Yeah sorry I talk a lot. And I agree, I don't think this thread is really going anywhere lolcow related. I actually really appreciate the fact that most people have been having some meaningful discussion, I really don't expect people to agree with how I feel but it's really interesting to hear what those completely out of the loop have to say.
I mean, I personally understand completely why some people are completely taken aback by it, I'm completely aware of why that is. lol
Also sorry for any cheese last night; I was really pushing my insomnia limits.
Reading through your posts, I find the argument of the normalization of transgender issues being hypocritical given the transgender community's view of BIID most interesting. I don't agree with the argument, as I think removing a limb or a sense is far more drastic than modifying sexual characteristics and gender presentation, but I think it does highlight something that bothers me with SJWs in general: they take no pride in being fucking weirdos, and instead demand that the entire world stop and accept them as normal.
I am so wordy, lol but I think ultimately what I bolded here was what I was trying to get at.
I think what I'm trying to say is that the transgender community is trying to normalize itself. Which is understandable from an empathetic point of view but ultimately they still have to admit they have a disorder - and the reason why that is, is because in more serious cases they receive treatment for it.
BIID and GID aren't the same thing but they are very similar - a "dysphoria" that attacks a part of the body. The problem with BIID is that its form of dysphoria would leave the person with a functional disadvantage. While like I pointed out the situation with blindness is a hugely cultural one since technology is picking up a lot of the slack, there's STILL something you have to let go of. Transgender people don't really experience that, they do lose some things such as fertility and the whole process is extremely stressful, emotional and difficult; however at the end of the day when they transition they don't really have to deal with anything after the fact.
To someone such as myself we don't really view that disadvantage as, well, as bad as the feelings that we have. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous but if you had a grinding feeling that there was something wrong with you all the time sometimes it would really break you down. I guess the best way to put it is that it's like having a third arm. If you woke up with that on your back, most people would probably try to get rid of it, despite any benefits it may bring to their lives; BIID patients feel similarly except with a normal part of their bodies.
In a way I'm trying to see if one can see BIID without the cultural aspect of it, which is pretty hard - BIID will always have ethical struggles associated with it (I firmly believe that "transitioning" should only be a last resort after all other therapies have failed, since some of these people
die when they finally can't take it anymore and do it themselves) and that behaviour is just too weird. I'm alright with my issues not really being culturally acceptable but that does prove to be a difficult barrier for communication.
Like, don't get me wrong. BIID is definitely weirder to have than GID. It's just that they are both identity disorders that have quite a few similarities in its presentation. Both start early, progressively get worse through life, can be crippling, and are somewhat alleviated by "pretending" to be the desired sex or body type. In a good portion of BIID patients who do eventually "transition", the issue is "resolved" in a similar way that a person with GID reaches their own desired physical form. So there are definitely possible similarities which should be investigated, and research in this area should be encouraged to understand how our "physical" identity develops. What makes BIID weirder is the part of the body that it goes after.
I guess that part sticks with me. I understand more transgender people just want to be seen as normal and prefer not to tell everybody about their condition, but shit, if you're going around announcing to the world that you're such-and-such gender, wouldn't embracing the fact that you're a big weirdo and fuck everybody else be easier than screaming at everybody to accept you and treat you like you're the most ordinary thing in the world? Especially when you actually just want to feel persecuted?
Exactly. I don't get it.
In regards to "normal", that in of itself is fair enough. I mean I basically want to be viewed that way, but I mean, ultimately neither of us are realistically normal, it's that they have the advantage that their disorder is something they can get out of relatively unscathed. I think autistic people go through the same sort of deal, mildly autistic people get frustrated that they're not "normal" but they really aren't normal and there's not anything they can really do about it.
My point is essentially that in that attempt to appear normal, radical sects of transgender activism are trying to illegitimize the condition as a disorder, and I do really think if it had enough influence to change the name in the DSM over something scientifically meaningless, they also have enough power to try to encourage researchers through activist pieces to avoid the subject itself. Not to mention that it really does have a hard time selling itself to researchers. This is a major problem since most people with BIID are advocating for at least a diagnosis. The only people who are begging for surgery are those who are extremely advanced or have it very severe, but after talking to those people I can tell you that their struggle is very real. It's like they have my worst but all the time. I really don't know the best way to help them. But yeah.
Ultimately you shouldn't have to cannibalize other disorders in order to support your own and that's where transgender activism crossed the line.
I honestly support transgender people 100% and I hope they have at least some access to their treatments. I think it's iffy to have it for free because we don't live in a world where that's possible with other, arguably more impacting disorders (such as schizophrenia) but having it covered by insurance? Yeah, why not? I mean that's what helps them. *shrug*
I think now that independent research has emerged that shows a lot of these complaints to be unjustified and BIID being a legitimate subject for research things will start to get better. There's actually some research that suggests a neurological source in amp wannabes, that's fucking incredible for us because that means that we might actually understand what causes us to be that way and may be able to prevent cases in the future. I don't know if it's possible for adults such as myself to have our identities "purged" of this problem but the idea of being able to identify it early and try to curb its progression through nurture is freaking amazing.
