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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:28:06 GMT -5
but why do they think it looks wrong? I mean if being a woman/man is just as simple as believing you're a woman/man, why does the exterior matter? Why do women get boob jobs then? Wear make up? Why do spanx exist.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 2, 2015 10:29:09 GMT -5
but why do they think it looks wrong? I mean if being a woman/man is just as simple as believing you're a woman/man, why does the exterior matter? Maybe similar to someone wanting lap-band surgery to get thin, because they see themselves as thin, want to be thin. Obvs the trans thing would be way more emotional and lap-band surgery is a vast oversimplification.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jun 2, 2015 10:31:17 GMT -5
if there is no way to look like/act like a man/woman, then why are the physical changes needed? My guess is because they feel physically wrong and they hate to look in the mirror and see that it's wrong every dang day of their lives? I have no clue, but that's my imaginative guess. It's a correct guess. That's what many testimonies states. It's also exactly what anorexics, "transracialists", women desperate to look like Angelina Jolie, et al. will testify to. We call it body dismorphism and get them help. We don't encourage their delusions.
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Formerly SK
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Post by Formerly SK on Jun 2, 2015 10:37:13 GMT -5
MJ, I get the difficulty wrapping your head around it. For however accepting and open I am to whatever people want to do for themselves, I have this teeny voice in my head that says to me "well... biologically they're still male.." and I can't seem to not hear that voice. It makes me feel shitty and uncomfortable, even though it shouldn't. It doesn't mean I don't support transgender people, because I do - who am I to say how someone else should live their lives? It just means that I think very literally and scientifically and in black-and-whites, and at a basic level, my brain can't stop reminding me that this person is genetically male. Again, it doesn't affect what I think of or how I would address a transgender person. As I said previously I couldn't even begin to understand how someone in that position feels, so I have zero place to judge them. I would absolutely stand up against harassment or discrimination toward a transgender person and their right to dignity and the life they want to live. I hesitated posting this because a) I don't want to sound like a Richard, and b) I don't want to sound like a Richard. I think the issue is only that you haven't personally known a trans and probably haven't spent a lot of time looking at the issue. And why would you since it doesn't impact you? Two years ago I would probably have written your post. Now that it's impacted me personally and I've spent hours and hours reading about it and talking to medical professionals, my feelings about "weirdness" or "black/white" have evaporated. The GREAT thing about the trans movement right now is that for the first time, a trans person could actually maybe tell someone their secret without the risk of being murdered. As as they slowly come forward, it allows even more to feel safe enough to share. The thing that surprised me the most this past year as my child transitioned was that as we told people (neighbors/schools/whatever) an AMAZING amount of people told me they had a relative/friend who was trans. It was shocking to me (still is in a way). I think these people/stories are everywhere, it just isn't discussed due to fear. If society evolves enough so that trans people feel safe enough to share without being killed/assaulted/fired, stories like Caitlyn's won't get threads like this. She is just one person, NOT a trans representative. Every trans person is their own story with their own struggles.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Jun 2, 2015 10:37:40 GMT -5
My guess is because they feel physically wrong and they hate to look in the mirror and see that it's wrong every dang day of their lives? I have no clue, but that's my imaginative guess. It's a correct guess. That's what many testimonies states. It's also exactly what anorexics, "transracialists", women desperate to look like Angelina Jolie, et al. will testify to. We call it body dismorphism and get them help. We don't encourage their delusions. okay, except we get anorexics help because they'll die if they continue not eating. Other than that, I semi agree with your argument here. Huh. I guess hell is freezing over after all... I mean it's 51 degrees in June, so...
