Sometimes you know an article is going to be misunderstood. The topic is too taboo, the point too nuanced, the facts too far removed from the popular narrative. I know in advance that no matter how carefully I choose my words, no matter how diligently I cite my sources, no matter how consice and logical the argument, somebody, somehow, will find a way to be mad. But with my article, The Trouble With “Trans”, I honestly thought I was on pretty safe ground.
Arrrgg! Send some spit to 23andme. If the report includes your paternal haplogroup you are male. It is not passed down the female line. Maleness is not assigned at birth, it is determined at conception.
Everyone in the womb begins with female plumbing, and at some early point each male is bathed in androgen, stimulating physical and neurological changes. The clitoris is homologous to the penis, the brain develops differently.
When there are mixed-gender fraternal twins the female fetus can get a touch of this and she will potentially appear more masculine than most girls but not enough to be mistaken for a boy.
However there is a rare condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome in which the male fetus doesn't react as he should and who comes out even so feminine as to be mistaken for a girl. It takes a chromosome analysis to be certain. I've seen a few of these as adults; they are feminine in a way that no gay man can emulate, with subcutaneous fat and without thickened facial bones.
Many complex health problems have biological, psychological and social dimensions—biopsychosocial. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is an example where the unique biology dominates the picture. In some cases of complete AIS, these are phenotypic females who only find out they have an XY chromosome when they don’t start having menstrual periods at puberty.
When I started to hear ostensible mental health experts say that gender is simply a social construct, I had trouble finding an adjective to describe how professionally ignorant that is. Stupid is too weak an adjective. It can only be some sort of group reinforced delusion.
That's a good explanation of physical sex characteristics development in the womb, as well as deviation from expected norms. It leads me to think that this is also where genuine gender dysphoria takes place. You used the word rare, which is why it is justifiable to call the current trans phenomenon a fad.
I mentioned the chromosome-based presence or absence of an identifiable paternal haplogroup because that chromosome comes from the father at conception which is why I opined that sex is determined at conception. Both males and females are subject to complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) [micro-penis for the female]. I think, but don't know, that gender dysphoria is related where brain development is affected, rather than genital development. Question: does homosexuality tie into this?
I see no reason to assign a value judgement to the occurrence of any of these conditions. Because of the fact that they are rare, less rare for homosexuality, they are often thought to be abnormalities which unjustifiably comes with baggage. A fad, rather than syndrome based, embrace of transsexuality imposes that baggage unnecessarily which does make it seem harmful to me.
I would guess that homosexuality is so constant across time and culture that it's as much of an equilibrium as anything could be. Regardless of acceptance or the health of the parents or any other discernible factor.
I don't know how constant dysphoria is but the literature calls it one in 30,000 male / 100,000 female births, and at present we are being told about a thousand times that albeit by people who have an aggressive agenda and a marked disinterest in truth. And, as in the title above, an indifference to logic.
Stemming from Freud’s a-scientific theories of human libidinal emotions--- oral, anal, phallic, oedipal-- the psychological sciences have been too disconnected from the neuropsychological basis of human sexuality, which is why ridiculous ideas like “gender is a social construct” can be entertained.
The science of human sexuality is extraordinarily complex, and very incomplete. One example from the excellent, but dense: Panksepp, Jaak; Biven, Lucy. The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) (p. 282). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.:
“Sexuality is further complicated (especially at the tertiary-process level for humans) because the sexual body and the sexual brain develop along different trajectories in utero. The male brain is created when testosterone is converted to estrogen and the male body is created when testosterone is converted to DHT. All fetal bodies are initially female and if there is no interference, the female body will continue to develop. The female brain and mind, however, may be masculinized if the fetus is exposed to too much estrogen at crucial times in the second trimester.”
Anyhow, you can get a flavor from that paragraph how criminally undereducated these professional bodies are that are caught up in promoting pharmaceutical and surgical gender “transition” in children.
"All fetal bodies are initially female and 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, the female body will 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱. The female brain and mind, however, may be masculinized 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 to too much estrogen at crucial times in the second trimester.”
Key point, they 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒑 in accordance with the X or Y chromosome they receive at conception 𝒊𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆.
As in software development I am tremendously irritated by the flood of neologisms coming out of this fad. And yes I do call it a fad with the thousandfold membership as compared to medical criteria.
"Cis" attempts yet another bifurcation of the human race, as though it and "trans" represent some intrinsic polarity.
"Transphobia" is thrown around with wild abandon, even at the most supportive people, more often than not preceded by some superlative qualifier. If I don't think that a man who struggled into a dress thirty seconds ago is a woman then I am "incredibly transphobic."
