Malacandra, between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 25,000 individuals are transsexuals (depending on which studies you believe). It’s hard to say what percentage of them have had their “dangly bits” removed, but I would not agree with your conclusion that the presence of a “visible willy” proves the individual is a guy 100% of the time. Especially if that individual also has visible breasts. As I would if you saw me naked (which, thankfully, is not a likely event).
KellyM, you did read the bit I said about “once-in-a-decade TGI sighting”, didn’t you?
Okay, taking your stats without argument - and I have for now no reason to argue with them - it figures that if I see the genitals of 100 randomly selected willy-bearing individuals, the odds are between 10-1 on and 250-1 on that if I tick the box marked “man” every time, I will be right.
Of course, circumstances may skew the data. For instance, there are only limited social situations in which I am likely to see anyone’s willy. So far as I can see, they are likely to select against persons of non-traditional gender:
-
The guys I used to get nekkid with in the rugby locker-rooms would all self-identify as male, I assume; although I shouldn’t, I suppose, rule out the possibility that one of them might self-identify as female but insist on egalitarian grounds on his/her right to join in a nominally gender-segregated activity. (I doubt, it, though. RFU rules, AFAIK, prohibit mixed-gender rugby, and I do not believe that the best and likeliest way to challenge it would be for a self-identified female with male external genitals to play clandestinely with the men… which is not, I suppose, to say it has never in the wide world actually happened.)
-
It’s not, as you probably know, precisely comme il faut to actually look at the willy of the guy next to you in the gents, but the mode of employment of the facilities tends to preclude the likelihood of said individual not having a willy, so I’ll file such people under the “visible” classification and assume that a sizeable number of willy-equipped TGIs do not go there… hence, here, the population density of people with visible willies who actually are men is even higher than the national average.
-
Assuming that I were in an intimate situation with someone, and that my heterosexual preferences were well known (they’re no secret), I should think the question of whether the genitals of this person were a willy would be settled long before they became visible. This is something by way of the “null class”, though, in my case: zero intimate encounters with willy-equipped people, of whom zero self-identified as female.
In short, the likelihood that any visible willy I encounter is actually going to be attached to a man is near enough to the 100% figure I quoted for any practical purposes, and that’s the point I was making.
Harking back to the willy-bearing Bambi mentioned earlier, I believe we were making much too much haste to say “Oh, but you mustn’t assume it wasn’t a girl!”. By William of Occam’s beard, I do! I’ve not even heard it stated that the person in question had any visible sexual characteristics to suggest that the physical gender was in doubt, let alone a shred of evidence that he considered himself female. (The gender pronouns are tricky here. If the sentence were in a positive sense, I suppose I would say “the evidence is that she considers herself female”)
My money, assuming I was putting any on this whole spoof in the first place, would be on a run-of-the-mill male masochist - maybe gay, maybe a silkboi, maybe neither - badgering for a chance to run with the girls and be shot at by those terrible gun-totin’ guys. And the rest of my wittering on this thread has been so much hot air sparked by what I saw as pointless and annoying logic-chopping.
Finally, KellyM, you speak of me seeing you naked as “thankfully, not a likely event”. Since you put it so, anyone have a problem if I say “Good”?
Malacandra, you underestimate the occurence of transsexuals, I think, and anyway I ignored the term “TGI” as it has no meaning that I am aware of. Don’t use abbreviations that aren’t in common use, at least not without explaining them.
At least you’ve backed away from your 100% accuracy claim now. You still don’t admit that it does not apply when viewing porn videos, or at least provide no reason to believe that it does. Very few porn videos (at least other than gay porn) are shot in men’s locker rooms full of male rugby players.
I fear your logic is in abeyance, invocations of the Bishop of Ockham notwithstanding.
I would disagree with your conclusion that the individual is more likely to be a gay man or a “silkboi” than a transseuxal; in my opinion it is far more likely that our anonymous bambi with a dick is a transsexual, given the dynamics of the porn industry. But I’m not going to argue that with you: you obviously know more about transgendered individuals than I do.
KellyM, you’re resorting to name-calling. I thought I’d seen TGI used to mean “transgendered individual” but if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’d be quite prepared to get jumped all over for saying “transsexual” so I picked what I thought was a less-inflammatory term. Shoulda known I couldn’t do right.
