I would feel the same way about someone who insisted on having their ears removed if they had a reason that made some degree of sense. If you read my post, you saw that I ascribed understandable good reasons to folks seeking sex reassignment surgery.
I am not sure, honestly not sure, if the comparison to delusion is apt or off.
A schizophrenic with delusions and/or hallucinations and a person who thinks (s)he is the wrong gender both have a biological basis, a brain difference, that results in them experiencing a reality different than others do around them. That brain difference causes them some difficulties, especially in regards to living within a society that does not share the same perception of reality.
So far the same for each.
The possible difference is how each is approached. I suspect that if there was solid evidence of good quality that cutting off an ear allowed a schizophrenic to function much better within society and be happier for the rest of his/her life few would object. There is not so most of us would not endorse that course of action.
So far the only offered review of the evidence for gender reassignment procedures’ efficacy for those who perceive themselves to be transgendered rates the quality of the evidence as “very low quality” (not much better than saying that there is no evidence of efficacy at all) yet many endorse that aggressive course of action even without solid evidence of good quality that doing such allows someone who perceives him/herself to be the wrong gender to function much better within society and be happier for the rest of his/her life.
What am I missing?
First of all, I think you make a good point about the “flakes and nuts” comment. In a discussion that somewhat revolves around acceptance, this phrase is unhelpful and unneeded to compare or contrast mental illness with other things.
About “thinking your sex is not what it actually is”, I think you are glossing over your apparent belief that sex and gender are the same thing, and then calling other people’s beliefs that their gender and sex are not aligned a “delusion”. The transgender people I know, and the things I read on the subject, say the point is that a person’s gender (not their sex) is a real thing that happens to be genuinely misaligned with their sex. I’ve never heard of people who thought their sex was different from “what it actually is” (setting aside any questions of whether sex itself is necessarily clearly binary). And as I tried to explain, this rings true for me personally – I’m cisgender but I still sense inside that I have a gender and I have always heard that I have a sex, and I can distinguish the two.
About tennis and conservative haters of gays, well, I’ve never heard of women’s tennis being under fire, but then I don’t follow sports and probably wouldn’t actually care. About Grumman’s post that calls people “assholes” for not accepting Grumman’s apparent belief about other people that their own internally felt gender necessarily has to align with their sex, well, if you don’t get that that appears hateful, I’m not sure how to explain it further. Finally, there is something that I am not getting: what does being or not being a “hater of gays” have to do with statements about transgender people? Are you suggesting that being gay is somehow connected with being transgender?
I suspect that transgender is often a heteronormative reaction to being gay. A man lacks stereotypically “masculine” personality traits, and is sexually attracted to men, and instead of just being gay (which as I say, I am totally cool with) he, perhaps because of the influence of the heteronormative society around him, thinks “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body”.
Let’s review what **Grumman **said:
This is similar to what I am saying, and what McHugh said in my OP: that to be “transgender” is to be obsessed with a stereotypical, heteronormative idea of gender that would be offensive in other contexts. That’s the irony of all this. As someone asked upthread, do we see transgender people who want to be butch women? You may be able to find a few, but speaking of the vast majority? No. My wife is all woman, birthed and breastfed two babies; but she has never worn makeup a day in her life, and has worn high heels, reluctantly, exactly one day in her life. I wonder how many transgender people would go sans makeup or heels. It’s a cartoon version of womanhood they are obsessed with, lacking subtlety or nuance as McHugh’s female colleagues noticed right away.
And I know you are being disingenuous to act as though it’s the first you’ve heard of transgender being connected to being gay. “LGBT” ring a bell? C’mon. I mean, I’m the one who would prefer it just be “LGB” and leave what is being called “transgender” in a different category.
Yes, we do actually. But they’re stuck in a catch-22. If they don’t act “all woman,” (with the makeup and the heels and the carefully coiffed hair) then their gatekeeper therapists say that they’re not doing it right and they’re not serious about this transitioning thing. It’s a huge issue in the community. You have to strike just the right balance - feminine enough to please your gatekeeper, but not so over the top as to be ridiculous and get you beat up. But I didn’t know it was even an issue until I joined a Facebook group started by a MtF friend and “overheard” them talking about it.
