# Biological Sex & Gender



## DevilDog (Jun 12, 2013)

Finished a third of this, then Windows took an unexpected update induced restart. If you're reading this Microsoft then fuck you, and your dumb ass restarts.
*DISCLAIMER* This a thread for the discussion of transsexual rights and boundaries. This is NOT a hate rant, nor will it be used as one by participating forumers. This is NOT a discussion on spiritual beliefs regarding transsexualism. Anything detrimentally OT or insensitive and I'm cutting this thread down(or getting a mod to).

Now then, I've been thinking a lot on the subject of transsexualism and the issues surrounding it. I'm going to be forward and say that I have come a long way in terms of tolerance(thanks MLP) and understanding(thanks internet) of the LGBT community, in that I no longer assume gays are pedos or transsexuals are gays who do it for the lulz. But I do think that there are areas where LGBT rights groups are overstepping their bounds. Here are some grey areas I'd like my fellow CWCki forumers to weigh in on.
1: The acceptance of more than two genders. For me, I believe there are two genders. Cisgendered male and female, and transgendered male and female. I don't mean to sound intolerant, I really don't.
2: Transsexual pronouns. Here's my take: No, just no. If you want to be/are a gender different than your physical one, then that's perfectly fine. I have no issues with calling someone him or her on their request. I do however, have a problem with the assertion that we need NEW words to describe a person of unstated gender. They and their work perfectly fine, and using them isn't a violation of human rights. 
3:Bathroom usage. LGBT rights groups assert that a person has the right to use the bathroom they feel represents their gender. I don't hold this to be necessarily appropriate. A person should use the bathroom that matches their physical sex. By definition, bathrooms are classified by the physical differences of their occupants, not their "real" gender. Should a person undergo a gender change operation, they would then qualify for their gender's bathroom on the grounds that they have (most of) the physical characteristics of their assumed gender.
What do you think CWCki users?


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## KatsuKitty (Jun 12, 2013)

DevilDog said:
			
		

> Now then, I've been thinking a lot on the subject of transsexualism and the issues surrounding it. I'm going to be forward and say that I have come a long way in terms of tolerance(thanks MLP) and understanding(thanks internet) of the LGBT community, in that I no longer assume gays are pedos or transsexuals are gays who do it for the lulz. But I do think that there are areas where LGBT rights groups are overstepping their bounds. Here are some grey areas I'd like my fellow CWCki forumers to weigh in on.
> 1: The acceptance of more than two genders. For me, I believe there are two genders. Cisgendered male and female, and transgendered male and female. I don't mean to sound intolerant, I really don't.



As of today, "non-binary" genders remain unsubstantiated by medical and psychological evidence, so these individuals really have no basis in berating us because we refuse to believe or acknowledge them. Any radical upending of an established cultural norm must require a factual basis. The propogation and dissemination of "non-binary" literature together with legitimate transgender facts is a very dangerous thing to do, considering how diligently trans people have been fighting for decades to be taken seriously. I challenge you to find a transgender infographic that does not inject the pseudoscientific woo of "genderfluidity", "agender", and "genderqueer" people. Who on earth is going to take the facts on transsexualism seriously when they're peppered with something we can only describe with optimism as "unresearched"?



> 2: Transsexual pronouns. Here's my take: No, just no. If you want to be/are a gender different than your physical one, then that's perfectly fine. I have no issues with calling someone him or her on their request. I do however, have a problem with the assertion that we need NEW words to describe a person of unstated gender. They and their work perfectly fine, and using them isn't a violation of human rights.



What are "transsexual pronouns"? You mean calling someone who is transitioning to female "she" instead of "he"? I don't think that's too much to ask.



> 3:Bathroom usage. LGBT rights groups assert that a person has the right to use the bathroom they feel represents their gender. I don't hold this to be necessarily appropriate. A person should use the bathroom that matches their physical sex. By definition, bathrooms are classified by the physical differences of their occupants, not their "real" gender. Should a person undergo a gender change operation, they would then qualify for their gender's bathroom on the grounds that they have (most of) the physical characteristics of their assumed gender.



This always ignites a firestorm of controversy, and is probably the point I disagree with you on. 

Quite frankly, I think separating bathrooms by gender is absurd to begin with. The argument against unisex bathrooms appears to hinge on the mistaken belief that every man is a rapist waiting for his decency circuit to trip at the first sight of female nudity. This is a canard that is both endemic and enduring; Phyllis Schlafly (the same woman who doesn't believe spousal rape exists) used this argument quite convincingly in her tirade to stop the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982. But it's ludicrous. I'm extremely flaming in-your-face homo and I do _not_ get hard at anyone in the men's room. One, it smells like shit in there. Two, a great deal of the population is old, physically repulsive, and disgusting. Three, I really just don't give a damn about your naughty bits, and with the way the restroom is set up, nobody is even _looking_ at anyone's naughty bits. If you think I'm talking about something so extreme, there are unisex bathrooms everywhere in Germany without epidemic levels of sexual assault. I do not believe women are such childlike babies and men are such vicious monsters that this issue needs to be brought up time and time again.

You also need to remember that not every transsexual undergoes the operation. These are expensive and dangerous procedures that are (quite ridiculously) not covered by insurance. This is a scientifically vaild mental health condition where people feel varying degrees of discomfort with their birth sex; I would find it quite incredulous to pidgeonhole everyone with this condition into getting surgery, any more than to assume absolutely everyone who suffers a disfiguring accident will feel like the benefits of cosmetic surgery always outweigh the risks and costs. Every case is individual and not every therapist will recommend SRS to every patient with gender dysphoria.

There really is a lot of mystery and ethical questions surrounding such a compartively nascent mental health classification, but if you really do the readup on it as well as use common sense, a lot of transsexual rights issues should be clear-cut.


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## CatParty (Jun 12, 2013)

1. people are people is how i look at it. 
2. pronouns should be used as per how the person identifies. 
3. unisex bathrooms because we are mature adults. but if society wants to play the separate bathroom game, then you go in the one which you identify. (and besides, only use public restrooms in an emergency because they're disgusting)


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## Grand Number of Pounds (Jun 12, 2013)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> > 2: Transsexual pronouns. Here's my take: No, just no. If you want to be/are a gender different than your physical one, then that's perfectly fine. I have no issues with calling someone him or her on their request. I do however, have a problem with the assertion that we need NEW words to describe a person of unstated gender. They and their work perfectly fine, and using them isn't a violation of human rights.
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In the SJ thread in the lolcow forum the SJ's use all kinds of weird pronouns to refer to a transgender person (like xir).


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## KatsuKitty (Jun 12, 2013)

GrandNumberOfPounds said:
			
		

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Oh. That ties in with number 1, they're actually "genderqueer" pronouns. That wouldn't even bug me so much if they could just agree on one damn one. This person is a "ze" while the next is a "they" while too-cool-for-the-room-guy is an "it". This totally defeats the purpose of using a language to convey meaning.


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## BT 075 (Jun 12, 2013)

I believe there are men and there are women in this world. And there's a handful of people, too, who are intersexed and neither male nor female and who can therefore identify either way. If you are a man and wish to identify as a woman, or the other way around, by all means do so. I used to simplify things and say people should just stick to what they are born with, as you will never truly be a biological female if you are born a biological male. You won't magically have ovaries, you will rely on medical science and a massive ammount of operations, plastic surgeries and hormone injections. Is it truly worth it? And, admittedly, I was always rather grossed out about the idea that male-to-female transgenders lose their family jewels. I have a rather lively imagination and the whole thing just doesn't sit well with me for whatever reason. 

Then I read a bit into the material and read many people are genuinely upset about their gender to the point of considering or actually committing suicide. And some transsexuals are pretty damn well sculpted, really, some surgeons truly are like Michaelangelo's with scalpel and flesh. It's their business and not mine, and in some cases I can't even tell, so why would I mind? I suppose it's the hardest for their parents. Your little girl suddenly turning into a dude... or your proud son and heir to the family name becoming a chick... I can see why people have major issues with that. I would, too, if it happened within my family. Brothers becomes sisters, daughters becoming sons, it's a strange thing. 

As for the pronouns, I am okay with calling someone who identifies as female "her" and someone who identifies as male "him". To not do so would be rude and unnecessarily uncivil. Hir\xir\zir\mir and all that bullshit, however, I am *not* doing. Gotta draw the line somewhere and this is where I draw it. And no, I don't really give crap (no pun intended) what toilet a transgender goes to. Doesn't hurt anyone if a female-to-male tranny takes a dump in the men's room does it? 

Live and let live, I suppose. Being a Tomgirl's probably the safest option, as it's less... permanent.


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## DevilDog (Jun 12, 2013)

Like I said, I don't have a problem with referring to anyone by the gender they prefer. But xir or whatever is another unnecessary label, they or he or she are perfectly acceptable. As for the area of bathrooms, in a perfect world, I imagine we'd have unisex bathrooms. But culturally speaking, there is a gender based segregation for bathrooms, on the basis that the majority of people feel uncomfortable using a bathroom with someone of the opposite physical sex. Personally, I wouldn't mind it. But there is a cultural etiquette that should be respected. If transsexuals or anyone else for that matter want unisex bathrooms then by all means let them make a push for that. However, as our culture stands today, bathrooms are segregated by physical characteristics. And disregarding that because of gender dysphoria is inappropriate.


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## Rio (Jun 12, 2013)

GrandNumberOfPounds said:
			
		

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"xir" isn't a transgender pronoun. A transgender person generally likes to be called the pronoun of the gender they identify with. Transgirls want to be called "she," while transmen want to be called "him." I don't think that's too much to ask. I always thought things like "xir" or "ze" kinda came across as special snowflake syndrome. They're not really recognized pronouns. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people identifying themselves as intersexed or genderless or whatever, but you can't really expect everyday people to know pronouns that technically aren't legally recognized as words, much less pronouns.

Also, just a minor thing, but transsexuality isn't an "-ism." -ism is used when referring to things like ideologies, artistic movements or specific practices. Transsexuality is none of those.


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## Aiko Heiwa (Jun 13, 2013)

check your privilege cisscum

im trans i can say this


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## Trombonista (Dec 14, 2013)

Transsexuals are people whose genital proprioception does not match their birth genitalia. 

People who identify as non-binary prefer to call themselves trans*.


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## Picklepower (Dec 14, 2013)

CatParty said:
			
		

> 1. people are people is how i look at it.
> 2. pronouns should be used as per how the person identifies.
> 3. unisex bathrooms because we are mature adults. but if society wants to play the separate bathroom game, then you go in the one which you identify. (and besides, only use public restrooms in an emergency because they're disgusting)



My thoughts exactly. If there is a shitstorm, I'm not gonna get involved, but just know, Catparty took the words right out of my mouth. I think gender is more then just, what you genitals are. I would like to see someone who says gender is strictly based on genitals, wake up in the body of an opposite gender, and then be told, "You are this gender from now on!" that person I suspect, would not enjoy that very much. I don't agree to calling trans people mentally ill, if you call them mentally ill, then why not call homosexuals mentally ill? its not an average condition, but being transgendered does not mean someone is mentally crazed. Lets remember not to let loud groups of idiots on the internet, (the SJWs) define an entire group of people, because if you do that, you might as well assume all black americans are like Lois Farakhans minions.


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## The Nameless One (Dec 14, 2013)

I always heard that the "xe" and "zir" pronouns were attempts to introduce true gender-neutral, grammatically consistent pronouns into English (i.e. no singular "they"). I see them used on a lot of post-academic blogs where people try to keep up their anonymity by referring to their advisers or people in their department with gender-neutral pronouns in order to reduce the risk of someone identifying the author as someone they know.

I don't want unisex bathrooms because I enjoy the cisgender male patriarchal privilege of not ever having to wait in line for 10 minutes to take a pee.


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## Picklepower (Dec 14, 2013)

With the pronoun thing, how many trans people are actually pushing for those? or is that mostly a SJW thing? either way, I don't think its a big deal, I don't think America will turn into a Mad Max,post apocalyptic wasteland if those new pronouns become accepted.


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## BT 075 (Dec 14, 2013)

These new pronouns won't be accepted generally. Ever. Because they make transsexual people sound like aliens instead of people and I don't think any sane person would strive for such craziness. If you identify as a dude you want to be "him", if you are a girl it's "her" and if you are unsure or neither, "they". Everything else is simply bullshit to make the person in question feel special. Ain't nobody got time for that.


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## hellbound (Dec 14, 2013)

I don't care if somebody wants to change their gender. As in, I honestly don't give a shit. Do what floats your boat, as long as you don't expect me to pay for it. I will neither fight against you nor celebrate you.

If a specific person wants me to refer to them a specific way, then I'll try to do so, but I'm forgetful. I will not use gender-neutral pronouns or clunky constructions like he/she/xe/im/e as a general rule, and I'm pretty sure neither is the vast majority of the population. Languages do evolve, but not that fast and in general not out of a small group's idea of social justice. And if you get pissy because you look like a dude and I call you sir at first, then you can go fuck yourself, but that's more about getting pissy over a mistake in general. Politeness from you gets politeness from me. If I keep fucking up, then you can get mad. Back when I had long hair and no beard, I got called miss a few times, and I'm cismale scum. I sucked it up and so can you.

As far as bathrooms, it's more about respecting others than making demands for yourself. Sure, theoretically there shouldn't be a problem with unisex bathrooms but we as a culture can't seem to wrap our heads around it. So respect the other patrons, have pity on the poor architects, and if you have to use a binary cis scum bathroom, choose the one that best matches what you appear to be.


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## Burning Love (Dec 14, 2013)

> 3:Bathroom usage. LGBT rights groups assert that a person has the right to use the bathroom they feel represents their gender. I don't hold this to be necessarily appropriate. A person should use the bathroom that matches their physical sex. By definition, bathrooms are classified by the physical differences of their occupants, not their "real" gender. Should a person undergo a gender change operation, they would then qualify for their gender's bathroom on the grounds that they have (most of) the physical characteristics of their assumed gender.


This is the one I'll never understand. Trans people hate their natural parts (except non-ops, who just kind of deal with it while knowing it's wrong), why should anyone be concerned which bathroom they use? A transwoman is going to go into the women's bathroom and be as discreet as possible. You'll not find a transwoman going into the women's room and flashing her penis everywhere. If she goes to the men's room, however, she's being put directly in danger. It happens all the time. Trans people aren't the danger, they are in danger! 

If someone lives every day as a woman, lives her whole life that way, why should she have to go to a men's room? If she looks the part, acts the part, feels the part, she will be in danger if she goes into a men's room.


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## Night Terror (Dec 14, 2013)

Transgender and transsexual people are deserving of the same respect as the rest of us.


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Dec 14, 2013)

Transers in my bathroom don't bother me because we're all behind stalls anyway.  But it gets tricky in places like locker rooms and showers. How you live is not my concern; privacy is.


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## Burning Love (Dec 14, 2013)

Ja'mie said:
			
		

> Transers in my bathroom don't bother me because we're all behind stalls anyway.  But it gets tricky in places like locker rooms and showers. How you live is not my concern; privacy is.


So which locker room/shower does a person with a penis and breasts go into? Which one is the safest space?


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## AtroposHeart (Dec 14, 2013)

You know I am confused when people say that sex and gender are different things, but then say gender is a social construct. 

How does that make sense? Are women and men biologically different? If so, then I can understand if someone's brain chemistry was more female while their body was male. However, if it is just a social construct why even have transgender rights in the first place?


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## Watcher (Dec 14, 2013)

Maybe this should be moved to Deep Thought. This is one of those topics with a lot of different opinions and one that's probably better suited there.


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## CalmMyTits (Dec 14, 2013)

I'm not going to really freak out over the whole gender/bathroom issue. If a man looks/acts/dresses like a woman but still has a penis I'm not going to be bothered about him/her using the ladies restroom because like another person pointed out, we're in stalls, it's not as if we're exposing our genitals to one another or s/he is going to tell me that s/he is a transwoman or just a cross-dresser. We're in there to relieve ourselves, and that's it. If they're not going to make an issue of it, then I'm not going to.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Dec 14, 2013)

Ya know something, brother? Hulkamaniacs come from all walks of life. Male or female; any race; any age; and yes, any gender including transgendered. If a person is willing to train, say their prayers and eat their vitamins, they are a Hulkamaniac, man. If a person wants to live their life a certain way and aren't hurting others, than the Hulkster says let them be


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Dec 14, 2013)

Burning Love said:
			
		

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I honestly have no idea.


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## CalmMyTits (Dec 14, 2013)

Ja'mie said:
			
		

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It's just about being discreet. Any time I was in a locker room I would keep my front to the wall and change one item of clothing at a time instead of going naked before putting on a different set of clothes. I'm a modest person by choice and nature so I've always found ways to change discreetly. If you're really shy, you can just go change in one of the bathroom or shower stalls.


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Dec 14, 2013)

CalmMyTits said:
			
		

> It's just about being discreet. Any time I was in a locker room I would keep my front to the wall and change one item of clothing at a time instead of going naked before putting on a different set of clothes. I'm a modest person by choice and nature so I've always found ways to change discreetly. If you're really shy, you can just go change in one of the bathroom or shower stalls.



It sounds like we use the same methods


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Dec 15, 2013)

CalmMyTits said:
			
		

> It's just about being discreet. Any time I was in a locker room I would keep my front to the wall and change one item of clothing at a time instead of going naked before putting on a different set of clothes. I'm a modest person by choice and nature so I've always found ways to change discreetly. If you're really shy, you can just go change in one of the bathroom or shower stalls.



Brother, that reminds the Hulkster of this cartoon


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## Burning Love (Dec 15, 2013)

Ja'mie said:
			
		

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Let's imagine it as you then. Let's say you are a transwoman. Hell, I know a lot of them, let's go into vivid detail about it. You wake up every morning with the wrong parts, and every morning when you realize that you have a penis you are outright *horrified*. On the other side of things, you're on estrogen, you look like a girl. You've trained your voice so you don't sound like a guy anymore. You have breasts now. Aside from those couple parts down south, you're feeling great about yourself. You're recovering from a lifetime of hiding. You are a girl in every sense except that one: you have a penis. 

You come to a set of locker rooms. One direction is where the men are, the other is where the women are. Do you, someone who looks like, feels like, acts like, lives like, and thinks of herself as a woman, with a woman's body, go into the men's space or the women's space? Which do you see as being the safe space? On one hand, you have a penis. On the other hand, that alone doesn't define you. That is the only part of you that is manly. It's a big part but there are ways to conceal that. What do you do?


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## CatParty (Dec 15, 2013)

The problem is this Puritan society.


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## Foulmouth (Dec 15, 2013)

I'm genuinely curious, How many women here would be comfortable if tomgirl Chris walked into the bathroom while you were there ?


