My incredibly unpopular view on trans people

[bluesmoke]

Just my opinion. But if men started waking-up in a woman's body, having to face life as a woman, female suicide rate would go way up. And a few other things.

 

[VanceMack]

Confusion regarding sexuality and gender characteristics is not a new phenomenon. For most of societies existence people essentially just let kids work **** out...and they almost always did. But right around 2010...after the movement to accept gay marriage became pretty much a done deal, we saw the birth of the 'transgender rights' movement, and people went from working **** out, to being told...this is what you are.

The trans acceptance movement hasnt helped anyone. It hasnt changed suicide rates...even in communities with wide acceptance of trans individuals. What it HS done is created a massive amount of confusion and the notion that people can 'be' whatever they want to be, as long as they really really really believe thats what they are. The difference between an individuals struggling with coming to grips between what they are (sex/gender) and how they feel and full blown mental illness has been caused by teaching people even into early childhood that its OK to BELIEVE they actually ARE something that they are not.

This is really not very complicated. Model unconditional love and acceptance. Teach a healthy sense of self worth and self esteem and help them to develop it in themselves. Follow Maslow's model..its amazingly beautifully simple and effective. Then if someone has come to grips with the fact that they are a man that for whatever reason feels like they should have been born a woman and would like to live as such...happy days...so be it. It will make it so much more healthy and comfortable for that same person to not get repulsed every time they go to wash their face and see that man staring back at them in the mirror after a particular rough night.

 

[CriticalThought]

Why not ask one?
Or research what those that claim to be one, actually say.

Are you under the assumption, they all lie?

I am under the assumption they have accepted a social construct.

 

[CriticalThought]

You would, IMO, have to live with their mind to understand.
I can't, and never will.
So I take people at their words, until proven otherwise. Especially, when there's a significant group with same type claims.

There are people called Furries who have fursonas and ascribe to identifying as an animal. How would that be any different than a trans person?

 

[CriticalThought]

Why not ask one?
Or research what those that claim to be one, actually say.

Are you under the assumption, they all lie?

As I said, I have and we debate this.

 

[CriticalThought]

Why are there masculine females and feminine males? You do think that there are such people, yes?

I believe there are people who don't ascribe to gender normative stereotypes for a variety of reasons.

 

[CriticalThought]

Why?
Do you think all males present the same masculinity?
All females present the same feminisim?

I see there's a sliding scale, for lack of better term, on masculinity and feminism.
I don't see a hard cut and dried line.

Do you?

Not particularly.

 

[CriticalThought]

To the person and that person only. In beliefs. But may not be true in what a person actually feels.

Social constructs are powerful. We often will kill and die for them. They often influence our emotions in ways we are not even aware.

 

[CriticalThought]

I'm going to disagree. There is a difference between gender and gender expression. Given that there are people who are claiming a given gender but expressing traits stereotyped to the other gender (as opposed to claiming a gender opposite their sex), it seems gender is an innate trait, but how one expresses don't necessarily follow social expectations.

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I think this concept of gender that is neither related to gender expression nor to biological sex is so ambiguously defined as to be meaningless. It is like saying I am part of the black race, but my race has nothing to do with skin color (which is white) or my ethnicity. I just believe I feel black therefore I am and everyone should accept me as such.

 

[Irredentist]

Okay, so I have gotten a lot of flak from liberals and conservatives on my view on trans people. I have some friends on Facebook who are trans and we have had some nasty arguments before. To boil it down I think the whole trans thing is stupid but for the complete opposite reason that the traditionalists take issue with it.

Here is the deal...pretty much all gender normative stereotypes are culture specific. What does that mean? Well pretty much if you can think of a gender specific behavior that is masculine or feminine then you can find historical examples where the opposite gender has practiced it.

Men wore makeup in ancient Egypt. Men wore skirts in Scotland. Men shaved they legs in Ancient Rome. Men wore corsettes in Europe. And it goes on and on. Every example you can think of gender normative behavior is socially constructed.

So trans people who are fixated on "being" the opposite gender tend to be people who are fixated stereotypes of gender, not real differences in gender. Wearing a dress or using lipstick are cultural specific signifiers of gender, not anything that is innate or historically universal.

That isn't to say there are not significant neurological differences between men and women. There are, but there are probably more significant differences between how liberals and conservatives think than there are between how men and women think. Because of how we stereotype gender we tend to over accentuate the differences, but if I gave someone a stack of anonymous completed surveys that measured factors of personality, intelligence, aptitude, and values, there is very little chance they would be able to sort them into a pile for men and pile for women based on the results of each survey.

