Your clothes? Your hair? Your muscles? Your testicles? Your penis? Your Y chromosome? Your mind? Your interests? How you act? How you talk? Who you want to have sex with?
I assume that all these things make you a man. You have manly clothes, manly hair patterns, manly muscles, manly testicles, manly penis, manly Y chromosomes, manly mind, manly interests, and you’re manly acting and manly talking, and have manly sexual tastes.
And there are plenty of people who have womanly clothes, womanly hair patterns, and so forth.
But surely you admit that there are some people who don’t have exclusively male or female traits. They might have appeared as female since birth, but have XY chromosomes, and no uterus or ovaries. Is this person really a man, or really a woman? No amount of wishing will change this person into something else. But even though this person looks and acts like a woman, they are missing some female characteristics. Is this person really a man, who just happens to look like a woman and act like a woman and have female secondary sexual characteristics and female external genitalia, or is this persona really a woman who just happens to have XY chromosomes and testes and no uterus?
See, your gender isn’t assigned to you by God at the moment of conception. Your gender is a result of biological development and social interaction. Almost all the time things develop more or less normally, and there’s no question about what gender a person is. But rarely things don’t develop normally. So what do we do with these people?
I wish I could commiserate, but not really. I’m a straight white protestant male in America. This doesn’t really give me many problems. Plus, the people I am surrounded by don’t tend to give a shit about traditional gender roles as much as most people.
For me it’s more of an oddity of my life. I cook, bake, sew, crochet, have long hair, have wide hips, am asked by little kids if I’m a boy or a girl, don’t do macho at all, like to give hugs to my male friends, don’t like cars or sports. I don’t consider it an insult to be mistaken for a woman, so it’s just a curiosity for me. I could see how it would be a serious problem for others, but my station in life allows me to defy the norms in these little ways, and just be seen as quirky. I’m more genderqueer in the sense that if a stand-up comic makes a “witty” observation about men and women, instead of identifying with the men, I think “oh, here’s this literary convention where ‘man’ means this bizarre collection of stereotypes, and ‘woman’ means this other collection of stereotypes. I could see how if I believed all that shit then this might be funny.” I’m kind of surprised I’m not gay.
Exactly. You are a man. For you it’s easy, because you fit society’s mold, and for the most part, so do I. If pressed, I know that I’m a man and not a woman. So do you. But there are people for which this is not true. For some people it’s not so easy. Have you absolutely no capacity for empathy?
We aren’t talking, it seems, about the same groups of people.
One group has chromosomal abnormalities or AIS or whatever. Fine - their gender is ambiguous.
Another group is people who (for instance) are born with a penis, testicles, and XY chromosomes, who insist that they are “really” a woman trapped in a man’s body. They tend also to suffer from various mental issues, which they commonly attribute to being the “wrong” gender. However, sometimes they go to the extreme of elaborate surgeries to reconfigure their genitalia, artificial hormone treatment to change their hormone levels, and changing their names and style of dress to correspond to that of the opposite sex. And this has relatively little effect on their psychological issues, and therefore does not seem to be an effective treatment for what they allege to be the problem.
Which is a piece of evidence that, in the sentence, “I am really a woman trapped in a man’s body”, the work ‘really’ has relatively little objective meaning.
I think “I intend to leave them alone” can be seen to include “but I don’t intend to play along with their notions”.
The issue seems to have been resolved philosophically already.
We are imperfect beings living in a imperfect world, we all have things we are ‘born’ into and other things imposed on us. We are trying to do the best we can and find ways to make things better for us. We have to find out who we really are, and that involves exploring things, finding out things that work and seeing where they lead.
In the case of transgendering, it does seem so extreme, and irreversible, I think that gets people on both sides of the issue seemingly coming against them, both those who cut them down, and others that are concerned that they are making a mistake which they will regret and not be able to fix.
My own view is that people need to be lifted up, not put down, and encouraged to seek and explore beyond the normal boundaries. I also believe that God is capable and willing to restore a person, so it’s not irreversible, and possibly that God can actually switch ones’ gender completely, more importantly heal the heart of all the pain that caused the gender issue or the wrong sex issue and have a true peace with who they are.
Hi Marley
Transgendered people are attracted to same sex people. Now I have broken no rules since I have posted on this board which plainly says: “This is also the place for religious debates and (if you feel you must) witnessing.”
So instead of harassing spiritual people off the board or refusing them access to the board, wouldn’t it just be simpler to change the rules of the board to say no religious or spiritual people allowed. This would keep “nonsense” people like me off the board all the time. Then you could ban them as soon as you discovered what their beliefs were. So many ways to handle the situation.