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## CatParty (Dec 15, 2013)

Completely different. He isn't trying to pass. He's just a schlub in a denim skirt emptying out his


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## Foulmouth (Dec 15, 2013)

I'm genuinely curious, How many women here would be comfortable if tomgirl Chris walked into the bathroom while you were there ?


			
				CatParty said:
			
		

> Completely different. He isn't trying to pass. He's just a schlub in a denim skirt emptying out his



That's very true but even so where do you draw the line ? Who gets to decide if someones genuinely transsexual or just a schlub in a skirt ?


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## KatsuKitty (Dec 15, 2013)

AtroposHeart said:
			
		

> You know I am confused when people say that sex and gender are different things, but then say gender is a social construct.
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> How does that make sense? Are women and men biologically different? If so, then I can understand if someone's brain chemistry was more female while their body was male. However, if it is just a social construct why even have transgender rights in the first place?



Because it's not and SJWs are retarded. In fact you can see for yourself, the virulent hate for trans people coming out of some of them. They really don't like it when established psychology proves their feel-good woo wrong.


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## Burning Love (Dec 15, 2013)

Foulmouth said:
			
		

> I'm genuinely curious, How many women here would be comfortable if tomgirl Chris walked into the bathroom while you were there ?


His gender identity is the same as his biological sex. He isn't a girl in the wrong body, he's a boy that wants to be pretty. There's a difference. Chris is not transgender, he is a transvestite. A crossdresser. There's a considerable difference between being born in the wrong body and wanting to look pretty.


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Dec 15, 2013)

Burning Love said:
			
		

> Let's imagine it as you then. Let's say you are a transwoman. Hell, I know a lot of them, let's go into vivid detail about it. You wake up every morning with the wrong parts, and every morning when you realize that you have a penis you are outright *horrified*. On the other side of things, you're on estrogen, you look like a girl. You've trained your voice so you don't sound like a guy anymore. You have breasts now. Aside from those couple parts down south, you're feeling great about yourself. You're recovering from a lifetime of hiding. You are a girl in every sense except that one: you have a penis.
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> You come to a set of locker rooms. One direction is where the men are, the other is where the women are. Do you, someone who looks like, feels like, acts like, lives like, and thinks of herself as a woman, with a woman's body, go into the men's space or the women's space? Which do you see as being the safe space? On one hand, you have a penis. On the other hand, that alone doesn't define you. That is the only part of you that is manly. It's a big part but there are ways to conceal that. What do you do?



As I said, I honestly have no idea. I have never had to make that call, and I don't envy anybody who does. But to answer your question: If someone feels more comfortable using a particular locker room, then I guess they should  use the preferred locker room. But don't be surprised if somebody wants to not see penises in the vagina room. Maybe that makes me a prude. I don't give a fuck. I like deciding who sees what parts of me under what circumstances and I also like deciding who and under what circumstances I see somebody without clothes. 

Tl;dr: If you practice basic gym etiquette, I'm okay with sharing a locker room with you. I count tiles and wear a towel, and thanks for doing the same.


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## Burning Love (Dec 15, 2013)

Ja'mie said:
			
		

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As I said before, I think any transwoman out there is definitely going to want to hide her penis. It's not something she would be proud of. If anything, she'll be more secretive and private than you would. Comparatively, it's pretty hard to hide a womanly figure and face in a men's locker room.


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## Descent (Dec 16, 2013)

Foulmouth said:
			
		

> I'm genuinely curious, How many women here would be comfortable if tomgirl Chris walked into the bathroom while you were there ?



If Chris can go in, shut the fuck up, do his business, wash his hands while still shutting the fuck up, and walk out I wouldn't care. Personally, I'm too busy doing a juggling act to the sink where I carry my coat and giant purse without using my hands until I wash them to notice who else is in the restroom. If Chris goes in and starts asking all the 1618-current age girls if "Angels have names" then we've got a problem. A problem that doesn't have anything to do with whatever gender he identifies as.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Dec 16, 2013)

Brother, Chris isn't a transexual. He doesn't try to be female sexually. He just wants to be a "house husband" because it is the lazy way (in his view).


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## Silver (Dec 16, 2013)

Satan said:
			
		

> These new pronouns won't be accepted generally. Ever. Because they make transsexual people sound like aliens instead of people and I don't think any sane person would strive for such craziness. If you identify as a dude you want to be "him", if you are a girl it's "her" and if you are unsure or neither, "they". Everything else is simply bullshit to make the person in question feel special. Ain't nobody got time for that.



But, how can you be the one to say that people who don't identify as male or female should use "they", when you're not the one who is faced with the decision of having to find something that's not he or she to use? One of my closest friends uses the pronouns vi/vir/vim and I'm not sure how you can really say it's just vim trying to feel special when vi's the one that decided to use those pronouns instead of any other options? I know that "they" can feel super-impersonal for some trans* people because of the fact that its original definition is a plural, regardless of how it is used nowadays - certainly if I were not male or female I don't think I'd be super comfortable using "they" since it would be impersonal to me.

I'm not a social justice warrior, I just want to make that clear, but I do have many friends that are trans* and as a result I've developed a rather defensive stance on these issues.


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## Yaks (Dec 16, 2013)

Burning Love said:
			
		

> As I said before, I think any transwoman out there is definitely going to want to hide her penis. It's not something she would be proud of. If anything, she'll be more secretive and private than you would. Comparatively, it's pretty hard to hide a womanly figure and face in a men's locker room.



Actually, there are a number of women who are happy or at least alright with their penis and are on estrogen.  Some of them aren't satisfied with the results of surgery or can't afford it.  It's actually an issue to the radfem lesbian community (because they call their penis their lady sticks and are upset some lesbians don't want to have sex with them, but that's a whole different topic and not something I pay much attention to to comment on in depth.).


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## Silver (Dec 16, 2013)

CatParty said:
			
		

> Or one could just avoid pronouns all together. I also have many trans friends and this has never been an issue.



an ideal solution but not practical, really.


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## KatsuKitty (Dec 16, 2013)

Altissimo said:
			
		

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I don't believe there's any other gender but male or female because it doesn't make any medical sense. What happens in utero, physiologically, is that every brain starts as female and undergoes varying degrees of masculinization. Unless you're talking about a split right down the middle, which is the only thing I could concieve of in theory, albeit something that would be _very_ rare.

Gender identity is not a free-for-all, make-it-up kind of affair anymore than it would be to call yourself otherkin. You can believe whatever you want but don't impose non-scientific thinking on the rest of us. There's simply nothing supporting it and if you're personally dissatisfied with both male and female, you're deluded and need help.

I've talked to a few people who staunchly insisted they were "animals inside". Do you expect me to take something equally as unsubstantiated (if not less ludicrious) seriously?


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## CalmMyTits (Dec 17, 2013)

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What about being hermaphrodite/intersexed? That is a legitimate medical issue.


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## BT 075 (Dec 17, 2013)

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It's just a bit too much for me that's all. I totally think everyone should be able to call _vi\zi\zir\xim_, whatever _xor\xir\zex\qwertyuiop_ wants to call themselves, but really... unless someone is medically intersexed I see no reason for *trans* people to not go by either him or her. Quite frankly, it would give me a headache. Now I have not encountered many transsexuals myself but the few I've met through mutual friends were male-to-female and some of them rather masculine in appearance. They insisted on being "she", so she it was. 

Most people identify as either male or female. And most intersexed people or hermaphrodites, too, typically display more characteristics of one gender over an other. In most cases a more feminine looking hermaprhodite would identify as female, and vice versa. If someone is undecided on what exactly he or she wishes to identify as, fine by me. But I am not going to use pronouns that make a person sound like an alien rather then a human being. This whole trend I believe originated on tumblr and if it wasn't for some people online with special snowflake syndrome, I don't believe there would ever have been pronouns beyond he, she and they. 

Quite frankly, I find it almost a bit insulting to the vast majority of people with gender issues to insist on such ridiculous pronouns, as it reflects negatively on the group as a whole and that's a shame. They face their fair share of discrimination already and insisting on being called by pronouns such as these harms xi\xir\zir\zim\zippity-doo's credibility.


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## Silver (Dec 17, 2013)

I would like to argue and I'm fairly sure I could make a decent case for myself but debates in general tend to make me angry really easily and frankly I just don't feel like getting angry.
no but seriously that is the legit reason why i'm withdrawing my arguments. because I don't wanna get angry.


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## Trombonista (Dec 17, 2013)

My take on gender-neutral pronouns:

If it's not on this list, I won't use it.


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## Picklepower (Dec 17, 2013)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> Altissimo said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So you WOULD consider someone who gets a sex change as whatever gender they identify as?


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## KatsuKitty (Dec 17, 2013)

Picklepower said:
			
		

> So you WOULD consider someone who gets a sex change as whatever gender they identify as?



Yes, of course. I figured everyone would know I fully support trans people (i.e. going from male to female or female to male) since that is a fairly established, well-researched phenomon. In fact, the surgery isn't even a prerequisite.


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## Stratochu (Dec 18, 2013)

I'm with CatParty...

I'm what Null called "genderfucked but biologically male" in mChat this morning, I can and often do go tomgirling, I don't care what gender pronoun I get called.


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## CatParty (Dec 18, 2013)

Altissimo said:
			
		

> CatParty said:
> 
> 
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ideal to to just view people as people. and not give into the new "flavor of the day" stuff.


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## littlebiscuits (Dec 21, 2013)

Just to let you know the MLA (modern Language Association) deemed it grammatically correct to use plural pronouns (their, they) in the place of singular gendered pronouns (he, she) in situations where gender is non-binary, unclear, or for trans individuals who don't use a gendered pronoun. They did this because while the English language does have a gender neutral pronoun, "it", people don't generally like being called, "it". It's dehumanizing for one thing, and just plain rude.


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## Watcher (Jan 8, 2014)

I read this on Did You Know's Tumblr



> An 18 year old guy works successfully as a female model in China


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## Burning Love (Jan 8, 2014)

Dr. Cuddlebug said:
			
		

> I read this on Did You Know's Tumblr
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My life is invalid, time to die.


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## TrippinKahlua (Jan 8, 2014)

I don't think people should go so extreme as to ruin their bodies, but if you think maybe you were supposed to be born as the opposite sex, then that's your prerogative.

I'd probably be better off if I was born a woman. Or if I had a little brother.


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Jan 8, 2014)

TrippinKahlua said:
			
		

> I don't think people should go so extreme as to ruin their bodies, but if you think maybe you were supposed to be born as the opposite sex, then that's your prerogative.
> 
> I'd probably be better off if I was born a woman. Or if I had a little brother.



It's only "ruining your body" if you settle for hack job surgery. Alteration of your body to make it what you want is hardly damaging it.


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## KatsuKitty (Jan 8, 2014)

Dr. Cuddlebug said:
			
		

> I read this on Did You Know's Tumblr
> 
> 
> 
> ...



all of my rage


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## Watcher (Jan 8, 2014)

More on Did You Know's Tumblr



> There’s a 16 year old guy from Russia who has a successful career as a female model.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## cypocraphy (Jan 11, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> Dr. Cuddlebug said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I bet Advanced would be raging even more.


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## Dale Cooper (Jan 12, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> *I don't believe there's any other gender but male or female* because it doesn't make any medical sense. What happens in utero, physiologically, is that every brain starts as female and undergoes varying degrees of masculinization. Unless you're talking about a split right down the middle, which is the only thing I could concieve of in theory, albeit something that would be _very_ rare.
> 
> Gender identity is not a free-for-all, make-it-up kind of affair anymore than it would be to call yourself otherkin. You can believe whatever you want but don't impose non-scientific thinking on the rest of us. There's simply nothing supporting it and if you're personally dissatisfied with both male and female, you're deluded and need help.
> 
> I've talked to a few people who staunchly insisted they were "animals inside". Do you expect me to take something equally as unsubstantiated (if not less ludicrious) seriously?


Sorry to reply to this when you posted it almost a month ago, but I wanted to say it now while the thread is bumped up.
There is no such thing as "medical" or "biological" gender. Sex is what type of body you were born with. Gender is what's in your head and pervasive in society (which is why I'm confused as to why you believe brains start as female in utero--I'm genuinely curious about this).

Just because there is "nothing supporting it" doesn't mean it isn't 100% real for people who identify as a gender not commonly recognized by our society. 

Also, I find it somewhat insulting that you compare non-binary people with otherkin. Gender is a social construct and has nothing to do with biology. Species is...well, not a social construct. 

Your viewpoint also makes me curious what you think about intersex people (people who were born with both male and female reproductive organs)? Should they be forced to choose between two very dichotomized gender roles? What if they legitimately identify with aspects of both masculinity and femininity?


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## Watcher (Jan 12, 2014)

Dale Cooper said:
			
		

> Gender is what's in your head and pervasive in society (which is why I'm confused as to why you believe brains start as female in utero--I'm genuinely curious about this).


It's worth noting that in the womb all humans are developed as female until the Y Chromosome kicks in, which causes the male traits to develop. It's why males have nipples that go unused. At the same time though sex is determined by the Sperm and what chromosomes it has. That is done right when the sperm is made. Consciousness and memory aren't supposed to develop til 5 months old.

I remember from my Biology class, there are Chromosomal abnormalities where a person is born without a second X or a Y chromosome, and they are automatically made female. I can't remember what the condition was specifically named though.

This does bring about an interesting debate about stuff like consciousness and what gender conclusively refers to. As well as how we should define sex both legally and socially. I know some prisons define sex based on genitalia and nothing else.


			
				Dale Cooper said:
			
		

> Also, I find it somewhat insulting that you compare non-binary people with otherkin. Gender is a social construct and has nothing to do with biology. Species is...well, not a social construct.


Nonbinary.org defines Transgender as a non-binary gender
http://nonbinary.org/wiki/Nonbinary_gender


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## dogprince (Jan 12, 2014)

Hello. I'm not really trans but I am one of those genderfucked/agender people. I don't hang around trans groups or anything really but here's my take.

I believe when you're born you can be physically male, female, intersexed, whatever - but that doesn't really affect how your mind works and how you think of things. Perhaps you guys don't think of it that way but I think too many traits are just randomly assigned gender, and if you don't fit in that way you're abnormal and wrong. Personality traits and hobbies, clothes, all those things. If you're a man who sews it's considered gay and unmanly, unless you overcompensate in your masculinity in other ways. And yet in some other societies it's a masculine thing that women shouldn't do. So they don't. 

The ways people are allowed to express themselves and what they're allowed to do has changed many times over the course of history. It's a thorny path though, and you could say that David Reimer is a hard rebuttal to my ideas of nurture versus nature, though I don't think we're all blank slates. I just think your physical sex isn't what makes up the majority of these traits.


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## DustyR (Jan 16, 2014)

DevilDog said:
			
		

> Finished a third of this, then Windows took an unexpected update induced restart. If you're reading this Microsoft then fuck you, and your dumb ass restarts.
> *DISCLAIMER* This a thread for the discussion of transsexual rights and boundaries. This is NOT a hate rant, nor will it be used as one by participating forumers. This is NOT a discussion on spiritual beliefs regarding transsexualism. Anything detrimentally OT or insensitive and I'm cutting this thread down(or getting a mod to).
> 
> Now then, I've been thinking a lot on the subject of transsexualism and the issues surrounding it. I'm going to be forward and say that I have come a long way in terms of tolerance(thanks MLP) and understanding(thanks internet) of the LGBT community, in that I no longer assume gays are pedos or transsexuals are gays who do it for the lulz. But I do think that there are areas where LGBT rights groups are overstepping their bounds. Here are some grey areas I'd like my fellow CWCki forumers to weigh in on.
> ...



I will preface this by identifying myself as a gay male who has little interest in transsexualism. I used to be deeply resentful of transsexuals being looped in with gays because to me it is such a different thing. Some transsexuals identify as heterosexual, after all. At one point I believed it was a mental illness, whereas of course I view homosexuality as being completely natural, which I think few people here would dispute. 

I since have rethought some of what I originally felt. I feel that our ideas of gender and sex are to some extent inherent/innate and to another extent they are ingrained in us culturally. I accept that there are many circumstances under which a person may have desire to become or identify as another gender but is not psychologically abnormal.

1. As to the original questions posed by the op, I would like to say that in the US / North America I do not believe there are more than two genders. There are certainly people who are very androgynous and intersex, and I have met and interacted with them, but I do not view them as separate genders. THe one openly intersex person I met seemed somewhat mentally ill, and he wanted to be a cross between the two genders. He was a 30 something, overweight Hispanic, but he had longer hair and would do things like wear female shoes but then all male clothes, and he made little attempt to look feminnine. He looked like a mess between the two, and would he would talk, he would ramble on and on at great length about intersex medical issues, which was of little interest to anyone except himself. I think he liked to view himself as a distinct sex, but I think most intersex people in the US choose to be one gender (which may not necessarily be the one they grew up with). However, to return to the first question, I do feel that in other cultures there legitimately are other genders. I recently met and hooked up with a young international student from Nepal. I do not know this for fact other than what he said to me, but according to him the country is very conservative, and if someone wants to be gay, they become a female. Nepal neighbors India, and I do recall reading at one point how there are as much as four or five different genders over there. I really cannot recall the details, but I think some even have backstreet operations where the male member is cut off (without a virgina being constructed). Some of the males who become females over in that part of the world do not become females, like in the US, where with enough plastic surgery, hormones, dedication, etc., anyone can become another gender/sex. Over there they are legitimately a separate gender/sex, not male, not female, but with their own name. I think some have special roles in society. One I think may have been associating with enhancing the fertility of heterosexual couples (obviously nonsense, but sincerely believed by them). I cannot recall if this was from the India area or another culture with other genders. I have read of other cultures where there are other genders as well, including I believe even some native Americans before they were conquered. I vaguely remember perhaps they were being seen as being more powerful as shamans? I really can't speak to the finer points of these other genders as it is of little interest to me, and I don't think we really have anything comparable in the Western culture, but I definitely do think they exist in other cultures. Other cultures where things are not as developed - a lot of poverty and ignorance exists in India - where people are so poor that rat meat is sold for some of the poorer people - great overpopulation (one billion plus) - I think these kinds of things do happen. 

