to fit everything into groups here. GP is saying there is no group. You can't say what the gender woman is; how can GP just accept your made up term? Is cleaning more woman-like? If I like cleaning but whatch sports am I a woman? What about gardening? You need to give some desription of men and a women. What is the "high level archetype" of a woman? Gossiping? Cooking?
That is… really sad dude. None of those things are relevant. No. You are not a woman if you like cleaning. People do not need to engage in traditional gender roles to maintain their normative gender.
A woman gender identity is someone who feels like a woman. A man’s gender identity is someone who feels like a man. A non binary identity is one that does not feel like either.
>>You can't say what the gender woman is; how can GP just accept your made up term?
>A woman gender identity is someone who feels like a woman. A man’s gender identity is someone who feels like a man.
Wow, thanks for answering the question.
>This really is not difficult to understand
"A tefrad gender idenity is someone who feels like a tefrad, what's difficult to understand?"
"What, you want me to explain what that is in a non-recursive manner, as we would do for any other word? That is… really sad dude. Why do you hate tefrads?"
If a magic potion turned your body into that of female, what are some of the things you would think about that retain your male identity? Probably it’s how you fit in society, what you want people to assume you are, how you want to be understood by possible romantic partners, what elements of physical appearance you like and don’t like about yourself?
First off, there is no male identity beyond being a male. Perhaps you're thinking of the concept of gender here?
That aside, I can't think of anything that would retain my "male" gender. I see women wear the same sneakers as men, I see men with long hair, unisex clothes, ect.
That itself aside, by asking this question you are already assuming a man and woman gender. You just became even more tautological with this answer to my question which was "what is the difference between a man and a woman?" Worse, "what I want people to assume I am" is a human being, not some made up class of human that decides my identiy. A person is male or female, we use the word "sex" not as an identiy but a definate observation. "Gender" as it means anything beyond sex is a useless or even harmful term. Especially when it is used by people playing word games to trick children into getting irrevocable surgeries.
It’s not tautological. It’s a subjective fuzzy classification. We have a good approximate definition of what it means to be “kind” but you cannot perform a hard test or definition of it. This one just happens to be a central part of one’s identity. We have a good approximate idea of male and female gender in our society.
You’ve largely just avoided answering the question too. If you were magically transformed into a woman… what, you would just roll with it? You have no particular identification with being a dude? If you had the ability to transform back you wouldn’t do so because you’re a woman now and women aren’t men?
>We have a good approximate idea of male and female gender in our society.
Which is... ?
>If you were magically transformed into a woman [...] You have no particular identification with being a dude?
But with my memories still intact? To answer this question I need to give some background. I believe the "gender" concept of "man" and "women" are drawn from the sex differences between male and female in humans. The most important aspect of which is hormonal differences, but also the physical weakness of the female compared to the male. Then, on top of this, there is a second order cultural effect that will dictate how this difference is expressed. But those societal differences would go away in one generation if the sex differences went away. And the societal differences are varried across cultures. But these societal differences (what one might call gender) are the result of already being a male or female. That is, the societal differences are taught and learned, not deduced. So "gender" is not a choice. For example, if a group of children were to be raised away from society and the people raising them treated the children exactly equally none of the children would have any gender. That is, there will be no additional enforcement of the already natural sex differences, which are already large. In fact, the females would be more feminine than liberal-raised females who are explicitlty nudged against their natural tendencies.
All this is to say that your question is difficult to answer because you are asking what would a female do with male memories? Would the hormonal differences win out over these memories? You're asking a question that can't be answered. As for me myself, I wouldn't be myself, because the neural architecture is different between sexes. (At least to some extent. Compare the rate of autism between males and females, for example). If we assume no neural change and no hormonal change, that is, I get to keep my testosterone, I'd probably become a female athlete of some sort. But the case you gave wasn't clear about how much "male" is left after I become female. At face value it means I only keep memories. If that's the case, there is a chance I would just ignore the aspects of the memories that would tell me to stay male.
I should note that the opposite case - a boy[0] who's parrents where convinved by John Money,[1] the originator of "gender," to raise him as a girl after a botched circumcision, eventualy committed suicide. So I don't think this will be an exactly pleasant situation either way I choose.
>If you had the ability to transform back you wouldn’t do so because you’re a woman now and women aren’t men?
I probably would, because of the memories, but you didn't give that option. Perhaps if the option was given after lets say 5 years then "I" wouldn't but I don't know, because I wouldn't be me. This was a really complex (and rather useless) case to answer "what is the difference between a man and a woman." Even given the difference between a man and a woman this is still a hard question to answer at all and one that is impossible to answer absolutely.
> I probably would, because of the memories, but you didn't give that option
So you recognize it is conceivable for someone in a female body to desire to be a man. Great.
For YOU, you think only your memories would drive this and you can’t fathom people coming to such a conclusion otherwise. You assert that hormones might lead you to accept being a woman.
Well some people have naturally different levels hormones. So by your reasoning it stands that some people may have naturally varying identification with their gender.
I think most of your thinking here is dumb and willfully ignorant of the explanations of people who feel they are not the correct gender despite being in a body of that sex. But sure, glad we can agree that this concept is fathomable.
>You can't say what the gender woman is; how can GP just accept your made up term?
>You just became even more tautological with this answer to my question which was "what is the difference between a man and a woman?"
>>We have a good approximate idea of male and female gender in our society.
>Which is... ?
Such a simple question yet still no answer. At least now you're done deflecting with hypotheticals and admit by your silence that you simply cannot answer it.