You and lots of gay people and lots of transgender people. Another hot button issue in the community.
No, not every transgender person is homosexual, not by a long shot.
Let’s lay this out.
There are five things involved in what we think of as “gender.” The first, and easiest to deal with, is behavior. This one can go all over the place, and isn’t particularly relevant. We come in gay, straight, bi- and asexual. We can be tomboys and effeminate men and everything in between. Transgender people come in the same range. and it’s not at all unusual to meet a transgender butch lesbian. While some people may get really into gender behavior (which is, after all, our main way of expressing gender identity publicly,) it’s not really what gender identity is about, so we can set this aside for now.
For the next four, there are all kinds of things that can happen during development that lead to things not working out as planned. Human development is a delicate and precisely timed thing, and the wrong dose of hormones at the wrong time can quite easily lead things to work out abnormally. Everything involved in sex is susceptible to this.
Let’s look at physical anatomy. We all acknowledge that there is all kinds of stuff going on with this. Something like 1% of people are born with ambiguous genitals, and this can go any number of ways. This can be because you’ve got something that is truly in between (like ovutestes rather than ovaries or testes), or because the external does not match the internal, like with PMDS where people are male but end up with a uterus and Fallopian tubes. Internally and externally, you can really end up with anything- from nothing, to the "wrong’ thing, to unusual combinations of what would be typically for both sexes.
Next, we have chromosomes. These also come in a number of flavors, each combination of which has a different effect. Usually, you don’t know what your chromosomes are. It’s not uncommon for variations to only be discovered when puberty doesn’t go the way it was expected to.
Then there are hormones. Once again, people can end up with various conditions where they get the wrong or the wrong amount of hormones.
Finally, there is whatever is going on in the brain. It’s a new field of study and we don’t entirely know all of the ins and outs, but everything out there suggests that what is going on int he brain is very important, and probably the deciding factor in gender identity. Human beings are narrative creatures. We rely on things like “identity” to make sense of the world, exist in society, and manage our sense of self. We see some differences in the brains of transgender people, and research is continueing.
So tell me, why is it easy to acknowledge there can be variations in physical, chromosomal, and hormonal gender, but it’s so hard to believe that the same thing can exist in the part of the brain that manages gender?
What you’re missing is what people often miss in this debate: surgery is NOT the first choice of treatment. Really, it’s not. Prior to any transition surgery the person has to undergo counseling. The person is usually put on hormone and/or hormone blocker treatment, which is strictly medication and may be discontinued if intolerable side effects arise. The person needs to spend time living as the other gender utilizing clothing, make-up, and in some cases binding devices to achieve the desired appearance, all of which are reversible simply by taking off the stuff. This is a long process.
Surgery ONLY occurs after these other methods are found insufficient. It is not unknown for the people with this diagnosis to stop short of surgery, to utilize dress and such techniques to pass as the destination gender. Some only get some surgery, frequently only that needed to allow passing with normal clothing. The fact that some of these people freely choose to NOT have surgery even when it is available should indicate that it’s not always required and certainly not compulsory to achieve a better level of comfort.
I’ve heard it said by transsexual people that people who aren’t transgender focus intently on the genital surgery when, for them, it’s much more about being accepted as their mental gender, about passing, about being treated socially as who they believe themselves to be.
Surgery is only for those with gender issues that cannot be resolved by other means.
Be that as it may (and I appreciate that less aggressive means are tried first): is there good quality of evidence (anecdotes do not meet that standard) that quality of life for those who reach that stage is significantly better for those who have surgery than for those without?
I am also not yet convinced that it should be called a disease. Not every difference, even a difference that causes difficulty, is an illness.
Is it an illness, caused by something in the brain?
I think some transgendered individuals want to have it both ways. They want it called an illness and thus treatment covered by insurance but also do not want to be labelled as having an illness. Which is it?
Well, first of all I’d say there’s a big difference between “there is evidence, but it is of low quality” and “there is no evidence”. Second, I just pulled up the full text of the article cited by treis, and it isn’t actually about the efficacy of sex reassignment surgery. It’s about the efficacy of hormonal treatment. And while they say the evidence is weak, the authors of this study themselves don’t say that hormonal treatments should not be used:
Incidentally, one reason Murad, et al, say the evidence for the efficacy of hormonal treatment is weak is that it’s often provided in combination with sex reassignment surgery, so it’s not clear how much of the positive outcomes for patients were due to the hormonal treatment alone.