I don't have to say anything more about "they."
And then there are the, what, hundreds of "genders." most of them synonyms .... oh dear, there I go, "misgendering" again.
The trans movement sounds as much in denial of their sexual predator problem as the Catholic Church. While I doubt the percentage is the same, it may grow for the trans set as, unaddressed, it'll make the movement even more attractive to sexual predators who realize they can get away with it here.
I think we need to start differentiating between the different type of 'trans' people. Blurring and fuzzing language is part of the agenda of the 'woke' left and it's time we push back on it. Transsexuals are those who've fully transitioned, transvestites are those who are into it for the jollies, and I was unaware of 'transtrender' but I Googled it and it's an awesome word for those who are doing it because it's fashionable. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it so I should be 'trans' too!
I'm not sure how Jas can claim so much ignorance re how it is for young people today - being so blissfully unaware of how many children's bodies are being abused by the medical profession making a ton of money off all this (Note to lawyers: Detransitioner lawsuits are where the money will soon be!) Jas has Google. Jas is clearly on the Internet. That must be one tight-assed bubble she's locked in. She's about my age and *I* know about this stuff.
My only interest in this debate is in its logical incoherencies. The demand that transwomen should be allowed to play in women's sports requires the claim that there is no difference between sex and gender; That "trans women are women, period." Yet at the same time, you have trans ideologues like Jas saying that we are going towards a nonbinary world with multiple genders. You can't have a nonbinary world and a world with sharp lines between the genders. You can't ever have what you want if what you want is self-contradictory.
It's the "nonbinary" thing that pushes me over the edge. Gender dysphoria is real albeit only about 0.1% of those claiming to be "trans" but dysphorics feel with unsummoned conviction that they are at the wrong pole and want to be at the other.
There is no psychiatric basis for intermediate gender. Fighting "gender stereotypes" is like being one of those stranded soldiers who doesn't know the war ended decades ago. The demands of the "nonbinary" anger me even more than its absurdity.
Hmmm. For the first time in, like, ever, young Americans have shown lower approval for the artificial collection known as LGBT. And it doesn't take a lot to figure out which letter is to blame for this. As you said:
"I mean, if you’d asked a black person during the civil rights movement, or a gay person during the fight for marriage equality, or a feminist during the suffragette movement, what rights they wanted, they’d have been able to tell you. They had clear, measurable aims that didn’t include policing how everybody spoke about them, erasing women’s right to privacy and safety or performing experimental surgery on children. "
I was talking to a friend in Seattle a few days ago, a woman with many "trans" friends and active politically, and she too denied that children are getting hormones and surgery. I sent her some links, including, astonishingly, the long famous Boston Baby Hospital advertising their broad reassignment services.
You can bet that conservatives know about this. And god help us if the Democrats run on pronouns and bathrooms.
That is a real issue. While genuine liberalism can be seen as a better political product, the Democrat Party quest for majority dominance has led to embrace of the big tent full of people with little in common and who sometimes even despise each other. That comes with the downside of what occurs so frequently in politics. Shine a light on the other tribe's crazies and demonize them. It is often effective, even though it is illogical to see a group as it's small subset. Forgetting about the subset theory we learned as children most commonly occurs in politics.
How many will see pronouns and toilets as crazier than Trump?
Anytime one mentions children getting transition treatments, particularly surgery, challenge is inevitable; you'll be called a liar, and evidence will be demanded of you.
Post a link to such evidence and it will be ignored; the response will be that the publication is "transphobic" or some such crap, because it's been quoted by sources like Fox News.
There is of course no question but that young girls have gotten hormones and surgery, particularly "top surgery" which is a euphemism for double mastectomy. Others have gotten hysterectomies, and it is common for the radicals who encourage early treatment to insist that puberty is "damaging" and that surgery must come before it.
OK, another instance of widespread denial of reality. Yet another. But this is not like listening to some Korean boy band because all your friends do. This is permanent bodily harm.
Debates, discussions, and conversations based on nuance will filter out the overwhelming majority of readers—TLDR. For the ones who stick around...it’s a verbal large hardon collider smashing atomic nuance against atomic nuance to further parse deeper meaning, but finding more questions. So it goes. As always, thanks for keeping my brain juices from coagulating. Cheers.
She seems ever so slightly more reachable here than I think I've seen elsewhere. She mentions cringing at trans women who refer to themselves as female and at trans women who call themselves such but continue to live as men. Also some of the "facts" that she mentioned are so patently false, despite being true in the past perhaps, and also so easily proven wrong if she just follows a couple of your links. I hope she does.
"𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘹 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩"
Arrrgg! Send some spit to 23andme. If the report includes your paternal haplogroup you are male. It is not passed down the female line. Maleness is not assigned at birth, it is determined at conception.