The article that you linked, however, did raise some salient points, in particular to BIID sufferers not having a complete grasp on what they'd be signing up for, and gender dysphoria being a lot more complex than wanting to be rid of a body part: gender isn't just physical sex, but also social perception and presentation.
That's honestly the only part of the article that isn't complete nonsense, and honestly he does really bring up legitimate points. The same guy also claims that cutters cut to "feel complete" and spent a whole paragraph talking about how special they were because their hormones were so unique during pregnancy though, and the whole time the attitude of the article is extremely dehumanizing. He also uses a lot of the same arguments that people use against transgender people which I just find hilarious (people don't think it's normal/people think you're mutilating yourself), and at one point he even argues we should just accept status quo as opposed to accepting that BIID patients exist. The article IS bad... but yeah, that is an important point, but I have one objection to it.
What about people who "pretend" most of their lives? Not everyone with BIID does this but in some cases the issue becomes so severe that mentally the person HAS to rely on wheelchair or whatever in order to get by. There really are people who are so screwed up with this disorder that they use a wheelchair or whatever almost all the time (like, I'm talking like 97% of the time). These people would be experiencing the consequences of being in a wheelchair regardless.
I mean back a while ago I injured myself really badly and couldn't walk without crutches for 6 weeks, and in those 6 weeks I had to deal with the struggle of walking with crutches every day, such as how it gets painful on your armpits and that it's hard on my back. I wasn't permanently needing crutches, but I still had to suffer the consequences of using them in that period. It's kind of a similar deal here.
I think it's easy to paint BIID patients with the same brush from the outside when in reality the condition is a slow and progressive disorder, with two "generations" of people, some more in their 50's while the other is more around their late 20's. These two age groups present quite differently and that's because the older folks are more advanced in the condition. I'm on the earlier side of my life so I'm simply not going to have it as bad as someone who is 25-30 years older than me, well for the most part. I hear a lot of people saying that we should just DO IT and that "unless you know how to live 100% as a disabled person you're just fake" or whatever but the truth is that I don't have to live like that 100% of the time in order to manage my condition, and I realistically can't, because I'm juggling too many things in my life right now. I would have to somehow find a way to be blind so that I could feel normal and I'd have to be sighted since I have to drive to work and stuff like that. And I do kind of feel shitty for putting it that way, but it's true. Besides the fact that I don't have the skills yet. I want to learn and it will help me with my career goals. But as I get older it will probably get worse and I probably will spend more time later in my life living "blind". I promised myself I wouldn't do anything unless I was living that way anyways.
In regards to transgender people and presentation, there is definitely a social element to disability, but it's almost always negative from the perspective of others. People do act differently to disabled people than they do to able bodied people, and being perceived as disabled is part of the social element to a lot of BIID patients' self perception, including myself. This is just another added wrinkle to the whole mess. I struggled a lot because I tried to "dissociate" this blind perception of myself as a way to try to bury the disorder but it ended up causing me a ton of problems, to the point where I could barely work. I kind of had to admit I was a freak in order to continue functioning. But yeah, in terms of social perception... when I would walk with my blind friend down the road and he told me to hold his cane since he wanted to walk freely without it - I honestly felt really kind of nice that people thought I was the blind one and not him, we both actually felt good about it lol.
EDIT: I was looking through the other thread and I noticed a post saying that in Germany there is a fairly large community of individuals who have this disorder. This is true and most of the research is taking place there. I don't speak fluent German so I don't know much about the community but those who I have met seem legitimate. Then again I usually only interact with other blind BIID patients so I don't know a ton about amps/para wannabes. I wouldn't say that they're doing it for welfare purposes (those that I have talked to share my opinion that we would try to take care of everything that we can), and I do know some that are on welfare but not for a fake disability, but rather legitimate chronic illnesses. I mean I'm sure there are those who just are doing it for the money but you can usually tell them apart based on how they talk about it.
I have heard of some cases where some BIID patients are serious fucking creeps though. A lot of amp wannabes also are sexually aroused by the idea of being disabled and this leads to a lot of creepy shit going on. I mean I feel bad for them because BIID sucks and sometimes it gets to be pretty hard to deal with but they're also creepy as fuck. I heard a story of a female amp wannabe who kept getting creeped on by another amp wannabe at a meetup, openly talking about how he wants her feet and creepy shit like that... this stuff isn't particularly uncommon. It sucks too because then people assume your shit is a fetish when it's really not.
