I used to believe there were “true trans” who deserved to have ID that reflected their gender identity. Then I believed they were only a percentage of people claiming trans identity. Now I don’t believe anyone is trans.
I used to believe trans was primarily a form of distress, but now I believe it can also be a form of sexual obsessiveness. (If so, then no, men shouldn’t be in women’s bathrooms.)
I used to believe medicine was based on science. Now I believe it’s a collection of practices, some of which utilize scientific methods, but many do not. Calling a practice “medicine” is a powerful way to legitimize it.
I used to believe in the usefulness of the helping professions. (I was an educator myself.) Today I believe empathy has been weaponized to serve harmful ends and that the helping professions are largely responsible.
Men pretending to be women are dangerous to all girls and women. I don't care if they find it helpful. Racists in the 1950s found screaming at a little black girl going to a white school helpful. I don't care what dangerous people find helpful.
Women pretending to become men used to do it to escape misogyny, about which I do care.
But now we have a young woman pretending to be a man running for mayor of our city of 200,000 because, she says, she likes to "give voice to the most marginalized." I tore up her flyer when I found it on my mailbox and mailed it back to her, telling her not to lie to voters, when her whole identity is based on silencing the voices of women, the LGB, the disabled, and the abused--the most violently-marginalized voices among us.
Women in the Trans panic are no longer pretending to be men to escape misogyny. They're doing it to signal their allegiance to this men's supremacy lobby. They're dangerous.
I think that’s partly because my position is much simpler than yours, even though I consider yours more admirable.
My view is really that I work hard to understand reality as it is; I’m not going to be held back by people who can’t do that.
I’m not going to pretend to believe something that makes no sense, especially when you think about it critically for about five minutes.
I don’t even care that much about the wider ramifications around feminism and healthcare etc although, again, I think it’s great that people like you do.
Because, as I see things, if we entertain ideas that have no tethering to reality, there are going to be consequences, and they’re going to be negative. And that’s purely because most things that can happen are bad, what with entropy ultimately being in charge.
To make good things happen takes logical, reasoned thought.
Those that can’t do that, even through no fault of their own, don’t get to control my thoughts and language.
My older adult brother "transed" around 2001 (married, children, grandchildren). I was literally too busy working and settling my parents' estate to think much about it when he made the announcement. By 2012 I'd seen and heard enough to know it was profound mental illness, and had three non-affirming clinical opinions help me sort it out. By 2020 I knew with certainty there was no such thing as "trans," and there were no "true trans" exceptions. Where I am now: out of patience with medical and psychiatric associations, NGOs and NPOs, and captured politicians for promoting and prolonging this (in its current form) for more than a decade. It's very obvious "trans" is the next event in the lobotomy - DES - thalidomide - Big Tobacco - opioid chain of medical scandals. I do not condone affirming procedures or practices for anyone, child or adult. I *do* support ongoing and evidence-based, non-affirming medical and psychiatric support for destransers, desisters, and those who remain "trans"-identified, because medicine and psychiatry were fully complicit in harming these patients, and so should be responsible for necessary aftercare.
Literally exactly the same as I have said on this over & over. This WILL go down in history as the biggest medical scandal in decades & imo is one of the absolute worse alongside lobotomies. Cutting off healthy body parts & pretending someone can change sex?? Seriously unhinged behaviour in so called healthcare. Deep psychotherapeutic support but mostly trauma work on self identity shame & embodiment is what is actually required for many. And the remaining the AGP’s & TV are just men with a fetish seeking to parade it in public & frankly I give zero fucks at all about ANY of them!
My views have changed drastically over the years. I was once 100% supported self-ID, child transition (including blockers and surgery), pronouns, all of it because I believed there had been serious research and science done and that no one - especially not a child - was transitioned without years of careful evaluation and therapy. But then I saw first hand that none of this was true. There was not only no careful assessment or therapy, but psychiatrists, nurses, and therapists literally had no idea what they were doing. It was not just that they had no idea what they were doing when it came to "gender dysphoria" or identity disturbances, but they had no idea what they were doing about *anything* related to child and adolescent mental health. They knew nothing about basic freshman level child and adolescent development or psychology. They were not assessing *anything*. They were not following any research or science. The mental healthcare system is dominated by incompetence, bad practices, malpractice, weak or absent scientific basis, and abuse even before you ever get into the questions of ideological capture or what's happening with the medical scandal around transitioning. I deeply believe this is a horrible medical, psychological, and sociological phenomenon hurting so many people.