So in essence I see the whole trans thing as a social construct in response to the social construct of gender normative stereotypes.

You don't have to be trans to adopt the gender stereotypes of the opposite sex. And even if you are trans, you don't necessarily have to change your appearance. However, there is valid reason to do so.

By and large, we don't identify peoples gender based on their internal biology, or their chromosome count, or their brain structure, or anything like that. We identify people based on their outward appearance. Thus, in order to effectively change the way society perceives and treats them, a trans person must change the way they present themselves, and this means altering their appearance to resemble the stereotypes of the gender they wish to present.

 

[Irredentist]

I think this concept of gender that is neither related to gender expression nor to biological sex is so ambiguously defined as to be meaningless. It is like saying I am part of the black race, but my race has nothing to do with skin color (which is white) or my ethnicity. I just believe I feel black therefore I am and everyone should accept me as such.

Is it possible to be culturally black, but not racially or ethnically? For example, a white child, raised by an all black family? I would argue that it is in fact possible.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Doctors aren't perfect. But they are professionally trained.

It is most often best to take the doctors opinion more serious than those who have no training or experience on the subject.

Medical doctors today have too much faith in drugs. If we are not skeptical, most of us will take many drugs that are unnecessary and harmful.

And gender re-assignment surgery is a horrible idea, in my opinion. I don't have to be an MD to feel that way. I'm sure I am not the only one.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Out of curiosity, which are you claiming is the overriding factor; the chromosomes (presence or lack of the X) or the SRY gene (which can be missing from the X and present on the Y, even if not usually)?

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In a normal person, the chromosomes determine gender. The brain knows what gender it is, and determines sex hormones.

It is possible to be exposed to the wrong sex hormones before birth. I don't know if they have a way to test that, or if that can contribute to gender dysphoria.

If they can rule out genetic and hormonal abnormalities, then they should assume the child is NOT somehow the wrong gender.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Just my opinion. But if men started waking-up in a woman's body, having to face life as a woman, female suicide rate would go way up. And a few other things.

If you were accustomed to living as a man, that might be very disturbing. But a young child has not yet become accustomed to either gender role.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Confusion regarding sexuality and gender characteristics is not a new phenomenon. For most of societies existence people essentially just let kids work **** out...and they almost always did. But right around 2010...after the movement to accept gay marriage became pretty much a done deal, we saw the birth of the 'transgender rights' movement, and people went from working **** out, to being told...this is what you are.

The trans acceptance movement hasnt helped anyone. It hasnt changed suicide rates...even in communities with wide acceptance of trans individuals. What it HS done is created a massive amount of confusion and the notion that people can 'be' whatever they want to be, as long as they really really really believe thats what they are. The difference between an individuals struggling with coming to grips between what they are (sex/gender) and how they feel and full blown mental illness has been caused by teaching people even into early childhood that its OK to BELIEVE they actually ARE something that they are not.

This is really not very complicated. Model unconditional love and acceptance. Teach a healthy sense of self worth and self esteem and help them to develop it in themselves. Follow Maslow's model..its amazingly beautifully simple and effective. Then if someone has come to grips with the fact that they are a man that for whatever reason feels like they should have been born a woman and would like to live as such...happy days...so be it. It will make it so much more healthy and comfortable for that same person to not get repulsed every time they go to wash their face and see that man staring back at them in the mirror after a particular rough night.

They will still see a man's face, just without the hair. You can't get a pretty female face by surgery. Not usually anyway.

 

[Good4Nothin]

There are people called Furries who have fursonas and ascribe to identifying as an animal. How would that be any different than a trans person?

When I was a young child I wanted to be a donkey. Fortunately, they didn't have species re-assignment surgery back then.

 

[Good4Nothin]

I think this concept of gender that is neither related to gender expression nor to biological sex is so ambiguously defined as to be meaningless. It is like saying I am part of the black race, but my race has nothing to do with skin color (which is white) or my ethnicity. I just believe I feel black therefore I am and everyone should accept me as such.

Yeah, it's like that. It's crazy.

 

[Good4Nothin]

You don't have to be trans to adopt the gender stereotypes of the opposite sex. And even if you are trans, you don't necessarily have to change your appearance. However, there is valid reason to do so.

