One of the anti-depressants that I’m taking is classified as as anti-psychotic drug, and if I even try to stop taking them, I can feel the effects within 24 hours. I hate living on so many different drugs, and some days I just want to stop taking them all, but my family still wants me around apparently, so I just keep on taking them. What else can I do?
1 Like
Hail Satan ???
I tend to agree with you here. There are a lot of things I’d like to be–a billionaire for one, a Nobel laureate, or the winner of the Tour de France, but I’m not, and I accept that. Convincing myself that I won the Nobel in Chemistry isn’t fooling anyone but myself. I don’t see why it should be any different with things like gender.
I have no problem with someone wanting to pretend they’re the opposite gender in private, and as a male, I wouldn’t feel too weird if I encountered a biological woman posing as male in the men’s room, but I can certainly understand a lot of women feel uneasy about the opposite case.
And again this is our division. You are your biological gender. There is no escaping that. I don’t care what your head tells you. Participating in the delusion is not helping these people to live healthy lives.
Homosexuality is not even close to the same thing. It’s ‘off topic.’ Sexual preference is a weird animal unto itself. I can be a man attracted to other men. I do not have to pretend I am a woman. The problem with homosexuality came about when all the gay men were, and many still are, forced by social convention to pretend they are straight. To not be who they really are. Which is what you are advocating.
You are pretending along with the delusion instead of facing the reality. The 'Real Self" will 'Never" be the ideal self. As long as there is separation, there is friction, friction is conflict. Conflict is internal stress. Accepting the self, as one is, not as one would like to be, is key to ending internal conflict. It is a pretense to assert, “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” This is not real in any sense of the word.
When people discuss gender; I tend to hear the word being used 3 different ways:
- A. birth sex organs : To describe/group the reproductive organs a person was born with. Often using male/female binary sort. Here we already have outliers: people who are born with something other than one of the two common sets.
- B. current sex organs : Just like #1, but with current set of organs, which might have changed since birth.
- C. traditional role : A description of someone’s traditional roles/duties (a person living as a woman, might be expected to cook and clean in some places).
If any poster feels that we should be preforming binary sorts on people into the two common groups (male/female); maybe you could provide a little more detail.
When we want to do this sorting, which criteria (A, B, or C above) should we use for each situation:
- Using a public bathroom:
- Playing sports:
- Registering for the draft:
- Answer to the question of gender in a dating app:
2 Likes
This is the problem… we are pigeonholing people into this category and that category. Gender specific terms are useless. Be Who You Are. Stop Pretending. This whole BS story of a man trapped in a woman’s body is bullshit from the ground up. It’s a fantasy story created by the current and nothing more. It is Not a useful story. It allows its believer to pretend, and live a fantasy that will eventually crash down on him or her.
Unfortunately, in responding to all the questions above, one must choose wisely when they don’t actually fit into the categories. To choose wrong is to suffer social, legal, and emotional consequences. That is the nature of the culture we live in.
Yup. Male, female, and “momma bear is going to fuck you up real bad for getting close to my cubs”.
I don’t know the answers, that’s for sure. The complete female mind set of transgender women makes me perfectly comfortable in a bathroom or locker room. That same mind set though, and insistence that they are the same in everyway as biological women can be dangerous in sports settings, particularly the contact sports, and well, just seems outright unfair in others. Women only recently grabbed a piece of that pie, so it’s a sore spot.
Well again I may be misunderstanding gender dysphoria here, but I think the difference is that the gender they identify as is who they are, and not simply wishing to be a particular gender, they have no control over it, but sadly it differs from their biological identity. I don’t think it has anything to do with fooling anyone else, or themselves. Though I may have misunderstood gender dysphoria of course.
Well you’d have to take that up with medical science, as I didn’t define gender dysphoria.
Indeed, but we are a great deal more, and in the case of gender dysphoria that biological gender is at odds with who you are, unless again I have misunderstood what it means.
Not completely no, but the suffering can be alleviated by a number of options.
Is that a subjective opinion? I am not an expert in gender dysphoria but the claim seems to be at odds with evolving medical opinion.
I never said it was the same, however it is on topic in the context in which I used it. namely that homosexuality was once considered a psychiatric disorder and or a delusion, but medical science no longer evidences this position.
As is sexual identity clearly.