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jun 2, 2015 10:37:45 GMT -5
It's harmful to them (see previous thread on the subject). It becomes harmful to you if the behaviour is peddled as normal, commendable, or even glamorous, and you're inspired to act on your own delusion. This MJ. Virgil differs from you in that his goal is to categorize the other person as broken and their personal decisions as dangerous... Which is what actually makes his position dangerous and untenable. And it's this type of insistence that contributes to the suicide rates among transgendered populations. So yes, I'll attempt to counter this kind of 'opinion' wherever I can. Now it's "contributes to the suicide rates...". How much of the 2000% higher-than-normal post-surgery transgender suicide rate do you suppose that is? Surely you know. Surely it's enough that we can just ignore that 2,000% as "who gives a damn; people do all kinds of crazy things". Surely there's no harm in passively accepting a delusion.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:40:33 GMT -5
I don't passively accept your delusions Virgil. I'm active fighting your delusions.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Jun 2, 2015 10:42:18 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Jun 2, 2015 10:45:09 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. that poor kid! great dr, too - whatever happened to "do no harm" in that oath he took?
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 2, 2015 10:46:33 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. I see this so much with my kids too. Especially DD. Up until she was about 1 all of our toys were either boy toys or gender neutral. She would make herself necklaces out of phone or computer cables and carry around our shape sorter box like a purse. She would nurture stuffed animals like she was a mom, the same animals our DS never touched. Totally amazing stuff.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:47:20 GMT -5
For some reason, I've always thought you couldn't just walk into a doctor's office and say "I'm a woman living in a man's body and I want to make the physical part match what I am inside", and the doctor just says "ok, start taking these hormone pills and we'll schedule your first surgery on x date". I thought there was a lot of talking and stuff involved before anything was actually done, to try and be sure it's the right decision. Am I wrong on that, and a person can just do it on a whim without having to explore the psychological aspects with medical professionals?
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Jun 2, 2015 10:48:39 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. And yet, there is a movement now days that tries to de-genderize the kids. I remember reading about a school in Europe (I think?) that has no gender. So, there are no boys/girls, they are all "it" or something like that. When issue like this one come up, I often wonder why do we try so hard to fight nature and invent new medical terms and conditions.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:48:46 GMT -5
Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. I see this so much with my kids too. Especially DD. Up until she was about 1 all of our toys were either boy toys or gender neutral. She would make herself necklaces out of phone or computer cables and carry around our shape sorter box like a purse. She would nurture stuffed animals like she was a mom, the same animals our DS never touched. Totally amazing stuff. And if a boy did this, would he not be a male? And if a girl didn't do this, would she not be a female? Do all children with certain genitals respond the same way?
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Jun 2, 2015 10:48:51 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. I guess I don't understand the concept behind trying to suppress gender differences - especially knowing that they occur within us absent of outside influences. There is a reason for these differences and IMO we should be celebrating these differences, not trying to suppress them.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jun 2, 2015 10:51:17 GMT -5
if there is no way to look like/act like a man/woman, then why are the physical changes needed? My guess is because they feel physically wrong and they hate to look in the mirror and see that it's wrong every dang day of their lives? I have no clue, but that's my imaginative guess. I don't know anyone who looks in the mirror and likes everything they see. I think most of us have things we'd like to change. So why don't more people get plastic surgery? I think, to a certain extent at least, we have to accept what we were born with. I know many people are against plastic surgery (except for repairing defects) for this very reason. I wonder what a little person feels like. I bet they feel like they're average sized adults, but their bodies just don't reflect that. What can they do? They just have to learn to accept themselves. There might be some surgeries they can get in childhood that can help, but they'll never get all the way there. The same goes for Caitlyn. She looks great, but still has the frame and muscle tone of a man. She'll have to take hormones--probably for the rest of her life. I hope that she can get to a place where she can accept herself, because she'll never be able to remove all of the male characteristics that she was born with.
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Formerly SK
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Post by Formerly SK on Jun 2, 2015 10:53:58 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. IIRC, the man eventually killed himself. The horror of all the therapy/hormones as he grew up was just too much. Watching my two kids it's pretty easy to see they are both boys. One was born a girl, but he's definitely a boy. It was amazing how "authentic" a person he became after his transition. I think he spent the last year of his life as a girl working very hard moment to moment to fit in with the girl gender. Once he was shed of that, it was like he grew a foot in joy/pride. It was so tangible.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jun 2, 2015 10:54:17 GMT -5
I don't passively accept your delusions Virgil. I'm active fighting your delusions. You're sucking air in this thread is what you're doing. You don't have a blessed idea of what I know, what the consequences of sex-changing surgeries are, or why those consequences come about. You don't care about whether the surgery is rational. You don't care about whether it's harmful. And you either don't know or don't care whether it fixes the problem (why don't you look up the science on that), because if you did, you wouldn't be making "as long as it makes them happy" arguments here in this thread.