Gender characteristics do not have to be male and female. A lot of those characteristics are things that have developed in cultures over hundreds and thousands of years and carried down. Traits that we associate with male or female often have become as such due to culture. Some may be biologically based - higher testosterone, for instance, accounts for greater aggression and strength - which can directly influence many gender attributes, but other attributes are not biologically based. Other attributes might be more evolutionarily based. A female wants to reproduce with a male and wishes to attract a strong and able partner who can provide for her and the children, so she tries to use physical beauty as a means to allure her mate, while the male in many cases does not need to be concerned about this. (I am speaking going back to hunter-gatherer cultures, not necessarily modern times.)  On the other hand, I think you could even see a reversal of that, where in a matriarchal culture, a male might need to pay more attention to physical appearance to make himself appealing. (The ideas of beauty in some cultures may differ from our own. Some do facial modifications, modify the way bones grow, etc. to create results that would have little appeal to outsiders.) I do think if there were an alternate planet with humans exactly like us, it could be entirely realistic that a lot of what we associate with male or female could be swapped. 

2. Transsexual pronouns. I think they are totally useless and offensive in Western culture. We have things like mtf (male to female), ftm (female to male), but those are not pronouns. The people who are transsexuals in Western culture want to be either male or female. They do not want to be in a position between the two. I think many would find if offensive. I have come accross some suggested transsexual pronouns in the past - I think "hir" was one. I think it would only be appropriate and acceptable if a transsexual person was using it as a point of pride, like how some gay people reclaim offensive words like "fag" among themselves, or blacks use the n word. It's appropriate when said by the oppressed party, but not by outsiders. Outside Western culture, in places like India or Nepal where there are other genders, I do think other pronouns are appropriate in their own languages. I do not know that they exist.

3. Bathroom usage. I feel that if a person is living as another sex, they should be able to use the restroom appropriate for their gender. If a man dresses like a woman out in public all the time but then goes home to a boyfriend and fucks him as a top, assuming a dominant role, and carries on as a male in the household, then I feel that is inappropriate. If a man lives as a female but retains the male genitals because he cannot afford surgery, but makes every effort to be and appear as a female, then I think it is appropriate. I knew one female to male transsexual who did seem somewhat mentally ill (I won't get into that), but was very committed to their sex change. They were morbidly obese, and would not be possible to safely remove their breasts (or so I was told), and being very poor, surgery was out of the question. Surgery was also not desired as I was told it would not provide much pleasure in the bedroom and would be little more than an ornament out of which to urinate. But they had hormone treatments paid for by the government apparently, facial hair, and dressed and looked very masculine. Their equipment though was totally female. So I think it is more of how committed you are and what do you truly live as, both in public and in private. For reasons of personal safety, I think that you need to be to some extent passable a restroom that differs from what you are at the chromosomal level.

Chris seems more like a transvestite or cross-dresser than a transgender person. He does not seem like he is very committed to it. His attempts to be a female seem rather uninspired in general, and I understand the whole idea of the tomgirl, but in private he sometimes seems to give it more of an effort. He might wear something more female in his own bedroom than what he might where Barb could see, and the tomgirl would be toned down even more in public. (I know the whole muscle bra and bizarre dancing out in public incidents at some community events, but that does not strike me as cross-dressing - more being genderfluid or perhaps something altogether different - an autistic person who dresses bizarrely, as first demonstrated through his clown shirts and than "biker"/"trucker" clothes).


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## Watcher (Jan 19, 2014)

[youtube]ehsCseY7HrM[/youtube]


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## Burning Love (Jan 21, 2014)

Cuddlebug said:
			
		

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehsCseY7HrM


What a fuckin asshole, this guy!


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## Picklepower (Jan 22, 2014)

I don't see the problem with letting trans people use whatever bathroom they want. Think about it, would that actually make things any less safe? If a psycho rapist/flasher wanted to get into the women's restroom, HE ALLREADY CAN! Odds are, you wont be assaulted in a public restroom anyway.



			
				Foulmouth said:
			
		

> I'm genuinely curious, How many women here would be comfortable if tomgirl Chris walked into the bathroom while you were there ?



If Tomgirl Chris was allowed to use a female restroom, he could still be charged with harassment, if he commits harassment. So its not like he would get a free pass to behave however the fuck he wants. Just like how I as a man, am not legally allowed to harass other men in the male restroom. Chris would still be legally held to the same social conduct rules that we all are.


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## CatParty (Jan 22, 2014)

Picklepower said:
			
		

> Foulmouth said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




tomgirl chris is NOT Transsexual


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## Picklepower (Jan 22, 2014)

CatParty said:
			
		

> Picklepower said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I know he isn't, but I'm saying, for the sake of argument, lets say he is, and lets imagine that he is allowed to use the girls bathroom, he would still have to follow the same rules of social conduct that we all do, and he would be legally punished if he doesn't.


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## CatParty (Jan 22, 2014)

i just do not see the need to compare him to actual people in transition.


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## Picklepower (Jan 22, 2014)

I wasn't trying to say Chris is even close to being trans. He clearly isn't. I was just saying that even if he could use the woman's restroom, that would not give him license to behave however he wants.


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## Enjoy your spaghetti (Jan 22, 2014)

Whatever you do on the toilet or at the urinal is not my business. Whatever genitalia you have behind the stall is not my business. If you do your business in peace and let me do the same, welcome to the restroom.


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## Greg Sestero (Jan 24, 2014)

Dale Cooper said:
			
		

> KatsuKitty said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Gender is a social construct, but it's also based on biological imperatives. Most animals (including primates like ourselves) do have hormonal and psychological differences between the sexes and this usually results in some segregation of roles between males and females. That's nearly universal among not only social mammals but even invertebrates that reproduce sexually. I'm entirely in favor of LGBT rights, but it's disingenuous to claim that biological sex and one's self-identified gender role have nothing to do with each other. 

The fact that a heterosexual cisgender female has female genitalia does in fact heavily influence the fact that she acts like a female, identifies with other females, wants to reproduce with males, etc. When people who want to undergo gender reassignment surgery, or become eunuchs or whatever the case may be, have their testicles removed and report hormonal changes, they aren't just making things up.

The argument that gender is a construct, which I'm entire willing to accept, is ultimately a moot point, because it's an inevitable construct. If you left a bunch of children with no preconceived notions of gender on an island, the primary sexual distinction they drew would be dichotomous, and the same could be said of a troop of gorillas. Gender is different from sex, but it's predicated on sex and exists because we're sexed. Gender isn't completely arbitrary, and in the vast, vast majority of cases, it involves no conscious choice. I've heard tell of trans individuals who were deeply ashamed of the way they felt and were even driven to commit suicide because the people around them were bigoted. 

Clearly, there were underlying psychological factors that made them identify as a certain gender irrespective of social conditioning. You have an adrenal cortex that regulates the synthesis of androgens including testosterone. Someone can react to or produces androgens differently - or have any other emotional, hormonal or biological factors  that set their perceived gender apart from the "norm" (the causes of sexual identification are highly controversial, obviously). That's no excuse or reason to discriminate against them, and the people who do so are reprehensible. But you can't combat that behavior by pretending that "androgenic steroid" or "estrogen" are just words made up by the Heteronormative Cisgender Patriarchy to piss people off.

Also, I don't know how helpful or useful it is to make up new words. If people constantly talked about me as a "she", that would probably be distressing and bother me. So if someone feels that they don't fit into the he/him/she/her scheme, I understand entirely why they might seek new ways of identifying themselves. But the purpose of language is communication; you need to be understood, and changing the basic pronouns of our language is a Sisyphian task. It's an absolutely monumental fucking project, and unless and until that project is undertaken, "xir" is just going to confuse and annoy people. When someone's never heard the word "ze" before, and is used to hearing "he" and "she" as the word for other people, it can almost be dehumanizing. It's like if someone's different from the rest of the group in one aspect of their life, that difference has to be reinforced and restated constantly in conversation.

Finally it's just plain Anglocentric. There are languages in which grammatical gender are far more universal and fundamental than in English. Romance languages like Spanish use gendered articles and pronouns when referring to inanimate objects like cars and telephones; you're not going to just introduce two extra genders into that system. It's just not feasible. On a more anecdotal note, English is not my first language. My mother tongue has no grammatical gender whatsoever; we don't even have words like "lioness" or "actress". When the distinction needs to be made, we would say "male actor", or even "female king" rather than "queen". No he/she pronouns; everyone is the equivalent of "they". We use the same titles/honorifics for everyone - like how women are called "sir" on Star Trek. 

It's entirely possible for a culture to be extremely prejudiced against any kind of deviance from the designated sexual norm while having a gender neutral language. I've seen it for my self. Maybe if everyone gets used to saying "Ze" and "zhim", it'll provide some small benefit to American society, but I can't possibly see how we're going to get to that point and there are far more productive and efficient ways to try and help the LGBT people who face discrimination.

Edit: Ye, ye, TLDR, I know. I have too much free time. Or I don't use my free time wisely enough, whatever floats your tugboat.


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## Null (Mar 8, 2014)

I know a lot of you guys are very adamant about the topic of subjective genderism, gender neutrality, gender dysmohpria, and all sorts of fun gender- and -isms. A friend of mine happens to be an author at the Return of Kings blog and he's linked me to an article that was written today.

http://www.returnofkings.com/29416/5-ways-to-stop-omega-males-from-becoming-transsexuals

The Return of Kings blog is decisively against the idea of a sex-change operation for 2 reasons in particular:

*Gender transitioning is not technically possible.* You can argue for the surgery all you'd like, but when it comes down to the biological makeup of the human being, your gender is  not technically being changed. You can say that gender is subjective, or a social construct, or whatever else you'd like, but in the demography of the world there is a female and male sex that is distinguishable and both are required to produce offspring. Being born a male or female and "transitioning" to the other isn't so much a gender swap as it is a genital mutilation with supplementary hormones.
*Gender dysmorphia is the only form dysmorphia we treat with surgery.* If you have a body dymosphia issue, it's typically treated with therapy. If you're a 90 pound 20 year old woman that thinks she's too fat, you will not be given liposuction. Although in a hamfisted way, the RoK article is suggesting that we help people with gender dysmorphia be content with how they are instead of encouraging them to undergo surgery that is irreversible and may not even give them the desired results.
Again, I know many people here have very informed opinions on the subject, which is why I've opened this avenue of discussion. I'm interested in hearing what everyone has to say and keep in mind I'm not trying to sound brutish here, although I do firmly believe that sex change operations are a mistake.


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## exball (Mar 8, 2014)

I don't care what people do with their bodies. If someone wants to get a gender reassignment who cares?


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## CatParty (Mar 8, 2014)

Yeah it's really up to them.


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## Null (Mar 8, 2014)

exball said:


> I don't care what people do with their bodies. If someone wants to get a gender reassignment who cares?





CatParty said:


> Yeah it's really up to them.



For sure. Not saying it's anyone else's decision to be made. I'm just saying that it's probably the least ideal solution to the problem, as it stands with today's medicine and technology.


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## Watcher (Mar 8, 2014)

Human beings in the womb start out as female and become male once the Y chromosome kicks in.

There are rare cases of humans born without an extra X or a Y chromosome at the end, and they end up as females by default.


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## Oglooger (Mar 8, 2014)

If I say anything here I will automatically be shunned by 80% of the CWCki for being Trans phobic bigot or some shit.


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## Null (Mar 8, 2014)

Oglooger said:


> If I say anything here I will automatically be shunned by 80% of the CWCki for being Trans phobic bigot or some shit.









You shouldn't be afraid to say what you think. I doubt anyone worth caring about will hold a grudge.


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## Oglooger (Mar 8, 2014)

Oglooger said:


> You shouldn't be afraid to say what you think. I doubt anyone worth caring about will hold a grudge.



It's very black and white but ok.
I'm speaking my mind here since I can't say it out loud in real life.

If you're born with a penis, you're a man
I you're born with a vagina, you're a woman.
To say otherwise is a showcase of mental illness, bad genetic mutation or pandering of the first world
We are NOT clown fish
We do NOT change genders
Men give seeds, women fertilize the seed to create life that will repeat the cycle of life.
This is simple biology.
Check your privilege

That's my stance on gender


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## exball (Mar 8, 2014)

Oglooger said:


> It's very black and white but ok.
> I'm speaking my mind here since I can't say it out loud in real life.
> 
> If you're born with a penis, you're a man
> ...





Cuddlebug said:


> Human beings in the womb start out as female and become male once the Y chromosome kicks in.
> 
> There are rare cases of humans born without an extra X or a Y chromosome at the end, and they end up as females by default.


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## Watcher (Mar 8, 2014)

In my personal view I think if a person wants to be a woman that's their prerogative. Sex is a binary thing but gender (who you identify as) is a very big subject and one that is more worthy of debate.

When you start stating something is a "mental illness" that means your argument is that it can be easily compared to schizophrenia, or autism. I don't feel this is particularly fair and it really doesn't bode well if you're trying to have a debate about it.

This also wasn't always a subject of debate in all cultures. Native American cultures were significantly more open to the idea of multiple genders and multiple orientations.


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## caffeinated_wench (Mar 8, 2014)

I think that some people are indeed born in the wrong body. If they want to make the outside match what's inside, that's their choice. Whatever makes them happy.

I really don't think it should be treated like a disease or a "phase." That's disgusting. Are there some people who fake it to "fit in"? Sure. On the whole, however, it's wrong -- in my opinion -- to treat someone like there's something wrong with them just because they feel like they're trapped in the wrong body. That worsens the whole thing.

All in all, you still shouldn't put a label on them based on how YOU view them. If someone asks to be referred to with male pronouns, do so. Continuing to refer to him with female pronouns after he asked you not to is just plain disrespectful. If you wouldn't call someone "Joe" after he asked you to call him "Mr. Johnson," why would you pull that shit here?

(That said, making up all kinds of pronouns that makes it hard to keep up can get rather annoying.)

Also, fuck Return of Kings.


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## darkhorse816 (Mar 8, 2014)

One of my friends from my Senior year of undergrad (she was a Freshman), is transitioning from Male to Female, and she has already changed her name. She's head of the transgender alliance at my alma mater. One of the things that upsets her, and constantly challenge her are TERFs Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Radical_feminism#Transphobia

Basically, if a man wants to become a woman, they are just an effeminate man who wants to wear a dress. And if a woman wants to become a man, they are a woman who just wants "male privilege."

They actually refer to transwomen as men in dresses.

As for me, I'm a woman, I identify as a woman, I love being a woman. But sometimes, I wish I had the ability to change genders. I sometimes feel like a man, it's weird. Sometimes I hate being a woman. But it must be tough being a man too.

I'm not sure if the last paragraph belongs here


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## Silver (Mar 8, 2014)

I have some gender identity issues myself.


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## Null (Mar 8, 2014)

darkhorse816 said:


> I'm not sure if the last paragraph belongs here


Dunno why not. Nobody's going to ridicule you. I think most guys wonder if life would be super easy if they were women. Even if it's not a persistent thought, you see a girl getting free drinks and free shit and marrying into extreme wealth and think "fuck man if only it was that simple".


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## CatParty (Mar 8, 2014)

It's not simpler


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## Anustart (Mar 9, 2014)

It basically doesn't really matter whether SRS is _technically_ changing someone's biological sex, because gender identity disorder is incredibly distressing to the people who have it and changing their bodies is the only treatment that exists, unless we can invent a time machine that will allow us to go back to gestation and stop the prenatal androgen showers from acting bizarrely on particular fetuses. If it's either that or throwing yourself off a bridge then totally, go and get your bits did.

Many transsexuals don't even go for the vaginoplasty/phalloplasty for the reasons you mentioned -- the technology isn't that good yet. Hormones alone can be enough to alleviate the dysmorphia for a lot of folks. I'm not even trans but I'm excited for the day we can grow functioning dongs in petri dishes.


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## KatsuKitty (Mar 9, 2014)

I can probably offer a unique perspective on this issue, although I've been "proven" not to be trans in therapy (at least enough not to start calling myself a woman or go through surgery) so there's probably someone else who can do better than me here.



Null said:


> I know a lot of you guys are very adamant about the topic of subjective genderism, gender neutrality, gender dysmohpria, and all sorts of fun gender- and -isms. A friend of mine happens to be an author at the Return of Kings blog and he's linked me to an article that was written today.
> 
> http://www.returnofkings.com/29416/5-ways-to-stop-omega-males-from-becoming-transsexuals
> 
> The Return of Kings blog is decisively against the idea of a sex-change operation for 2 reasons in particular:



I would hope this article this satire because there's a hell of a lot more behind the decision to transition than simply "being an omega male". I mean, if you're actually taking this seriously, this is Wizarchan logic you're citing here. For starters, it's not terribly difficult to justify the suicide rate by the completely deplorable way society treats these people.



> *Gender transitioning is not technically possible.* You can argue for the surgery all you'd like, but when it comes down to the biological makeup of the human being, your gender is  not technically being changed. You can say that gender is subjective, or a social construct, or whatever else you'd like, but in the demography of the world there is a female and male sex that is distinguishable and both are required to produce offspring. Being born a male or female and "transitioning" to the other isn't so much a gender swap as it is a genital mutilation with supplementary hormones.



_Sex_ transitioning may not quite be possible, but gender transitioning is. Gender identity is the mapping of what your brain views as acceptable sex characterisation or attributes. This is, for all intents and purposes, a _real_ disorder with _real_ evidence backing it in the form of MRI evidence as well as people's own experiences.

There is no denying that dysphoria exists. Transsexual individuals suffer from it every day of their lives even after hormones and surgery with the best possible result. Transitioning is intended to alleviate, but not cure, the problems that stem from the incongruence of sex and gender identity.

There is no decent way to communicate the unique nature of being uncomfortable with the way your body naturally exists as. For me, it's rather debilitating to look in the mirror and see body hair or a beard or abdominal fat, or any other strong secondary sex characteristic basically. I don't feel attractive or confident this way. I never did. I could think of nothing worse than being the male ideal: tall, muscular, and hairy. It just doesn't float well with how I picture myself. I hate it. I hate all of it. I could think of no worse way to be. If a biological, non-transsexual woman were to become a freakish man-like figure, she would experience similar (if not virtually identical) dysphoria. The reverse applies as well.

Understanding of gender identity remains nascent and there are various theories about its purpose. My personal theory is that gender identity serves a purpose related to sex selection and mating. When in congruence, sex and gender identity work together to create a man or woman who is confident in themselves and their reproductive fitness (most people would call this "sexiness"). Your reproductive fitness is therefore improved as you approach what your brain signals as a desirable state; therefore, you aspire to match it as closely as you can. The male ideal I mentioned above would be everything a typical sexually fit man could desire to be. But for people whose gender identity is incongruent with their sex, it is simply the wrong direction their brain is signaling. This incongruence serves to create a stalking pain which will never be eluded fully, even with therapy and surgery. The transsexual brain tells you that you need breasts/hips/a flat chest/a penis to be desirable and normal when your body simply can't deliver. As a result, you feel ugly, disgusting, and every day you live as a man/woman when your brain says your ideal is to be a woman/man can be an abject nightmare.