And who’s backing off? I said, a couple of posts back, that “IME, assuming that someone with a visible willy is a guy works one hundred times per cent”, and I didn’t think I had to explain that IME stood for In My Experience - or was that another abbreviation I shouldn’t have used without explanation?
You’re welcome to carry on logic-chopping if you like, not to mention arguing over the spelling of “Occam” to try and look clever (yes, I’ve seen it spelled otherwise, but giving both spellings just to show off my logic would be kinda silly, yesno?). I still figure that in pretty much any situation you care to name unless you know in advance that girlyboys are going to be on the agenda, anyone you see with a dick is a man.
I didn’t invent the term “silkboi” either, if it makes you feel better.
Obviously I don’t know more about TGIs than you do, since you are one, but I don’t see that this disqualifies me from a point of view, even as simple and straightforward as “Don’t be precious”.
Your move.
Malacandra, a Google search for “silkboi” returns no hits. Are you sure you did not invent the term?
KellyM, I may have got the term wrong or blurred two concepts in my mind, or just possibly run the words “silk” and “boi” together in my mind. I thought I’d seen the expression on the Gorean Chat site (can’t remember the url, I don’t have it on the computer I’m on at the moment for some reason 
) but, you never know, senility plus the hot weather may have addled my brains momentarily.
But I’m glad you asked me the question as it gives me the opportunity to point out that I did not “underestimate the occurrence of transsexuals” but took your own figures without dispute. If you don’t understand where I got the odds from that I was quoting a few posts back, give me a shout and I’ll run over the math.
Urendi Maleldil,
Malacandra
Lost4Life wrote
It was Blowero who made the jump penis=man
I said that penis !=man.
Malacandra then made the albino post.
Malacandra, this is not a randomly selected individual nor a rugby locker room.
This is some one with breasts as well as a penis. Some one who has taken money to appear in soft core porn.
Factor that in and the simplest explanation is indeed that this is a pre-op mtf.
Yes, most men are born with penises. And most babies born with penises are male.
But not all people with penises are male. This woman is just such a case.
Point taken, DC. OTOH, taken with the :dubious: smiley, the fact that no mention was made that the penis-wielding “girl” had any other female physical characteristics at all led me to believe that it might have been a man who’d slipped into the line-up, and the use of the word “girl” was deliberately ironic. Someone who’s seen the video is at liberty to acquaint me with the facts.
And on the issue of whether pre-op mtf’s routinely appear in porn videos alongside womyn-born womyn, I’ll definitely have to defer to the experts.
No disrespect intended to KellyM. I have personally encountered - at least to my knowledge - two mtf TGIs and take care to be no more and no less the soul of politeness to their faces than to anyone else, and to discourage third parties from gratuitous disrespect that might get back to the ears of the individuals in question (one of whom I saw only this morning). As to whether, in my heart of hearts, I consider, say, “Kathy”, a woman - those who don’t ask won’t hear an answer that offends them.
Been reading a bit too much Janice Raymond lately, Malacandra? :rolleyes:
As I said, I don’t have any interest in continuing in your emotionally-charged debate, but I see that you’ve brought me back into it, so I feel that I should respond.
To the extent that you are arguing that the person in question is a MtF transsexual, that is obviously true based on the interview I heard. But I disagree with your assessment that I made a “jump” in reasoning by using the word “guy”. It is not a matter of you being right and me being wrong, it is simply a matter of semantics. It is no less arbitrary to define gender based on the size of one particular structure in the brain than it is to define it based on genetalia.
I think I was pretty gracious in acknowledging your excellent points earlier, and I’m all for calling MtF transsexuals women if that particular definition helps to discourage discrimination. But I DO object to you coming back and taking swipes at me after I have opted out of this thread.
I still think my point is a valid one: If you want to eschew more traditional definitions of “man” and “woman” in favor of a more politically correct definition (and I don’t mean politically correct in a derogatory sense; I think it’s a positive thing), then I don’t think you can turn around and use traditional definitions of the roles of men and women to define what constitutes “oppression”. I already pointed out that men are frequenty portrayed as submissives in media and in erotica, and my only point was that this “Bambi” video (in light of the fact that nobody was actually in danger of being injured), is NOT an example of the oppression of women in general. All sidetracks about transsexuals aside, I think the point stands.