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NancysSummerSip
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Post by NancysSummerSip on Jun 2, 2015 11:04:27 GMT -5
but why do they think it looks wrong? I mean if being a woman/man is just as simple as believing you're a woman/man, why does the exterior matter? I have two transgendered friends, both male to female. I wondered about this, too. If you know in your heart, soul and all the molecules inside you that you are female, why make the physical transition? It's hugely expensive, excruciatingly painful and as with all surgeries, there can be complications. Plus the issues with friends and family rejecting you and the rest of society never accepting you. Their answers were simple, but enlightening, to say the least. And given that I've had plastic surgery myself, I probably should have known. They wanted to look like the other girls. Really, mostly that was it.They want the inside pretty to match the outside pretty. They wanted to be a physical part of the society that they identified with for so many years. In both cases, my friends knew from very early ages (around age five or six) that something about being boys wasn't "right." They thought differently, they didn't dislike what was considered "typical boy behavior," they just could not identify with it. It's not that they "acted like girls" either. It was more like a limbo between the two. Later on, they found themselves unable to think about their future selves as husbands and fathers. Those roles just had no meaning. It wasn't about employment - one of them served as a pilot in the US Air Force - it was about their identity as human beings. Neither of my friends comes from any kind of traumatic or unusual family background. No other gender identity issues in either family. It was not about sex or sexual gratification or physical attraction. It was about matching the psychological "this is me" to a physical "this is me." There is a line in the short story Yentl (also made into a movie starring Barbra Streisand), where Yentl, a girl who dresses as a boy so she can study Torah, tells her father how much she prefers study to women's work and asks him, "Why wasn't I born a boy?" " Nu, even Heaven makes mistakes," her father replies. Does Heaven make mistakes? I don't think so. I do wonder if souls and psyches sometimes wind up in the wrong bodies, though. Gender reassignment is a means to realignment, perhaps.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 2, 2015 11:04:55 GMT -5
I see this so much with my kids too. Especially DD. Up until she was about 1 all of our toys were either boy toys or gender neutral. She would make herself necklaces out of phone or computer cables and carry around our shape sorter box like a purse. She would nurture stuffed animals like she was a mom, the same animals our DS never touched. Totally amazing stuff. And if a boy did this, would he not be a male? And if a girl didn't do this, would she not be a female? Do all children with certain genitals respond the same way? Well the reason she didn't have any "girl" toys is because I'm cheap . It surprised me she did this. I didn't think a 10 month old would invent her own purse, it certainly wasn't expected but I thought it was cool! It's very clear early on my DS identified with DH (he used to pretend shave etc) and DD with me (the purse thing, she recently asked if she could have red toes like me, DS has never asked that). I just find the whole thing fascinating. I'm not sure I had expectations going in, but it's interesting to see it happen.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Jun 2, 2015 11:05:08 GMT -5
Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. IIRC, the man eventually killed himself. The horror of all the therapy/hormones as he grew up was just too much. Watching my two kids it's pretty easy to see they are both boys. One was born a girl, but he's definitely a boy. It was amazing how "authentic" a person he became after his transition. I think he spent the last year of his life as a girl working very hard moment to moment to fit in with the girl gender. Once he was shed of that, it was like he grew a foot in joy/pride. It was so tangible. that's awesome to hear, SK! I don't know if you (or anyone else, for that matter) was aware of a series that the NBC Nightly News did recently on transgender kids. one was from the Boston area, and had been the subject of a local newspaper column so I'd already heard about him before the NBC series. what I bolded from your post is what I took away from reading each part in the series about the group of kids. who are any of us to say that those kids shouldn't be who they are?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 11:06:14 GMT -5
I hope that she can get to a place where she can accept herself, because she'll never be able to remove all of the male characteristics that she was born with. I don't know. I would think anyone who looked at that picture and didn't know the background and was just told it was a 65 year old woman would think. "That's a pretty hot 65 year old woman". Now I have hair envy....