I've changed again in that I don't identify as "gender critical" or any of the labels we give "our side" because I don't like the extremism, infighting, and cruelty I too often see. I have ambivalent feelings about bathroom laws and state bans not because I don't agree with why they were put in place, but because I'm concerned with how they're being done and the potential consequences and fallout that aren't being considered. Mostly my feelings and beliefs are various and sometimes changing forms of sad and deeply concerned that doesn't see a way we will really ever get out of this.
My views have evolved in the same direction. It was very clear to me in 2020, when I started my memoir of healing from the PTSD I acquired during my former husband's "transition." I embarked writing my story, flowing back and forth through time, thinking I'd refer to Neddy as male prior to 1996, when he had all the surgeries in a 5 week sojourn at UC-Berkeley Medical Center. As I reviewed what I'd written in the first month, I realized the reader will not be able to figure out who is who and all the "she/her" parts were hash. Somehow, other trans widows found me and I developed The Heggen Survey to document our experiences. Occasionally a trans widow tells of her ex as "she." The ex-husband who defamed her, stole her undergarments, spent all the money, and who 38% of the time with 73 trans widows' stories collected, sexually assaulted her. No more "she." These men are obsessed with "passing" and take the disingenuous behavior of knee-jerk affirming as proof they've made it into our sisterhood. Like I said way back in 1991, after I found Neddy's crossdressing diaries, "It isn't possible to become female when you have XY chromosomes, and as a father, you know you do."
Ute: As I reviewed what I'd written in the first month, I realized the reader will not be able to figure out who is who and all the "she/her" parts were hash.
That's what kind of peeves me about the whole phenomenon: sloppy terminology and contradictory pronouns all to pander to the delusional and various gender ideologues.
For example and as mentioned elsewhere here, the NYTimes article talking about a transman and "his" neopenis:
And other NYTimes articles talking about "transgender female athletes" -- they're males with some feminine traits. My open letter to some "journalists" there and one at Slste:
Ute: Like I said way back in 1991, after I found Neddy's crossdressing diaries, "It isn't possible to become female when you have XY chromosomes, and as a father, you know you do."
The thing is that XX and XY are NOT what it takes to qualify as female and male, respectively. Here's a woman with XY chromosomes who's given birth using her own ova and exhibited most of the traits typical of adult human females:
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have some ovaries, and to be a male is to have some testicles. You might tell "Neddy" that when he grows a pair of the former is when you'll call him a woman ... 😉🙂
I read the article you cite. Turns out the XY woman who gave birth has XX chromosomes in 6-20% her blood, tissues and organs, including her ovaries, and that her case is “unprecedented” and “unheard of.” Even in this vanishingly rare case, it takes at least some XX to be become pregnant and deliver a baby. Genetic abnormalities like this do not negate human sex category differentiation by XX-XY chromosomes.
Glad to hear you read that article in some depth -- too few people seem willing to do likewise in similar cases.
But generally agree with your comments about that "XY woman", particularly since the article is explicitly about a "Woman with a Predominantly 46,XY Karyotype". Though I wonder what sort of results would come back from a "cheek swab test" of her that is supposedly to be used in sports.
However, your "human sex category differentiation by XX-XY chromosomes" is generally untenable since there are probably a dozen or more variations in that pair -- mostly among the intersex if I'm not mistaken -- the possessors of which still generally being either male or female or, technically speaking, sexless -- i.e., neither male nor female. For examples, see:
The only 100% sure-fire way of determining a person's sex is to see whether they're producing "small reproductive cells" (males) or "large reproductive cells" (females) -- which are the terms used in Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government", a useful line in the sand.
But if a person is not producing either type then they are, technically speaking, sexless -- not a particularly popular "opinion" for some strange unfathomable reason ... 😉🙂 Though less "opinion" than the logical consequences of standard biological definitions for the sexes.
Right. Anyway, men who've fathered children can't become women. I wasn't going to get into the size of gametes and what evolutionary biologists say when I'd just had the biggest shock of my life and I had to consider where he's been and with whom, doing what--while I'm still nursing our 1 year old.
I can imagine. Reminds me of the old "joke" to the effect that while love is often blind, marriage can be a real eye-opener.
