# 'luci Reports to Ms Persson's Office for Scolding and Correction **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 7, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622 "2006-10-07T17:32:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/121 "2006-10-08T00:13:29Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] why should we assume that this belief is well founded? What differentiates this from an ordinary delusion? Shouldn’t there be \*some \* distinction? Well, what might that be? [/quote] Well, find one that distinguishes same-sex attraction from the belief that one was born with the wrong set of gonads. Either of them could be a mass delusion; why one more so than the other? > [@](#): > > Love is a many-gendered thing, it would seem, and none of it is very clearly defined. Exactly, my friend. And perhaps that’s why you shouldn’t tell someone else that his or her definition is not valid. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/122 "2006-10-08T00:18:04Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Does it make any more sense to assume that they’re _all_ delusional, as you did in your OP? You are aware that sex change operations are not done on an out-patient basis, right? Just getting approved for the operation requires a huge battery of counseling and psychological testing, plus a year spent living as the opposite gender full-time. And not everyone gets approval after that process. It’s not just done willy-nilly. And yes, sometimes it’s the wrong choice for that person, and they do end up regretting it, which is tragic. That does not invalidate the entire process, or the experiences of those who have undergone gender reassignment with no regrets whatsoever… [/quote] Got statistics? Got proof? You say that it is sometimes a wrong choice, even a tragic choice. Wouldn’t you say that someone who made such a choice without a basis was “delusional”? I would. What if someone believes themselves to be depressed because they are transexual, but they aren’t, and their depression could be treated by other, less drastic means? Is that not delusional? So all we’ve got to argue about is whether that is true in all cases. To be quite frank, I think that is a statement I never made, as I avoid absolutes like the plague. I know other people have insisted on interpreting me that way. Oh, well. [QUOTE=me] But if it were my son or daughter, I would want a damn sight more [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > …What the hell does what _you_ want have to do with it? You either don’t have any kids, or didn’t think that through very carefully. In a word, love. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/123 "2006-10-08T00:19:42Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Well, find one that distinguishes same-sex attraction from the belief that one was born with the wrong set of gonads. Either of them could be a mass delusion; why one more so than the other? [/QUOTE] Yep. There is exactly the same amount of evidence that both homosexuality and GID are biologically determined-- that is to say, none. All we have is the deep seated belief of many, many people that they were born that way. And the fact that seems to be no “cure”. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/124 "2006-10-08T00:22:49Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Of course not! You are talking about someone with distinct physical phenomena that can be verified and determined. … But if it were my son or daughter, I would want a damn sight more. [/QUOTE] [Physical phenomena verified.](http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm) The four sample photographs are pretty telling, and probably the kind of direct, repeatable, verifiable physical phenomenon you’re talking about. They compare the hypothalmic anatomy of a straight male, straight female, gay male, and MtF transsexual. Is seeing believing? The trouble is, you only have the patient’s word for it while the patient’s alive. To take the above photographs you have to slice open the patient’s brain and lay it flat. Kinda… not practical in an everyday sort of way. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/125 "2006-10-08T00:23:42Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] > [@kimera](#): > > …But this does not mean that everyone who identifies as transsexual is crazy… Never said that it did. Someone else said I did. And they will continue to insist that I did, no matter what I say. Time to shrug. [/QUOTE] So what did you mean when you said this? > [@elucidator](#): > > Does it include such persons who claim to be souls of one gender trapped in the body of another? Can’t buy it, don’t believe it, doesn’t make sense. ImhO, the only result for a surgical alteration of gender is mutilation. You “[c]an’t buy it” and “don’t believe it” and you think treatment for transsexualism amounts to “mutilation” - so if you didn’t actually mean that transsexuals are crazy, what did this statement mean? How do I interpret these two statements in order to figure out a consistent position for you on this issue? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/126 "2006-10-08T00:23:58Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] Transgenderism is basically usually defined as someone having a physical gender out of sync with their gender identity. [/quote] Ok. And if this is a definition we can all agree on, this is strictly a “mental” condition. > [@](#): > > As you’ve noted, there are lots of cases where there is some degree of ambiguity regarding an infant’s genitalia (a surprisingly large number, depending on the exact criteria used, which isn’t surprising because most medical conditions occur in degrees.) The current word for people with that condition is usually “intersexed”. Not sure why there’s a need to introduce yet _another_ term for something that’s fairly common knowledge. I mean, even I, mostly an ignoramus on the topic, have known about hermaphrodites since childhood. It just so happened that my Dad had rented an apartment in the building we lived in to one. It was quite an awkward way to learn about the condition, as the first few times the person said “Hi” to me, I always offered a cheery “Hello Ma’am!”…only to be told by my parents once they heard me about the whole condition and that the “lady” was actually a man. I must have been about ten at the time but I think I can still remember both the shock and the embarrasment I felt. Shock at such a thing existing and embarrasment both for him and myself. To be completely honest, I also felt a sense of repulsion and tried to avoid running into the guy as much as I could. Fast forward 40 years and what I feel now is both utter shame for my actions and much pity for what that poor guy must have gone through in his lifetime. In fact, I was raised to be a homophobe by both of my very conservative parents – and yet that episode resonated with me so much that by the time I got to college – mid 70’s mind you, homophobia still ruled – I was completly at ease with homosexuals. Even if it stirred up “rumours” that I was one myself 'cause I had a couple of gay friends. Guess that when I started using my motto for life in general: “Fuck them if they can’t take a joke.” Anyway, apologies for the sidetrack, but I want to lay bare where I’m coming fom at all of this. > [@](#): > > There’s increasing evidence that a lot of people who would formerly be classified as simply transgendered - i.e. gender identity and physical body don’t match - are actually intersexed in some degree. They have more or less subtle physical and genetic conditions that make their physical sex less clear. For an anecdotal example, a pre-op transgendered MTF friend of mine was identified as male at birth but grew small breasts at puberty (lasting longer than the occasional cases in which pubescent boys exhibit minor breast development.) That sort of thing is, according to some researchers, not terribly uncommon. (kimera actually mentioned once in a thread that some doctors have proposed that height above 5’8’’ be treated as evidence against transgenderism for MTFs, because typically they tend to have smaller, more feminine builds. My limited personal experience knowing some transgendered people aligns with that.) Interesting and informative. Also makes quite a bit of sense. The height bit is also quite telling. > [@](#): > > Differences in brain structure have been alluded to above as well - just as subtle differences in brain structure may exist between gay and straight people. _:::wondering at loud::::_ I’ve always noticed how many gay men get along swimingly with women, straight or ortherwise (partly the reason I liked having gay friends ;o), do you think gay men have more in common with women’s brain structures than they do with straight men’s? Please do not take the question as any sort of insult, it’s simply a thought born from observation. > [@](#): > > Of course, none of these things are really diagnostic. But one thing I’ve always been struck by in talking to the few transgendered people I know is that they’ve all known from a very early age, and most of them were scolded as children for behaving more like their mental gender rather than their physical gender. The stories of transgendered people I’ve known (as well as ones I’ve read) always struck me as pretty similar to what it was like to realize I was gay. At first, it seemed perfectly natural - certainly well before puberty, I realized that men were attractive to me and women weren’t (even if there were no sexual urges related to that fealing.) It seemed natural right up until I started realizing that it wasn’t normal. Transgendered people seem to report the same sorts of things - for instance, wanting to dress as their preferred gender rather than the one their parents thought they were, and only later starting to understand that their behavior was not considered normal. > > Fundamentally, homosexuality and transgenderism are really both facets of the same thing, and I think that’s where the political identification of gay rights and trans rights movements