If it wasn’t such a politically charged issue, any man that said he was “really a woman in a man’s body” would be forcibly given lithium by the pint.
While I do feel for these people, I can’t see how it isn’t anything other than a serious mental illness when you have a penis and an Y chromosome to think that you are a woman. And not only do you think you are a woman, but you demand that others think so and address you in that manner.
If I said I was a dog and demanded it, would it be your obligation to smack me in the face with a newspaper for biting the furniture?
And this is not about either of those things. Read this thread if you like and maybe you’ll learn something about the issue. Post in it again and you’ll getting a warning for ignoring mod instructions. Ask in ATMB or send me a private message if you have questions.
Personally, I’ve never really understood the concept of “gender identity” to begin with. I mean, I understand sexuality, because I have a sexuality. So I can grasp that a homosexual man feels roughly the same way about men that I feel about women. But when I hear of a person with a male body but a female gender identity, I’m puzzled, because I don’t seem to have a gender identity. If you ask me about my anatomy, I can tell you that I have a penis and testicles, and lack a vagina and ovaries. If you ask me about my hormones, I can tell you that my body naturally produces a significant amount of testosterone and androgen, but only a small amount of estrogen and progesterone. If you ask me about my genetics, well, I’ve never had it tested, but I presume I’m XY, and I at least understand the question. If you ask me about my sexual preferences, I can tell you that I’m attracted to the opposite set of characteristics. But if you ask me what my gender identity is, all I know how to do is to repeat the answers to the previous questions.
That’s the problem. That’s where we don’t agree. The thing - the only thing, which makes me a man is that I posess male genitalia. There is nothing else. Sure, I fully accept that people who may have lost their genitals are still men, and likewise those who suffer a birth defect which left them without such. But that’s basically it. These are men, and I don’t deal in any other definition. The only difference beyond that would be between men and damaged men - but it does not break the categories.
First off, that last line is patently absurd./ Have I no capacity for empathy? Empathy is irrelevant to the truth. The facts do not concern themselves with our feelings. Your feelings should have the respect to do the same to the facts.
Second, what do you know about me? For all you know, I could be a flamingly gay crossdressor who dreams of a sexchange (I’m not, but thanks for asking ahead of time). I am a lot of things - few of which are relevant here. And even with respect to my manhood, I am indeed curious about what it would be like to be something else. What if I were female, or african, or even something nonhuman at all? Is there are a real me (I think so). Am I real at all, and what does this mean for the very concepts of truth and existence?
No, you dislike my position, not because it is false, but because you think it is not nice. But deceiving yourself, or even plain common everyday fuzzy thinking, is not a good reason to continue in that vein. You are trying to tie up a great many huge questions in an extremely summary fashion because you don’t want to make people uncomfortable. Screw that! They’ll have to square with the harsh reality opn their own, and I will not deceive them or myself for an instant to make it kinder.
Frankly, in response to another of your statements, I should say I know even less about myself than they. They claim to be something which is patently impossible, because we are not simply a brain, never have been, and never will be. A brain in a jar would be less than a man or woman, or even a sexless human-person. I wrestle with the concepts of identity and existence, and what makes a man is something much larger.
Your problem is a confusion being a man with the socially (and rightly) approved ideal of a man. The two are not the same, and simply because we have ideals does not make those ideals equal to the plain facts. Manhood is not man.
Well, there’s a problem if someone has a penis and a Y chromosome but wishes they didn’t. You think the problem should be solved by institutionalizing and drugging the person until they are cured of talking about how they feel like a woman. Cross dressing isn’t exactly a brand new phenomenon, we have records of it from ancient times, and the Israelites thought it was enough of a problem to declare it an abomination in the Bible.
And what exactly do you mean by “demanding” that you treat someone like a woman? You mean, someone wears a dress and lipstick and a bra and long hair, are they demanding that you treat them like a woman? Or are they just dressing like a woman? Or are you talking about refering to them using feminine name and feminine pronouns? How is that demanding? If someone tells you their name is Loretta, are they demanding you call the Loretta, or just telling you their name? If the name on their birth certificate is “Steve”, is that what makes it demanding? What if the name on their birth certificate is “Steve” but they tell you to call them “Rick”?
If “treating someone as a woman” just means calling them by the name they prefer, and not pointing and laughing, then it isn’t exactly equivalent to treating someone like a dog, now is it?
Clarity of thought is worth more than pleasing you. My categories are quite clear even if your mind fails to grasp them.
There are men, women, and possible non-sexed humans.
Men are distinguished by the presence of genitalia designed to create and deliver sperm (obviously, for reproductive purposes). However, should that genitalia be lost somehow or develop in an improper way, I fully accept that individual as part of the category male: the body is designed for male reproduction even if it sometimes, fails to work out as desired due to the vagaries of chance. What that individual thinks about the whole mess is irrelevant.
