However, I also believe there are times when the transgender issue might've been brought up by the environment they lived in. For example, the parent/guardian might've wanted a boy/girl, so perhaps they've always rewarded the opposite sex reaction more positively.
I think the doctors also talked about cases where the child's confusion lies more with the parents' expectations rather than the child's own wants.
I have no data on hand to counter this per se, but that's a pretty Freudian idea, and Freud was pretty much wrong about everything. When he was actually right, it was for all the wrong reasons.
Anyways, I sincerely doubt that behavior could result in GID because, for one, GID is a much deeper condition than that, and secondly, that kind of behavior results in other problems. The Who's "I'm a Boy" is a good song, though.
What's the suicide rate of post-operative/post hormonal therapy transgendered individuals?
In order to have any meaning, that would have to be compared to the rate among those going through "treatment" or in other ways trying to live as their biological gender.
I haven't got the statistics, but the doctors that are advocating letting the children live as their declared gender (as opposed to forcing them into their biological gender) are saying that many of the other issues (depression, etc.) clear up when you stop forcing the kid to live in a way they don't identify with.
Seriously, am I the only one who finds my anecdote interesting?
I was mostly curious as to how this person communicated his/her gender issues to you.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I suspect (though the evidence supporting this suspicion is relatively weak) that there is a neurological "switch" that tells us to identify as a particular gender; but that the specific attributes and behaviors we associate with each gender are culturally determined.
I would like to find the neurological "switch" associated with my daughter liking pink so much so I can switch it off and then tear the fucker out.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I think this question will become a lot less interesting once society accepts transgendered people, or at least to the same degree society accepts gay people now.
Qingu on
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I suspect (though the evidence supporting this suspicion is relatively weak) that there is a neurological "switch" that tells us to identify as a particular gender; but that the specific attributes and behaviors we associate with each gender are culturally determined.
I would like to find the neurological "switch" associated with my daughter liking pink so much so I can switch it off and then tear the fucker out.
Ah, the Medulla Peptobismodula, bane of many an interior designer. Unfortunately, this is directly linked to chromatosonin gland and switching it off has been known to cause drastic inversions in taste due to the sudden removal of all colour-relevant neurotransmitters, effectively rendering the world monochrome to the recipient of the treatment. Symptoms include wearing lots of black, with white face-paint and, for some reason, listening to HIM at ridiculous volumes.
Crossdressers usually aren't fetishists. Crossdressers usually don't have identity issues. Crossdressers just feel more comfortable in that clothing. That's about it.
Yeah, there's a difference between a transvestite, a transsexual, and some guy that wears panties on his head when he faps one out.
I think this question will become a lot less interesting once society accepts transgendered people, or at least to the same degree society accepts gay people now.
Agreed.
It's kind of interesting... when gays were less accepted, there seemed to be a much more obvious "flaming" community running around. Now, I don't see it as much, and I often hang out often in a fairly "gay" area of the community where people will hold hands and everything without much fear of stigma. There definitely hasn't been a drop in the population of those who are out, in fact there are more than ever before, from all walks of life. Sure, you'll have your obvious trannies, but I see less of the folks that look like rejects from Hairspray than there used to be... I don't think the carnival aspect is as entertaining any more for anyone. But, maybe I could be wrong... I can only base it on the community I see and interact with.
I think this question will become a lot less interesting once society accepts transgendered people, or at least to the same degree society accepts gay people now.
Yeah, it only really seems controversial because it's so new. Like you imply, much the same we we know realize that people don't decide to be gay, we'll realize that people aren't deciding to be transgendered.
Wonder_Hippie on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Seriously, am I the only one who finds my anecdote interesting?
I was mostly curious as to how this person communicated his/her gender issues to you.
MIND BULLETSQ!
Alternatively, this person communicated via a translator, and they communicated by poking each others palms in presumably significant patterns.
The gender issues were communicated via the translator to my girlfriend at the time who was earning extra bucks acting as a note-taker for him/her.
Also, he would frequently appear wearing women's clothing. Strangely, it was usually provocative women's clothing, like tiny hotpants and 80s style boob tubes. In fact, he seemed to be a big fan of the 80s and scrunchies also featured heavily.
I think this question will become a lot less interesting once society accepts transgendered people, or at least to the same degree society accepts gay people now.