> *Gender dysmorphia is the only form dysmorphia we treat with surgery.* If you have a body dymosphia issue, it's typically treated with therapy. If you're a 90 pound 20 year old woman that thinks she's too fat, you will not be given liposuction. Although in a hamfisted way, the RoK article is suggesting that we help people with gender dysmorphia be content with how they are instead of encouraging them to undergo surgery that is irreversible and may not even give them the desired results.



I think your belief stems from the same bastardisation of science and gender identity SJWs and "genderqueers" have been guilty of for at least the past ten years. As I mentioned before, gender identity is how your brain believes your body should look or operate as far as physical sex is concerned. But all the cognitive behavioural therapy in the world (or surgery and hormones) can't make your brain emit the correct sex-specific signals. As far as your liposuction example goes, a parallel to gender identity (let's call it "fat identity") has never been theorized and probably doesn't exist. People don't want to be thin because their brain signals that they should be thin, they want to be thin because they've convinced themselves they absolutely have to. Of course, this same problem exists in people who think they're transsexual but actually aren't (see below), and really, those are the only people who would benefit from any sort of non-transsexual therapy.

What you as well as anyone else should be taking actual offence at is the consecration of transsexualism as something "sacred" and untouchable. This is a disorder, not a religion. For example, the social justice agenda would take _grave_ umbrage at any theoretical neurosurgical treatment that could potentially eliminate gender dysphoria with minimal consequence to the rest of the body. This, I believe, is problematic thinking, because having a disorder is not a desirable way to be. Likewise, they continually misrepresent the nature of gender identity as something purely feelings-based, freely malleable, and a virtual game of Calvinball where you can basically make up the rules as you go. This leads to people who have stalwartly convinced themselves they need non-existent surgery to become a "gender-neutral" genital-less Frankensteinian abomination, something that does not exist in nature as ordinary and has no basis in current scientific understanding of the brain or how it signals desirable sex characteristics. Playing off the theory I mentioned above, it makes absolutely no sense for your brain to signal that you're "neutrois" or that you should have a vagina under your penis. These are all inventions of people who are uneducated, want to be unique in some retarded way, and probably too susceptible to spiritual beliefs that shouldn't be earning any respect or recognition from anyone, _especially_ the rational, evidence-based domain of medicine.

Transitioning is a medical treatment that should be conducted in the context of therapy at all times. Its goals are to _reduce_, not eliminate, dysphoria. Dysphoria doesn't ever, _ever_ go away. But you can learn to live with it. This is why, for instance, transsexuals may only elect to have "top surgery" to achieve secondary sex characteristics in the chest area, despite the fact that this sex combination doesn't ordinarily exist in nature. The emotional upset is reduced to a manageable level. I personally keep dysphoria in check just by shaving fucking everything and doing constant cardio to reduce muscle mass. I don't even need to identify as female to achieve that. Sometimes that's really all you need to do.

In fact, I believe that the number of people who feel they need surgeries can be _reduced_ by simply cultivating an accepting societal environment tolerant of gender expression diversity. I would totally wear cute dresses everyday if I wouldn't be shot for it. Some people feel they need to transition because passing as female in ways that could only be achieved with surgery and hormones is the only possible way they could ever hope to be "allowed" to express themselves this way.



> Again, I know many people here have very informed opinions on the subject, which is why I've opened this avenue of discussion. I'm interested in hearing what everyone has to say and keep in mind I'm not trying to sound brutish here, although I do firmly believe that sex change operations are a mistake.



They are a mistake for people who shouldn't be having them. It's that simple. The asinine social justice movement does _not_ help people by portraying transsexualism as fashionable or convincing them that they need surgery when they can still do without it (or absolutely shouldn't be receiving it). There are people who, for all intents and purposes, _want_ to be trans. Far too many, I believe. This is not how it works and that's exactly where freaks like Robb come from. The ultimate authority on this matter is our scientific understanding of gender, and you cannot disagree with this no matter how hard you try.


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## caffeinated_wench (Mar 9, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:


> They are a mistake for people who shouldn't be having them. It's that simple. The asinine social justice movement does _not_ help people by portraying transsexualism as fashionable or convincing them that they need surgery when they can still do without it (or absolutely shouldn't be receiving it). There are people who, for all intents and purposes, _want_ to be trans. Far too many, I believe. This is not how it works and that's exactly where freaks like Robb come from. The ultimate authority on this matter is our scientific understanding of gender, and you cannot disagree with this no matter how hard you try.


That makes me think of JDR. She even encourages faking results for (or "cheating" on) a psych exam so a person who shouldn't be having such an operation can pass and get it. They'll wind up being very unhappy and potentially being unable to reverse it, whether it be financially or medically.

It bothers me immensely that so many think it's like the latest fashion or whatever when it's _not_.


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## Anustart (Mar 9, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:


> I would hope this article this satire



It's Return of Kings so sadly no.


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## BT 075 (Mar 9, 2014)

This gay pronouns thing is giving me a headache. But I'm sure it also gives the transesexuals a headache too having to explain it all the damn time. So what we should all just do is leave each other be and be nice. It's really not that hard. 

I'm not getting involved in this gender discussion. I personally think it's kinda cray-cray but then again, there's people who get awfully depressed if you don't call them the way they want to be called and it's not that big a deal for me to just respect whatever decision they make. 

As long as they stick to "he" and "she" I'm all cool with it and avoid the xi-xer-xo-zir-qwertrtyuosd pronouns bullshit because you gotta draw the line somewhere.

PS: Return of Kings is a bullshit site and I know for a fact one of the writers is the Loveshy.com member who goes by the name of "Seb", who recently wrote an article about how Australian girls suck or something. So I try to stay away from that site out of principle based on what I know of who's writing for it.


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## bradsternum (Mar 9, 2014)

It is a complex issue, and I don't believe we should mandate what a person does with his or her or whatever's body. My opinion, if you see yourself as male/female/third sex regardless of what your body looks like, that's what you are. But surgery doesn't do shit apart from mutilate your genitals. It's no different than an 87 year old person getting plastic surgery to look younger. They're still biologically 87.

(And yeah, Return of Kings is complete crap. I honestly thought it was a parody when I first saw it.)


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## cypocraphy (Mar 9, 2014)

Is it hip these days for College aged kids to have "gender identity issues"?

Excluding legitimate transpeople of course.


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## Silver (Mar 9, 2014)

... There are times when I have pretty bad dysmorphia, does that count?


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## KatsuKitty (Mar 9, 2014)

bungholio said:


> Is it hip these days for College aged kids to have "gender identity issues"?
> 
> Excluding legitimate transpeople of course.



Unfortunately it seems it. Simply saying you're trans is necessary but _not_ sufficient to qualify as trans.



Altissimo said:


> ... There are times when I have pretty bad dysmorphia, does that count?



Seek therapy. Keep in mind what I said about only needing to do whatever it takes to reduce dysphoria. Though you probably know that already.

Therapy straightened out a lot for me. Figure out what you need to do to reduce it, if that even involves transitioning or just some lifestyle changes.


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## bradsternum (Mar 9, 2014)

bungholio said:


> Is it hip these days for College aged kids to have "gender identity issues"?
> 
> Excluding legitimate transpeople of course.



Yep. Everyone is bisexual/asexual/gender neutral/berrr at my college. A lot of "lesbians" who I've never seen look twice at other girls but are constantly hooking up with boys, a lot of "complex, dark, moody" bisexual guys who only ever seem to sleep with girls. Completely invalidates people with a real struggle.

It's the same with bipolar and schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.



> ... There are times when I have pretty bad dysmorphia, does that count?



Take control of it before it takes control of you.


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## Silver (Mar 9, 2014)

I know I'm not actually trans* but sometimes I can't stand living in a female body that's _wholly female_, does that make sense?


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## Null (Mar 9, 2014)

Altissimo said:


> I know I'm not actually trans* but sometimes I can't stand living in a female body that's _wholly female_, does that make sense?


Not really. Have you tried wearing typical male clothing and some sort of compression bra and seeing how it felt? Or am I missing the point?


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## Anustart (Mar 9, 2014)

bungholio said:


> Is it hip these days for College aged kids to have "gender identity issues"?
> 
> Excluding legitimate transpeople of course.



College kids have being-people identity issues, and gender is becoming a much more publicized and well-known way of that insecurity manifesting itself. That's my take on it at least. For most it's a phase because it seems like a good way to deal with the dysphoria of just being a human when you're entering adulthood and have no clue about anything. Especially among socially stunted tumblr kids who are fucktuply worse off in this regard.

I do think it's wrong that it casts doubt on those with real experiences, but it's also not any confused college kid's fault that gender problems are constantly invalidated and said not to exist. They're not helping that, but they also didn't cause it.


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## Rio (Mar 9, 2014)

Null said:


> I know a lot of you guys are very adamant about the topic of subjective genderism, gender neutrality, gender dysmohpria, and all sorts of fun gender- and -isms. A friend of mine happens to be an author at the Return of Kings blog and he's linked me to an article that was written today.
> 
> http://www.returnofkings.com/29416/5-ways-to-stop-omega-males-from-becoming-transsexuals
> 
> ...


Wait, return of king is serious? I always just thought it was (really badly written) trollbait.

Anyway, I'll dive into this and leave any personal related issues I might have at the door. The first thing to realize is that, for some people, living life without gender transition puts them in a situation where they're suicidal and where just therapy doesn't really help anymore. Psychologists don't really tell just anybody to transition. That recommendation is reserved for extreme cases where living happily without it is seen as impossible by said professional psychologists, if I understand correctly.

If the technology is there and it makes someone happy to go through that surgery, does it really matter if it doesn't 'technically change their biological make-up' or whatever? The whole idea of the surgery is to reduce dysphorphia. If, post-surgery, the person in question is able to live a happy life that he/she otherwise would not be able to live, wouldn't you say the surgery has accomplished its goals?


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## Silver (Mar 9, 2014)

Null said:


> Not really. Have you tried wearing typical male clothing and some sort of compression bra and seeing how it felt? Or am I missing the point?


When my best friend and I dressed up as Blues Brothers for Halloween, the costume I wore felt ten times more comfortable and natural to me than anything else. Maybe it was because the costume was abnormally large and I can't stand being compressed, but maybe it's because I'm trans* - but at the same time I don't really mind wearing dresses and in fact there are times when I love them. But I do prefer male clothing over female clothing by a long shot (though like I said dresses are okay) so most of my wardrobe is baggy t-shirts and jeans or sport pants. And I really like that but I still hate having boobs of any sort. Haven't tried a compression bra due to lack of access, though.


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## Andrew Noel Schaefer (Mar 9, 2014)

Well, I tend to play as overly sexualized chicks in RPGs.

I dont know what others would say about me doing that, I just justify it personally as _AH AHM STRAIGHT! HUGH!_

_(_Although I do like catboys... )

Edit: On anouther note, I think its fair to say that _everybody_ and I have no exageration when I say that has wondered at one point or anouther - _What if I was actually a girl/guy?_

I mean, I know I have once or twice. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT


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## exball (Mar 11, 2014)

http://cwckiforums.com/threads/transsexualism.1207/


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## Trombonista (Mar 11, 2014)

You're doing CatParty's work, exball.


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## Carlson (Mar 12, 2014)

I'm not transsexual, but as you guys can imagine I'm a very big fan of Steam Powered Giraffe. And my avatar happens to be the transsexual member.

Bunny Bennett covered her gender transition quite often from the time she first came public with it, and you should seek out her writings and videos to get a good understanding of exactly what it's like to not only first realize exactly what a transsexual person feels and how they react when they realize what their feelings about their body mean, but also how a particular person tries to get through it.

Bunny has stated in the past that she neither wants nor likes surgery, so she's not going and chopping her dick off and getting implants. But she does wear stuffed bras, feminine clothing, and wigs at times. They even redesigned Rabbit's appearance to better suit Bunny's desire to appear female. At the same time, she doesn't always make herself up as a woman and sometimes just goes about looking like a man for all intents and purposes. I believe she even still shaves her head.

That's because even though she truly feels like a woman in the wrong body, she doesn't 100% want to force herself to look like a typical female all the time. Some transsexuals strive to look like how a member of the opposite sex "should look", but others are comfortable staying in their own preferred clothing style and only making bodily changes that they feel a desire to change. It's the same as with homosexuals, where not all gay men are effeminate and lispy and not all lesbians are tough, short-haired bikers with deep voices. For some transsexuals, they may be able to cope with it simply by accepting their gender dysphoria as it is; it's easier to deal with your problems when you actually have a name to put to them.

I think we'd do a lot better as a society if actually expressing your problems was encouraged from a young age. Many people who are homosexual or transsexual suffer from loads of problems because they were never able to understand their feelings until later in life and their parents tried their hardest not to teach them about such things, or tried to dismiss their concerns instead of accepting that their child might not be "normal."



> It's very black and white but ok.
> I'm speaking my mind here since I can't say it out loud in real life.
> 
> If you're born with a penis, you're a man
> ...



Well, you probably shouldn't say it in real life because you'll get yourself in deep shit with people who actually know what they're talking about. A black and white view of anything, especially gender and sex, simply doesn't mesh with reality.


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## hm yeah (Mar 12, 2014)

Might possibly sound strange, idk, but I actually agree completely with both Oglooger and KatsuKitty. I'm LGBT myself (transgendered to opposite sex, attracted to straight people of the same sex, obviously I'm not gonna get any, and I'm not going to get more specific) and I've always had gender issues and have been on the receiving end of lots of gender confusion ever since I was a toddler. No matter what I wear, I look like a crossdresser. My hormone production is really weird compared to normal people. I've come to just completely accept lots of things because real life is not always the way we want it to be, and facts are to be accepted whether you like them or not. Our petty little wants and wishes have no effect on the way things actually are.

I used to try to use the zie/hir pronouns actually but dropped them due to how weird they are and how they're not a part of English, despite being Germanic. Ironically, they're now obscure. Can you believe that?? There's like 7 other neutral pronoun sets being used by English speakers. Bit overkill.

I'm not going to get surgery over it because of many, many enormous costs and things I'd rather get over mutialtion and drugs. 'sides, like I said my hormone production is pretty weird compared to most people, I sure don't need fake hormones.

I have a big feeling that all of this SJW bullshit really boils down to special snowflake syndrome and a desire to be oppressed, so you have people screeching about the wrong pronouns. IRL no one's going to use the weird pronouns. They've probably never heard of them. At least 10 sets of them. They're only going to get confused. As someone who gets him/her/uhhhhh young person, these SJWs aren't getting any sympathy from me. They're probably consistently getting the pronouns that go with their genitals because they're probably just regular cis people on the inside and people can tell. Hell, loads of cisgendered SJWs identify as say, "assigned female at birth, female-identified". Never use a long word where a short word will do.

As you can tell I'm a slightly grouchy sort of conservative, in that I think most of this stuff is bullshit. I ultimately decided that for myself, "neutral" is the best thing for me to identify as, because things are awkward enough as it is, and I try to minimize awkwardness. And I think there are many way more important issues that deserve more attention than gender bullshit, like the economy. A bunch of snivelling SJWs (who are privileged by default) don't deserve a minute of attention.

A lot of people aren't going to like LGBT people because of this crowd, because sterotypes form naturally and for real-life reasons. Because people just know there's something "off" about me, many bitter people will probably instantly dislike me at first because of this. I try to be as neutral and nice as possible.

I get that a lot of people will disagree with me, but this is what I think about this topic and I'm not going to get into an argument over it.


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## Mauvman Shuffleboard (Mar 12, 2014)

I think it's kind of weird how worked up some people get over this sort of thing, but at the end of the day I can't muster up a single turd with which to give a shit. As far as sex goes, you're born what you are and you can't really change it, no matter how much you cram into/take out of your fleshy sausage body. If people feel better changing their body to a particular way I guess they can do it, I don't care if they do, but you still can't really change sex (yet anyway) even with hormones and shit. Gender is whatever, I plain don't give a fuck about that one, it's all feely and weird and a little bit pointless. People can believe whatever they want with that too, even the silly things like tri-gendered-demitoaster but the way I see it, it has absolutely no meaning to me. People are people, and unless I'm touching their titties or something it doesn't matter how their body is and how it corresponds to what they believe their body should be, the interaction would be the same if the same personality belonged to a bad wig that identifies as Spiderman.


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## Night Terror (Mar 12, 2014)

Mauvman Shuffleboard said:


> I think it's kind of weird how worked up some people get over this sort of thing, but at the end of the day I can't muster up a single turd with which to give a shit.


It might not matter to you, but it does matter to a lot of people. It can't be just dumped aside like that for some.

When it comes to sex/gender issues, just be considerate. If someone's gender doesn't match up with their sex and they actually confide that in you (which takes balls, they're not going to know if you'll reject them or not), then you don't have to smother them in support or anything. Just treat them like you always would. They'll appreciate it much more.
Most trans people just want to be 'one of the lads' or 'one of the girls'. Unlike Tumblr crazies, who make trans their entire identity rather than just... a word for transitioning, a lot of (but not all) trans people are perfectly content on becoming, essentially, cisgender with a sex change operation. Or maybe they're fine with their goolies as is. That's their choice. Just treat them like a human.


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## Mauvman Shuffleboard (Mar 12, 2014)

Darky said:


> It might not matter to you, but it does matter to a lot of people. It can't be just dumped aside like that for some.
> 
> When it comes to sex/gender issues, just be considerate. If someone's gender doesn't match up with their sex and they actually confide that in you (which takes balls, they're not going to know if you'll reject them or not), then you don't have to smother them in support or anything. Just treat them like you always would. They'll appreciate it much more.
> Most trans people just want to be 'one of the lads' or 'one of the girls'. Unlike Tumblr crazies, who make trans their entire identity rather than just... a word for transitioning, a lot of (but not all) trans people are perfectly content on becoming, essentially, cisgender with a sex change operation. Or maybe they're fine with their goolies as is. That's their choice. Just treat them like a human.



Of course I'll treat them like a human, I do that anyway. I acknowledge gender/sex issues are a big deal to some people, even though I can't really understand it myself because I don't really have any way to relate to it. Personally, I still don't care though, a person's a person regardless, if they want me to call them a dude sure, if they want me to treat them like a lady, that's fine too.


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## Oglooger (Mar 12, 2014)

The "Sex and gender are two completley diffrent things" is conflicting since I never had that problem when in Mexico.
in the spanish language, the two words are synonymous, but people would use sex more often since we're probably more direct.
while in America, Americans will use gender since "sex" is considered a dirty word and they're just puritan like that.
I told many of my Spanish speaking friends about this, and they thought the same thing as I did, even the most liberal peje-bot.