But I'm curious as to how, exactly, Neddy came to think that he was a female -- if that was the case. Particularly since many transpeople are rather desperate to convince others that that is the case, mangling logic, reason, and biology in the process.
I'd asked Substacker Maia Poet, and dysphoric young woman, that some months ago, and, sadly, she wasn't terribly forthcoming with an answer despite apparently having gone through the process of transitioning and detransitioning.
Somewhat apropos of which, I'd run across this article by transwoman Dawn Ennis in, of all places, Forbes magazine which, I think, shows where he and many other transpeople are going off the rails and into the weeds:
Basically, he is clueless about the difference between what it takes to qualify as a female (sex) -- to a first approximation, ovaries -- and what it takes to qualify as feminine (gender) -- to a first approximation, putting on a dress, like looking like Jessica Rabbit (not really bad, just drawn that way ....)
But a world of differences there which transgender ideologues seem rather desperate to sweep under the carpet -- for one "reason" or another.
Neddy's father was not successful financially, behaved like someone who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and his mother didn't protect him from the whippings. When I first met Neddy, at the age of 18 when he was 20, he hated his father and told me about the physical abuse he and his next sibling, a sister, experienced. When I met her, she confirmed that. I believe Neddy is actually a gay man, despite the fact that he is now married to a woman. This is based on what I read in his diaries about his attraction to men, and a few experiences during the marriage when gay men were overly friendly. Often the crisis comes when the wife is pregnant or just gave birth. He has pregnancy envy along with his feelings of inadequacy as a man. I do not know if some kind of pornography obsession was in play; we didn't have a television or home computer. This last detail is common in my data on men who ideate a female persona. As well, he found extremely "affirming" therapists, who, as is also typical in this sub-speciality, wanted to build their reputation on the fast completion of the path to "sex reassignment surgery." Dr. Hakeem Az, who has been interviewed in many places, including Heretics YouTube channel, has the psychiatric interpretation of it all.
That’s my question. How (and why) does someone come to believe they are the opposite sex? My only conclusion is that they are in the midst of an identity crisis when a seed is planted that they believe they are the opposite sex and that takes over everything else in their lives to fix themselves. It’s an alluring (but misguided and harmful) fix.
A real challenge to "get inside the heads" of the dysphoric. No doubt there are several causes or "reasons" for the "born in the wrong body" syndrome.
But one of the biggies seems to be the general confusion over sex and gender, over the difference between what it takes to qualify as male and female (as sexes) -- i.e., testicles and ovaries -- and what personality, physiological, and behavioural traits are typical of each sex but not unique to each one -- e.g., males are, on average some 4 inches taller than females, but some 40% of females are taller than 40% of males.
Couple of really neat examples from a recent interview of Dr. Zucker by Stella O'Malley:
SM: One 5-year-old's dysphoria disappeared when a teacher called her a "tomboy"—"Oh you mean you can be a girl and like to do boy things?" An 8-year-old boy wanted to be a girl because "boys don't like to read, girls like to read."
Of course a girl can do "boy things" because "boy things" -- like playing with trucks -- is not what it takes to qualify as a girl, as a juvenile female, because that "merely" requires ovaries which are, of course, not at all the same as an affinity for playing with trucks. Nor does playing with trucks make a boy a male since that merely requires that he has testicles.
As with heights: tall is more typical of males, but not unique to them since many females are also tall. And playing with trucks is more typical of boys (males), but not unique to them since many girls (females) also like to play with trucks.
As always, you express so beautifully, and with such sensitivity, how your thinking has evolved, and what you write strongly resonates with my own journey. I hope this essay will be widely read and shared. (I have restacked, to help that along.)
My views have changed along much the same as yours, Eliza. And/or, they have become firmer and more nuanced. Back in 2015, I wrote (more or less to myself) that we needed to figure out where sex matters and where it doesn’t, and in the latter cases, OK, maybe we can divide the world on gender lines instead. But I've come to realise that pretty much everything in the latter category involves stereotypes and so we shouldn't be dividing the world up at all.
I never thought there was such a thing as 'true trans'. Trans issue appeared on my radar, yes, about 8 years ago - as a silly fad in my daughter's middle school. Since then I found out it was so much more than another teen fad, and yet at its core it is still a youth subculture, like goth ( as brilliant Az Hakeem called it). Also, when I first saw a "trans woman" on Orange is The New Black, I was completely oblivious, I thought nothing of it. Now it enrages me. What really has changed is my level of trust in medical professionals, researchers, peer review process, journalists, etc.