Again the use of pretence is oversimplifying a complex concept. My understanding of gender dysphoria is that they are not pretending that they are different to their biological gender, that is the point, and that is what I understand gender dysphoria to mean.
Indeed, just as people suffering gender dysphoria have been forced to conform to their biological gender, you see unwilling to accept there is a difference between who they are, and that biological agenda, but again that is what I understand gender dysphoria to mean.
Now you know very well I’ve advocated nothing, like anyone else here i am trying to understand the facts, you seem to have decided one fact alone is all that determines a person’s gender identity, and gender dysphoria is at odds with your position. Now again I may be wrong here, but my understanding is that gender dysphoria is acknowledge as real by medical science, not a psychiatric disorder, or a delusion. Since the reality of someone’s sexual or gender identity is not limited to a person’s biological gender.
Just read Nyarl’s post, it helps to ask ourselves these types of questions. I mean who is really harmed and how can we best avoid or prevent harm or suffering.
That’s a sweeping claim, and medical science seems to be heading in a different direction.
I don’t think we are currently in a position to make such sweeping claims to be honest.
Cultures evolve and change, it can sometimes be painful or emotive, but also necessary.
Nor do I, and I think avoiding sweeping and absolute claims is wise for that very reason.
I’m the opposite. I could care less about gender in bathrooms. There are stalls.
I’ve used bathrooms where they are just open to the public. Urinals being used. Stalls with men and women coming out. Kids with their parents…diapers being changed. Everyones gotta pee.
1 Like
And I assert - They are ignoring who they are. How they feel, is not who they are. There is no empirical evidence at all supporting the fact that they are the “gender.” they profess to want to be. They are the gender they are… whatever gender that is, however fluid that gender is. they are what they are. If they are male, wanting to be female, then THAT, is their gender.
Okay… we are not getting anyplace. I get that your starting point is that this “gender” idea is an a priori and accepted without question. I just disagree. I have no problem with gender fluidity. I merely assert that gender is not asserted. No matter how much you think, “I am a woman in a man’s body.” That is not the case. No evidence supports this conclusion. It is a social construct that we have adopted and socially acceptable and it is psychologically unsound. It is a lie.
We are just going to keep going back and forth. You get the closing comment… Cheers Mr. Sheldon.
1 Like
Good post.
Puts me in mind of a film “Boys Don’t Cry” Starring Hilary Swank as a transgender young woman. Based on a real person. Worth watching for her performance alone.
The film portrays tragedy, on several levels.
My position: It is not yet possible to change one sex into another sex with full biological function. BUT many people identify as a sex other than the one they were born.
As far as I’m aware, gender identification is wired in the brain. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus to what degree. It seems there may be some overlap.
Pretty sure the existence of transgender people has been scientifically established. On an intellectual level, I accept the science as I understand it. On a personal level I couldn’t give a flying farnarckle. Such people have never effected my life. Should that happen, I’ll deal with any feelings t at the time.
Finally, transgender people do not seem to harm society as far as I can tell. If anything they enrich it because they are living their lives in a personally authentic way.
That’s all I have to say on this matter.
Below is a link to one article. There are a great many available.
1 Like
Well based on my understanding of gender dysphoria I wouldn’t say they’re ignoring anything, as they are acutely aware of their biological gender, but this is not who they are, or they wouldn’t be suffering gender dysphoria.
Well I’d agree, but the evidence suggest that biological gender is not the determining factor, let alone the sole factor.
Not merely asserted no, as the evidence I posted in the link I provided shows.
So medicine and psychiatry have got this wrong, and gender dysphoria is in fact just a delusion? As I pointed out this is at odds with where medical science is moving, and I linked some evidence, which you now say doesn’t exist?
Yes I’ve see it, though it was a while ago, hard to watch but a compelling performance as you’d expect.
1 Like
The DSM-5 defines gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults as a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender, lasting at least 6 months, as manifested by at least two of the following:
Here in lies the problem: “And their assigned gender.” Who in the fk gave anyone the right to start assigning geners to people?
Problem #2: The word “Desire” means to 'Want something that you do not yet have." The DSM is saying the Exact same thing I am saying. They are NOT the sex / gender they ‘desire.’ They ‘desire’ to be a different gender than the one they are. I am in complete agreement with the DSM-5. People are who they are. Gender identity is a desire, not who or what you are.