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## Silver (Mar 12, 2014)

The words are used synonymously in America (though gender more often) but they're not synonymous.


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## Carlson (Mar 12, 2014)

Altissimo said:


> The words are used synonymously in America (though gender more often) but they're not synonymous.


This. The two words are often used as synonyms, but they both refer to different things (gender identity is mental, but sexual identity is physical) and using them synonymous is wrong. I think at least some of the inability to understand gender dysphoria comes from not understand this difference.


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## Burning Love (Mar 13, 2014)

Well KittyKatsu, you being potentially a non-trans person must now be corrected on some things and agreed with on others.



KatsuKitty said:


> I would hope this article this satire because there's a hell of a lot more behind the decision to transition than simply "being an omega male". I mean, if you're actually taking this seriously, this is Wizarchan logic you're citing here. For starters, it's not terribly difficult to justify the suicide rate by the completely deplorable way society treats these people.


This is the first thing I'll agree with. Before HRT, I was pretty much the definition of an alpha male. I didn't take shit from anybody, I was ridiculously popular, and I got a lot of attention (which I subsequently spent a lot of time trying to avoid) from the 'opposite sex'. The fact that the article suggests all trans people were the lowest rung of the male bar is just ridiculous. Out of the trans people I know now, about half of them were on my level. Those are, perhaps coincidentally, the most well-adjusted.



> _Sex_ transitioning may not quite be possible, but gender transitioning is. Gender identity is the mapping of what your brain views as acceptable sex characterisation or attributes. This is, for all intents and purposes, a _real_ disorder with _real_ evidence backing it in the form of MRI evidence as well as people's own experiences.


Another point of agreement! Contrary to what half the people in this thread seem to think, *not a single one of us* is under the impression that by transitioning and having The Surgery™ we are becoming a different sex _biologically_. The point is to be as close to functional as we can get, for our own sake. It doesn't matter if we have ovaries or not, you can't really see that, but you _can_ see your own vagina.

On the other side of things, there's a weird feeling of emptiness related to the internal organs you should have but don't. I thought my experiences with that emptiness feeling in the area where the right organs should be but aren't was a unique dysphoria; it seems to be commonplace. 



> There is no denying that dysphoria exists. Transsexual individuals suffer from it every day of their lives even after hormones and surgery with the best possible result. Transitioning is intended to alleviate, but not cure, the problems that stem from the incongruence of sex and gender identity.


This, my friend, is where we diverge. 

To say we suffer from it "every day of [our] lives" is a little bit off. Certainly, some of us continue suffering from it long-term, but there are a lot that don't. Right now, out of all my friends on HRT (which is every one of them but one), there are only about three or four of us that still suffer regular to frequent dysphoria. Among the older ones (4+ years HRT or post-surgery), dysphoria is either barely there or not at all. 

I would say my best friend is the best example: she had dysphoria so bad pre-HRT and a while into HRT that she used to curl up in her bathtub with a 9mm in her mouth. Today, almost five years into HRT and over a year post-surgery, she has been free from dysphoria since the surgery and had a minimal level from around two and a half years in. 

And I think that is the really striking thing about dysphoria and what it does to us, that someone who is beautiful now could be so hopeless in the past, even with a high paying job and a hot boyfriend, that they would regularly curl up in a bathtub with a gun in their mouth. 

But the initial point remains, it's not quite every day. Right now, my sources of dysphoria are relatively few. Getting misgendered is the most frequent cause. Body hair is another, but to a significantly lesser degree. I used to have more penis-related dysphoria than I do now, so that's good, but I accept that I will most likely need The Surgery™ because sometimes it really fucking bothers me. 

It may be an every day thing for pre-HRT trans people, it definitely was for me, but that doesn't stand for all of us, or most of us after a point. (In the absence of hormones, though, it does just get worse and worse no matter what you do.)



> I think your belief stems from the same bastardisation of science and gender identity SJWs and "genderqueers" have been guilty of for at least the past ten years. As I mentioned before, gender identity is how your brain believes your body should look or operate as far as physical sex is concerned. But all the cognitive behavioural therapy in the world (or surgery and hormones) can't make your brain emit the correct sex-specific signals. As far as your liposuction example goes, a parallel to gender identity (let's call it "fat identity") has never been theorized and probably doesn't exist. People don't want to be thin because their brain signals that they should be thin, they want to be thin because they've convinced themselves they absolutely have to. Of course, this same problem exists in people who think they're transsexual but actually aren't (see below), and really, those are the only people who would benefit from any sort of non-transsexual therapy.


The comparisons between dysmorphia and dysphoria are pretty fucked up. I know what both feel like. They literally could not be more different. 

When you're dysmorphic, there is absolutely nothing you can do to fit your ideal. I was fat until age 17, when I decided to lose weight, and ever since then I've had a relatively high degree of body dysmorphia. I never got to anorexia or bulimia levels of thin, but after a point, I didn't ever feel better about my weight. My initial loss was from 200 to 165, the second wave was 165 to 145, and the third wave was from 145 to 130. At 130, I felt no better than at 150, but I wanted to keep going. After the greatness of initial weight loss faded, there was no way to get where I wanted. I could have been 110 and still been unhappy. Hell, I'm on my way back to 130 _today_.

The divergence is, dysphoria does get better. Transitioning does cause a fundamental positive change. It does make you happy. The longer I've been on HRT, the happier I've gotten. At this point, it's more my body dysmorphia causing the problems than dysphoria. That's a big difference because it was always the opposite. Anywhere from age 6 until age 23, if you had asked me what my primary problem was, it would be dysphoria. Today, it's dysmorphia, because dysphoria is fading at a rapid rate. And that is totally new. It was 21 years of gradual to rapid expansion, a 2 year stall period, and now dysphoria is rapidly fading, the complete reverse of the previous trend.

I can also tell you that dysphoria related to gender absolutely DOES NOT get better on its own. You will not find one trans person anywhere from 20 to 50 that will tell you it gets easier to deal with. It doesn't. It gets worse and worse and worse. Many of us have worse dysphoria than the others, my (non-gender) therapist had seen a lot of trans people over the years, and the dysphoria I displayed on a consistent basis from 15 until 21 was, as he called it, "the most severe case" he had ever seen.

I suspect for people like Null, trans issues are less to do with what is real than what makes you, personally, uncomfortable. After all, Null is not trans, but he has been exposed to us (and he is very well aware of my experiences since we have spoken at length about them), and his arguments basically amount to "I'm uncomfortable with the idea of people transitioning so I'm going to deny that transitioning actually helps people." I love the fuck out of Null but man, he's wrong. Experience and long-term data speaks over conjecture.


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## Burning Love (Mar 13, 2014)

> What you as well as anyone else should be taking actual offence at is the consecration of transsexualism as something "sacred" and untouchable. This is a disorder, not a religion. For example, the social justice agenda would take _grave_ umbrage at any theoretical neurosurgical treatment that could potentially eliminate gender dysphoria with minimal consequence to the rest of the body. This, I believe, is problematic thinking, because having a disorder is not a desirable way to be.


I agree that the SJWs have an odd way of thinking about things like this. I can tell you that if any of us had been offered a neurosurgical treatment to reverse our dysphoria (which would presumably have to restructure the entire brain), all of us would have said yes in a heartbeat pre-HRT. Once you're transitioned, there's not much of a point, is there? Me personally, I feel like I'm finally close to where I need to be, as little as a few months away, that's a new feeling for me. If that surgery were announced tomorrow, I would probably say no. I'm this far, if I can be happy this way (and from seeing my friends, I know it is quite possible), why would I give up when I'm this close?

On a somewhat related note, a lot of people who are bipolar feel similarly about bipolar disorder. Stephen Fry did an excellent documentary on it that showed the desperate things people had done to rid themselves of their bipolar, even if it meant ridding themselves of their own lives. Yet when people had gotten so far into their disease, to the point of medication or past their suicide attempts, and he asked if they would accept a treatment that would completely remove their bipolar disorder, they said no. (There was one exception, but her life was not significantly worse than any of the others – quite the opposite.) 

At this point I would give up neither my transgender brain, nor my bipolar disorder. Both have brought me to the brink of suicide before, and one may continue to do so, but they are fundamentally a part of me and both play major roles in making me who I am... and I'm starting to really enjoy that person, whoever she is...



> In fact, I believe that the number of people who feel they need surgeries can be _reduced_ by simply cultivating an accepting societal environment tolerant of gender expression diversity. <snip> Some people feel they need to transition because passing as female in ways that could only be achieved with surgery and hormones is the only possible way they could ever hope to be "allowed" to express themselves this way.


No doubt on the first point. An older trans friend (about 50 years old) noted that there are more non-ops among younger (i.e. below 35) trans, because it's more acceptable to be non-op now than before. A therapist won't immediately write you off for being afraid of surgery or not having enough genital dysphoria to require surgery. Granted, some will, but I do believe those who are like that are at the least being VERY irresponsible. 

This is not to say that everyone could be non-op. My 'friend' (more like an ongoing romance, fuck) has some of the most severe genital dysphoria I've ever heard of. It has legitimately almost driven her crazy. She cannot deal with having the wrong parts. She questions the validity of her _entire existence_ because of them. She is a rarity in the severity of her feelings, but she is all too normal for the type of dysphoria she represents. (As a contrast, I'm somewhere in the middle of non-op and pre-op, on the fence between them based on the details of the surgery and the wide variation between patterns of genital dysphoria.)

The second point you made is impossible to argue with in some cases. A small number of people (like Rika and ADF) do see benefits in transitioning and that drives them. But let's not overplay the existence of people like them. When I say a small number of people, I mean it's legitimately a SMALL number of people who are like them. They exist, no doubt, but they are really rare. I don't believe that the condemnations of college-aged people who transition are that appropriate. There is a lot of dysphoria that arises later on. There tends to be three areas for gender dysphoria to start: between 2-8, 12-18, and then 20-25. Typically in later cases there are signs that dysphoria is coming; not all cases but in a lot of them. Dysphoria seems to be most common from early childhood, but that is by no means the standard by which to judge.



> They are a mistake for people who shouldn't be having them. It's that simple. The asinine social justice movement does _not_ help people by portraying transsexualism as fashionable or convincing them that they need surgery when they can still do without it (or absolutely shouldn't be receiving it). There are people who, for all intents and purposes, _want_ to be trans. Far too many, I believe. This is not how it works and that's exactly where freaks like Robb come from. The ultimate authority on this matter is our scientific understanding of gender, and you cannot disagree with this no matter how hard you try.


I generally agree, but again, the difference is in the numbers. I truly believe people like Rika are rarer than you give them credit for.


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## FifthColumn (Jun 19, 2014)

Recently, Time magazine had a transgendered man turned woman on its front cover, apparently saying that transgendered rights and understanding is on the rise in the USA.

There may be more awareness and understanding, but the concept still sort of puzzles me. I don't know, and haven't met anyone who is transgendered myself and wonder what it is exactly.

Do some people just feel they are women or men born into the wrong gender? The feelings of distress about the gender they have must be severe, because getting sex reassignment surgery sounds like a huge bother to go through, (and usually no reversal is possible.)

Though I am sympathetic to other people who are different from me, part of me wonders why some people go through the surgery. I don't know everything, but my impression is that for example, a man can't _really _ become a woman, he just becomes a man who had some surgery and is pumped with female hormones.

At least the women who get the surgery ( i.e Sunny and Cher's kid) can do a better job at "passing" for being men. For whatever reason, whenever I have seen photos of women who used to be men, I can pretty much tell


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## BT 075 (Jun 19, 2014)

I read this thread title and thought it was about a Transformers spin-off series in which all characters are trannies.

I am slightly dissapoint.


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## Uzumaki (Jun 19, 2014)

FifthColumn said:


> At least the women who get the surgery ( i.e Sunny and Cher's kid) can do a better job at "passing" for being men. For whatever reason, whenever I have seen photos of women who used to be men, I can pretty much tell



How can you tell that you can tell? If you couldn't tell you wouldn't know.


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## Silver (Jun 19, 2014)

FifthColumn said:


> Do some people just feel they are women or men born into the wrong gender?



Just want to correct and say that usually "gender" refers to a mental/societal conception of male or female, whereas "sex" refers to the physical element (genitalia and secondary sex characteristics). But yeah, this is pretty much correct.


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## FifthColumn (Jun 19, 2014)

Altissimo said:


> Just want to correct and say that usually "gender" refers to a mental/societal conception of male or female, whereas "sex" refers to the physical element (genitalia and secondary sex characteristics). But yeah, this is pretty much correct.


Good to know, although I have never heard of that distinction before. As to Uzumaki, I havent met that many transsexuals, and am by no means an expert on this subject. But whenever I have seen pictures of women who used to be men, they just have sort of a mannish physique to them. I have heard a lot of people say that its tough for a man to "pass" as a woman.


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## Marvin (Jun 19, 2014)

Uzumaki said:


> How can you tell that you can tell? If you couldn't tell you wouldn't know.


He could be told.


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## Uzumaki (Jun 19, 2014)

Marvin said:


> He could be told.



That's kind of my point. He only knows if someone tells him. He could see 50 transexuals a day and just not realize it because he has no idea what the biological gender of most people he meets is. It's not exactly a casual conversation. 

I just feel like when people think they can "spot" transexuals or gays or whatever they don't have a leg to stand on. You can't possibly know that unless you collect the medical records of everyone you meet. People are diverse. 

Just because you notice someone who isn't passing doesn't mean you didn't fail to notice someone else who does.


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## Marvin (Jun 19, 2014)

Uzumaki said:


> That's kind of my point. He only knows if someone tells him. He could see 50 transexuals a day and just not realize it because he has no idea what the biological gender of most people he meets is. It's not exactly a casual conversation.
> 
> I just feel like when people think they can "spot" transexuals or gays or whatever they don't have a leg to stand on. You can't possibly know that unless you collect the medical records of everyone you meet. People are diverse.
> 
> Just because you notice someone who isn't passing doesn't mean you didn't fail to notice someone else who does.


C'mon, that's silly, people definitely can spot transsexuals. Yes, there is such a thing as confirmation bias* and yes, people are diverse. But that doesn't mean that there aren't physical patterns that can distinguish them from the pack.

(I didn't say much about spotting gays because I don't know how much of gayness can be made physically apparent. I would guess there are cultural habits, but that wouldn't be universal.)

* In fact, people frequently misinterpret the old pictures of Chris and his galpals, and see the galpals as being bothered or annoyed. I think that's definitely confirmation bias at work.


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## Uzumaki (Jun 19, 2014)

> C'mon, that's silly, people definitely can spot transsexuals.



So your point is that there's no such thing as passing?

Edit: Also decades of Maury specials would beg to differ.


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## Marvin (Jun 19, 2014)

Uzumaki said:


> So your point is that there's no such thing as passing?


No. Just that seeing someone you think is transsexual isn't always a losing bet.


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## Uzumaki (Jun 19, 2014)

Marvin said:


> No. Just that seeing someone you think is transsexual isn't always a losing bet.



There's a difference between having chance at something and being able to do so reliably. There are mannish looking women who are biological women. There are transexuals who pass. My point is you can't even know your hit rate because you're unaware of your misses, so claiming you can "spot" transexuals is pretty baseless.

It's the same thing as claiming you can spot gays because some gay guys wear tight pink shirts and have frosted tips. There are some really flaming homosexuals out there, but being able to recognize them does not mean you somehow have "gaydar".


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## Marvin (Jun 19, 2014)

Uzumaki said:


> There's a difference between having chance at something and being able to do so reliably. There are mannish looking women who are biological women. There are transexuals who pass. My point is you can't even know your hit rate because you're unaware of your misses, so claiming you can "spot" transexuals is pretty baseless.
> 
> It's the same thing as claiming you can spot gays because some gay guys wear tight pink shirts and have frosted tips. There are some really flaming homosexuals out there, but being able to recognize them does not mean you somehow have "gaydar".


Women mannish enough to be mistakenly confused with a transsexual exist. But whether that matters will depend on specific numbers.

You don't need to tune your success in respect to the actual numbers. Just being successful enough to not misidentify too many biological women is probably good enough.


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## Uzumaki (Jun 19, 2014)

Marvin said:


> Women mannish enough to be mistakenly confused with a transsexual exist. But whether that matters will depend on specific numbers.
> 
> You don't need to tune your success in respect to the actual numbers. Just being successful enough to not misidentify too many biological women is probably good enough.



Which brings us back to: how could you possibly know? Unless you ask every mannish looking woman "Oy, are you a bloke?" you're just going on your own assumptions.


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## Marvin (Jun 19, 2014)

Uzumaki said:


> Which brings us back to: how could you possibly know? Unless you ask every mannish looking woman "Oy, are you a bloke?" you're just going on your own assumptions.


Depends on how much you care.


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## Trickie (Jun 19, 2014)

Marvin said:


> Women mannish enough to be mistakenly confused with a transsexual exist. But whether that matters will depend on specific numbers.
> 
> You don't need to tune your success in respect to the actual numbers. Just being successful enough to not misidentify too many biological women is probably good enough.



Even if that's true now, it won't be for long. The manly features that allow you to more easily identify a person as transsexual don't really start until puberty, and as more and more transsexuals start their transition at puberty, preventing those features from appearing before they have a chance to surface in the first place, it will become harder and harder to tell transsexuals apart from biological men and women.

Basically, guessing at who is a transsexual and who is not just from their features might not be a bad bet, but it will steadily become a worse and worse bet as time goes on.


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## Tragi-Chan (Jun 25, 2014)

I find the whole thing a bit hard to deal with. It's not that I disagree with the concept - I believe that your body is your business and no one should dictate to you. But I found it a bit more difficult when faced with it in my own life. There was this guy I'd known for nearly a decade who announced, just under a year ago, that she was becoming a woman. It came completely out of the blue - when she was a he, he'd never seemed particularly effeminate or given any indication of being unhappy with his body. I think most of my social group weren't quite sure what to make of it, and a few of us (myself included, if I'm honest) thought he was just saying it for the drama - it wouldn't have been entirely out of character. Anyway, she seems a lot happier and more confident now, so I guess more fool me.

I've dealt with it now, and I've got pretty good about saying "Anna" rather than "Alan" and "she" instead of "he," but we did have one SJW in our circle who didn't exactly make things easy by pouncing on every single instance where someone would absently say "he."


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## Watcher (Jul 13, 2014)

Here's an interesting subject I wanna hear opinions about.

What do people think about transgendered individuals being put in movies/tv shows/video games?



Spoiler












In this case we have a character being spontaneously transgendered in a story where it's barely even touched upon. (and the character only appears once or twice)

Do you think it's needless or do you agree and think there should be more characters who are transgendered in fiction?