Everyone in the womb begins with female plumbing, and at some early point each male is bathed in androgen, stimulating physical and neurological changes. The clitoris is homologous to the penis, the brain develops differently.
When there are mixed-gender fraternal twins the female fetus can get a touch of this and she will potentially appear more masculine than most girls but not enough to be mistaken for a boy.
However there is a rare condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome in which the male fetus doesn't react as he should and who comes out even so feminine as to be mistaken for a girl. It takes a chromosome analysis to be certain. I've seen a few of these as adults; they are feminine in a way that no gay man can emulate, with subcutaneous fat and without thickened facial bones.
Many complex health problems have biological, psychological and social dimensions—biopsychosocial. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is an example where the unique biology dominates the picture. In some cases of complete AIS, these are phenotypic females who only find out they have an XY chromosome when they don’t start having menstrual periods at puberty.
When I started to hear ostensible mental health experts say that gender is simply a social construct, I had trouble finding an adjective to describe how professionally ignorant that is. Stupid is too weak an adjective. It can only be some sort of group reinforced delusion.
Group-reinforced delusions are all the rage right now and not only in gender ideology.
One would expect better from mental health professionals. But then, Freeman Dyson, who was with Einstein at Princeton IAS, was an AGW denier.
That's a good explanation of physical sex characteristics development in the womb, as well as deviation from expected norms. It leads me to think that this is also where genuine gender dysphoria takes place. You used the word rare, which is why it is justifiable to call the current trans phenomenon a fad.
I mentioned the chromosome-based presence or absence of an identifiable paternal haplogroup because that chromosome comes from the father at conception which is why I opined that sex is determined at conception. Both males and females are subject to complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) [micro-penis for the female]. I think, but don't know, that gender dysphoria is related where brain development is affected, rather than genital development. Question: does homosexuality tie into this?
I see no reason to assign a value judgement to the occurrence of any of these conditions. Because of the fact that they are rare, less rare for homosexuality, they are often thought to be abnormalities which unjustifiably comes with baggage. A fad, rather than syndrome based, embrace of transsexuality imposes that baggage unnecessarily which does make it seem harmful to me.
I would guess that homosexuality is so constant across time and culture that it's as much of an equilibrium as anything could be. Regardless of acceptance or the health of the parents or any other discernible factor.
I don't know how constant dysphoria is but the literature calls it one in 30,000 male / 100,000 female births, and at present we are being told about a thousand times that albeit by people who have an aggressive agenda and a marked disinterest in truth. And, as in the title above, an indifference to logic.
Stemming from Freud’s a-scientific theories of human libidinal emotions--- oral, anal, phallic, oedipal-- the psychological sciences have been too disconnected from the neuropsychological basis of human sexuality, which is why ridiculous ideas like “gender is a social construct” can be entertained.
The science of human sexuality is extraordinarily complex, and very incomplete. One example from the excellent, but dense: Panksepp, Jaak; Biven, Lucy. The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) (p. 282). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.:
“Sexuality is further complicated (especially at the tertiary-process level for humans) because the sexual body and the sexual brain develop along different trajectories in utero. The male brain is created when testosterone is converted to estrogen and the male body is created when testosterone is converted to DHT. All fetal bodies are initially female and if there is no interference, the female body will continue to develop. The female brain and mind, however, may be masculinized if the fetus is exposed to too much estrogen at crucial times in the second trimester.”
Anyhow, you can get a flavor from that paragraph how criminally undereducated these professional bodies are that are caught up in promoting pharmaceutical and surgical gender “transition” in children.
"All fetal bodies are initially female and 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, the female body will 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱. The female brain and mind, however, may be masculinized 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 to too much estrogen at crucial times in the second trimester.”
Key point, they 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒑 in accordance with the X or Y chromosome they receive at conception 𝒊𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆.
As in software development I am tremendously irritated by the flood of neologisms coming out of this fad. And yes I do call it a fad with the thousandfold membership as compared to medical criteria.
"Cis" attempts yet another bifurcation of the human race, as though it and "trans" represent some intrinsic polarity.
"Transphobia" is thrown around with wild abandon, even at the most supportive people, more often than not preceded by some superlative qualifier. If I don't think that a man who struggled into a dress thirty seconds ago is a woman then I am "incredibly transphobic."
I don't have to say anything more about "they."
And then there are the, what, hundreds of "genders." most of them synonyms .... oh dear, there I go, "misgendering" again.
Ugh.
"Why do you feel that gender ideology should be logical and shouldn't have inconsistencies?"
I literally had my head spinning with cognitive vertigo at this.