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NancysSummerSip
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Post by NancysSummerSip on Jun 2, 2015 11:09:49 GMT -5
For some reason, I've always thought you couldn't just walk into a doctor's office and say "I'm a woman living in a man's body and I want to make the physical part match what I am inside", and the doctor just says "ok, start taking these hormone pills and we'll schedule your first surgery on x date". I thought there was a lot of talking and stuff involved before anything was actually done, to try and be sure it's the right decision. Am I wrong on that, and a person can just do it on a whim without having to explore the psychological aspects with medical professionals? No, the surgery cannot just be done on a whim. There is a lot of counseling that must be done first, before any surgery/hormone therapy begins. And the transgender candidate does spend considerable time living as their identity gender (dressing, etc.) as well. My understanding from one of my transgender friends (who had the surgeries done relatively recently) is that counseling/living period can be as long as 18 months to two years. But actually, many transgenders secretly live as their identity gender much longer than that. Jenner apparently was doing so, long before the issue became news.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on Jun 2, 2015 11:15:11 GMT -5
raeoflyte, if gender is just a social construct like people are trying to argue on this thread, then physical surgery and hormone therapy wouldn't be necessary. But it seems that there is a "look like a (wo)man, act like a (wo)man" aspect, which tells me that gender isn't just a social construct - it has biological/physical aspects as well. Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. I think gender is very much a social construct. If it was not, societies wouldn't create different modes of dress and behavior assuming/demanding there only exist two types of people in the world - male and female, feminine and masculine.
I used to read a lot about gender roles and the different behavior starts at birth. Perhaps the parents do their best to seek some gender neutral way to treat them, but from the moment they are picked up by a midwife, doctor, or nurse - they get different messages. Like 'how cute, she will beautiful like her Mom or he looks so big and strong I bet he will be a linebacker. I know of no society yet which encourages and allows all behaviors equally between the two genders society has allowed to exist.
For example, do all of the women your kids come in contact with act in a gender neutral way? The Men? Are men wearing skirts, carrying purses? Are the women wearing no jewelry and only carrying wallets or stuff in their pockets? All TV and media has been free of gender messages? Kids imitate what they see, in the absence of rules or ideas how to act, they mimic people they want to be like.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jun 2, 2015 11:15:27 GMT -5
My guess is because they feel physically wrong and they hate to look in the mirror and see that it's wrong every dang day of their lives? I have no clue, but that's my imaginative guess. It's a correct guess. That's what many testimonies states. It's also exactly what anorexics, "transracialists", women desperate to look like Angelina Jolie, et al. will testify to. We call it body dismorphism and get them help. We don't encourage their delusions. Wouldn't you be offended if I suggested you need help because of your religious delusions? "Let's not encourage it, but get you help" would make you howl from the rooftops.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jun 2, 2015 11:15:58 GMT -5
I hope that she can get to a place where she can accept herself, because she'll never be able to remove all of the male characteristics that she was born with. I don't know. I would think anyone who looked at that picture and didn't know the background and was just told it was a 65 year old woman would think. "That's a pretty hot 65 year old woman". Now I have hair envy.... Look at that pose though. It's very awkward. It's like the pose where the subject stands sideways and twists toward the camera to make the waist look tiny.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jun 2, 2015 11:17:32 GMT -5
Since he likes women, does that mean he is now a lesbian? I'm so confused by all of this...I'm just thankful that this isn't something I have to deal with in real life. I don't think I could handle it if my daughter suddenly decided she was a he...luckily, she is as girly as they come so I think I'm safe. AGAIN......it isn't something one "suddenly decides."