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## CatParty (Jul 13, 2014)

Cuddlebug said:


> Here's an interesting subject I wanna hear opinions about.
> 
> What do people think about transgendered individuals being put in movies/tv shows/video games?
> 
> ...




I don't think it really matters much but it may matter to someone going through it that there are others out there writing a character from their perspective. But in a story where it is barely touched upon it doesn't matter at all. However maybe that is for the best that it isn't gone into detail. That actually sounds better than making it a big part of the story.


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## The Hunter (Jul 13, 2014)

Much like how atheists need physical, undeniable proof that God exists, I need physical, undeniable proof that there is indeed more than two genders and that people can naturally turn their penises into vaginas and vice versa.


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## Marvin (Jul 13, 2014)

Trickie said:


> Even if that's true now, it won't be for long. The manly features that allow you to more easily identify a person as transsexual don't really start until puberty, and as *more and more transsexuals start their transition at puberty*, preventing those features from appearing before they have a chance to surface in the first place, it will become harder and harder to tell transsexuals apart from biological men and women.
> 
> Basically, guessing at who is a transsexual and who is not just from their features might not be a bad bet, but it will steadily become a worse and worse bet as time goes on.


Uhh, what. Is that really a good idea?


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## Holdek (Jul 13, 2014)

The thing I don't like about trangenderism as it's commonly acted on is that it seems kind of dishonest to present yourself to others entirely as a woman if you have a Y chromosome, simply because you "identify" as one.  And I've heard trans that have had good surgery and pass well talk about how they have only told their boyfriend that they are a trans _after_ they have been in a relationship with them.  To me that's like when people have had sex with someone in the dark while pretending they are that person's boyfriend even though they weren't and then being charged with rape.

But I do believe that some people are naturally transgendered, and pre-hormone-treatment brain scans are physical evidence of that.



AtroposHeart said:


> You know I am confused when people say that sex and gender are different things, but then say gender is a social construct.


Yeah it's all a bunch of bullshit.  But it's kind of a new thing and we're stuck in a post-modernist, Wikipedia kind of phase of our history right now.  But, we'll grow out of it eventually.


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## Holdek (Jul 13, 2014)

CatParty said:


> I don't think it really matters much but it may matter to someone going through it that there are others out there writing a character from their perspective. But in a story where it is barely touched upon it doesn't matter at all. However maybe that is for the best that it isn't gone into detail. That actually sounds better than making it a big part of the story.



Yeah but the _


Spoiler



Crying Game


 _reveal worked pretty well.  It's not really a movie about the 



Spoiler



IRA


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## hellbound (Jul 13, 2014)

Cuddlebug said:


> Here's an interesting subject I wanna hear opinions about.
> 
> What do people think about transgendered individuals being put in movies/tv shows/video games?
> 
> ...



You wanna know what I really think about it?






Put 'em in or don't. "Oh, there need to be more/less" it's a fucking video game. If your video game aims to accurately represent the real world it's probably shit. I play games because I want to do something that isn't the real world. Most recently I've been playing Goat Simulator. If you haven't been playing it - and you should so go buy it now - you play as a goat just absolutely wrecking shit in a world where people ragdoll as soon as you touch them, headbutting cars makes them explode, and you can do goat-parkour. I'm fairly certain that doesn't represent the actual behavior of goats.

Also, the real-world transgenders I've met (that is, not the chip-on-the-shoulder tumblrfolk who seem use it as a cause of the week instead of a considered life decision) mostly just want to be seen as what they present themselves as, not "a transgender," so I mean I guess making them obviously not passing could highlight the struggle or yada yada yada but mostly seems just like a joke at their expense, and if they are passing then how are you going to know, unless they're pointing it out constantly, which is just weird?

Also also, kind of odd the big example here is a hooker. Just saying.

My point is, video games don't really matter so go nuts with whatever transgender-to-not ratio you want.


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## CatParty (Jul 13, 2014)

hellbound said:


> You wanna know what I really think about it?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Yeah all the transfolk I know IRL just want to be left alone and treated how they present themselves.


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## FifthColumn (Jul 14, 2014)

Trickie said:


> Even if that's true now, it won't be for long. The manly features that allow you to more easily identify a person as transsexual don't really start until puberty, and as more and more transsexuals start their transition at puberty, preventing those features from appearing before they have a chance to surface in the first place, it will become harder and harder to tell transsexuals apart from biological men and women.
> 
> Basically, guessing at who is a transsexual and who is not just from their features might not be a bad bet, but it will steadily become a worse and worse bet as time goes on.



But the thing is, as much surgery as they take, as many "mods" happen to them, the guys who do that will never, ever be a woman, no matter how young it starts. They may appear more feminine, but there are some things that only nature, and no amount of science can do. They can never have children or produce eggs, and will not produce normal female hormones naturally. It just makes me think there could be some real identiy uncertainty later in life, about whether they really are a boy or a girl.

I also think that surgery and modification is unethical to do to a child, since few children really know who they are what they really want to be. Since  it is such an unalterable operation really, I don't think it should be done to kids, because their hormones are changing, and their personalities/identities haven't really settled in. We have a minimum age before kids can do really important things like voting, driving, getting married, working etc. So why not make it so people cant get some gender/life altering surgery until they reach mental maturity?

I also have heard that many transsexuals suffer from Borderline Personality DIsorder. Is there any truth to this?


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## Trickie (Jul 14, 2014)

The Hunter said:


> Much like how atheists need physical, undeniable proof that God exists, I need physical, undeniable proof that there is indeed more than two genders and that people can naturally turn their penises into vaginas and vice versa.



I really don't think you can compare the question of whether God exists to the question of whether or not there are two genders. God is, depending on your definition, an entity that operates at least partially if not fully out of the realm of the natural laws that govern reality as we know it, whereas we already know that at least two genders exist, and there's a difference in scope and possibility that makes the comparison absolutely ridiculous. It's a bit like saying "I need proof to believe that dialectical behavior therapy works in the same way that I need proof to believe that tomorrow I'll wake up on the surface of Mars." Not saying you're wrong, or that either question is true or false, but you're taking a very high standard of evidence for something that wouldn't rewrite the rules of reality if it were true.

As for the penises turning into vaginas bit... I have no idea what you're on about there.



FifthColumn said:


> But the thing is, as much surgery as they take, as many "mods" happen to them, the guys who do that will never, ever be a woman, no matter how young it starts. They may appear more feminine, but there are some things that only nature, and no amount of science can do. They can never have children or produce eggs, and will not produce normal female hormones naturally. It just makes me think there could be some real identiy uncertainty later in life, about whether they really are a boy or a girl.



Sounds like a recipe for awkward social interactions to me. Are you really willing to withhold gender specific pronouns until you intimately know the history of a person's sex organs? What about those who are infertile from birth? Or those who are born intersex with ambiguous genitalia? What about those people who are born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, who often go through their entire lives as women, not knowing they were born with XY chromosomes, and do not in fact have female reproductive organs? What about people with other hormone imbalances or abnormalities?

People follow this line of thinking in the hopes of finding a pragmatic answer to the question of gender, but in their haste they miss all the relevant facts and ignore the bigger picture, ending up with an answer that is not only over-simplified, but also impractical. Instead of gendering people the way the rest of society does, by observing gender specific features and mannerisms, they decide that treating people as though they are either a walking, talking penis or vagina is somehow better, even if they are the only one contradicting everyone else.



FifthColumn said:


> I also think that surgery and modification is unethical to do to a child, since few children really know who they are what they really want to be. Since  it is such an unalterable operation really, I don't think it should be done to kids, because their hormones are changing, and their personalities/identities haven't really settled in. We have a minimum age before kids can do really important things like voting, driving, getting married, working etc. So why not make it so people cant get some gender/life altering surgery until they reach mental maturity?



Sorry, I should've been clearer earlier when I mentioned "transition". When you start transition, you don't go straight to surgery, in fact it usually doesn't happen for at least a year with adults, and probably a lot longer for minors, if they don't end up waiting until they're of age. Usually when someone starts transition, they're started on hormone replacement therapy first, which is absolutely not a decision to be taken lightly, and they usually wait until the patient is 16 even then, unless something's changed since I looked into this last. The thing about starting that early, though, is that by starting hormones at puberty you remove the need for almost all of the surgeries apart from the main one.

It's also important to note that you can't start HRT or get sexual reassignment surgery without going through a mental health professional first, this is true even if you're an adult, so this isn't just parents trotting their kids into the ER and signing a release form, they have to get a letter of recommendation from a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist (or both, as my experience goes) who know exactly what they're in for if it turns out the kid they diagnosed turns out to have been going through a phase. Even with adults, they see you for a number of sessions, and scrutinize basically everything.

In short, the decision is not made wholly or ultimately by the parents, and even when it is made in the affirmative, they take a lot of precautions.



FifthColumn said:


> I also have heard that many transsexuals suffer from Borderline Personality DIsorder. Is there any truth to this?



I've never heard of any connection between gender identity dysphoria and borderline personality disorder, and I'd be very surprised if there was.


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## Trombonista (Jul 14, 2014)

So, how many people here consider themselves "truscum"/transmedicalists (i.e. believe that transgenderism is a medical condition and that to be trans you need to have or have had gender dysphoria)?


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## Marvin (Jul 14, 2014)

Trickie said:


> Sounds like a recipe for awkward social interactions to me. Are you really willing to withhold gender specific pronouns until you intimately know the history of a person's sex organs? What about those who are infertile from birth? Or those who are born intersex with ambiguous genitalia? What about those people who are born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, who often go through their entire lives as women, not knowing they were born with XY chromosomes, and do not in fact have female reproductive organs? What about people with other hormone imbalances or abnormalities?


Those are all legitimate medical conditions though. It's possible to accept all those things as real but not be convinced by the evidence for gender dysphoria yet. Without hearing some very convincing physical evidence, it's not unreasonable to think it sounds like bullshit.



Trickie said:


> People follow this line of thinking in the hopes of finding a pragmatic answer to the question of gender, but in their haste they miss all the relevant facts and ignore the bigger picture, ending up with an answer that is not only over-simplified, but also impractical. Instead of gendering people the way the rest of society does, by observing gender specific features and mannerisms, they decide that treating people as though they are either a walking, talking penis or vagina is somehow better, even if they are the only one contradicting everyone else.


Eh, if the answer works 99.9% of the time, it's not over simplified. It's as complicated as it needs to be. Putting extra effort into catching all the strange corner cases might not be worth it if they're too rare. I think people do gender people by how they look and act, and that's what people are complaining about.

For example, I was at a bar the other day, and one of the bartenders looked excessively feminine. And not like a girly boy either. I know what girly boys look like. This guy looked like a woman. But the weird thing was, I couldn't figure out exactly what was making me think that. I spent the whole time at the bar analyzing his features, and I couldn't figure out what was making me think that about him.

In my experience, transgender people complain about this sort of thing, because they just want to fit in, and feel normal. But the problem is that these sort of gender problems are being talked about more, so naturally people are thinking about "is he a natural man or a transman?" all the time.

I mean, of course, I don't see these patterns changing anytime soon, so it's just something we're all going to have to get used to.


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## The Hunter (Jul 14, 2014)

To answer this thread seriously now, gender dysphoria is pretty normal for some to go through. A boy can prefer the social norms of a girl, and a girl prefer the norms of a boy. I'm a stickler for biological sex, though. If you're born with male genitalia, you're a male, if born with female genitalia, a female. The sex you're born as is yours for life. However, that doesn't and shouldn't stop anyone from preferring to behave or view oneself as the opposite sex. It's weird, but it's definitely not a mental illness in my opinion. Just, good luck getting a job in more conservative countries is all.

The only pronouns that exist for me are he, her, and they. Xi/Ze/Goobledygock, these are blatantly made up, and it's not a matter of not understanding, it's simply a matter of not stooping down that low for an individual. You either feel like a boy, a girl, or don't prefer to answer. You're not an alien for fuck's sake.


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## KatsuKitty (Jun 7, 2015)

This thread deserves another look given recent forum drama.

The mere act of _being_ transgender makes you a tremendous pariah. Why?

Trans people who don't "hide as cis" are obnoxious and provocative, and it's through no conscious fault or action of their own. By simply standing in the same room as someone who is either not educated on the matter, doesn't care, or disagrees with the current theory of gender identity...the majority of the population...you're _irritating_. But why?

Trans people force people to do one thing the general public doesn't like to do at all; think in-depth about a nuanced issue and form a best-practice opinion rooted in fact and objectivity. Trans people aren't accepted by the world because they're "unnatural" or "freaks"; they're not accepted by the world because integrating them into society is expensive and labourious. The world in general is not set up for trans people and being cognizant of their existence forces us to ask many hard and difficult questions. This issue isn't exclusive to LGBT issues; it pervades every aspect of our culture and results in retarded policy like the Iraq War and letting homeless people get raped to death in prison. If people weren't like this, political apathy in general wouldn't be an issue, and we'd actually solve a lot of other pressing issues.

Forming a best-practice opinion on issues that affect society is very much like developing math ability; _it is *fucking hard* and there are no shortcuts._

Most visibly trans people don't consciously and deliberately force you to accept things like using the opposite pronouns, housing them with other women, and seeing their poorly passing figure as female. This is all unavoidable by nature and virtue of being trans. And to most people who are apathetic about the topic, this comes across as an irritating insistence that you believe particular things without good reason.

I say this as someone who is on the trans spectrum. This is my own experience and conclusion. I am a male who presents and dresses feminine. I don't fit the cultural expectations for normal males, nor is continuing to try in my best interest. This is why trans people press more and more to pass. It's because if people know you have deviated to any degree from your birth sex or cultural expectations asked of you, you piss everyone off just _standing there_. Trans women don't want to pass as women. They want to pass as cis.

What is the solution? I think increased understanding of the other side by both parties and a conscious understanding on the part of everyone that the previous system of "everyone born a man, act like a man, die as a man" just isn't cutting it given the evidence we discover in the modern scientific method. Trans issues are indisputably real; careful thought and respect for these people will help society to continue developing informed best practices for their integration.


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## Abethedemon (Jun 7, 2015)

Let me weigh in on this shit. 
I'm a pure bred cissie, but I have some very close trans and non-binary friends. I say it's fine if you want to explore who you are, even though you should probably have dysforia to transition. Using special pronouns is fine by me, but it's difficult to tell when someone is simply being a special-snowflakekin. It's like anything in the world really, some people are going to use their powers for good and others for bad.


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## Null (Jun 7, 2015)

KatsuKitty said:


> you're _irritating_. But why?


*BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOOK LIKE WOMEN.
*
Here's transgenderism in a nutshell for people who don't get it:


*Women*: What you see, what they are, what they expect to be called












*Men*: What you see, what they are, what they expect to be called











*Tranny*: What you see, what they are, what they expect to be called












_*Just by existing*_, a trans person complicates the life of everyone they interact with. There's an intense level of political correctness that orbits them and you can't even make a mistake. The goose who wants to become a duck can become angry if misclassed, and if not, will at least feel hurt. This idea that looks-like-a-duck doesn't apply to trannies is so powerful, it's what gave birth to the "ask for my pronouns" thing. _*Yes,*_ custom and neutral 3rd pronouns are fucking dumb, but they are required in order to avoid looks-like-a-duck misclassification.

You're a programmer Katsu, so you'll understand this analogy: The human database table supports a binary gender field, but people want to be addressed by things that they are not. So, we're now hacking into our identity table a column for how people should be addressed and reprogramming huge chunks of our  code so we can handle this new information.

The separation of gender and sexual identity doubles the complication and frustration of just getting through the fucking day and having the bare minimum of contact required to order a pizza. "Yes ma'am" becomes "Excuse me, what are your pronouns? ... Yes ma'am." and _nobody on the fucking planet_ wants to deal with that shit except the looks-like-a-ducks and their allies.

_*That's*_ why it's frustrating and that's why I'm slowly becoming more and more intolerant of trannies, because I need to change how my brain works to avoid offending people when I just don't give a fuck.


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## KatsuKitty (Jun 7, 2015)

The political correctness and anger over it is part of why it continues to be a problem. We've traded one form of intolerance for the opposite intolerance, which of course creates new problems instead of solving existing ones.

SJWs ruin everything by playing a cat and mouse game where turnabout is fair play. It isn't. I regret most trans people treat the general public with equal and opposite hostiity.


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## OtterParty (Jun 7, 2015)

Hahahahaha How The Fuck Is Forum Drama A Thing Hahahaha SLUR Just Turn 360 Degrees And Walk Away Like SLUR Close Your Browser Haha


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## Holdek (Jun 7, 2015)

Null said:


> *BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOOK LIKE WOMEN.
> *
> Here's transgenderism in a nutshell for people who don't get it:
> 
> ...



Yes, we know, and Sonic's arms weren't supposed to change either, but part of living in a modern society is learning new information about groups of people without losing your shit.


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## Null (Jun 7, 2015)

Holdek said:


> Yes, we know, and Sonic's arms weren't supposed to change either, but part of living in a modern society is learning new information about people without losing your shit.


I am not going to placate the whims of the mentally ill.


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## Eponine (Jun 7, 2015)

Null said:


> I am not going to placate the whims of the mentally ill.


I assure you that gender issues are very real and that I am no less mentally healthy for it. Don't let cows and trans rights advocates that like to make waves colour your perception of all of us.


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## Holdek (Jun 7, 2015)

Null said:


> I am not going to placate the whims of the mentally ill.


That's another thing that you don't seem to want to accept: transgenderism is not synonymous with gender dysphoria.  The later is a mental illness, which transitioning is often used as a treatment for, while the former is not.  I don't know why you wave off the pre-transition brain scan studies as insignificant.  

A lot of transgender people like Chris are mentally messed up in other ways.  That's a good point that you have brought up before.  I don't know if that's a norm but they certainly seem to get the most attention. But I think someone else has posted that most trans just want to live their lives as such without drawing any other attention to themselves on the Internet or elsewhere.


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## Null (Jun 7, 2015)

Epione said:


> I assure you that gender issues are very real and that I am no less mentally healthy for it.


Gender dysphoria is by definition a mental illness.


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## KatsuKitty (Jun 7, 2015)

Holdek said:


> That's another thing that you don't seem to want to accept: transgenderism is not synonymous with gender dysphoria.  The later is a mental illness, which transitioning is often used as a treatment for, while the former is not.  I don't know why you wave off the pre-transition brain scan studies as insignificant.
> 
> A lot of transgender people like Chris are mentally messed up in other ways.  That's a good point that you have brought up before.  I don't know if that's a norm but they certainly seem to get the most attention. But I think someone else has posted that most trans just want to live their lives as such without drawing any other attention to themselves on the Internet or elsewhere.



You cannot choose to be a man/woman.