I also raise my hand in shame because I used to believe in the "true trans" middle ground where some people were verifiably, immutably trans. Now I know that there is no "essence" that's separate from your body and actions.
I used to be a naive progressive who believed that society could keep moving forward and keep getting rid of bad stuff like strict parenting, rigid gender roles, and religion. Now look where we are. Permissive parents have created a depressed and anxious generation; rigid gender roles made a comeback (e.g. "I can't be a woman because I don't like cooking"); and the religious fervor around gender ideology is at an all-time high among "atheists."
I used to believe that journalism and medicine had ways to self-correct. I thought that journalists and doctors would read at least some of their primary sources and put some thought into their work. Turns out they don't. Most of their work is just inertia, a tiny increment from where they started, which allows one fatal flaw to grow and grow unnoticed until it explodes. These disciplines are very shallow and not rigorous at all, especially when polluted by activism.
Are we thinking there is a segue occurring here, from opportunistic capitalising on an implicit debilitation GD model, to positivist manifestations of "embodiment goals", as the next tack from transhuman denizens?
Yes. I recommend this doc "Cyborrg Generation" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32046518/ about young people pursuing transhumanist embodiment goal. Identical justification for all of this, identical set of victims, but instead of genital mutilation they pursue extra senses.
I agree with all of this, Eliza! It's interesting that even critically-minded people (including me) who never bought into the cult have found it hard to re-assert simple common sense.
I used to believe there were “true trans” who deserved to have ID that reflected their gender identity. Then I believed they were only a percentage of people claiming trans identity. Now I don’t believe anyone is trans.
I used to believe trans was primarily a form of distress, but now I believe it can also be a form of sexual obsessiveness. (If so, then no, men shouldn’t be in women’s bathrooms.)
I used to believe medicine was based on science. Now I believe it’s a collection of practices, some of which utilize scientific methods, but many do not. Calling a practice “medicine” is a powerful way to legitimize it.
I used to believe in the usefulness of the helping professions. (I was an educator myself.) Today I believe empathy has been weaponized to serve harmful ends and that the helping professions are largely responsible.
Same!
"Some individuals may find transition helpful."
I no longer care.
Men pretending to be women are dangerous to all girls and women. I don't care if they find it helpful. Racists in the 1950s found screaming at a little black girl going to a white school helpful. I don't care what dangerous people find helpful.
Women pretending to become men used to do it to escape misogyny, about which I do care.
But now we have a young woman pretending to be a man running for mayor of our city of 200,000 because, she says, she likes to "give voice to the most marginalized." I tore up her flyer when I found it on my mailbox and mailed it back to her, telling her not to lie to voters, when her whole identity is based on silencing the voices of women, the LGB, the disabled, and the abused--the most violently-marginalized voices among us.
Women in the Trans panic are no longer pretending to be men to escape misogyny. They're doing it to signal their allegiance to this men's supremacy lobby. They're dangerous.
And I don't care if they find it helpful.
I'm here to stop dangerous people.
Best comment here, Eleganta.
Am restacking.
🖤👌
No, my views haven’t changed at all, really.
I think that’s partly because my position is much simpler than yours, even though I consider yours more admirable.
My view is really that I work hard to understand reality as it is; I’m not going to be held back by people who can’t do that.
I’m not going to pretend to believe something that makes no sense, especially when you think about it critically for about five minutes.
I don’t even care that much about the wider ramifications around feminism and healthcare etc although, again, I think it’s great that people like you do.
Because, as I see things, if we entertain ideas that have no tethering to reality, there are going to be consequences, and they’re going to be negative. And that’s purely because most things that can happen are bad, what with entropy ultimately being in charge.
To make good things happen takes logical, reasoned thought.
Those that can’t do that, even through no fault of their own, don’t get to control my thoughts and language.
That's honestly a sufficient condition for me, too. Why reject it? It's not true.
