What we really need is for a Duggar to disavow the whole breed up twenty kids shit. There’s at least a couple hundred of them. At least one of them must be something other than straight.
as mentioned the best you can do for your child is to be supportive to them. let them know whatever the outcome and during the whole and long deciding period (which could be many years and go into adulthood) you are supportive of them.
for yourself and family the counselling is a good thing as needed.
i know nothing of this support group that i found the name of
http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/index-e.asp
maybe they or some similar group could be of use to you and your family.
Bolding added
Maybe you should take your own advice… Interesting when a view is one you oppose, you feel like you have the moral high ground to spout your opinion, which of course, is the RIGHT one to have. :dubious:
I agree. Bruce Jenner seems to be an attention whore, and a lost soul.
The fact that he is transitioning to a woman is understandably drawing interest, because of who he was. But he’s coming off as someone who just wants attention and to make money off of his transition. In the pseudo-celebrity world, all publicity is good publicity.
As to the real issue, I think Jenner clouds it. There are real people out there dealing with this real issue every day. Jenner may turn this into a carnival. In this thread, there have been a few people who either have a family member or know someone dealing with this issue. It is not a joke or a punchline.
Leaffan, (and anyone else personally dealing with this)… just curious… Does the Jenner story help your situation, or does it complicate it? Or, does it not have an impact at all?
All the best to you and yours.
Leaffan, hang in there, brother. My son has a long-time friend who recently came out, first to his parents, then to everyone else (Facebook, etc.). We loved her when we knew him as a “he,” and we love her now. I was very happy when my son relayed how much support, and how very little bigoted nonsense, his friend received in response. My son’s friend sounds like your son–she was not effeminate, etc. You never know.
I don’t pretend to know how you must feel. But know that the world is changing, however slowly, and understanding and empathy are becoming much more typical (not to sound pollyanna-ish or dismissive of the challenges life will present). Just be a good, supportive dad. That’s all you could do before you found out, and it’s all you can do now. Best of luck. I’m sending you and your family good vibes and prayers.
I’ve seen comment after comment in this thread about Jenner being an attention whore, doing this for publicity, as part of the Kardashian reality show, etc. I have to assume that none of the people making these comments watched the interview, as it made it quite clear that none of these assumptions are accurate.
Jenner has known that he was transgender since he was a small boy. He was caught numerous times by various family members dressing in women’s clothes. All three of his wives, including his first wife whom he divorced in 1981, knew about his gender identity issues. He told his sister years ago. During the 1980’s, he took gender reassignment hormones for five years. He married Kris Kardashian in 1991, years before anyone had heard of the Kardashians, and raised her four children from the time they were quite young. They didn’t start the reality show until those kids were all adults.
For me personally, Jenner doing this interview was an important step in helping me to understand transgender issues. I’m hopeful that it will have the same effect on others as well. I just wish more people would actually watch the interview before dismissing it and its potential positive impact on the basis of inaccurate information and assumptions.
Just want to add a link to the really excellent article by Bruce’s second wife Linda Thompson in the Huffington Post. It’s worth reading for another valuable perspective.
I didn’t say murder, and a celebrity (which is all he is anymore) killing someone accidental or otherwise is usually the top story about their life.
Then he shouldn’t be discussing anything. If his interviewers can’t discuss a matter of actual public concern then they shouldn’t be interviewing him (or her, I don’t want to pay enough attention to find out what pronoun to use). There are plenty of people to interview on this subject. It’s celebrity nonsense from the beginning, and now the message is that celebrities’ personal issues are more important than their involvement in a horrific traffic accident.
I have checked with Pallas Athena, and She confirms that neither She nor her deputies micromanage the somatic gender assignment process and that is it neither inconceivable nor uncommon for there to be mismatches between a mortal’s psychology and his/her genitals. She further suggests that if you honestly coinsider what the word “courage” means, you will see that it does apply to Jenner’s actions. Lastly, while she is unlike that carpenter fellow some of y’all worship in that She does not hold agape to be the highest of virtues, She still considers it useful and recommends you think about getting some for yourself.
On this level, I’m interested. Otherwise, I really think that the priority on the news should be the Nepalese earthquake, ISIS, etc.
One of my high school classmates was featured on a Discovery Channel program called “Changing Sexes”. When he held up his HS graduation picture, taken when he was still living as a female, I nearly fell off the couch, because I would never have guessed.
Most men aren’t that great looking either.
:dubious:
Chastity was a cute kid, and an attractive woman too.
I also had no idea just how unhappy she really was as a woman. As Chaz, he looks spectacularly happy.
You should probably watch (or pay attention to) the special. He didn’t discuss it. Diane made a comment in a cutaway to address the accident. It was just a few seconds in which she said it couldn’t be discussed because it was an open case. That was the extent to which the accident was mentioned.
If you don’t want to watch the special because they didn’t discuss the accident, that’s fine but then just head over to TMZ. TMZ had a TON of coverage about the accident that had little to do with his personal life. I’m sure as more details crop up about the accident they’ll be the first to make them public.