came from. After all, we’re all a crowd of people who aren’t acting the way our gender is supposed to, and we tend to suffer the same sort of shit for it. As you can see, I’ve already recognized how tough it must have been for the gentleman to go through life as he did and how said episode also helped to decondition my inbred homophopia. But I _still_ can’t quite assimilate all of what you’ve said above vis-a-vis “sex-change people” (allow me to use said term for the moment, there’s been so many thrown my way in the past few post that I remain a bit confused with the correct terminology) and homosexuals “being facets of the same thing.” I mean, as I said, I’ve come to view homosexuality as something totally natural, but – at least for the moment – I’m still not sure how wanting to have surgery to change/remove your sexual organs is NOT primarily a _mental_ problem. It just doesn’t seem to compute. > [@](#): > > That’s why I have a good deal of sympathy for transgendered people; no, it really cannot (yet, at least) be conclusively proven that transgenderism exists in the same way we can prove that gravity exists (though I think the same could be said for lots of things in the human experience.) At the same time, people still argue that homosexuality isn’t real, that it doesn’t actually exist and arises out of rebelliousness or confusion and that it can be cured rather than permitting us to live our sinful, deviant lifestyles. Although I can understand your empathy with anyone despised by society on account of their sexual preferences, it seems to me you might be engaging in a bit of crystal-ball gazing what with equating where we’re are now w/regards to homosexuality – yes the fight’s not over yet, but my own crystal ball says gay marriage will be a non-event in ten years or less – and people that actually want to mutilate their (perfectly working) organs in order to “be themselves.” \ > [@](#): > > And I do take it personally when people claim that transgenderism isn’t real. From a broader, more abstract perspective, transgenderism is a lot like homosexuality. We’re both groups of people that have suffered a lot because we don’t fit in with what is common and expected of our genders. So when someone questions someone else’s gender identity, it’s not a big leap from there to questioning my sexual orientation. As has been said in this thread more than once, both questions can be raised with exactly the same reasoning to support them. You might as well be telling me I’m not really gay if you think only what’s most common and what’s traditionally accepted is really genuine. And, of course, a lot of the same people think the same thing about transgendered people and gay people. I really, really need to chew on this a lot more to come to the same conclusions you have. Obviously, you’ve given this a heck of lot more thought than I have…I guess I’m only seeing parts of the puzzle. * * * **Fish** , Wow! Thanks a ton to you too! But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t respond right away. That’s a ton of info you’ve provided as well and I’ll try to blend it with that provided in **Excalibre’s** post to see what I can piece together. But damn! It’s gonna have to wait a bit. Beyond the (welcomed) info overload, this is starting to feel like homework. And I won’t even begin to tell you how I felt about doing homework… 😉 Thanks again though. Lots to learn. That much is rather obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/127 "2006-10-08T00:23:59Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Got statistics? Got proof? [/QUOTE] Do you? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/128 "2006-10-08T00:28:36Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] Are we to assume that just because the cause of someone’s transsexuality isn’t obvious, that there must not actually be one?.. [/quote] Straw man. No. Conversely, are you suggesting that because someone believe it to be true, it is? Of course there’s a “cause”, the question is: what is that cause? > [@](#): > > …Again, what’s the difference between that reasoning and telling gay people that our own feelings aren’t valid or real? People do that too - and the reasons to class it as a disorder to be treated seem just as convincing to me as the reasons to decide a transsexual is actually just delusional… Because I’ve already made it entirely clear that I regard homosexuality as acceptable. And your wording is unclear, you make an equivalence…“just as convincing to me…” that seems to make it a “tomato, tomato” thing, which I gather is not what you mean. It isn’t, right? > [@](#): > > I keep harping on the fact that your reasoning can be used to dismiss homosexuality for a reason… No, I don’t think that it can. Certainly can’t “dismiss” homosexuality, its there, its a fact. Listen, I think you need a homophobe to beat up on. Go find one. It ain’t me, babe. If I can’t prove that to your satisfaction…well, _que sera, sera_. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/129 "2006-10-08T00:30:50Z")
[QUOTE=kimera] Some intersexed women never find out they are XY until they fail to get pregnant. [/QUOTE] Uh, wouldn’t they find out when they failed to menstruate upon puberty? 😕 As for ' **luci** , I think there’s some major trolling going on. There’s got to be. C’mon, ' **luci** , what are you up to? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/130 "2006-10-08T00:48:37Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Got statistics? Got proof? [/quote] For what, specifically? > [@](#): > > You say that it is sometimes a wrong choice, even a tragic choice. Wouldn’t you say that someone who made such a choice without a basis was “delusional”? I would. What if someone believes themselves to be depressed because they are transexual, but they aren’t, and their depression could be treated by other, less drastic means? Is that not delusional? No, not necessarily. If I think I have a stomach ache because I ate a bad oyster, but it turns out I’ve got an ulcer, that doesn’t make me delusional, it just makes me mistaken. > [@](#): > > So all we’ve got to argue about is whether that is true in all cases. To be quite frank, I think that is a statement I never made, as I avoid absolutes like the plague. I know other people have insisted on interpreting me that way. Oh, well. Did you not say, in the OP of this thread, that there’s no such thing as transgenderism? That it has no “validity?” That seems to be a fairly absolute statement to me. > [@](#): > > You either don’t have any kids, or didn’t think that through very carefully. In a word, love. Love? What’s that got to do with it? If your kid thinks he’s transgendered, he’s not going to change his mind just because you love him a whole lot. If he thinks he’s transgendered, and wants to pursue treatment for it, what _you_ think about it doesn’t amount to a fart in a wind tunnel. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/131 "2006-10-08T00:52:22Z")
[QUOTE=Me] …Does it include such persons who claim to be souls of one gender trapped in the body of another? Can’t buy it, don’t believe it, doesn’t make sense. ImhO, the only result for a surgical alteration of gender is mutilation… [/QUOTE] The word that confused you was “soul”, as in a being with an identity of its own, and a self-awareness that includes gender. (I very much doubt souls have genders, but let’s not get lost in that, God knows, thick enough as it is.) Did I stipulate all manner of conditions? Nope. Like, for instance, a person with confusing genetic development? Nope. What I find difficult to believe is that the personality (or soul) is so utterly distinct from the body, that the mind-body duality is so total, that the mind can be a being _distinct_ from the body. When you throw in biological dispositions, you’ve changed the parameters entirely. I’ll grant that I didn’t think about that, because I felt my meaning was clear. It seems more likely that those persons who have no biological causes for their belief in being “transgendered” or “transexual” are delusional, they have misdiagnosed themselves. Those that do have such biological causes are not delusional, they have not misdiagnosed themselves. But all of those in that first category are delusional. I made an assumption you did not: that all things were otherwise equal, normal person, normal “soul”, normal body. Change any of those, and it no longer works. It was my opinion that the most common result of gender transition surgery under the definitions above was a sad and tragic mutilation. We have testimony that this is frequently the case, but not always. Good enough, that opinion is open to evidence, and hence, alteration. Show me that this surgery is as positive a cure for “whatever it is” as an appendectomy is for appendicitis, and I will alter my opinion soonest. As it stands, I can only move to “jury out, pending review.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/132 "2006-10-08T00:59:35Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] … C’mon, ' **luci** , what are you up to? [/QUOTE] A misunderstanding that I am unwilling to take the blame for. Stubborn. I said “X”. Someone screamed “You said XY!”. “No, I said X” “There, you said XY again!..” My initial point had nothing whatever to do with actual, physical trangender-transexual-whatever the fuck it is we’re off into now. I remember having these discussions and a gay man of my collective refusing to accept that hetero TV’s had any standing in his “movement”, and I thought he had a very good point. Still do. After all, a TV can just change clothes, and my buddy couldn’t. Then, God help us, we veered off into this crap festival. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/133 "2006-10-08T01:01:16Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] But I _still_ can’t quite assimilate all of what you’ve said above vis-a-vis “sex-change people” (allow me to use said term for the moment, there’s been so many thrown my way in the past few post that I remain a bit confused with the correct terminology) and homosexuals “being facets of the same thing.” I mean, as I said, I’ve come to view homosexuality as something totally natural, but – at least for the moment – I’m still not sure how wanting to have surgery to change/remove your sexual organs is NOT primarily a _mental_ problem. It just doesn’t seem to compute. [/QUOTE] Think of it in terms of mind-body dualism. You have an individual whose mind say they are one gender, and whose body says they are the other gender. Why assume that the defect lies in the mind, and not the body? I think of myself as a man. I’ve got some \ sizable evidence to back it up, too. If I got in a terrible accident tomorrow, and lost my Elected Pennsylvania Representative, I’d still think of myself as a man. My gender identity does not come from the fact that I have a dick, it comes from how I think about myself. Time was, people assumed that gender identity was shaped by physical gender. If you were born with a penis, you grew up thinking of yourself as a man. This assumption was called into question specifically because of hermaphrodites. It was formerly the practice to “correct” the gender of hermaphrodites at birth, raise them as whatever gender they were corrected to, and it was assumed that that would be the gender they identified as when they grew up. Turned out, this was not the case. Quite a few people who had their hermaphorditism surgically corrected, _and who never knew about it_, grew up feeling that they were the wrong gender. Their brains “knew” they were supposed to be one gender, even though their bodies and society at large told them they were the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/134 "2006-10-08T01:04:23Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] …Love? What’s that got to do with it? If your kid thinks he’s transgendered, he’s not going to change his mind just because you love him a whole lot. If he thinks he’s transgendered, and wants to pursue treatment for it, what _you_ think about it doesn’t amount to a fart in a wind tunnel. [/QUOTE] Like all sons, mine regards his father as the source and font of all wisdom and guidance. As is probably blazingly obvious to anyone not in a self-righteous shitfit, like yourself, I meant that I would need to know more before I could be comfortable with such a thing. A lot more! Really a lot more! If you thought I was speaking as one who presumes to rule his children, you’re too stupid to make your own oatmeal. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/135 "2006-10-08T01:05:33Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] Not sure why there’s a need to introduce yet _another_ term for something that’s fairly common knowledge. I mean, even I, mostly an ignoramus on the topic, have known about hermaphrodites since childhood. [/quote] It’s a biological term that generally refers to organisms that have two functioning sets of sex organs - either at the same time, or organisms that start out as one sex and change to the other. Hermaphroditic animals are fertile in both sex roles; “hermaphroditic” people are not and often are completely infertile. Thus, the use of the biological term isn’t really an accurate description of the condition, at least compared to other things described as “hermaphrodites”. > [@](#): > > To be completely honest, I also felt a sense of repulsion and tried to avoid running into the guy as much as I could. That’s, well, natural. People react instinctively to folks who seem . . . wrong. I visited Lisbon when I was 15, and I saw [this guy](http://poetry.rotten.com/lisboa/) (warning - disturbing picture.) Years later, I immediately recognized this image when I ran into it online. Obviously this is an extreme example, but people instinctively react to people who seem to have something wrong with them. The trouble is that it’s not a great basis to make decisions about the world, and it’s better to attempt to rise above such things. The thing many people who are “enlightened” about homosexuality don’t seem to understand is that a lot of people feel exactly the same reaction to gay people - isn’t that something we should work on getting over? (I’m just discussing this in general; I’m not directing you, personally, to change your attitudes.) > [@](#): > > Fast forward 40 years and what I feel now is both utter shame for my actions and much pity for what that poor guy must have gone through in his lifetime. For the record, as you describe it, it doesn’t sound as if you did anything to be ashamed of. > [@](#): > > I’ve always noticed how many gay men get along swimingly with women, straight or ortherwise (partly the reason I liked having gay friends ;o), do you think gay men have more in common with women’s brain structures than they do with straight men’s? Please do not take the question as any sort of insult, it’s simply a thought born from observation. I don’t think there’s any clear answer to why gay guys tend to hang out with straight women. I could imagine any number of social reasons apart from anything brain-related; I have never heard of any specific physical, brain-based