The trans movement sounds as much in denial of their sexual predator problem as the Catholic Church. While I doubt the percentage is the same, it may grow for the trans set as, unaddressed, it'll make the movement even more attractive to sexual predators who realize they can get away with it here.
I think we need to start differentiating between the different type of 'trans' people. Blurring and fuzzing language is part of the agenda of the 'woke' left and it's time we push back on it. Transsexuals are those who've fully transitioned, transvestites are those who are into it for the jollies, and I was unaware of 'transtrender' but I Googled it and it's an awesome word for those who are doing it because it's fashionable. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it so I should be 'trans' too!
I'm not sure how Jas can claim so much ignorance re how it is for young people today - being so blissfully unaware of how many children's bodies are being abused by the medical profession making a ton of money off all this (Note to lawyers: Detransitioner lawsuits are where the money will soon be!) Jas has Google. Jas is clearly on the Internet. That must be one tight-assed bubble she's locked in. She's about my age and *I* know about this stuff.
My only interest in this debate is in its logical incoherencies. The demand that transwomen should be allowed to play in women's sports requires the claim that there is no difference between sex and gender; That "trans women are women, period." Yet at the same time, you have trans ideologues like Jas saying that we are going towards a nonbinary world with multiple genders. You can't have a nonbinary world and a world with sharp lines between the genders. You can't ever have what you want if what you want is self-contradictory.
It's the "nonbinary" thing that pushes me over the edge. Gender dysphoria is real albeit only about 0.1% of those claiming to be "trans" but dysphorics feel with unsummoned conviction that they are at the wrong pole and want to be at the other.
There is no psychiatric basis for intermediate gender. Fighting "gender stereotypes" is like being one of those stranded soldiers who doesn't know the war ended decades ago. The demands of the "nonbinary" anger me even more than its absurdity.
Hmmm. For the first time in, like, ever, young Americans have shown lower approval for the artificial collection known as LGBT. And it doesn't take a lot to figure out which letter is to blame for this. As you said:
"I mean, if you’d asked a black person during the civil rights movement, or a gay person during the fight for marriage equality, or a feminist during the suffragette movement, what rights they wanted, they’d have been able to tell you. They had clear, measurable aims that didn’t include policing how everybody spoke about them, erasing women’s right to privacy and safety or performing experimental surgery on children. "
I was talking to a friend in Seattle a few days ago, a woman with many "trans" friends and active politically, and she too denied that children are getting hormones and surgery. I sent her some links, including, astonishingly, the long famous Boston Baby Hospital advertising their broad reassignment services.
You can bet that conservatives know about this. And god help us if the Democrats run on pronouns and bathrooms.
That is a real issue. While genuine liberalism can be seen as a better political product, the Democrat Party quest for majority dominance has led to embrace of the big tent full of people with little in common and who sometimes even despise each other. That comes with the downside of what occurs so frequently in politics. Shine a light on the other tribe's crazies and demonize them. It is often effective, even though it is illogical to see a group as it's small subset. Forgetting about the subset theory we learned as children most commonly occurs in politics.
How many will see pronouns and toilets as crazier than Trump?
It won't take too many talking about kids getting surgery over "gender ideology" to generate enough turbo-charged disgust to swing millions of votes.
True.
Anytime one mentions children getting transition treatments, particularly surgery, challenge is inevitable; you'll be called a liar, and evidence will be demanded of you.
Post a link to such evidence and it will be ignored; the response will be that the publication is "transphobic" or some such crap, because it's been quoted by sources like Fox News.
There is of course no question but that young girls have gotten hormones and surgery, particularly "top surgery" which is a euphemism for double mastectomy. Others have gotten hysterectomies, and it is common for the radicals who encourage early treatment to insist that puberty is "damaging" and that surgery must come before it.
OK, another instance of widespread denial of reality. Yet another. But this is not like listening to some Korean boy band because all your friends do. This is permanent bodily harm.
Debates, discussions, and conversations based on nuance will filter out the overwhelming majority of readers—TLDR. For the ones who stick around...it’s a verbal large hardon collider smashing atomic nuance against atomic nuance to further parse deeper meaning, but finding more questions. So it goes. As always, thanks for keeping my brain juices from coagulating. Cheers.
She seems ever so slightly more reachable here than I think I've seen elsewhere. She mentions cringing at trans women who refer to themselves as female and at trans women who call themselves such but continue to live as men. Also some of the "facts" that she mentioned are so patently false, despite being true in the past perhaps, and also so easily proven wrong if she just follows a couple of your links. I hope she does.
She tells Steve that he's lying about "trans" people for money. I'd say she's hopeless.