The person in the interview was definitely a MtF transsexual, although I wouldn’t say “pre-op”. Howard asked her when she was planning to get surgery, and she evaded the question; she obviously had no plans to.
**
I’m not arguing that the person is a transexual. I’m arguing she’s a woman. In previous debates some posters have argued that an mtf is not a woman until after surgery. Others have argued that they will never be women, and will simply be surgically altered males. To refer to an mtf as male is to deny their identity. This is indeed a big deal.
**
I could not disagree more strongly. There are plenty of circumstances in which genitalia are ambiguous, or at odds with chromosomal or morphological gender. The neural structure in question seems to be the determining factor of an individual’s gender identity.
**
I meant no swipe. Nor was it my intention to drag you back into anything. I was merely attempting to sum up who said what and why I felt the need to hijack the thread.
**
I don’t think I made any statement concerning traditional gender roles. I have said that transsexuals, unable to find other employment while transitioning, have no choice but prostitution or pornography. AFAIK the other Bambi’s had other options and chose to appear in the videos of their own free will.
I have a friend who has had everything done but that last little snip down below.
She is very hesitant to talk about when she is getting the rest done to people who don’t know what her story is.
Sadly, half-way through the process she found out she is HIV possitive.
She knows she will probably never be able to finish the work on the outside. But in they eyes of myself, other friends and her own heart she is all woman.
She is a very postive person and still hopes to one day make the outside match the inside.
I adored her as a man when I first met her and I adore her as a woman now. And oh Gods there were times I wanted to smack her when the hormones made her a bigger bitch than me.
I have no idea why I am telling you guys all this. Maybe it’s because I think we should all (general) stop trying to figure out what makes people tick and just accept them for who they are. Good or bad.
And please, I get enough of the “you’re a liberal optomist” from my husband and I’m not really a good debater. I’m just voicing my simple minded oppinion.
It’s like seeing everyone as you see them on the boards. You get to know them by their words and not what they look like.
To me Eve has always been someone I wanted to be like. She seems so elegant, smart, whitty and wonderful.
KellyM is also a wonderful fun loving person.
I hardly think of them as anything but women and often forget they started out in different bodies, until it’s mentioned. It makes no difference to me.
I feel blessed to have such a diverse group of friends. Even when people don’t see eye to eye there is always something new to see.
Alright, I’ll go crawl back into my quiet little hole now. But I do feel a bit better getting that out there.
Maybe I should tell ChefTroy I’m ready for that LJ now. 
I said it was a matter of semantics. I did NOT say it was unimportant. Please don’t confuse the two.
That’s quite a dogmatic view. I doubt that the brain structures in question are all of exactly the same size, and as for psychology, there is no proof that it is determined solely by genetics, and not at all by environment. I’d be interested in seeing your proof that “neural structure” and sexual identity are pre-determined at conception in 100% of the cases, and that there is NEVER any ambiguity. But that’s all beside the point anyway.
Listen, I happen to agree with what you are saying, but I also acknowledge that one could define a man as a person who has male chromosomes or male genetalia. I applaud you for backing up your view with some compelling evidence. But it still remains a matter of semantics. There is nothing implicit in the word “man” that requires it to be defined by brain structure or psychology. It is a political preference rather than a scientific one. Your dogmatism on the matter is unfounded.
I am happy to defer to the wishes of people to self-identify as they wish, but I resent the implication that I made some sort of error in logic when I used the word “guy”.
I know, but I feel that you unfairly characterized what I said.
**
If you call peer reviewed studies dogma, sure.
**
Nobody claimed they were exactly the same size. The study does say that in the brains of mtf’s the structure falls within the size range found in women. From the study I linked to "A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. … Although the mean BSTc volume in the transsexuals was even smaller than that in the female group, the difference did not reach statistical significance (P=0.13). "
**
Again, where did I or anybody else make that claim? From the same link “]. Our data from humans however, indicate that BSTc volume is not affected by varying sex hormone levels in adulthood …In summary, our observations suggest that the small size of the BSTc in male-to-female transsexuals cannot be explained by differences in adult sex hormone levels, but is established during development by an organizing action of sex hormones.”
**
Again, where did I make such a claim?
**
Androgen Insensitivity syndrome results in female genitalia and a very feminine appearance. AIS individuals thinks of themselves as women. The condition is usually discovered when the girl, lacking ovaries and uterus, does not undergo puberty. An AIS woman has XY chromosomes. Would classify them as male because of this?