>So you recognize it is conceivable for someone in a female body to desire to be a man. Great
Actualy you are conflating sex and gender here (again). I said I would like to go back to being male, not back to being a man. And this like I said is only somewhat certain in the begining; afterwords how could I know? And my claim is that I would go back because my raised gender (as maintained in the memories) is stonger than sex hormones (again, only certain in the first moments of the event). My response relies on the fact that _raised gender cannot be easily be changed_. If that is true then it reflects even worse on people who claim that their "true" gender is different from how they were raised. A moticum of serious thought could have told you this, but you are clearly being willfuly ignorant by this point, evading my question for the fourth time using hypotheticals you clearly can't understand yourself.
>For YOU, you think only your memories would drive this and you can’t fathom people coming to such a conclusion otherwise.
Yes, and this is because that is the logical outcome follwing the reasoning that brought me to that conclusion in the first place.
>You assert that hormones might lead you to accept being a woman.
As well as literaly being a woman, yes, and that is only in the case that it already happened, not before those two things happen. And even then like I said I would probably be misserable at best so "accept" means "to endure without protest or reaction"[0] in this case, not "to make a favorable response to" or "to give admittance or approval to" but I can see plainly that your are trying to twist words here.
>Well some people have naturally different levels hormones.
I beleive Estrogen-like endocrine disrupting chemicals, for example as found in plastics[1], have some effect on estogen levels in men. However given the unfathomably high suicide attempted rate of transgenders, I beleive that the solution to this problem is not more estrogen but less of it (for example not using plastics clothes, cups ect). It is also important to note that I beleive that the high rate of transgenderism can only be fully explained by societies applause and celebration of it. EEDCs only alllow more people to fall into this trap, more or less. And I will explain why bellow.
>So by your reasoning it stands that some people may have naturally varying identification with their gender.
Not exactly. Gender as I am explaining it is something taught and learned (for example, wearing a dress has no biological meaning, and men used to wear dresses). Feminimity, which makes up most of what causes the development of gender in the first case, on the other hand in fact is caused in part by hormones. But that does not mean that it is reasonable for what I have explained to be gender to change. For example, tomboys, who do not display the hormonal effects given by mean sex differences to the sams extent, still identify as girls. And you are overstating the extent to which people's hormones deviate from their expected levels for their sex if you think that incites a gender change. No more proof is needed than the fact that males take estrogen to transition; if their estrogen levels were already high enough that they were already women, they would not need more. And inversely they would not need testosterone blockers. Taking your statement at face value, however, that "people may have naturally varying identification with their gender," I have never disagreed. In fact part of my claim that gender, in any form but especially as an "identity" doesn't exist is that gender is useless is in part because of this reason, and note that sex covers 99% of the cases of what we would describe as gender without being an identity. And I don't beleive that a person of a given sex ever naturaly crosses from one gender to another (or perhaps in 0.00001% of cases or similar). And that is because hormone levels are never so out of whack, and the strength factor is still relevant, and raised gender (as I explain it, and for lack of a better word) reinforces sex deifferences.
>I think most of your thinking here is dumb and willfully ignorant of the explanations of people who feel they are not the correct gender despite being in a body of that sex.
They have other mental issues that make them think that (for example autism) coupled with proding fron other transexuals online.
>But sure, glad we can agree that this concept is fathomable.
We don't agree, in part because of what I have already written above, and in part because you barely have anything to say in a concreate way to begin with.
The other genders are just the most popular mixes of the traditional male and female societal roles.
> The term “gender identity” first appeared in the 1960s. It referred to a person’s inner sense of belonging to the category of male or female.
If you made a list of all the traditional characteristics of male vs female, then it's all the combinations of these characteristics.
In reality, it could be unlimited.
When you say "just another word for personality", personality could be broken down into 100s of different traits, then gendered based on culture, then mixed.
One could argue that if a gender is unrelated from traditional gender roles, and the group population is minor, then it starts to become rather useless.
Sex encompasses more than the production of some gamete; it includes genetic and anatomical determinants, and it ain't exactly unheard of for those to get out of sync or otherwise produce sexes that are neither unambiguously male nor unambiguously female.
This is also why sex and gender are modernly regarded as distinct from one another, on that note.
Well, it's not so clear, even though I reject wokeness. For example, what's the gender of eunuchs from the middle ages? They hardly pass as males, but they are even further from females.
That's a mutation of the reproductive system of the class Gender with male as the value, also known as a sex. Still a male, with their mutation event modifying the state of their reproductive system into damaged, one that is different from the original state. That does not change the class but simply the value of a property within that class.
It's sometimes related though; one of the routes into becoming transgender that sexologists have hypothesised is a rejection of one's own homosexuality.
Parents of transgender kids sometimes allude to this too. For example, Susie Green, recently the CEO of the transgender charity Mermaids, said about her child:
> What I had come to the conclusion with [...], was that I had a very sensitive, quite effeminate little boy who was probably gay.
> [...]
> But Jack's dad did not approve of our child's effeminate behavior, and it created such tensions that we ended up in couple's counseling. We went to couple's counseling, and what they said to us as parents that we had to agree, no matter what it was that we agreed upon we had to agree. At that point, Tim decided that I must agree with him, apparently, and then all the "girl toys" or "girly toys" as such were taken away and put away, and Jack was made aware that this was not appropriate. And suddenly, a confident, happy little boy became quite quiet, withdrawn, very clingy, and tearful. I didn't like it, and I didn't think it was right.
Gay son, homophobic dad - and a mother who took him to Thailand for his 16th birthday to get his penis inverted and his testicles removed.
I feel bad because by asking I'm giving you the platform you so desperately want. But care to offer some explanation as to what homosexuality has to do with psychiatry? Or how there are plenty of non-autistic people that associate with a gender different to the one they're born with?