Yeah, it only really seems controversial because it's so new. Like you imply, much the same we we know realize that people don't decide to be gay, we'll realize that people aren't deciding to be transgendered.
Interesting historical fact: German scientists made huge strides in the study of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism. Unlucky for them it happened to be the 1930s and the Nazis were on the rise. Suffice to say those who escaped alive with their life's work destroyed were the lucky ones. With their work maybe we'd be a decade a head of where we are now, perhaps.
I heard both NPR stories, and I have to say warning lights went off in my head when they were talking about "making children comfortable with their biological sex." The child that wen through this therapy was obviously miserable. They were being constantly punished for being a normal, curious, creative and imaginative child. It doesn't matter if this child is transgender or not. When a child acts like a drug addict, hiding their toys and true selves from their parents, then something is seriously wrong.
Let children have fun and explore the world, and explore who they are! Only conservative society has the problem with "boys wearing dresses." It's not unnatural, It's no more natural than anything else assigned to a specific gender role. It's a social construct, not something ingrained in our biology. The problems GLBT people suffer are symptoms of societal guilt, shame, and persecution.
And besides, let us not forget intersex people. No convenient genetics or appearances to pigeonhole them with! Gosh, we have to judge what gender they are by their personality... their mind!
You know when you know is all I have to say about it. For some people it will be a phase at a certain age, for others it will be true. I don't think it's fair to pin it as one or the other right away. I'm sure that out there somewhere is a 9 year old boy who is absolutely certain he was meant to be a female. Just because he's 9 doesn't make it a phase.
That is an interesting question. The difference between genders is basically none when you are a kid, physically speaking, so why do you want to change? if its because you identify more with the "expected" attitudes of the opposite gender I think the problem is with society itself and its intolerance to a more diffuse definition of gender than an actual biological/physical problem.
Now from the small knowledge I have, I've read that growing up is not just a "software" programming but a "hardware" one as well, and your brain doesn't stop wiring itself even as late as 25 years of age. So this attitude of society has real physical effects on children, but the origin is purely social. I believe a society with complete lack of interest about gender roles where men and women are actually equal would be a society without transgenderism at all.
I think this question will become a lot less interesting once society accepts transgendered people, or at least to the same degree society accepts gay people now.
Yeah. To the people that think forcing children to accept their biological gender is plausible, just look at how they used to treat the gays. Making yourself 'like' a certain gender is rebelling against your very biology, and trying to live a certain gender is as well.
I believe a society with complete lack of interest about gender roles where men and women are actually equal would be a society without transgenderism at all.
People still have an expectation that their bodies will be built in a certain way. How we develop our internal mental models of our own bodies is still largely a mystery to us... but we do know that sometimes that model can go wrong. The phenomenon of Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where somebody believes themselves to be an 'amputee living in a normal person's body' and consequently desires of have a limb surgically removed - is an example of that.
Even in a culture without gender roles, it's still conceivable that some people would grow up wondering why their sexual anatomy feels alien and bizarre to them.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
With the exception of people who have the kind of BIID that Feral is talking about, I think we're diagnosing a disease that does not exist. Children feeling uncomfortable with the gender stereotypes we provide for them is perfectly normal. However, deciding that a male child who wants to wear dresses is actually female "on the inside" should just switch over is just as irrational a conclusion to draw as deciding that this is a psychological problem that needs to be cured. If you leave biological gender out of it and let people be who they are, there's no need for harmful surgery or hormone treatments, nor for repressive and psychologically damaging therapy to correct this so-called confusion.
I've known a lot of very active transgendered people and they often made me rather frustrated. They would talk out of one side of their mouth about how gender is a cultural and societal construct and then remind you that they were a man out of the other. Feeling trapped by one particular stereotype, they rejected it and mired themselves in another, glamorizing it. Having grown up as the skinny kid who went into puberty late, I always feel kinda resentful of F>Ms who talk about what it's like to be a man. The thing is, they really don't know. They never really dealt with the stereotypes of maleness that I dealt with, no matter how young they started. I can't speak for the other side because, obviously, I didn't grow up as a woman.
This is all, obviously, informed just from my subjective experience with transgendered people with whom I have talked about this. /rant
It's stuff like that that makes me associate those places with ex-gay camps and the like. I mean, what does a kid that wants to be black want to do? Listen to rap, wear baggy clothes, and smoke cigarrilos (/racist hyperbole)? That comparison is horribly flawed. It seems to conflate identity and personality, to me.
