Also relevant:
The Silent Soldiers Who Are Still ‘Unfit to Serve’
Powers &8^]
He’s from Oklahoma.
As I said in another thread, I’m shocked he didn’t find the petitioner in contempt for violating the Deuteronomy prohibiting against wearing female clothing.
A panel has recommended post menopausal women NOT take HRT as the risks outweigh the benefits. This is for women who have actual physical problems due to the lessoning of estrogen in their bodies. So do you think it’s okay for MEN to take HRT even though they have no physical problem that even requires it, when doctores recommend women not take it due to the health risks?
First off, the impacts of hormones on transsexuals have already been discussed, or you could have looked them up yourself. Hormone therapy for transsexuals, especially 17B-estradiol, has been proven relatively safe, with even the potential for DVT now being thought to be very highly over-rated. Breast cancer is highly rare in transsexuals, as are other cancers and negative cardiovascular effects. Increased mortality exists but it greatly overweighed by the increased risk of suicide, homicide, and HIV/AIDS among transsexuals. The reasons for which were previously discussed.
Second, nearly every drug known has side effects and risk factors associated with it, even aspirin. The question to ask with any drug is, does it relieve more suffering and do more good than it has the potential to cause harm? And in the case of hormone treatment for transsexuals, the answer is “absolutely.”
Third, HRT for post-menopausal women is not the same as hormone therapy for male to female transsexuals. If the reasons are unclear…(shrug).
Fourth, there is a physical reason for hormone therapy. The physical differences between the brains of transsexuals and cisgendered persons has already been discussed, although there is disagreement by some as to the magnitude of those physical differences.
What are the LONG TERM studies on men taking female hormones? kind of hard to believe it’s “safe” for men to take hormones not meant for their bodies but it’s unsafe for women to take them. Politics and political correctness getting ahead of safety once again for a liberal feel good moment?
First off, drop the wounded political correctness banner; it really doesn’t suit this topic. Transsexualism has fuck-all to do with liberalism and political correctness, it has to do with the lives, health, and livelihood of your fellow human beings.
Second, I told you that it was previously discussed. Please re-read the thread before asking questions which have already been addressed. Or did you intend this to be a rant and mean for this to be in the Pit? I encourage you to start a Pit thread if so.
Third, be aware that hormone regimens and treatments and formulations are not the same, even among women on HRT I believe there were at least 6 or 8 different formulations of hormones which were commonly prescribed, all of them with different levels of risk. Most critically, the difference between ethinyl estradiol and 17B-estradiol. Which was previously discussed.
Finally, from page one of the thread you are reading:
I can provide more citations, provided I don’t think I’m being trolled.
Political correctness has state it’s not a mental illness to take dangerous an unecessary hormones and to cut off healthy body parts. How long until it’s hate speech for me to say that?
So I guess meat eating need sto be banned.
How about sex? especially anal sex?
Guess what, someone can quit smoking, or not even die from smoking, but you can’t get your dick back after you cut it off.
You have no factual basis to claim that hormone therapy is either dangerous nor unnecessary. You ignore the parallel of other cosmetic surgeries. You ignore the citations given and seem to be pushing some sort of intolerant and ignorant agenda. How unfortunate.
Nor can one convince a transphobic hater to change. In all my life debating the issue I have never once interacted with a transphobe who ever changed their opinion towards one of behaving tolerantly and decently towards transsexuals. It’s like arguing with moon landing hoaxers or birthers.
Huh. Maybe Una was on to something with the ‘castration anxiety’ argument.
You can relax, no one is coming to cut your dick off.
Do I also “hate” bulemics if I don’t think doctors should enable their mental illness by giving them laxatives or teaching them vomiting techniques that won’t damage their teeth as much?
[del]What the hell are you talking about?[/del]Ignoring off-topic rant/hijack.
It’s called an ANALOGY. it’s how you logically make an argument.
You mean like the one I linked to in post #289?
I want to say, that for me it’s a philosophical argument over a medical one. I absolutely agree that transsexuals, like everyone else should be treated with respect. I agree that, at present, the best treatments involve aligning the body with the mind – and since it brings them comfort and makes them happy they should use it (and further, that we should refer to a mtf as “her” and an ftm as “him”).
Perhaps “mentally ill” isn’t the term that I should hold on to. Now I realize that what I’m about to talk about it purely academic, and philosophical, that’s what I’m intending. But to me the question comes down to in what cases, and to what degree, when there is a mind/body disconnect is the body or the mind the true determiner of reality?
Like I said, it’s purely a philosophical argument. I think it’s the most ethical to fully support a trans person’s treatment, and refer to them by the name and pronoun they choose. I consider that argument resolved, case closed. I do think that the philosophical question, though, of which is “real” is, even if useless and unimportant, interesting to think about at least.
Perhaps the question could be formulated as: “If there were magic pills that could switch the mind’s gender, and an equally hassle-free pill that could switch the body – would one treatment be more correct than the other?”
If there were a magic pills that could make either change occur in such a hassle-free manner, I don’t know there would be a “right” answer, just that person’s choice. But I suspect if I found my identity at odds with my body and had the choice of a simple pill to change each, I would probably keep my inward, personal self (i.e. identity) the same and make my outward self (i.e. body) match. Because it’s my self.*
A more challenging question is if we managed to come up with a pill that would magically change the mind’s gender, but don’t have a magic fix for the body. Then the choice is a simple change to the gender, or a BFD to tinker with the body and hope it eventually sort of resembles the sex the person wants to be. In that situation, how does the primacy of the identity stack against the realities of the effort involved?
That’s probably a philosophical discussion that could be had in another thread. For now, we don’t have any magic pills.
- Here’s another analogy and strange philosophical question that helps demonstrate my point. What if there were a magical pill that would allow you to change your mental ethnicity, such that instead of being a middle class WASP you could transform into an ethnic Serb, or an African tribesman, or a Japanese? In other words, your social cues and expectations, your speech patterns, etc would be morphed to make you act and feel like that ethnicity. Would you opt for such a pill? Try it as a lark? Pop around to see what life is like? Or would you keep preference for your original mind? Can you guarantee you’d ever be able to find your “self” back, if you didn’t like the change?