I don’t see that Murad, et al, express any doubts as to the efficacy of surgery, although since this wasn’t the topic of their article then they may just not have considered it worth mentioning either way.
Let’s take a look at Dr. Paul R. McHugh:
Jesus. No, trans people are not confused gay people. Trans people, post transition, display the full range of sexual orientations found in cis gendered people, with slightly higher numbers of people identifying as gay or bisexual. That’s after transition: MtF transexuals identify as lesbians at a higher rate than cis gendered women, and FtMs as gay at a higher rate than cis men.
If your cockamamie idea were true, virtually no trans people would identify as gay after they transition.
Yes. Frequently. I personally know three butch transwomen, only two of whom identify as a lesbian. One of them has the largest collection of men’s neckties I’ve ever seen, and wears them at every occasion. I also know no less than five transmen who are varying degrees of femme. One of them (my boyfriend) identifies as gay, one as heterosexual, and the rest varying degrees of bisexual. One of the trans guys I know is a dead ringer for Truman Capote, both in looks and mannerisms. He’s married to one of the aforementioned butch transwomen.
You know, it’s interesting, and maybe a bit revealing: homophobes tend to be obsessed with butt sex, and often seem to forget that there’s suh a thing as a lesbian. Transphobes tend to focus on dicks being chopped off, and often seem to forget that there’s such a thing as a transman.
Yeah, that’s not uncommon when people first transition. It takes some practice to learn how to properly wear makeup and coordinate a wardrobe, and a lot of newly out transpeople can be really… enthusiastic about it. Most femme transwomen I know who are more than a year past transition grow out of it.
Yay! Another straight person lecturing us about how we should run the gay rights movement! That’s my favoritist thing ever!
Sorry, no, but we’re not going to throw transpeople to the wolves, no matter how much people like you want us to. Transsexuality and homosexuality are two distinct issues, but the problems faced by both groups are similar enough that it makes sense for us to pool our resources. And if trans rights can pick up some momentum by riding on the coattails of the gay rights movement, so much the better. I’m not so petty as to want to slam the door in their face just after gays have made it over the threshold. Particularly since the only benefit of doing so would be the dubious honor of making someone like you happy. Some kinds of supporter, frankly, we’d just as soon do without.
No, not always. I was speaking generally. There are also some chromosomal disorders that demonstrate statements like ‘I have testicles and a Y chromosome, therefore I am objectively male’ are oversimplifications.
Uh huh. “I suspect” sounds so much more informed than “I don’t have evidence but here’s a guess,” doesn’t it?
As someone who’s done their fair share of penoplasties, this statement is complete bs. I’m going to have to ask for a cite on this one.
(Aside: the bad rap is warranted, frankly, but people are also wildly overestimating the current results of M->F surgery. Talk to anyone performing that surgery and they’d be more than happy to list the many limitations and obstacles they are working on overcoming. The idea that it would fool a gynecologist is also pretty insulting to any competent gynecologist. If the lack of a cervix, uterus, ovaries, true mucosa, the presence of a prostate (sometimes), male pelvic architecture, and scarring weren’t enough, ask yourself why, exactly, a postop trans woman would be getting examined by a gynecologist. For fun? To test them? On the flip side I don’t doubt you could get a pelvic exam as part of a trauma exam or ER visit and have it go unnoticed, if the person doing the exam wasn’t paying much attention.)
The literature on neuroanatomy in transsexual patients is nowhere near as clear as you are suggesting. The idea that you could examine a brain with the naked eye and make a gender determination more easily than with imaging is also very strange. What, specifically are you referring to as the obvious differences that are visible to the naked eye? That’s ignoring the fact that there more than enough variation within gender to make any clear gender assignment impossible. That’s also ignoring the fact that it doesn’t prove causation. That’s also ignoring the fact that if a trans woman had brain anatomy completely congruent with “male” and not “female” standards, that wouldn’t make him a fraud, anymore than a man with typically “female brain characteristics” would be a closeted transexual.