Wait... what does a kid who wants to be a girl want to do? Paint his nails? Cry and get all irrational?
I would like to know more about this because it is completely foreign to me. It seems to me, at first glance, that the majority of people who present with GID are also experiencing a host of other psychological problems, and untangling chronic depression from whatever problems a teenager might be experiencing going through school, and then throwing the giant variable that is parenting into the mix makes for a dangerous combination of factors, and then telling someone (who is probably feeling pretty shitty already) "You might actually just be a different gender, let's give you hormone therapy" is dangerous. I am sorry if this seems really ignorant.
This is exactly how I perceive the situation. Oprah had a show about a 3-year-old who insisted he was a girl (Oprah is fascinated by topics involving alternate sexuality or gender). All sorts of specialists went on about his transgenderedness. Later it came out that he also insisted that he was white (his father was black and mother was white) and that he insisted that he loved his mother but not his father.
The specialists (who make a living and get to be on Oprah because of the fashionable topic of transgendered youth) dismissed all of that as just side effects of being transgendered. Maybe they are right, I am not the expert specialist on Oprah, but I say this course is risky. This boy seemed to have a larger issue altogether, maybe skin color identity, maybe abuse, who knows? All of it was swept under the rug as "transgender" without any convincing explanation.
Every real experience I've had with someone who is transgendered has involved a host of other psychological issues. Again, not naming any names, often (IMHO) these people will display a neurotic and unreasonable dissatisfaction with many things in their life, including where they live, their family, their job, etc. Maybe that's all just side effects of transgender, maybe transgender is just a side effect of a larger problem. I don't know.
I'm all for further research into the many aspects of gender, and I believe that someone who is physiologically both genders is in need of some counselling and any assistance that can be offered to live as they are or perhaps choose one gender to live as. I think someone who is physiologically definitely one gender but "wants" to be the other is someone who ought to be happy with who he is, ought to consider therapeutic introspection into why he wants to change what he is, but is nevertheless free to do to himself whatever he (or his legal guardians) will. Kind of like how I feel about cosmetic surgery.
Every real experience I've had with someone who is transgendered has involved a host of other psychological issues. Again, not naming any names, often (IMHO) these people will display a neurotic and unreasonable dissatisfaction with many things in their life, including where they live, their family, their job, etc. Maybe that's all just side effects of transgender, maybe transgender is just a side effect of a larger problem. I don't know.
As I mentioned before, in the vast majority of situations, treating the gender identity disorder by helping the patient live as their "inner" gender results in a remission of the halo of comorbid emotional problems you describe.
Treating the patient's emotional problems without addressing the gender identity disorder is typically less effective.
Treating the gender identity disorder by trying to help the patient live as their biological gender is typically ineffective.
The logical conclusion to this is that the comorbid emotional problems are either caused or largely exacerbated by the gender disorder.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Every real experience I've had with someone who is transgendered has involved a host of other psychological issues. Again, not naming any names, often (IMHO) these people will display a neurotic and unreasonable dissatisfaction with many things in their life, including where they live, their family, their job, etc. Maybe that's all just side effects of transgender, maybe transgender is just a side effect of a larger problem. I don't know.
As I mentioned before, in the vast majority of situations, treating the gender identity disorder by helping the patient live as their "inner" gender results in a remission of the halo of comorbid emotional problems you describe.
Treating the patient's emotional problems without addressing the gender identity disorder is typically less effective.
Treating the gender identity disorder by trying to help the patient live as their biological gender is typically ineffective.
The logical conclusion to this is that the comorbid emotional problems are either caused or largely exacerbated by the gender disorder.
Yeah, this.
Plus, a lot of people in this thread still seem to be of the opinion that gender identity == gender role. A boy who wants to do "girly" things is not necessarily a boy who wants to BE a girl. There's a huge difference between "It really sucks that because I'm a boy I'm looked down on for liking these things" and "I'm really a girl trapped in a boy's body"
Hell, I was a serious tomboy growing up, I pretty much hated all of the girls in my class (in a small town that meant all of the ones in town my age), I preferred to hang out with the boys, I liked math, I made swords & shields out of scrap wood with my brothers, but never in my mind did it occur to me that I might BE a boy. The same way it never occurred to me when I got older that I might not be interested in boys. It's a matter of who I am.
