Before this follows the predictable path, I think it’s probably a thread hijack to take a discussion on whether or not tranny is a slur into a general discussion about GID. I’ll only reiterate that people with a professional psychiatrically recognized mental illness are not really the same as blacks and Jews and I think it’s insulting to blacks and Jews to lump them in like that.
But even if you agree with me (and most do not) that GID patients are essentially similar to schizophrenics (in that they have a mental illness) that doesn’t mean we should be rude to them or mistreat them. It’s not polite to call someone with schizophrenia a “schizo” to their face, and from my time in the mental health field I would actually say it’s ideal to not refer to someone by their disease at all. It’s one thing to call someone a schizophrenic in some situations, but it’s probably most appropriate to refer to them as “a person who has schizophrenia.” That may seem a bit ridiculous as no one thinks it’s wrong to call a person with asthma an asthmatic, but the difference is careless labeling with mental illnesses can tend to “define someone by their disease” which doesn’t typically happen to someone with asthma.
It is pretty rare for me to lose all respect for someone in the space of one single post. I guess I was just lucky enough to miss previous threads in which Martin expounded on his theories about how gender reassignment surgery is “mutilation” and how transsexualism is basically the same as believing you are Napoleon Bonaparte.
I appreciate that some of you apparently are willing to attempt to engage with debate with him, because after those posts I genuinely do not have the stomach for it. Holy shit.
I don’t seek to refute the study, but the study doesn’t say what you think it says. At least not if you believe it is saying “MTF transexuals have female brains.” The study only says “MTF transexuals have BSTc with the same neuron count as females.” Unless the study was secretly about the entire brain and not a small part of the brain, I don’t have anything to refute. I accept that in that subset, the MTF transexuals had BSTc similar in size and with similar neuron count to healthy females.
Um yes, if you note I said it was the Zhou study that looked at MTF transexuals who had been receiving hormone therapy. The fact that this study looked at MTF transexuals who were not receiving hormone therapy is the principal difference between it and the Zhou study (well, and that it sought to prove the differences in the Zhou study were the result of similar number of neurons in the BSTc and not some other cause for sizing of the BSTc.)
This study is basically a direct followup to the Zhou study, and even used some of the same brains (as noted in the text of your study.)
My claim isn’t relevant to addressing your claim and I withdraw it. I accept that in a small sampling of brains MTF transexuals had BSTc with a similar size and number of neurons to females. Unless you have some proof from within that study that the researchers extrapolate that to mean “these MTF transexuals had female brains in their entirety” then you’re not making any claim I need to refute. I don’t refute the sizing of the BSTc, the only way I could possibly think to refute it would be through direct physical measurement demonstrating they sized it wrong, and I obviously lack the facilities or the capabilities to do that.
What exactly is it that I’m saying that is so controversial?
1. Gender identity disorder is a recognized mental illness / disorder.
2. Given that, we should find treatments that can try to improve and correct the problems with the GID patient’s brain function so that they can live happily as their biological gender.
We should prefer that to surgery which mutilates the natural sex organs that the person was born with.
Just for the sake of argument, let us say that you are right and transsexuals are just crazy.
Then what?
Other forms of treatment have been tried. They failed. Access to hormone therapy and SRS makes the patient happier, improves their ability to function, and greatly decreases their suicide rate. With current technology, what other form of treatment would you suggest?
Like I said, I’m just advocating research and development of alternative treatments. I feel like SRS is a “cop out” medically. Part of me also worries that its use perhaps inhibits any efforts to develop other treatments.
Another Jew and same here. I’d rather be “lumped in” with Eve than whatever group people like Martin Hyde belong to. That was a creepy-ass post.
That said, I disagree with Miller above about Eve’s first post. Astro’s been here since 1999. He’s not (to my knowledge) a known bigot I’ve personally never seen him say anything anti-GLBT/bigoted.
So…yeah. I think Eve’s first post was an attack, given the poster. Remember the old “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance”? I think it applies here. Until a year or two back, tops (and probably less), I’d never known that “tranny” was offensive*. If Astro’d used that term before and was asked not to, fine. But to come in, guns a’blazing and assume the worst isn’t going to win allies.
With certain people you know you can’t win them over, but Astro’s not one as far as I know. There’s nothing wrong with going after enemies as loudly and forcefully as possible. But you can’t treat everyone like enemies because you can’t win without allies.
Final point: yeah, you’re right Miller–the thread will probably be remembered–but sadly it’ll be remembered the same way DuckDuckGoose’s 32-point font “CUNTS” thread was remembered. Not for the attacking thread. Not for the people who were in the wrong to attack her, but for her reaction.
Have you read the story he linked to and called “epic”? Astro didn’t use the word “tranny” he just linked to a cruel story whose humor hinges on a man sleeping with a transperson without knowing it.
Thanks, Una. That makes sense. I mean, you have people like J. Edgar Hoover (who was an asshole closet case) who got off on it, and or Eddie Izzard, who just likes dressing in women’s clothes.
To answer the question: Item 2 on your list, and the word “mutilates,” for this specific post. Your Napoleon comparison also, if you want me to reach back in this thread slightly. I am sure I could dig up more examples but I don’t think you’re actually interested in the answer to the question you asked, and I am still sort of reeling with surprised disappointment, so I’ll leave it at that.
So you’re saying you oppose all of #2, meaning you don’t want any research done into treatments that might make people with GID live happier lives? That’s pretty cruel considering not every person with GID is a good candidate for the surgery but might still have quality of life issues from their affliction.
I think you’re putting far too much emphasis on the word “mutilate”, tonsillectomy or appendectomy are also mutilations.
No–it’s a rather sad story about a guy who was cheating on his wife, got caught and realized that from a “trying to explain it” point of view, it’s even worse than he thought. (Because saying “I cheated on you with a woman” is (I assume) less awful than saying “I cheated on you with a man” and the car thief was a transexual man, not a m->f transgendered person. The story has the transexual man saying "“I fucked that dude.” over and over )
I don’t know Astro’s motives but isn’t it possible that he called it epic* for the “revenge” aspect? Cheater gets busted and to make matters worse, the big construction worker won’t even be able to brag to his coworkers about how, yeah, his wife left him because he had a hot night with a smokin’ hot woman?
*I thought it was poorly told, the pics somewhere between embarassing (for the author) and pathetic, and that the story itself was more sad and pathetic than anything else.
Your mutilation point is ridiculous. Nobody describes a tonsillectomy as a mutilation. Mutilation has a very negative connotation and I am sure you know this. Come on.
I do not oppose all of #2. I disagree that your proposed treatment is what we “should” do, and I disagree with your characterization of gender reassignment surgery as letting crazy people be crazy (a net negative to society, it would seem, in your opinion), instead of a valid, working treatment, which is actually what it is.
I am not debating this further. I have been as clear as I need to be about my position and I’m not interested in participating in one of these “let’s pick posts apart word by word” debates that go on for 12 pages, which is what this is starting to look like it will turn into. Your views are not only incorrect but also offensive, in my opinion; you obviously disagree. I don’t think we’re going to get much further than that. Maybe someone else will convince you differently but I am not going to be that person today.
True, but either way this is bogging down the main point that Astro could have read this as a shock-ending tale of cheating gone awry and that IMO Eve’s first post was over the top given that.
Look, if the OP had been, say New Deal Democrat (assuming his bigotry extended to this area), of course, don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. But this (IMO) isn’t that.