Likewise, my categories are simlarly in a different fashion for female. There presumably might be non-sexed persons who, for whatever reason, fail to have any genitalia or possess genitalia working at cross purposes. I feel no need to specifically categorize them as they are potentially rare if not unique in any case.
I’m glad you insist on clarity of thought, but you’re right that I can’t seem to grasp what is so clear to you.
Is an XY person with androgen insensitivity really male then? As you say, what they think is irrelevant. They can grow up looking like a woman, and feeling like a woman, but they aren’t really women, they’re men, because they should have grown a penis, but something went wrong and they didn’t?
Look, I don’t think transsexuals should be locked in prison or asylums or anything like that. I also don’t think condoning and supporting these kinds of surgeries and hormone therapies is what is best for individuals with gender identity issues or for society/humanity as a whole. Lots of people have parts about themselves they don’t like or understand. Having cosmetic surgery to change functioning genitalia into something that appears like non functioning genitalia of the opposite sex, then taking large amounts of hormones to affect cosmetic changes, then going to a voice coach to learn how to speak in a completely different manner, doesn’t seem that rational to me. People want lots of things in life that they can’t ever have. Learning to deal with who you are and what your limitations are is an important part of being human.
There’s a lot of debate about the definitions of man, woman, and gender, but the fact is that male and female mean something scientifically. A transsexual is a male masquerading as a female (or vice versa). While I assume a person could be perfectly happy living in a delusion, I feel ontologically dishonest playing along.
Once again, I don’t feel they should by physically stopped from having sex changes, that’s their choice, but I don’t feel obligated to pretend I don’t think that’s a terrible way to deal with one’s issues with identity and self esteem.
If a black friend was going to have surgery to make them appear white, or vice versa, because they always felt white/black on the inside, what would you tell them? What if your friend wanted to have their hand removed and replaced with a robotic claw, because they knew from a very young age that they were a cyborg trapped in a human body?
On a more serious note, what if you had an East Asian friend who wanted epicanthoplasty or East Asian blepharoplasty? Wouldn’t it be better for them in the long run to accept that there is nothing wrong with looking Asian than it would be to have a surgery to make them look less Asian?
So, how do you know if a given person who identifies as transsexual has a legitimate medical condition, or just a “notion?” For that matter, how do you know that there’s a difference between these two groups? It seems rather unlikely to me that we have identified every possible why a person can be physically intersexed. How do you know that the people you consider to have “notions” about their sexual identity are not suffering from an as-yet unrecognized intersexed condition?
Um, why not? What does it gain you to refuse to treat them as the gender they want to be treated? What do you lose if you take this simple step to make them feel more comfortable? What value does this “truth” have? How does it make the world better, or the people in it happier?
I’m not going to get into iton this basic level, because such a debate could take forever. But this is complete nonsense, and the cause of most of the world’s unhappiness. When we sacrifice truth in favor of comfort, we get neither. Your formula is based upon a lie, and will inevitably hurt people through that lie.
The basic reason for this is that once we sttep into the realm of lies and unthought and relativism, we destroy the very things we are trying to create. If we cannot even respect ourselves and be honest, what else can be possibly respect.
Because one group has a penis, testicles, and XY chromosomes.
We aren’t talking about people who are physically intersexed. We are talking about people who have a penis, testicles, and XY chromosomes, who nevertheless insist that they are “really” women.
Occam called - he wants to know if you want to borrow his razor.
I don’t believe your cite says what you have claimed it says (though I tend to blame that headline, really). Firstly, the claim made by the group in your cite is not that suicide rate is not affected, but rather, that studies undertaken to look at mental health aren’t robust enough to give good evidence. The director of the group in question says that the lack of responses could be a result of suicide or dissatisfaction - but it is also quite possible that they do not. He does not lay out his reasoning for why he believes the lack of responses to be so (though, again, I would tend to blame the newspaper rather than he). Secondly, these points are disputed by a transgender pressure group - though, certainly, we cannot accept their claims as necessarily unbiased. Thirdly, however, the article does refer to American and Dutch studies which do seems to show that a fifth of those who recieve sex-change operations regret it, and that the suicide rate of such people is 18%; per the guy in the last paragraph, it seems that among those who don’t recieve surgery the rate of suicide is “a fifth”, so while gender reassignment surgery would seem to possibly decrease suicide chances, we don’t know what he’s getting that number from.
But overall, the point is not that it does not have an effect, but that we do not know for certain what the effect is. It’s a bad headline.
Imagine some point in the far future. My brain is removed and hooked up to a female body. What’s my gender?