explanation for gay men’s tendency to hang out with women. Which doesn’t rule it out, obviously. But it’s only one possible explanation among several. > [@](#): > > But I _still_ can’t quite assimilate all of what you’ve said above vis-a-vis “sex-change people” (allow me to use said term for the moment, there’s been so many thrown my way in the past few post that I remain a bit confused with the correct terminology) and homosexuals “being facets of the same thing.” I mean that in that both groups are people who, fundamentally, do not behave as we are supposed to, according to traditional concepts of gender. In both cases, you have to accept us at our word as to how we feel - there’s no easy diagnostic to determine who is gay or transsexual. You can’t administer gay bacteria in a skin test and see if we have an immune response. You can’t measure our craniums or look at MRIs or anything. There’s no objective evidence to be consulted. > [@](#): > > I mean, as I said, I’ve come to view homosexuality as something totally natural, but – at least for the moment – I’m still not sure how wanting to have surgery to change/remove your sexual organs is NOT primarily a _mental_ problem. It just doesn’t seem to compute. Are you familiar with [David Reimer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer) - that is, “John/Joan”? He was a boy who was physically normal, but his penis was destroyed in a botched circumcision. Under the psychiatric thinking of the time, it was thought that someone’s brain would naturally accept whatever gender their body seemed to be - and under the principle that “it’s easier to dig a hole than build a hole”, he was surgically altered into “Brenda”, and they didn’t tell him what had happened. (“John” and “Joan” are names that were used to protect his identity.) He was raised as a girl and, eventually, given hormones, and his psychologist, John Money, claimed him as a successful case in which gender identity was assigned to a young child. But he continued to feel that his female body was wrong - he never identified as a girl, he was ostracized by his peers, and he became suicidal. Eventually, his parents admitted what had happened to him, and he ended up becoming a very well-publicized figure. He resumed living as a male, took the name David, and transitioned surgically. Eventually, though, he ended up committing suicide, in large part for reasons related to the fallout from the surgery he’d been subjected to as an infant. I think this is a good conceptual case to understand the gender identity issues involved - no one would consider David nuts for not accepting his surgically-assigned female identity. It’s obvious, then, that someone’s gender identity and physical sex can be at odds. It’s not problematic to accept that it happens when a baby is reassigned to a different gender. So, then, why is it so hard to believe that this could happen naturally? David wasn’t nuts for feeling like he didn’t want a vagina. Why, then, is it so hard to believe that things could naturally go wrong that way? Babies are frequently born with physical deformities, including ambiguous genitalia as we’ve been discussing. Why in the world is it such a stretch to imagine that people’s basic gender identity - something that we do seem to have from birth, as David’s case indicates - could be at odds with their body? To me, it seems as obvious as saying that someone could be born with a cleft lip that should be surgically repaired. > [@](#): > > Although I can understand your empathy with anyone despised by society on account of their sexual preferences, it seems to me you might be engaging in a bit of crystal-ball gazing what with equating where we’re are now w/regards to homosexuality – yes the fight’s not over yet, but my own crystal ball says gay marriage will be a non-event in ten years or less – and people that actually want to mutilate their (perfectly working) organs in order to “be themselves.” You think we’re going to have gay marriage within ten years? Where do you live? It’s great that you don’t have anything against gay people. But man, you clearly aren’t very aware of what it’s like for a lot of us in a lot of places. I’m not even particularly complaining - I’m perfectly comfortable being out of the closet; I know that even ten years ago that would have been much harder. But it’s not always easy, and it’s not like gay people don’t still face a lot of challenges in our daily life. At any rate, my point with regard to gays and transsexuals is simple. Exactly the same comments can be made about gays as about transsexuals. I mean that quite literally, because the same arguments _are_ made about both gays and transsexuals. In both cases, it boils down to “that’s not natural”, and in both cases, with the same evidence behind them. You don’t see the situation as analogous because you accept that gay people exist as fact and you don’t accept that transgendered people exist in the same way. But when you evaluate the evidence for homosexuality in the way you might evaluate the evidence for transsexuality, they’re exactly the same. It’s only the fact that you take one as fact and the other not - it’s your preconceptions, in other words - that make them seem different. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/136 "2006-10-08T01:06:20Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Then, God help us, we veered off into this crap festival. [/QUOTE] Yeah, whose crazy idea was it to start this thread anyway? > [@](#): > > It was my opinion that the most common result of gender transition surgery under the definitions above was a sad and tragic mutilation. I think that is often true of intersex children whose parents try to assign them to one or the other sex thru surgery when they are babies. I had not heard this of adults undergoing sex change operations. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/137 "2006-10-08T01:17:03Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Yeah, whose crazy idea was it to start this thread anyway?.. [/quote] Mine. Because I couldn’t answer in the closed thread, and thought the issue was worthy of clarification. “Well, I wouldn’t want freind **Una** to have the wrong idea, sure don’t want her to think I think badly of her and hers, so I’ll just clarify! Yeah, that’ll work!” “We’ll just slam in through the Balkans, take Moscow, home by Christmas” “Indians? Don’t be silly! Couple hundred, tops!” I’ve had better ideas. > [@](#): > > …I think that is often true of intersex children whose parents try to assign them to one or the other sex thru surgery when they are babies. I had not heard this of adults undergoing sex change operations. You may be right. A lot of firm convictions have been offered, without much in the way of evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/138 "2006-10-08T01:17:37Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Did I stipulate all manner of conditions? Nope. Like, for instance, a person with confusing genetic development? Nope. What I find difficult to believe is that the personality (or soul) is so utterly distinct from the body, that the mind-body duality is so total, that the mind can be a being _distinct_ from the body. When you throw in biological dispositions, you’ve changed the parameters entirely. I’ll grant that I didn’t think about that, because I felt my meaning was clear. It seems more likely that those persons who have no biological causes for their belief in being “transgendered” or “transexual” are delusional, they have misdiagnosed themselves. Those that do have such biological causes are not delusional, they have not misdiagnosed themselves. But all of those in that first category are delusional. [/quote] Except there’s no way to be certain that a person claiming to be transgendered does not have a biological cause for that claim. Sure, it’s pretty easy to see that there’s something physically wrong with someone whose got a penis and a set of ovaries. What if they’ve got a penis and a female hypothalmus, as mentioned in the excellent link provided by **Fish**? There’s no way to know without dicing up their brain. How do you differentiate between someone who thinks they’re transgendered because they’re delusional, and someone who thinks they’re transgendered because of a biological cause that we have not yet identified? > [@](#): > > I made an assumption you did not: that all things were otherwise equal, normal person, normal “soul”, normal body. Change any of those, and it no longer works. Except, in practical terms, there’s absolutely no way to know if all of these things are “normal” for any given person. > [@](#): > > It was my opinion that the most common result of gender transition surgery under the definitions above was a sad and tragic mutilation. We have testimony that this is frequently the case, but not always. We have that testimony? Where is it, precisely? My understanding is that it is _rarely_ the case. Did I miss a cite? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/139 "2006-10-08T01:21:23Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] …We have that testimony? Where is it, precisely? My understanding is that it is _rarely_ the case. Did I miss a cite? [/QUOTE] Excellent! Just bring your _cite_! That’ll do. I’m sure you have such right at hand, not being the kind of asshole you accuse me of being. Bring it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622/140 "2006-10-08T01:24:13Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] You may be right. A lot of firm convictions have been offered, without much in the way of evidence. [/QUOTE] There are lots of articles out there about botched operations on intersex children. The NYT Sunday Magazine had an excellent article on intersex people just a few weeks ago that you might try and find. I have never heard of an adult sex change operation that was “botched”. I’m sure there have been some, but I don’t see any reason to assume it is common. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/luci-reports-to-ms-perssons-office-for-scolding-and-correction/375622.md?page=8)