A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics…
- A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender
- A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
- A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
- A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
Sorry… I replied… LOL
I think again you are conflating the assigned gender and the desire to express it outwardly with a delusion, no one is arguing that their desire is at odds with their biological gender, only that evidence is emerging that their biological gender is not the sole indicator of what gender a person is.
As demonstrated in the link above, evidence suggests this is not the case.
“It is important to note that gender identity is different from gender expression. Whereas gender identity refers to one’s psychological sense of their gender, gender expression refers to the way in which one presents to the world in a gendered way.”
“Some of the first biological evidence of the incongruence transgender individuals experience, because their brain indicates they are one sex and their body another, may have been found in estrogen receptor pathways in the brain of 30 transgender individuals. “Twenty-one variants in 19 genes have been found in estrogen signaling pathways of the brain critical to establishing whether the brain is masculine or feminine,” says Dr. J. Graham Theisen, obstetrician/gynecologist and National Institutes of Health Women’s Reproductive Health Research Scholar at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.”
People of colour desire equality, this does not infer they are not in fact equal, gay people desire equality with heterosexual people, this does not infer they are not equal. The simple fact that people suffering gender dysphoria desire to express outwardly, the gender they are psychologically, doesn’t mean that psychological gender is not real to them, and who is to say their biological gender is a better, let alone sole indicator of who they are? Especially given the emerging evidence above.
1 Like
Desiring equality asserts they do not believe they are equal in some way, hence the desire. (I’m sure neither you nor I would entertain this idea of inequality.) Were a person feeling like an equal there would be no need for the desire to feel equal. The analogy, as presented, fails as equality does not sustain the analogy.
A better analogy would be a person of color wanting to be white. Something different than what they are. (I am making the argument that they are just a human of a certain color, no different than a human of any other color; white, pink or blue, for example, ) You are arguing that they really are a white person on the inside because they think they are a white person on the inside. That makes no sense. I am asserting that they are fine, just as they are and they should admit who and what they are to themselves and then make choices to live as they see fit. Their desire (discomfort with who they are) is the issue not who they are. They are fine just as they are. They are a person of color who wants to be different than they are. They are the person born black who wants to be white or born black who thinks they should be or really are white. (Look in a mirror and the facts will tell you this is not the case.) So, now what? Admit it. Live with it. Know it. Get real with it.
On the other hand, pretend you are white, live a white life, get married to a white person and never share with them who you really are. Then have a black baby and then deal with the lie you have been living. It’'s going to come out. (Have the white spouse run across a photo of a relative or something. Suddenly your health examinatiion shows you have sickle cell anemia and your curious spouse looks into it. A million things could reveal your secret. You are living a lie. The same is true if you try to hide your actual gender, the one you are born with. It will be revealed. Why not just own it? Wear it proudly. “I am a man. I was born a man. I identfy as a female.” Be honest. Be honest with yourself and with the world around you.
We are who we are. The further away the imagined self is from the real self the greater the psychological dysfunction. “Real to them?” Since when do people get to create their own reality? That’s just not the way reality works.
Results of the “Twenty-one variants study.”
"The results of this study show some of the first biological evidence of the mental verses physical struggle transgender people say they experience. Dr. Layman says there is still much to be uncovered.
“We found variants that could go along with that,” Dr. Layman says, “but you know it’s not totally confirmed whether that is a cause and effect…so you really have to have bigger numbers.”
Dr. Layman and Dr. Theisen will continue studying gender identity to understand more. They say there is a lack of understanding of the biologic basis of gender dysphoria." (They have no understanding of it yet.)
The research is in it’s infancy
" The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality has revealed five spots on the human genome that are linked to same-sex sexual behaviour — but none of the markers are reliable enough to predict someone’s sexuality.
The findings, which are published on 29 August in Science and based on the genomes of nearly 500,000 people, shore up the results of earlier, smaller studies and confirm the suspicions of many scientists: while sexual preferences have a genetic component, no single gene has a large effect on sexual behaviours."
I expect the studies will go the way of the homosexual studies that have gon on for some 40 years now. “There is no ‘gay gene’,” says lead study author Andrea Ganna, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (I have no reason to suspect this research will do any better than the years of research into homosexuality. ) It happens in about 10% of all mamalian species on the planet and we really don’t know why. It really does not matter why. Why it happens has nothing at all to do with how we lable it. How we label things is a product of social convention and often divorced from what is real.