However, the special, and this thread, have nothing to do with that. Maybe you don’t care about his transformation, but 17 million other people tuned into watch it. A lot of them did want to see it and a lot of them probably didn’t even think about the accident, I didn’t.
Having said that, it’s odd to say that someone shouldn’t be interviewed simply because a topic that you’re interested in won’t be covered. Do you think it would be strange if I said Charlie Sheen shouldn’t be interviewed unless he discussed his Warner Brothers trainwreck. I mean, I don’t really want to hear about his new show.
Personally, I think it’s silly that if a transgender person gets into a car accident in which a person dies, suddenly their transformation carries no meaning.
And you need to educate yourself, if you really do believe those who are transgender just have a “hormone imbalance.” I’m not being flippant here. Seriously, set aside your bias and educate yourself. In no way does this come down to “hormone imbalance.” To say otherwise sounds incredibly ignorant.
In this case the transformation would not have been known about save for a few people if the subject hadn’t been a celebrity. I don’t really understand why people would want to see this kind of celebrity story anyway, if it I was interested in the subject I’d want to see the perspective of someone more typical. I can’t believe Jenner represents the typical person in the process of changing gender.
He isn’t. And he explicitly says so in the interview.
I can answer this question. For better or for worse, I feel like Bruce Jenner is someone I know. I was watching in 1976 when he won the decathlon, and have been aware of some of his activities since then. I haven’t watched other stories/documentaries about transgender people because the issue was alien to me and made me very uncomfortable. But because it was Bruce Jenner, someone I knew, I watched this interview. And it had a profound effect on me. I have been reading another, much more conservative forum, where people are discussing the interview. For the most part, they have been very respectful and understanding, and many of them had a similar reaction to mine – after watching the interview, they have a better understanding of what it means to be transgender. Like me, these people might not have watched a story about an unknown transgender individual, but they watched this one because they knew Jenner either from his Olympic history, his other entertainment work, or his involvement with the Kardashians.
While Jenner may have more money than the average transgender person, I think in other ways his story is probably typical, especially for someone his age. I don’t see how the failed marriages, the attempts to hide his true identity, or the difficulty in telling his children would be different for a non-celebrity.
Yes, but it is a bit saturating. Though I am a pretty liberal dem on social issues, especially in my part of the country and in my industry, the whole idea of accepting alternative issues however tolerant we are, is getting tedious.
Eventually we have our line in the sand where we start calling out stupid shit. People running around thinking they are something other than what they are, and expecting others to ‘understand’ and be tolerant or else get shouted down, is getting ridiculous. I am tolerant, but get it out of my face at this point.
What is your alternative? Do you think transgender people should be ridiculed? Shunned? Should they be arrested if they try to dress as a different gender?
Who makes the decision about who should be tolerated? There are plenty of examples throughout the world and throughout history in which people who are different in some way are abused, enslaved or killed.
What is the value to you, or to anyone, of treating people badly because they are different from you? Who benefits? Part of my liberal version of the world is that we learn to treat everyone with kindness and respect. As I said earlier in this thread, I have had a really hard time with people being transgender. It’s something I couldn’t understand, and it made me uncomfortable. But I would never say that they should “get out of my face” or that they were being ridiculous. The responsibility is on me to be tolerant and try to understand.
Bad assumption. You are wrong.
I watched the entire interview.
Sorry… Jenner has issues. That doesn’t mean he isn’t serious about wanting to be a woman, but my problem is this… If he felt like this since he was a young boy, why get married not once, but three different times? I don’t get that.
I understand people getting married because they feel like they have to, or cannot come out. But 3 times? And he had children by (i think) 2 of these women, right? He claims his sex life with the older Kardashian was good. I can understand a woman passively participating in a sex life, but a man? You have to be aroused at some level, don’t you?
I also have a problem with a psychiatrist saying children as young as 18 months have gender identity issues… 18 months? WTF? When you say that, you lose all credibility to me.
You can say I am just not wanting to believe Jenner, or I have an axe to grind, but that’s not true. I don’t care about him one way or the other. I just don’t find him credible. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe that this is a real condition, or that real people struggle with it every day.
No… IMO, Jenner is NOT the same as leaffan’s situation. I don’t think he’s going through this for kicks, but at the same time, I don’t know what is in Jenner’s mind. He’s lived in the public eye for years, including a very invasive “reality show”. He’s not someone who lives a normal life.
His unwillingness to even tell the audience what the name he chose was just another indication that he wants to milk this for as long as possible. He wants to keep that private? Really? Why, unless you can get more attention, or more viewers for your reality show? My God, he’s changing his sex from male to female, and he won’t share the name he’s picked out? That sounds strange to me.
Whatever he does, I just wish he’d go away, do it, and not have the cameras rolling.
But that’s just me. If you want to watch, I am sure you will have your chance… In prime time!
But where does it end?
You want everyone to accept everything and everybody? What line do YOU have? Because you have one. We all do. scrotchy is just being honest about it.
Or are you telling us that you accept anyone, no matter what they do or have done, and whatever they are into, even if you (or most people) don’t understand it? Or if it doesn’t affect you directly?