Kleinfelter’s syndrome results in a sterile male with XXY chromosomes. If a man is XY with a penis, what is somebody with Kleinfelter’s?
Many conditions result in a baby born with ambiguous genitalia. If a man is XY with a penis, what is a baby born XY with a vagina? One born with XX a penis and scrotum?
Turner’s syndrome results in a baby born XO with a vagina. Under your system, what are they?
**
It most certainly is a position based on science!
Back in school, my science teacher taught us the characteristics that determine whether an organism is classified as a plant or an animal. I objected to the inclusion of fungi as plants. The book said plants have chlorophyl. It also said that fungi do not have chlorophyl. Therefore, either the criteria need to be revised or fungi need to be reclassified.
You say that a man is born XY with a penis(presumably, under your system a woman is born XX with a vagina). What abou AIS women, Kleinfelter's, and XY babies born with ambiguous genitalia? Either these individuals need to be reclassifed or your criteria need to be revised.By the way, it’s not even likely that transsexualism is genetic. The bulk of the evidence is that it’s congenital. It’s far more likely to be a result of either random error or environmental influences on the developing fetus than. A genetic component encoding a vulnerability to neurological gender expression errors is certainly possible, but it is exceedingly unlikely that it’s a straightforward trait, as, in general, the children of transsexuals do not turn out transsexual themselves.
I have to ask this, and I hope I don’t offend anyone: would people who are transexuals prefer that they hadn’t been born that way? (I mean, that they had been born the right sex?)
And if there was ever a way to eliminate it, would that be good or bad? (If only so people don’t have to suffer?)
Guinastasia: I would have preferred to have been born an XX female, preferentially to being born an XY male. This is probably because I identify who I am far more with being female than with being XY, and if I had not been female from birth I wouldn’t be anything like who I am today.
I would not wish being transsexual on anyone. On the other hand, the existence of transsexuality does a lot toward throwing rocks at the stupid notions of gender that people have created, so from a social progress point of view I suppose the existence of transsexuality is a good thing. Rather sucks for those of us who have to be the stimuli for social change. Especially when we run into those who are determined to stand in the way of it.
You claim that genetalia cannot possibly be used as the criterea for defining gender, because it is sometimes ambiguous, did you not? Such an argument implies that the criterea you espouse is never ambigous. Otherwise you don’t have a point. Think about it: You’re saying “the other way is wrong because it’s sometimes ambiguous”. Well if your way is also sometimes ambiguous, it kills your argument, doesn’t it? Therefore, you can’t successfully make such an argument unless you prove that your way is never ambiguous.
What do you mean, MY system? Did I not tell you that I agree with your point? I’m not espousing any “system”, I’m merely saying that you, DocCathode, do not personally have a monopoly on the words “man” and “woman”.
I disagree - definitions of words are the purview of semantics, not science.
Bullshit. Please quote where I said that. I said genetalia is one possible way to define “man” or “woman”, among other ways, but I most certainly did not say it was the only possible way to do so. In fact, what I said was that it’s a complex question. You seem to think it’s a simple question, but I disagree.
Again, it’s NOT MY SYSTEM. Please stop saying that. You are inventing a strawman position against which to argue. Again, I am not espousing a particular definition, I am simply saying that you do not have the right to claim your definition to be the only possible “right” one. Under your system, any person with the brain structure in question that happens to fall in between the average “male” size and the average “female” size, or any person who experienced gender ambiguity or confusion at any time in their life would also have to be reclassified. Face it, your definition is not the be-all and end-all you think it is. I happen to like your definition; it seems useful in understanding people, but it’s just not the black-and-white issue you pretend it to be.
But I fear you will never understand my point, because you obviously have an agenda. And it serves your purpose to pretend that I am somehow “against” you, even though I acknowledged and agreed with the points you made. You seem to think that anyone who does not subscribe to your dogma 100% is some kind of anti-transsexual bigot. I obviously can’t convince you otherwise; you have already made up your mind. All I can say is it’s not the case.
Who? :rolleyes: ^2
The existence of between 0.004% and 0.1% of the population (your figures, KellyM, not mine) whose particular circumstances defy straightforward gender classification does not necessarily have any significance for the rest of us.