By and large, we don't identify peoples gender based on their internal biology, or their chromosome count, or their brain structure, or anything like that. We identify people based on their outward appearance. Thus, in order to effectively change the way society perceives and treats them, a trans person must change the way they present themselves, and this means altering their appearance to resemble the stereotypes of the gender they wish to present.

That is nonsense. Maybe if there were an effective way to magically transform into the opposite sex, that might be sort of reasonable. But the body has to be tortured, and the results are never good.

Society is much more tolerant now of people with non-traditional gender identities. If a girl wants to have a male gender role, she can have it. And vice versa.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Is it possible to be culturally black, but not racially or ethnically? For example, a white child, raised by an all black family? I would argue that it is in fact possible.

Sure it's possible. Same with gender. You don't have to change the outer appearance.

 

[calamity]

Okay, so I have gotten a lot of flak from liberals and conservatives on my view on trans people. I have some friends on Facebook who are trans and we have had some nasty arguments before. To boil it down I think the whole trans thing is stupid but for the complete opposite reason that the traditionalists take issue with it.

Here is the deal...pretty much all gender normative stereotypes are culture specific. What does that mean? Well pretty much if you can think of a gender specific behavior that is masculine or feminine then you can find historical examples where the opposite gender has practiced it.

Men wore makeup in ancient Egypt. Men wore skirts in Scotland. Men shaved they legs in Ancient Rome. Men wore corsettes in Europe. And it goes on and on. Every example you can think of gender normative behavior is socially constructed.

So trans people who are fixated on "being" the opposite gender tend to be people who are fixated stereotypes of gender, not real differences in gender. Wearing a dress or using lipstick are cultural specific signifiers of gender, not anything that is innate or historically universal.

That isn't to say there are not significant neurological differences between men and women. There are, but there are probably more significant differences between how liberals and conservatives think than there are between how men and women think. Because of how we stereotype gender we tend to over accentuate the differences, but if I gave someone a stack of anonymous completed surveys that measured factors of personality, intelligence, aptitude, and values, there is very little chance they would be able to sort them into a pile for men and pile for women based on the results of each survey.

So in essence I see the whole trans thing as a social construct in response to the social construct of gender normative stereotypes.

It probably runs deeper than that.

 

[Good4Nothin]

It probably runs deeper than that.

No one knows. People like to think they know things they do not know.

 

[calamity]

No one knows. People like to think they know things they do not know.

ya don't say :roll:

 

[Irredentist]

That is nonsense. Maybe if there were an effective way to magically transform into the opposite sex, that might be sort of reasonable. But the body has to be tortured, and the results are never good.

Society is much more tolerant now of people with non-traditional gender identities. If a girl wants to have a male gender role, she can have it. And vice versa.

Who the hell are you, some kind of scientific or medical authority, to say that the results are "never good"? It irritates me when people make such absolute statements about complex issues. It's never that simple. Gender reassignment is difficult, but it can also measureably improve quality of life for some people.

The method by which humans undergo natural, normal sex development is not a magical process. It is a biological, chemical process, and the way in which this occurs can be influenced by specific treatments. Again, this isn't for everybody. But discounting the medical or scientific basis of such treatment entirely is simple ignorance.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Who the hell are you, some kind of scientific or medical authority, to say that the results are "never good"? It irritates me when people make such absolute statements about complex issues. It's never that simple. Gender reassignment is difficult, but it can also measureably improve quality of life for some people.

The method by which humans undergo natural, normal sex development is not a magical process. It is a biological, chemical process, and the way in which this occurs can be influenced by specific treatments. Again, this isn't for everybody. But discounting the medical or scientific basis of such treatment entirely is simple ignorance.

It might as well be a magical process. That's how well scientists understand it. Development is extremely complex, and very poorly understood. Our society has too much faith in medical science. Because of a small number of effective medical interventions, you assume medical doctors are all-knowing gods.

 

[captaintrips]

It might as well be a magical process. That's how well scientists understand it. Development is extremely complex, and very poorly understood. Our society has too much faith in medical science. Because of a small number of effective medical interventions, you assume medical doctors are all-knowing gods.

Many people do just that. They are not. They are fallible people just like the rest of us.

Medical science today is capable of some pretty interesting, at times scary, things. Things that really make us have to consider medical ethics etc., in many ways we really can "play God" now.

And we'd better be careful, very careful with that, because we're NOT God and cannot even imagine the consequences of what we may believe to be consequence free. .

Somewhere, someone WILL step way past the boundaries of good sense though - when have humans NOT done so ? ... and we'll pay the price.