I will say this though: most of the trans woman and men I’ve met have a strong tendency to adopt their own sex’s preconceptions of the opposite gender, so I’m not sure I’d disagree with McHugh’s observation. (I don’t have formal data on this one, it’s purely anecdotal. But it mirrors the interesting contrast between what women find attractive in men, what men think women find attractive in men, and what gay men actually find attractive in men.)
I was busy yesterday and slept late this morning, and missed this. Thank Og so many good people showed up and pitched in!
A link to the study I was going to reference has already been posted.
Gender identity is not a mental illness. Most people have one. I, for example, identify strongly as a man. I enjoy sewing clothes and making stuffed toys. I have no interest in professional sports or cars. I really love going antique shopping with my mother. But, deep down, I know I am a man.
Some people have a gender identity at odds with their genitals and chromosomes. Why do you insist that they are wrong? Especially when we have evidence that
#1 The human brain is sexually dimorphic
#2 It’s possible to have (essentially) a brain of one sex in a body of another.
?
Miller
My respect for you continues to grow.
While I agree the brain is somewhat dimorphic, I take issue with the idea that we can readily identify male vs female brains. The literature just isn’t there, and some of the most well documented dimorphisms relate to orientation and not gender.
I guess the question comes down to: if someone has a “male brain” and male body, but still wishes to identify as a woman, do we accept that? If someone has what appears to be a “female brain” and a male body, but has always identified as a man, are they wrong?
Reducing it to anatomy seems like a dangerous road to tread to me.
And you’ve missed 100% of the point, which is impressive in its own way. I didn’t say a word about people with mental illnesses. I said that over the years, most people here have come to accept that transgenderism is a real condition- not misplaced shame or confusion about being gay, not a delusion that causes people to beg surgeons to cut off body parts, not something objectively wrong like saying you feel tall even though you are short. Arguments to the contrary - that is, arguments that being transgender is a delusion - characterize people who call themselves TG as flakes or nuts. That’s what I said. You can find a few examples in this thread and plenty more in older discussion. (Bonus points go to the claim that race can be objectively defined. Who knew?!) And it’s probably worth noting that, while you have done some reading here, this discussion pretty much always starts the same way: a straight guy suggests he’s done a little reading on the issue and now knows more about the matter than people who identify as TG or even people who have been watching the discussion evolve for a while.
It’s not. I take mental illness seriously. It killed my father, and perhaps my grandmother. But I think we need a lot more than “low quality” evidence before we treat it with major surgery on healthy, normally formed genitals. (Keep in mind too that I am strongly against circumcusion, so I just start from a place of opposition to taking a scalpel to a healthy penis.)
But as WhyNot noted upthread, this is bogus. We should not pressure anyone to wear heels and makeup, but especially not in the name of “medicine”. Not only does my wife not wear those things, but we discourage our daughters from ever wearing them when they get older. Does that mean we are training her to have a male gender? The whole thing just smacks of gender essentialism.
How does it rate against “mental illness is not real illness” and "the mentally ill are flakes and nuts? :rolleyes: (I know you deny it now, but it is right up there for anyone to see, as I assume you haven’t misused your mod privileges to edit your post past the five minute window.)
While in the past a MtF might have had to wear heels and makeup that is no longer so very true, and there’s more to dressing as a woman than wearing skirts. There are feminine styles of pants, boots, shirts, the wearing of false boobs, and so forth. Wearing makeup doesn’t necessarily mean troweling on a thick layer of paint. On the flip side, for the FtM set there is the binding of boobs, wearing male styles of pants and shirts, and so forth. Furthermore, I mentioned this in the context of living as a particular gender which is more than just clothing - otherwise, all naked people would be neuter.
But hey, just pick part of my statements completely out of context…
I said neither.
I’m not denying anything. I am telling you you failed to understand what I said. I don’t disagree that mental illness are real and I don’t think mentally ill people are crazy or flaky. I do reject the idea that TG people are delusional or misinformed. You can look in this thread and see those kinds of characterizations. If anyone else takes issue with what I said, I’m happy to discuss it with them. But I’m not going to go back and forth with you if you are not only going to insist you know what I said better than I do, but you’re going to take shots at my integrity at the same time.
Agreed. Even the much-sainted Harry Benjamin had some strong opinions which are now considered controversial and incorrect.