Being opposite of this is what requires transition to live comfortably. That is, by definition, a medical condition.


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## Eponine (Jun 7, 2015)

Null said:


> Gender dysphoria is by definition a mental illness.


Gender dysphoria is a symptom of a real problem, not the cause.


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## Null (Jun 7, 2015)

Epione said:


> Gender dysphoria is a symptom of a real problem, not the cause.


I understand perfectly where this conflict is. A fetus starts female in the womb, which is why males have nipples. The process of becoming male does not start immediately at conception, and that explains many different anomalies, like why the world's population is 52% female and why men are more likely to be homosexual or transgender than females.

I also accept the CAT scans as evidence that the brain of a transgender person does not reflect the body they belong to. I understand that the hormone therapy helps people with depression when they have gender dysphoria. My favorite example of this is Pad, who is XXY(?) and is probably physiologically the truest thing to a transgender person that you can find. She is literally a female in a male's body and this is reflected on a genetic level. I empathize entirely with her.

I also have the ability to empathize with people in general. In polite society, sometimes we do things to make others feel more comfortable. This is a part of what I mentioned before: me calling Pad / you / Christ-Chan / etc a "she" is the easiest thing I can do to get by without any drama on a day to day basis. You guys are polite to me usually, I have no problems being polite back.


My issue is none of that. I understand the authenticity of the problem and I'm not an obstructionist to the point where I will go out of my way to upset people on a normal, conversational basis. I don't even mind calling Brianna Wu a "she", Brianna puts enough effort into the facade to the point where I feel she's earned the privilege to be addressed as she has chosen.

The problems starts when people tell me how I need to talk. When they _require_ me (not) to say certain things to certain people -- especially on the Internet --, otherwise I am suddenly a bad person. That I _can't_ also refer to Brianna Wu by John Flynt. That I _can't_ call Bruce Jenner by his birth name. That that somehow makes me a _bad person_ because I choose to use language in a different way. I'm not going to pitch a fit if people refer to me as she; the only reason why people care is because it breaks their illusions. It reminds them that they aren't in the body that they want to be in and that hurts them. That's the point of the pronoun thing in the user profiles. Normal people don't give a shit, but a transgender person is immediately going to assume it is a hand-selected personal affront of them and their identity and take issue, and I fucking hope they do.

This is twice as bad if it's on the Internet and it isn't coming from someone who it applies to: Normal-gendered people telling me to check my pronouns when I talk about a tranny, and white people asking me not to say nigger. Fuck that noise.


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## Jaimas (Jun 7, 2015)

As someone who has Transgendered friends and someone who's also chronicled a lot of lolcows who use nounself pronouns, I can safely make my point known. I know that the last 10 years has turned Transgendered rights into a fucking minefield, where one can't make mistakes lest one provoke the proverbial mob, but personal experience has led me to believe that this is not the work of said Transgendered people. I know this from experience, and through something I will dub the _Tumblr Response Paradigm_ - the more Tumblrites and the like wear something as a badge on their sleeve, the more likely it's something that people who actually have it want to _never fucking talk_ about it.

Let me elab. The people I know who have legit honest-to-god Gender Dysphoria and went through all the various flimflammery in regards to transitioning literally put themselves through _hell_ to get to their current state. It wasn't pleasant, fun, or something they were fond of having to do, but it was necessary for what they felt was a level of normalcy, and now that they've gotten there, they're all about just being their adopted gender and living their lives in fucking peace.

Enter Tumblr, and the rampant explotiation and sensationalism of everything they've ever done.

Do you know who's been pushing the WE'RE HERE WE'RE TRANS GET USED TO IT angle? Tumblr. Know who's been screaming about Trans rights and how we need to improve the lives of Transpeople by attacking the Cisgendered? Tumblr. Know who's been adopting trans status primarily as a means to claim oppression? Tumblr. Know where the medical diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria became _haram_? Tumblr. Know where MUH NON-BINARY GENDERS has its proverbial core? Tumblr.

Whilst I'm a bit sketchy as to how Tumblr became such a fucking cesspool, I do know they're the reason that my two friends had to go through more than a year of evaluation each in order to get their HRT and later SRS. And I do know that they're _just_ as pissed about it as our pickled patriarch here is about having to deal with the fucking minefields involved.

In short, I believe very strongly that it's less issues with Transgendered individuals per se being the trrouble, and more the ongoing invasion of ideologues into the discussion.


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## KingGeedorah (Jun 7, 2015)

Null said:


> I am not going to placate the whims of the mentally ill.



It depends on what form of mental illness that the person is suffering. I feel like more and more trannies with a web presence seem to have soul crushing narcissism and less gender dysphoria. Like girls in high school who had body dysphoria never blogged about their daily struggle of vomiting (note I graduated before tumblr was created, so I'm sure it's changed now.

So my heart goes out to people actually receiving problems IRL from just being a trans person like getting harassed in public because they trans. However, I could give two shits about the jokes for trannies we have on this site. They are obviously amped up caricatures of the transexuals with extreme narcissistic tendencies i mentioned earlier.


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## DuskEngine (Jun 23, 2015)

Many societies in history have had at least one additional gender role. The Indians had it, most other southeast Asian societies had it, some Native Americans had it, several societies had eunuchs who occupied some fixed social role, while others were just gender-benders. To claim that contemporary ideas about gender are the only TRUE and HONEST ones is really myopic.

On the other hand, those societies also had division of labour that was pretty strictly based on your social class and the circumstances of your birth. A large part of what gender is just seems to be a kind of pre-market division of labour to me, one that's increasingly becoming obsolete.

What exactly does 'being a woman' mean if there's no proscribed way for a woman to act or specific types of work that are exclusively reserved for women? It's just a fashion statement or a personal preference at that point. It also opens the way for absurdities like lesbians with dicks.


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## DirkBloodStormKing (Jun 23, 2015)

My thoughts on this:

You need dysphoria to be trans. No exception.
Non-binary genders have existed for as long as Ancient Egypt, and as gender and gender roles are somewhat of a social construct, I do believe that there are non-binary people (and like binary (male/female trans people, they have dysphoria).
Just because someone who is non-dysphoric does not like their traditional gender roles does not make them trans, it just makes them gender non-conforming. And that's okay. It's okay to go against gender roles that have been outdated for very long. After all, said roles can actually be pretty harmful at times.
Sex =/= gender. Biological sex is NOT, NEVER has been, and NEVER will be a social construct as that is fact.


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## SpessCaptain (Jun 23, 2015)

If you got outie parts your a dude.
If you got innie parts your a dudette.
If you got both innie-outie parts your a hermette.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 26, 2015)

I'm probably gonna get hate for saying this, but I think the progressives are taking transexualism way too far. If sex is fluid and can be changed on a whim, then what else can? I might declare that I don't wanna be human, I want to be a Tatooinian.

If you are born a male, and you have reassignment surgery to become female, then you are just a disfigured male. Nothing can make you female. Biologically our brains are very different from the very beginning and nothing can change that. Physically, our bodies are even different despite all that we can modify medically. Its not a nice thing to say, but you can't have it your way. You are lying if you say "I am a man" and you are actually a female.

I'm working on a Master's in Counseling to become an LPC, and although I obviously won't say the above in a clinical setting, there are people like myself in the Psychological community who quietly disagree with the mainstream. Transgender persons used to be diagnosed as mentally ill in the DSM, but that was changed for political reasons. The DSM and the APA being a joke these days is another topic entirely.

There are people who have been through counseling, spiritual therapy, and meditation and have overcome their gender identity crisis. We are only pretending its not curable. But even if it wasn't curable, that doesn't make it any less of a disorder. According to the DSM, basically you are mentally ill if you have a thought/belief pattern that causes disruption to your ability to function in society. Although I don't think the DSM is worth much, if you want to believe mainstream Psychology, I think transgenders can certainly fall under that huge vague notion. 

I don't hate anybody. I have a transgender friend. We went to high school together and I found out later on that he decided to become a woman and claims he always felt that way even back in high school. I sympathize with him and don't think he's trying to hurt anybody. If someone wants to have reassignment surgery, I don't think it should be illegal. I don't think they should be discriminated against. And I wouldn't challenge their carefully constructed view of the world to their face, unless they opened the discussion. 

I just am frustrated at the way our society (especially the psychological community) places political correctness over truth, and with inconsistency and bias.


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## Trickie (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> There are people who have been through counseling, spiritual therapy, and meditation and have overcome their gender identity crisis.



Exactly what kind of counseling and therapy are we talking about that can cure gender identity dysphoria? Have they done studies and followed up with the patients who have tried it? I'm especially interested in hearing about what the "spiritual therapy" part is all about.


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## Marvin (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> If you are born a male, and you have reassignment surgery to become female, then you are just a disfigured male. Nothing can make you female. Biologically our brains are very different from the very beginning and nothing can change that. Physically, our bodies are even different despite all that we can modify medically. Its not a nice thing to say, but you can't have it your way. You are lying if you say "I am a man" and you are actually a female.


The problem you're having is that you're conflating being male, which is a biological term, with being a man, which is a term with social implications.

You're correct in saying that a person cannot change their biological sex. However, there's very little biology in gender and its social implications.


IronJustice said:


> According to the DSM, basically you are mentally ill if you have a thought/belief pattern that causes disruption to your ability to function in society. Although I don't think the DSM is worth much, if you want to believe mainstream Psychology, I think transgenders can certainly fall under that huge vague notion.


Lots of transgenders function in society.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 26, 2015)

Marvin said:


> The problem you're having is that you're conflating being male, which is a biological term, with being a man, which is a term with social implications.
> 
> You're correct in saying that a person cannot change their biological sex. However, there's very little biology in gender and its social implications.
> 
> Lots of transgenders function in society.



Obviously there is a lot of diversity among transgenders, some more healthy than others. That's part of the problem with Psychology and the DSM, is that its completely subjective. Does it hinder their ability to function? That's a matter of opinion. You'll get lots of different answers from experts analyzing the same individual. But my point is that modern psychologists will ALWAYS say it does not hinder it due to politics. Yet they are very quick to label people as ADHD and Bi-Polar and say they need medication... The same 'expert' who says one teenager needs counseling and meds because they don't pay attention in class sometimes would say Chris and ADF are perfectly fine with their half-assed transgender life that contributes to them being outcasts.

As far as biological sex is concerned, I am not conflating it with the social status of gender. I think the progressives are, when they decide that someone can legally change their sex on their driver's license etc. Many transgenders wouldn't be so defensive about being called their original pronoun if they understood the distinction.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 26, 2015)

Trickie said:


> Exactly what kind of counseling and therapy are we talking about that can cure gender identity dysphoria? Have they done studies and followed up with the patients who have tried it? I'm especially interested in hearing about what the "spiritual therapy" part is all about.



I wish I had more research studies to show you about treating gender dysphoria, but its very rare these days and will be scrutinized in every possible way. Spiritually Focused Therapy is the style of therapy I'm most interested in practicing. As long as the client is willing, we can discuss spirituality openly and use it's healing power. Its been shown to be extremely powerful at getting one to stop living for themselves, or to feel a renewed sense of purpose in life through a relationship with God. 

As far as Psychology, Faith, and overcoming gender identity issues, here's a couple articles:

http://www.frc.org/op-eds/understanding-the-definitions-of-the-new-sexual-tolerance

http://www.christianpost.com/news/t...-gender-after-relationship-with-christ-66932/


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## AnOminous (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> I wish I had more research studies to show you about treating gender dysphoria, but its very rare these days and will be scrutinized in every possible way. Spiritually Focused Therapy is the style of therapy I'm most interested in practicing. As long as the client is willing, we can discuss spirituality openly and use it's healing power. Its been shown to be extremely powerful at getting one to stop living for themselves, or to feel a renewed sense of purpose in life through a relationship with God.



So basically BibleCube.


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## Marvin (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Obviously there is a lot of diversity among transgenders, some more healthy than others. That's part of the problem with Psychology and the DSM, is that its completely subjective. Does it hinder their ability to function? That's a matter of opinion. You'll get lots of different answers from experts analyzing the same individual. But my point is that modern psychologists will ALWAYS say it does not hinder it due to politics. Yet they are very quick to label people as ADHD and Bi-Polar and say they need medication... The same 'expert' who says one teenager needs counseling and meds because they don't pay attention in class sometimes would say Chris and ADF are perfectly fine with their half-assed transgender life that contributes to them being outcasts.


Meh. Chris isn't an outcast because of the tomgirl bullshit. Chris is an outcast because he's got a shitty personality. Actually, I'd say the tomgirl bullshit is helping him socialize a lot more than he would if he was still classic Chris. Chris is getting away from Barb and talking to non-Barb people.

Good for him, I say.

I have no comment on psychology in general.


IronJustice said:


> As far as biological sex is concerned, I am not conflating it with the social status of gender. I think the progressives are, when they decide that someone can legally change their sex on their driver's license etc. Many transgenders wouldn't be so defensive about being called their original pronoun if they understood the distinction.


I disagree, you said:


IronJustice said:


> You are lying if you say "I am a man" and you are actually a female.


If you mistyped and meant to stick to biological terms, then nevermind.

Regardless, in almost everything we need to do in our daily lives, gender is what matters. Not biological sex. I see no practical reason for the government to require you to list your biological sex over your gender.

If you function as a certain gender in your day-to-day life, then that's what should be listed on your license because that's what you get identified as in public. Just like you might be 5'7" and have brown hair, if you act and operate as a man in public, then that's what should be listed.


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## Trickie (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> I wish I had more research studies to show you about treating gender dysphoria, but its very rare these days and will be scrutinized in every possible way.



I should hope they would be. We rely on the peer review process to help weed out mistakes and junk science so we don't have to find out they're bullshit later.



IronJustice said:


> Spiritually Focused Therapy is the style of therapy I'm most interested in practicing. As long as the client is willing, we can discuss spirituality openly and use it's healing power. Its been shown to be extremely powerful at getting one to stop living for themselves, or to feel a renewed sense of purpose in life through a relationship with God.
> 
> As far as Psychology, Faith, and overcoming gender identity issues, here's a couple articles:
> 
> ...



The first one just seems to be a lexicon of LGBT terms written from FRC's point of view, not sure what I was supposed to be looking at there, but the second one at least was a lot more interesting. Mr. Hayer seems to have had a very unique experience with his gender identity issues. From what I know it normally starts from within, with the person themselves feeling that they're the wrong body, not just directly from abuse.

They're completely misreading the 2011 Swedish study, though. If they had read it, they'd know that they were comparing the people in the study to the general population, and not to trans people who have not had surgery or have not had transition. This doesn't show that transition is more harmful than not transitioning at all, it simply shows that transitioning is not a panacea.



> Even though surgery and hormonal therapy alleviates gender dysphoria, it is apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity and mortality found among transsexual persons. Improved care for the transsexual group after the sex reassignment should therefore be considered.



It also notes that the rates were higher for those who transitioned before 1989, which may suggest that time is a factor here (the surgical techniques might be getting better, society becoming more accepting, possibly both). Here's the study by the way, in case you want to read it. The Christian Post decided not to link it in their article for some reason.

Here's one that _does_ look at how transition improves the mental health and quality of life of trans people, though. And if that's not enough, someone was kind enough to list a whole bunch of them. (About 80, if I'm guesstimating correctly)

See, what's frustrating to me is that no matter how many times we basically prove that being trans is not a choice or a phase or a delusion, and that hormones and surgery do the job that they're supposed to do, we still deal with people who look at the acceptance of transsexuality as the PC police strong-arming otherwise rational medical professionals into doing the bidding of a group of people who make up a fraction of a percent of the population. This isn't a science fiction novel. We don't have mind control powers.



Marvin said:


> Regardless, in almost everything we need to do in our daily lives, gender is what matters. Not biological sex. I see no practical reason for the government to require you to list your biological sex over your gender.



Exactly this. When a trans woman says that they're a woman, more often than not they mean socially, not biologically. Female is typically the word people use when they mean sex. Frankly, unless you're my doctor or my significant other, someone's biological gender shouldn't be any of your concern. If you feel like you absolutely *need* to point that out when the person's biology isn't relevant to the conversation, you've got a problem.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 26, 2015)

Trickie said:


> I should hope they would be. We rely on the peer review process to help weed out mistakes and junk science so we don't have to find out they're bullshit later.


I wasn't criticizing the peer review process inherently. I was saying that it is biased and suppresses certain viewpoints for political reasons.



Trickie said:


> See, what's frustrating to me is that no matter how many times we basically prove that being trans is not a choice or a phase or a delusion, and that hormones and surgery do the job that they're supposed to do, we still deal with people who look at the acceptance of transsexuality as the PC police strong-arming otherwise rational medical professionals into doing the bidding of a group of people who make up a fraction of a percent of the population. This isn't a science fiction novel. We don't have mind control powers.



There are examples of individuals who overcome their gender identity crisis without transitioning, I provided one of them. And don't put too much stock into hormones. Honestly we are pretty far from understanding exactly how the brain works. Anti-depressants are basically placebos. ACH blocking, and adding additional ACH seem to have about the same effect on depression. They could give someone sugar pills and say it cures schizophrenia and I wouldn't bee too surprised.

BTW this isn't a view that is convenient for me. It would be easier to just drink the kool-aid and think all the pandering politicians at APA are right about everything. 



Trickie said:


> Exactly this. When a trans woman says that they're a woman, more often than not they mean socially, not biologically. Female is typically the word people use when they mean sex. Frankly, unless you're my doctor or my significant other, someone's biological gender shouldn't be any of your concern. If you feel like you absolutely *need* to point that out when the person's biology isn't relevant to the conversation, you've got a problem.



Thats probably true. Like I said, I don't challenge transsexuals to their face because I see no need to cause them harm if they are happy. But having a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality, is not only irrational but antirational. I'm not exactly thrilled with it and nobody else seems to see that we don't have to do this. Like South Park said, tolerance is not acceptance. I'll tolerate just about anyone, but society expects acceptance.


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## Silver (Jun 26, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Anti-depressants are basically placebos.



This does not mesh with my experience in the slightest. Yes yes "well if it's a placebo you won't know" and all that but my body has literally no reason to feel the effects of forgetting my pills for a few days - effects which I've only ever felt _in my life_ in the context of forgetting my meds - unless they actually work


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 27, 2015)

Altissimo said:


> This does not mesh with my experience in the slightest. Yes yes "well if it's a placebo you won't know" and all that but my body has literally no reason to feel the effects of forgetting my pills for a few days - effects which I've only ever felt _in my life_ in the context of forgetting my meds - unless they actually work



The only thing I'll say about antidepressants is that the active ingredient is usually just a Serotonin Inhibitor, which has no reason to affect depression. Some antidepressants do the opposite effect, increasing one's absorption of Serotonin... with the same results. Studies show that antidepressants consistently fail to outperform placebos. Unlike the other topic, there are tons of videos and articles about this topic. Since it's illegal to sell sugar pills as a prescription, basically antidepressants have an active ingredient for the fun of it.