We differ in what we are calling the ‘core’ of a person. You want to believe the person actually is a ‘female’ in a male body. I am telling you that that is not the case. They will never be a female. They are only a male in a male body who desires to be female. Accepting who they are, as a person, born male, desireing to be female, is healthier than pretending to be someting you are not and can never be. Being born male, I don’t care what you tell yourself or call yourself, you will never be female. You can live like a female, dress like a female, convince yourself that you think like a female, but you are not and will never be female. You will never have a baby, a period, a pregnancy, ovaries.
fe·male:
of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.
Defining characteristics of 'Female" (In what sense is this person, born male, a ‘female.’)
Females produce ova the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller and usually motile gametes, the Spermatozoa, are produced by males. Generally, a female cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male, and vice versa, but in some species females can reproduce by themselves asexually, for example via parthenogenesis.
Okay… We really are going round and round. And round… I’m dizzy… Your turn… I appreciated the link to the study. It is more recent than anything I had previously read.
Were a transgender feeling like their psychological gender, there would be no need to desire to change. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, your inference from the word desire appeared to simply assumed desire doesn’t reflect reality, and they are not the psychological gender they assert they are, The evidence I posted suggests otherwise, as does gender dysphoria of course.
I disagree, as you are again assuming that what they desire is not what they are, and this so far has been based solely on your assertion that gender identity is determined solely by biological identity, and again I have posted evidence that suggest this is not the case.
I disagree, in fact that seems like a reductio ad absurdum fallacy to me.
This tautology ignores the crux of the disagreement, and so doesn’t seem to validate your assertion that biological identity is the sole determinant in sexual identity. I have demonstrated evidence that this might not be the case.
To be fair, I never claimed anything was confirmed, I offered evidence, how compelling it is I am prepared to let science decide, however medical science currently recognises gender dysphoria as real, not a delusion and not a mental or psychiatric disorder. This view seems significant to me, and of course reflects the change in view medical science one made about assumptions about gay people.
That does suggest that many scientists suspect that sexual identity might have a genetic influence, and is not therefore solely determined by biological sexual identity. Scientists cannot isolate a “gay gene” either, this does not mean gay people are delusional, or that their biological gender is the sole determining factor, pause for thought?
So do you believe gay people are gay, or are they pretending or delusional? Otherwise the parallel suggests that biological gender is not the sole arbiter of either sexual desire or gender identity? Bear in mind your argument about desire is still being used to deny homosexuality by many religious groups.
Not rue, what I want here doesn’t feature at all, why would it? I am merely trying to understand, and of course adjust my thinking if it is morally apropos. I personally have nothing to lose or gain, as far as I can see.
Do you think i don’t understand what you are claiming, or that telling me what you are claiming will sway me? 
Straw man fallacy, again. You are using the word female to donate biological gender, I have never claimed this can be completely reversed. Though in the future who knows. Some species change sex under environmental pressures to aid reproduction and survival of certain species, the natural world doesn’t seem as judgemental as humans it appears.
Or a female in a male body who desires to live and express as much as is possible who they are. Simply making your claim over and over doesn’t make it more compelling. We don’t need to agree of course, but if all you can assert is they have a biological identity, then we haven’t really learned anything have we? Besides you already posted research that suggests this may not be the case, and medical science recognises gender dysphoria as real, which for me is a problem with your claim.
Well this is a tangential claim of course, and doesn’t address your claim that they are deluded. However the very existence of gender dysphoria and the suffering it entails suggests otherwise to me. I think a better course would be for society to become more accepting of transgenders, as of course they have done and are doing with gay men and women.
Straw man fallacy again, sorry. I have never claimed otherwise, though again the word never there seems an absolute claim you’d be hard pressed to evidence.
That just seems like semantics to me, take the word gay, which once had a very different meaning. It is a fact that words change and have nuanced definitions over time. These often reflect paradigm shifts in cultural and social attitudes.
You’re welcome, the article was interesting for me as well, as it is easy to lose sight of the fact we are talking about people as well. I wonder if people will laugh at such discussions in 50 years time?
1 Like
LOL… I’m not assuming it… it is a biological fact. Okay Sheldon. We are just going to disagree. I know we will both agree that regardless of the choice they make, they need to be treated like hunam beings.
Let’s hope so. The world will be a better place if so.