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Jun 2, 2015 11:20:56 GMT -5
Gender is not a social construct. I cannot remember the name of the book right now, but in the 70's a doctor thought that he had the perfect opportunity to prove that nature was stronger than nurture. There were twin boys and one's circumcision went horribly wrong. This doctor told the parents he could 'fix' their child by doing more surgery and making him into a girl. Reading the things that doctor did to try to get the child to mentally and emotionally be a girl was awful. Once the truth was out he dropped the female persona and had to essentially transition back to his birth gender because of all the medical and hormonal stuff that they had done to him. As I watch my own kids I am even more certain that gender is not a social construct but something we are born with. We are painfully aware of gender and our own reactions to it, and work very hard not to associate (and sometimes disassociate) things with gender to give the kids a blank slate. There are plenty of stereotypical gender roles that I see in both of them at very young ages that I feel confident is coming from within and not from our environment. I think gender is very much a social construct. If it was not, societies wouldn't create different modes of dress and behavior assuming/demanding there only exist two types of people in the world - male and female, feminine and masculine.
I used to read a lot about gender roles and the different behavior starts at birth. Perhaps the parents do their best to seek some gender neutral way to treat them, but from the moment they are picked up by a midwife, doctor, or nurse - they get different messages. Like 'how cute, she will beautiful like her Mom or he looks so big and strong I bet he will be a linebacker. I know of no society yet which encourages and allows all behaviors equally between the two genders society has allowed to exist.
For example, do all of the women your kids come in contact with act in a gender neutral way? The Men? Are men wearing skirts, carrying purses? Are the women wearing no jewelry and only carrying wallets or stuff in their pockets? All TV and media has been free of gender messages? Kids imitate what they see, in the absence of rules or ideas how to act, they mimic people they want to be like.
How do you explain prehistoric man then? They lived in large groups where men hunted and women cared for the children and gathered food. Maybe they realized that men might have an advantage over women regarding strength, endurance, and speed, and that women are better multitaskers so they'd be better at gathering and child care... Or did they get that from TV?
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 2, 2015 11:28:03 GMT -5
I think gender is very much a social construct. If it was not, societies wouldn't create different modes of dress and behavior assuming/demanding there only exist two types of people in the world - male and female, feminine and masculine.
I used to read a lot about gender roles and the different behavior starts at birth. Perhaps the parents do their best to seek some gender neutral way to treat them, but from the moment they are picked up by a midwife, doctor, or nurse - they get different messages. Like 'how cute, she will beautiful like her Mom or he looks so big and strong I bet he will be a linebacker. I know of no society yet which encourages and allows all behaviors equally between the two genders society has allowed to exist.
For example, do all of the women your kids come in contact with act in a gender neutral way? The Men? Are men wearing skirts, carrying purses? Are the women wearing no jewelry and only carrying wallets or stuff in their pockets? All TV and media has been free of gender messages? Kids imitate what they see, in the absence of rules or ideas how to act, they mimic people they want to be like.
How do you explain prehistoric man then? They lived in large groups where men hunted and women cared for the children and gathered food. Maybe they realized that men might have an advantage over women regarding strength, endurance, and speed, and that women are better multitaskers so they'd be better at gathering and child care... Or did they get that from TV? Why didn't my 10 month old DD imitate my DH shaving instead of me carrying a purse? Why did my DS do the opposite? I don't think we encouraged it. At that age the only thing I encouraged was sleeping and not crying.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jun 2, 2015 11:32:01 GMT -5
Both of my sons loved to wear Mardi Gras necklaces (Mardi Gras beads that we had around the house). I don't normally wear any jewelry at all, except for my wedding band, unless the extremely rare occasion that I dress up to go out.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Jun 2, 2015 11:33:32 GMT -5
How do you explain prehistoric man then? They lived in large groups where men hunted and women cared for the children and gathered food. Maybe they realized that men might have an advantage over women regarding strength, endurance, and speed, and that women are better multitaskers so they'd be better at gathering and child care... Or did they get that from TV? Why didn't my 10 month old DD imitate my DH shaving instead of me carrying a purse? Why did my DS do the opposite? I don't think we encouraged it. At that age the only thing I encouraged was sleeping and not crying. Did you give her a purse to stop her crying? Cuz that would probably work on a lot of girls, just sayin...
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