Behold the power of suggestion! Your mind can heal itself with some encouragement. 

I'll include a disclaimer that this view was given to me by a colleague of mine who knows a lot more about it than I, I basically know what he told me one night. Its possible that with all the different kinds of antidepressants, some are more 'real' than others. But I don't think its beyond the mystifying ability of the placebo effect to be the chief mechanic behind virtually all of them.


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## Trickie (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> There are examples of individuals who overcome their gender identity crisis without transitioning, I provided one of them.



Well, of course there are people like that, but that'll only ever be evidence that it's _possible_, not that it's the better alternative, or that it's right for everyone.



IronJustice said:


> And don't put too much stock into hormones. Honestly we are pretty far from understanding exactly how the brain works. Anti-depressants are basically placebos. ACH blocking, and adding additional ACH seem to have about the same effect on depression. They could give someone sugar pills and say it cures schizophrenia and I wouldn't bee too surprised.



I don't think it's the effects of the hormone replacement therapy acting on the brain that helps (assuming that's what you're getting at, because otherwise what you said makes no sense), it's the effect on the rest of the body. I mean, you're right, there's a lot we don't know about how the brain works, but a chemical effect on the brain is not what HRT is aiming for.



IronJustice said:


> BTW this isn't a view that is convenient for me. It would be easier to just drink the kool-aid and think all the pandering politicians at APA are right about everything.



I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and assume that, considering your stated desire to specialize in spiritual therapy, that you're a Christian. Unless you belong to one of the very few churches that accepts transsexuality with open arms, your view that gender dysphoria needs to be treated with therapy and not hormones and surgery is probably very convenient.



IronJustice said:


> Thats probably true. Like I said, I don't challenge transsexuals to their face because I see no need to cause them harm if they are happy. But having a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality, is not only irrational but antirational.



What unreality, though? Most transsexuals (the sane ones anyway) don't dispute their biological sex, they only contend that who they are intuitively, inside their brain— the person they see when they close their eyes— is more important in determining who they are than their genitals or their chromosomes. Here's the thing: when it comes right down to it, most of our body is replaceable. Limbs can be replaced with prosthetics, hearts and other organs can be transplanted (and soon even grown), but you can't replace the brain. (I mean, unless we develop the technology to download ourselves onto computers or into new brains or whatever, but the point remains that the brain is the center of the self and the rest of us is merely an extension.) 

This is why I'll often say "I'm not my genitals". When you speak to me, you don't look down to my lap and address my crotch, you look up to my face where my eyes and ears can send the messages you're giving me to my brain because that is where I am, where my sense of self lives, and any identity outside of that is secondary, at best. _How is this irrational?_


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## PantsOfDesire (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> The only thing I'll say about antidepressants is that the active ingredient is usually just a Serotonin Inhibitor, which has no reason to affect depression. Some antidepressants do the opposite effect, increasing one's absorption of Serotonin... with the same results. Studies show that antidepressants consistently fail to outperform placebos. Unlike the other topic, there are tons of videos and articles about this topic. Since it's illegal to sell sugar pills as a prescription, basically antidepressants have an active ingredient for the fun of it.
> 
> Behold the power of suggestion! Your mind can heal itself with some encouragement.
> 
> I'll include a disclaimer that this view was given to me by a colleague of mine who knows a lot more about it than I, I basically know what he told me one night. Its possible that with all the different kinds of antidepressants, some are more 'real' than others. But I don't think its beyond the mystifying ability of the placebo effect to be the chief mechanic behind virtually all of them.



Actually studies have more nuanced results. Anti-depressants are not a silver bullet. Studies actually show mixed results, varying by condition treated (some disorders respond better than others), how they're combined with other anti-depressants, and the therapy given. Some studies show better than placebo results, and others show nothing clinically significant. It's misleading to claim that anti-depressants contain an active ingredient for the lulz. Typically anti-depressants perform worst when used in cases of mild depression, and anyway these are situations best addressed through therapy. To complain of their ineffectiveness in such cases is akin to arguing that antibiotics are ineffective, failing to note that you tested them on the common cold. i.e. repeated studies are suggesting appropriate use of these drugs, and we should not simply throw them at every mental condition under the sun any more than we'd prescribe antibiotics for a sniffle. Anti-depressants can, when used effectively, provide a stability that allows exploration of the causes of the condition. I'd agree though that there is subjectivity in diagnosis, as we see in general medicine, but the solution is not to dismiss the field and whip-out a Bible.

Why are you studying a science that has no scientific validity? You could just as well become a counsellor at a church without requiring a background in psychology. And by "spiritual therapy", are you suggesting something akin to reparative therapy? I've no objection to a therapist using a person's worldview during therapy, but to have those letters after your name and push this approach is reckless. People can find strength in their beliefs, so it's fine where the patient wants to use the language of their religion in exploring their condition. The therapist should not be using it as a tool to help the patient, and such therapy has a track record similar to doctors who prescribe homeopathic remedies: they do okay with conditions that would anyway resolve themselves and not so good on serious conditions.

The Christian Post article speaks of one man and says nothing about the clinical effectiveness of using Jesus. The Family Research Council article merely says that Christians should resist attempts by people to switch genders, including another anecdotal tale. Scientifically, and I assume that's important to you given by how you lament the lack of it in psychology, the articles can be summed up as thus: 

Ya’ll need Jesus.


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## Johnny Bravo (Jun 27, 2015)

Pretty sure actual medication has a higher success rate than Bibles.


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## DuskEngine (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Anti-depressants are basically placebos. ACH blocking, and adding additional ACH seem to have about the same effect on depression. They could give someone sugar pills and say it cures schizophrenia and I wouldn't bee too surprised.



You are indeed correct that there's a decent amount of research that questions the effectiveness of antidepressants. Do you have any studies that establish the effectiveness of religious therapy?


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 27, 2015)

PantsOfDesire said:


> Actually studies have more nuanced results. Anti-depressants are not a silver bullet. Studies actually show mixed results, varying by condition treated (some disorders respond better than others), how they're combined with other anti-depressants, and the therapy given. Some studies show better than placebo results, and others show nothing clinically significant. It's misleading to claim that anti-depressants contain an active ingredient for the lulz. Typically anti-depressants perform worst when used in cases of mild depression, and anyway these are situations best addressed through therapy. To complain of their ineffectiveness in such cases is akin to arguing that antibiotics are ineffective, failing to note that you tested them on the common cold. i.e. repeated studies are suggesting appropriate use of these drugs, and we should not simply throw them at every mental condition under the sun any more than we'd prescribe antibiotics for a sniffle. Anti-depressants can, when used effectively, provide a stability that allows exploration of the causes of the condition. I'd agree though that there is subjectivity in diagnosis, as we see in general medicine, but the solution is not to dismiss the field and whip-out a Bible.
> 
> Why are you studying a science that has no scientific validity? You could just as well become a counsellor at a church without requiring a background in psychology. And by "spiritual therapy", are you suggesting something akin to reparative therapy? I've no objection to a therapist using a person's worldview during therapy, but to have those letters after your name and push this approach is reckless. People can find strength in their beliefs, so it's fine where the patient wants to use the language of their religion in exploring their condition. The therapist should not be using it as a tool to help the patient, and such therapy has a track record similar to doctors who prescribe homeopathic remedies: they do okay with conditions that would anyway resolve themselves and not so good on serious conditions.
> 
> ...



I never said I'd push the approach. The patient has to be willing. If they said they were an atheist, I would not bring up spiritually focused therapy.

One can't just as well become a counselor for a church. It's nearly impossible for a counselor to find work in this over-saturated market. Without a license its suicide to expect a well paying job in the field. I plan to get my license and provide counseling to whoever will hire me, and give counseling however they want me to.

Therapists in modern times rarely get to express their real views and provide therapy the way they believe it really should be.

Vast majority of counseling is paid for either by medicare/medicaid or insurance companies. They have strict rules on what the therapist is allowed to do in order to get paid, and it has less to do with whats best for the patient and more to do with what is cost-effective. They want to bring their clients out of their slump as fast as possible. "Brief Therapy" is in right now, which is basically teaching stress-management techniques and focusing on reducing the symptoms rather than treating the prognosis. It usually includes about 10 sessions, plus or minus a few. This is incredibly limited. If a therapist identifies themselves as Jungian, Rogerian, Adlerian, Freudian, Gestalt, or from any other school of thought besides "Brief" then its nearly impossible to find consistent use by insurance companies. One possible exception is Cognitive therapy, which is barely tolerated by some insurance companies.

Long story short, you guys don't have to worry. Everything I've said about transsexuals will likely never be practiced in actual therapy by me or anyone else. At least not by any therapist who will remain gainfully employed afterwards.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 27, 2015)

CuriousBystander said:


> Pretty sure actual medication has a higher success rate than Bibles.



Medicine is generally a band-aid. We like it in this society because it is fast and cheap compared to therapy. This is what the insurance companies that usually foot the bill for treatment of mental illnesses care about. If you want actual healing and resolution, therapy is the way to go. And "Bibles" can be very effective.

If one is doing therapy in a prison, and a suicidal prisoner says "I get raped constantly, I am never getting released, I see no reason to continue my life." Good luck finding a better solution than telling him to pray about it and find purpose in life with a relationship with God. Because anything earthly is gone for him.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 27, 2015)

DawnMachine said:


> You are indeed correct that there's a decent amount of research that questions the effectiveness of antidepressants. Do you have any studies that establish the effectiveness of religious therapy?



Thank you.

Here's one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2943841/

I've found quite a bit dealing with drug addict rehab, but unfortunately the details of most psychological research online require either a membership to certain sites or to pay a fee. This was one of the few free ones I was able to find online. 

In the secular climate of psychology, I was very surprised at how positive Spiritually Focused Therapy is viewed by the psychological community. For this to be true, it must have been proven effective.


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## Johnny Bravo (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Medicine is generally a band-aid. We like it in this society because it is fast and cheap compared to therapy. Mainly I mean the insurance companies and the state that usually foot the bill for treatment of mental illnesses. If you want actual healing and resolution, therapy is the way to go. And "Bibles" can be very effective.
> 
> If one is doing therapy in a prison, and a suicidal prisoner says "I get raped constantly, I am never getting released, I see no reason to continue my life." Good luck finding a better solution than telling him to pray about it and find purpose in life with a relationship with God. Because anything earthly is gone for him.



Neither is therapy the answer to everything. Besides, spiritual therapy simply will not be effective if the person in therapy doesn't share your particular beliefs. In some cases it does more harm than good. I agree that seeing a therapist is an important part of any mental health treatment.

Anyway, I think most people here are skeptical that therapy alone - especially spiritual therapy - is an effective treatment for GID.


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## Space_Dandy (Jun 27, 2015)

CuriousBystander said:


> Neither is therapy the answer to everything. Besides, spiritual therapy simply will not be effective if the person in therapy doesn't share your particular beliefs. In some cases it does more harm than good. I agree that seeing a therapist is an important part of any mental health treatment.
> 
> Anyway, I think most people here are skeptical that therapy alone - especially spiritual therapy - is an effective treatment for GID.



As I said a few posts ago, I wouldn't push anything. The client has to be willing. If they said they were an atheist, I wouldn't bring up spiritually focused therapy. 

GID is complicated and I think there are multiple causes for it. I think for some it certainly could be treated that way, and some former GID people claim that to be the case. Nobody in the psychological community will entertain it though because everyone is too afraid of offending the LGBT community.


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## Johnny Bravo (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> As I said a few posts ago, I wouldn't push anything. The client has to be willing. If they said they were an atheist, I wouldn't bring up spiritually focused therapy.
> 
> GID is complicated and I think there are multiple causes for it. I think for some it certainly could be treated that way, and some former GID people claim that to be the case. Nobody in the psychological community will entertain it though because everyone is too afraid of offending the LGBT community.



I think it's less about offending people and more about preventing abuse. A therapist is already in a position of power over their client, which makes any therapy risky, because the person helping them also has the power to control and harm them if they so desire. Adding religious ideology into that is a bad idea. This is especially true when it comes to the LGBT community. LGBTs have a long history of being abused, even tortured, for religious reasons by people who believed they were helping.


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## PantsOfDesire (Jun 27, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Medicine is generally a band-aid. We like it in this society because it is fast and cheap compared to therapy. Mainly I mean the insurance companies and the state that usually foot the bill for treatment of mental illnesses. If you want actual healing and resolution, therapy is the way to go. And "Bibles" can be very effective.
> 
> If one is doing therapy in a prison, and a suicidal prisoner says "I get raped constantly, I am never getting released, I see no reason to continue my life." Good luck finding a better solution than telling him to pray about it and find purpose in life with a relationship with God. Because anything earthly is gone for him.



Or you can look at the root causes.

Why is he getting constantly raped? Is there something that can be addressed with the prison system or the Justice Department? That they are routinely raped places them in a very specific demographic.
What would he like to be doing and what can he do under the circumstances to have a more fulfilling life? Is there something he could do that'd restore some sense of purpose, and I don't mean just talking to the ceiling and waiting for things to get better.
Is everything earthly gone for him? It's a bad situation, no doubt, but a leap to write-off his material existence in favour of looking to the supernatural for a solution. Certainty in worldview and allowing someone to reinforce that worldview does generally aid happiness and mental stability. That works for believers and non-believers. Notice I cite certainty as the key point here. A vague belief isn't going to help much. Given that much of the social benefit of religion, and perpetuation, comes from community, then how does that help this guy? Will he, in between rapes, start a little Bible group? Maybe he can reach out to an external group. I'd certainly not object to a patient using their worldview as part of the process, but what you describe seems like a chaplain masquerading as an accredited therapist.
Everything you say about how the system works, such as seeking quick fixes and only addressing symptoms, could just as well be used in defence of homeopathy. Yes, medicine is done on a budget. Insurance companies no more want to pay for long-term treatment than your car insurer wants to pay-out when you have a crash. What matters is that practitioners exercise ethics, and I don't think someone who plainly says they'll do it as they're told by their employer is in a position to lecture on the subject. And the number of sessions is dependant on the condition and progress of the patient. We don't continue antibiotics when either the risk of infection is gone or where it cannot improve the situation. Sure, sometimes it's done badly. I've seen it done the other way where therapy becomes indefinite for no good reason because the patient is not being treated to be able to manage their situation; they are instead dependant on the therapist. That the system is imperfect seems poor justification for getting accredited simply so you can then disregard mainstream psychology and medical ethics.

Spiritual therapy and religious counselling have a piss-poor record for treating gender dysphoria and homosexuality, and that's what this conversation is about. Trying to counsel someone within the framework of Christianity is immediate bringing to the table something that likely condemns the person for how they feel. In short, how do you heal someone by first invalidating their feelings?


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## Silver (Jun 27, 2015)

if I were that prisoner being raped constantly with nothing left, I daresay there would indeed be better solutions than God because I am, in fact, an atheist. _This is why I use antidepressants at all and not spiritual therapy, because the latter would be much, much worse for me than even placebo antidepressants._


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## CatParty (Sep 1, 2015)

@Ruin and @LikeicareKF should take their discussion here


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## Ruin (Sep 1, 2015)

cat said:


> @Ruin and @LikeicareKF should take their discussion here



Yea I'm sure you never posted stupid shit after drinking heavily. Oh and just so this post doesn't get deleted for being off topic. Trannies are terrible and literally Satan or something.


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## kuniqs (Sep 1, 2015)

1) about restrooms - what if a 200lb bulldyke rapes some girl in restroom? should we force her to use the men's room?
2) if technology advances to the point where we can change genetics of a person willing to be of different gender, I think it would be cheaper to just mess with that person's head so he/she doesn not want to be different anymore.
3) Imagine a society where men/women have different laws applying to them. An big executive changes his gender to not pay a tax, for example.


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## TM Ambrose (Sep 1, 2015)

IronJustice said:


> Thank you.
> 
> Here's one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2943841/
> 
> ...


"
Some limitations in the current study should be noted. The most serious limitation is that participants were self-selected; the 26 (out of 79 eligible) clinic patients who agreed to attend a focus group may have been the ones most likely to support incorporating spirituality into drug treatment. "
Not double blind, no control group. Most of treatment group with previous experience in 12-step programs, results based of questioneer. Please read results section and point out possible confounding factors next time. It also mentions culture as a confounding factor, that most people were already spirtual in some sense and the fact that those that weren't spiritual weren't particularly atheist.

Part of using studies in an argument is being aware of what the actual study says. I know a few addiction counselors who actually don't like spiritual therapy because of several reasons:
A) it teaches helplessness not empowerment
B) because of the structure of most plans if you fail to stay sober you never were doing the program in the first place, which means the results of their program in statistics can easily be fucked with.
C) it's trading one addiction for another (albeit less harmful) addiction.


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## LikeicareKF (Sep 1, 2015)

cat said:


> @Ruin and @LikeicareKF should take their discussion here


Nah we're cool now


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## Ruin (Sep 1, 2015)

LikeicareKF said:


> Nah we're cool now



Getting wasted and arguing with ED posters. 10/10 would do again.


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## LikeicareKF (Sep 1, 2015)

Ruin said:


> Getting wasted and arguing with ED posters. 10/10 would do again.


Honestly my position at ED doesn't mean anything when im here. I'm just another KF member


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## KatsuKitty (Sep 3, 2015)

kuniqs said:


> 1) about restrooms - what if a 200lb bulldyke rapes some girl in restroom? should we force her to use the men's room?



This is a point everyone seems to overlook when talking about trans people in the bathroom. Bulldykes have been "invading" where your daughter goes to the bathroom for years. Are they just scared of penis? Rape and sexual assault involves a whole lot more than a penis. Maybe we should start asking the social question of why we're raising straight men to invade a woman's space and body all the time instead of building society around dodging that tough question.



> 2) if technology advances to the point where we can change genetics of a person willing to be of different gender, I think it would be cheaper to just mess with that person's head so he/she doesn not want to be different anymore.



There's a bit of an ethical issue here similar to lobotmisation. Although not crippling, that would certainly change who you actually are. This isn't limited to the mental condition of being trans though.



> 3) Imagine a society where men/women have different laws applying to them. An big executive changes his gender to not pay a tax, for example.



It doesn't work like that. Any executive with more money than brains who is dumb enough to do that would soon find themselves grappling with suicidal ideation and dysphoria just like pre-treatment transgenders. Despite the idea Tumblr is trying to push, transitioning is not an elective procedure.


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