My older adult brother "transed" around 2001 (married, children, grandchildren). I was literally too busy working and settling my parents' estate to think much about it when he made the announcement. By 2012 I'd seen and heard enough to know it was profound mental illness, and had three non-affirming clinical opinions help me sort it out. By 2020 I knew with certainty there was no such thing as "trans," and there were no "true trans" exceptions. Where I am now: out of patience with medical and psychiatric associations, NGOs and NPOs, and captured politicians for promoting and prolonging this (in its current form) for more than a decade. It's very obvious "trans" is the next event in the lobotomy - DES - thalidomide - Big Tobacco - opioid chain of medical scandals. I do not condone affirming procedures or practices for anyone, child or adult. I *do* support ongoing and evidence-based, non-affirming medical and psychiatric support for destransers, desisters, and those who remain "trans"-identified, because medicine and psychiatry were fully complicit in harming these patients, and so should be responsible for necessary aftercare.
Literally exactly the same as I have said on this over & over. This WILL go down in history as the biggest medical scandal in decades & imo is one of the absolute worse alongside lobotomies. Cutting off healthy body parts & pretending someone can change sex?? Seriously unhinged behaviour in so called healthcare. Deep psychotherapeutic support but mostly trauma work on self identity shame & embodiment is what is actually required for many. And the remaining the AGP’s & TV are just men with a fetish seeking to parade it in public & frankly I give zero fucks at all about ANY of them!
My views have changed drastically over the years. I was once 100% supported self-ID, child transition (including blockers and surgery), pronouns, all of it because I believed there had been serious research and science done and that no one - especially not a child - was transitioned without years of careful evaluation and therapy. But then I saw first hand that none of this was true. There was not only no careful assessment or therapy, but psychiatrists, nurses, and therapists literally had no idea what they were doing. It was not just that they had no idea what they were doing when it came to "gender dysphoria" or identity disturbances, but they had no idea what they were doing about *anything* related to child and adolescent mental health. They knew nothing about basic freshman level child and adolescent development or psychology. They were not assessing *anything*. They were not following any research or science. The mental healthcare system is dominated by incompetence, bad practices, malpractice, weak or absent scientific basis, and abuse even before you ever get into the questions of ideological capture or what's happening with the medical scandal around transitioning. I deeply believe this is a horrible medical, psychological, and sociological phenomenon hurting so many people.
I've changed again in that I don't identify as "gender critical" or any of the labels we give "our side" because I don't like the extremism, infighting, and cruelty I too often see. I have ambivalent feelings about bathroom laws and state bans not because I don't agree with why they were put in place, but because I'm concerned with how they're being done and the potential consequences and fallout that aren't being considered. Mostly my feelings and beliefs are various and sometimes changing forms of sad and deeply concerned that doesn't see a way we will really ever get out of this.
Yes, the placebo effect of medical transition for those who claim to have benefited needs a closer look.
I have moved away from thinking that there are a small number of true transsexuals to thinking the entire thing is a falsehood.
My views have evolved in the same direction. It was very clear to me in 2020, when I started my memoir of healing from the PTSD I acquired during my former husband's "transition." I embarked writing my story, flowing back and forth through time, thinking I'd refer to Neddy as male prior to 1996, when he had all the surgeries in a 5 week sojourn at UC-Berkeley Medical Center. As I reviewed what I'd written in the first month, I realized the reader will not be able to figure out who is who and all the "she/her" parts were hash. Somehow, other trans widows found me and I developed The Heggen Survey to document our experiences. Occasionally a trans widow tells of her ex as "she." The ex-husband who defamed her, stole her undergarments, spent all the money, and who 38% of the time with 73 trans widows' stories collected, sexually assaulted her. No more "she." These men are obsessed with "passing" and take the disingenuous behavior of knee-jerk affirming as proof they've made it into our sisterhood. Like I said way back in 1991, after I found Neddy's crossdressing diaries, "It isn't possible to become female when you have XY chromosomes, and as a father, you know you do."
Ute: As I reviewed what I'd written in the first month, I realized the reader will not be able to figure out who is who and all the "she/her" parts were hash.
That's what kind of peeves me about the whole phenomenon: sloppy terminology and contradictory pronouns all to pander to the delusional and various gender ideologues.
For example and as mentioned elsewhere here, the NYTimes article talking about a transman and "his" neopenis:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/magazine/phalloplasty.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk8.AVrg.eZwMjgdUvWwH&smid=url-share
And other NYTimes articles talking about "transgender female athletes" -- they're males with some feminine traits. My open letter to some "journalists" there and one at Slste:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/open-letters-ideological-capture
Ute: Like I said way back in 1991, after I found Neddy's crossdressing diaries, "It isn't possible to become female when you have XY chromosomes, and as a father, you know you do."
The thing is that XX and XY are NOT what it takes to qualify as female and male, respectively. Here's a woman with XY chromosomes who's given birth using her own ova and exhibited most of the traits typical of adult human females:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2190741/
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have some ovaries, and to be a male is to have some testicles. You might tell "Neddy" that when he grows a pair of the former is when you'll call him a woman ... 😉🙂
I read the article you cite. Turns out the XY woman who gave birth has XX chromosomes in 6-20% her blood, tissues and organs, including her ovaries, and that her case is “unprecedented” and “unheard of.” Even in this vanishingly rare case, it takes at least some XX to be become pregnant and deliver a baby. Genetic abnormalities like this do not negate human sex category differentiation by XX-XY chromosomes.
Glad to hear you read that article in some depth -- too few people seem willing to do likewise in similar cases.
But generally agree with your comments about that "XY woman", particularly since the article is explicitly about a "Woman with a Predominantly 46,XY Karyotype". Though I wonder what sort of results would come back from a "cheek swab test" of her that is supposedly to be used in sports.
However, your "human sex category differentiation by XX-XY chromosomes" is generally untenable since there are probably a dozen or more variations in that pair -- mostly among the intersex if I'm not mistaken -- the possessors of which still generally being either male or female or, technically speaking, sexless -- i.e., neither male nor female. For examples, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#Conditions
The only 100% sure-fire way of determining a person's sex is to see whether they're producing "small reproductive cells" (males) or "large reproductive cells" (females) -- which are the terms used in Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government", a useful line in the sand.
But if a person is not producing either type then they are, technically speaking, sexless -- not a particularly popular "opinion" for some strange unfathomable reason ... 😉🙂 Though less "opinion" than the logical consequences of standard biological definitions for the sexes.
Right. Anyway, men who've fathered children can't become women. I wasn't going to get into the size of gametes and what evolutionary biologists say when I'd just had the biggest shock of my life and I had to consider where he's been and with whom, doing what--while I'm still nursing our 1 year old.
Ute: "... biggest shock of my life ... "
I can imagine. Reminds me of the old "joke" to the effect that while love is often blind, marriage can be a real eye-opener.
But I'm curious as to how, exactly, Neddy came to think that he was a female -- if that was the case. Particularly since many transpeople are rather desperate to convince others that that is the case, mangling logic, reason, and biology in the process.
I'd asked Substacker Maia Poet, and dysphoric young woman, that some months ago, and, sadly, she wasn't terribly forthcoming with an answer despite apparently having gone through the process of transitioning and detransitioning.
Somewhat apropos of which, I'd run across this article by transwoman Dawn Ennis in, of all places, Forbes magazine which, I think, shows where he and many other transpeople are going off the rails and into the weeds:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2020/12/29/study-transgender-children-recognize-their-authentic-gender-at-early-age-just-like-other-kids/#20bbb14526bf
Basically, he is clueless about the difference between what it takes to qualify as a female (sex) -- to a first approximation, ovaries -- and what it takes to qualify as feminine (gender) -- to a first approximation, putting on a dress, like looking like Jessica Rabbit (not really bad, just drawn that way ....)
But a world of differences there which transgender ideologues seem rather desperate to sweep under the carpet -- for one "reason" or another.
Neddy's father was not successful financially, behaved like someone who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and his mother didn't protect him from the whippings. When I first met Neddy, at the age of 18 when he was 20, he hated his father and told me about the physical abuse he and his next sibling, a sister, experienced. When I met her, she confirmed that. I believe Neddy is actually a gay man, despite the fact that he is now married to a woman. This is based on what I read in his diaries about his attraction to men, and a few experiences during the marriage when gay men were overly friendly. Often the crisis comes when the wife is pregnant or just gave birth. He has pregnancy envy along with his feelings of inadequacy as a man. I do not know if some kind of pornography obsession was in play; we didn't have a television or home computer. This last detail is common in my data on men who ideate a female persona. As well, he found extremely "affirming" therapists, who, as is also typical in this sub-speciality, wanted to build their reputation on the fast completion of the path to "sex reassignment surgery." Dr. Hakeem Az, who has been interviewed in many places, including Heretics YouTube channel, has the psychiatric interpretation of it all.
That’s my question. How (and why) does someone come to believe they are the opposite sex? My only conclusion is that they are in the midst of an identity crisis when a seed is planted that they believe they are the opposite sex and that takes over everything else in their lives to fix themselves. It’s an alluring (but misguided and harmful) fix.
A real challenge to "get inside the heads" of the dysphoric. No doubt there are several causes or "reasons" for the "born in the wrong body" syndrome.
But one of the biggies seems to be the general confusion over sex and gender, over the difference between what it takes to qualify as male and female (as sexes) -- i.e., testicles and ovaries -- and what personality, physiological, and behavioural traits are typical of each sex but not unique to each one -- e.g., males are, on average some 4 inches taller than females, but some 40% of females are taller than 40% of males.
Couple of really neat examples from a recent interview of Dr. Zucker by Stella O'Malley:
SM: One 5-year-old's dysphoria disappeared when a teacher called her a "tomboy"—"Oh you mean you can be a girl and like to do boy things?" An 8-year-old boy wanted to be a girl because "boys don't like to read, girls like to read."
https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/the-man-who-wrote-the-dsm-gender?utm_medium=reader2&triedRedirect=true
Of course a girl can do "boy things" because "boy things" -- like playing with trucks -- is not what it takes to qualify as a girl, as a juvenile female, because that "merely" requires ovaries which are, of course, not at all the same as an affinity for playing with trucks. Nor does playing with trucks make a boy a male since that merely requires that he has testicles.
As with heights: tall is more typical of males, but not unique to them since many females are also tall. And playing with trucks is more typical of boys (males), but not unique to them since many girls (females) also like to play with trucks.
As always, you express so beautifully, and with such sensitivity, how your thinking has evolved, and what you write strongly resonates with my own journey. I hope this essay will be widely read and shared. (I have restacked, to help that along.)
My views have changed along much the same as yours, Eliza. And/or, they have become firmer and more nuanced. Back in 2015, I wrote (more or less to myself) that we needed to figure out where sex matters and where it doesn’t, and in the latter cases, OK, maybe we can divide the world on gender lines instead. But I've come to realise that pretty much everything in the latter category involves stereotypes and so we shouldn't be dividing the world up at all.
I never thought there was such a thing as 'true trans'. Trans issue appeared on my radar, yes, about 8 years ago - as a silly fad in my daughter's middle school. Since then I found out it was so much more than another teen fad, and yet at its core it is still a youth subculture, like goth ( as brilliant Az Hakeem called it). Also, when I first saw a "trans woman" on Orange is The New Black, I was completely oblivious, I thought nothing of it. Now it enrages me. What really has changed is my level of trust in medical professionals, researchers, peer review process, journalists, etc.
I also raise my hand in shame because I used to believe in the "true trans" middle ground where some people were verifiably, immutably trans. Now I know that there is no "essence" that's separate from your body and actions.
I used to be a naive progressive who believed that society could keep moving forward and keep getting rid of bad stuff like strict parenting, rigid gender roles, and religion. Now look where we are. Permissive parents have created a depressed and anxious generation; rigid gender roles made a comeback (e.g. "I can't be a woman because I don't like cooking"); and the religious fervor around gender ideology is at an all-time high among "atheists."
I used to believe that journalism and medicine had ways to self-correct. I thought that journalists and doctors would read at least some of their primary sources and put some thought into their work. Turns out they don't. Most of their work is just inertia, a tiny increment from where they started, which allows one fatal flaw to grow and grow unnoticed until it explodes. These disciplines are very shallow and not rigorous at all, especially when polluted by activism.
Are we thinking there is a segue occurring here, from opportunistic capitalising on an implicit debilitation GD model, to positivist manifestations of "embodiment goals", as the next tack from transhuman denizens?
yes
If we were in their position, is that what we would do?
...and conversely?
Yes. I recommend this doc "Cyborrg Generation" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32046518/ about young people pursuing transhumanist embodiment goal. Identical justification for all of this, identical set of victims, but instead of genital mutilation they pursue extra senses.
I used to think the big problem was with medicalizing children. I now see it as profound medical malpractice regardless of age.
I agree with all of this, Eliza! It's interesting that even critically-minded people (including me) who never bought into the cult have found it hard to re-assert simple common sense.
Thank you for reposting. Good stuff. Maybe others can start to see it if we repeat it often enough.