Now, I admit that a "tomboy" girl is somewhat less socially stigmatized than an effeminate boy, but still, there's a distinction between someone's identity and their role choice.
Every real experience I've had with someone who is transgendered has involved a host of other psychological issues. Again, not naming any names, often (IMHO) these people will display a neurotic and unreasonable dissatisfaction with many things in their life, including where they live, their family, their job, etc. Maybe that's all just side effects of transgender, maybe transgender is just a side effect of a larger problem. I don't know.
As I mentioned before, in the vast majority of situations, treating the gender identity disorder by helping the patient live as their "inner" gender results in a remission of the halo of comorbid emotional problems you describe.
Treating the patient's emotional problems without addressing the gender identity disorder is typically less effective.
Treating the gender identity disorder by trying to help the patient live as their biological gender is typically ineffective.
The logical conclusion to this is that the comorbid emotional problems are either caused or largely exacerbated by the gender disorder.
I think you're right but it's important to avoid the false dichotomy. It's possible that "inner gender" - style therapy works better because the patient is at some point convinced it is going to work (I'm obviously not a psychologist, but it seems like the patient would have a very powerful ''way out'' with "you're actually a man in a woman's body"), or maybe it does work on some level that we don't understand, and it's possible treatment that focuses on dealing with the patients emotional problems/helping the patient live as their bio gender are more prone to failure because of a number of things: problems like poor techiniques or the issues inherent in being raised in a modern society maybe.
So if a patient presents with A, B, and C symptoms, and dealing with A and B doesn't necessarily work, but C fixes all 3, then that means the situations caused C to work so well are great places to start looking for answers, not that C is logically the root of A and B.
So if a patient presents with A, B, and C symptoms, and dealing with A and B doesn't necessarily work, but C fixes all 3, then that means the situations caused C to work so well are great places to start looking for answers, not that C is logically the root of A and B.
Yeah, you're right here. That's a good point.
I'll revise my statement: C (gender reassignment) works so damn well, and A (non-gender-oriented therapy) and B (biological gender acceptance) so poorly, that until we can collect some more data and develop a more sophisticated model of the psychology (and neurology) of gender in general, we just have to go with what works.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Posts
I have no data on hand to counter this per se, but that's a pretty Freudian idea, and Freud was pretty much wrong about everything. When he was actually right, it was for all the wrong reasons.
Anyways, I sincerely doubt that behavior could result in GID because, for one, GID is a much deeper condition than that, and secondly, that kind of behavior results in other problems. The Who's "I'm a Boy" is a good song, though.
In order to have any meaning, that would have to be compared to the rate among those going through "treatment" or in other ways trying to live as their biological gender.
I haven't got the statistics, but the doctors that are advocating letting the children live as their declared gender (as opposed to forcing them into their biological gender) are saying that many of the other issues (depression, etc.) clear up when you stop forcing the kid to live in a way they don't identify with.
I seriously thought this was going to be a thread about meeting TGs in bars or something.
I was mostly curious as to how this person communicated his/her gender issues to you.
I would like to find the neurological "switch" associated with my daughter liking pink so much so I can switch it off and then tear the fucker out.
Ah, the Medulla Peptobismodula, bane of many an interior designer. Unfortunately, this is directly linked to chromatosonin gland and switching it off has been known to cause drastic inversions in taste due to the sudden removal of all colour-relevant neurotransmitters, effectively rendering the world monochrome to the recipient of the treatment. Symptoms include wearing lots of black, with white face-paint and, for some reason, listening to HIM at ridiculous volumes.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Agreed.
It's kind of interesting... when gays were less accepted, there seemed to be a much more obvious "flaming" community running around. Now, I don't see it as much, and I often hang out often in a fairly "gay" area of the community where people will hold hands and everything without much fear of stigma. There definitely hasn't been a drop in the population of those who are out, in fact there are more than ever before, from all walks of life. Sure, you'll have your obvious trannies, but I see less of the folks that look like rejects from Hairspray than there used to be... I don't think the carnival aspect is as entertaining any more for anyone. But, maybe I could be wrong... I can only base it on the community I see and interact with.
Yeah, it only really seems controversial because it's so new. Like you imply, much the same we we know realize that people don't decide to be gay, we'll realize that people aren't deciding to be transgendered.
MIND BULLETSQ!
Alternatively, this person communicated via a translator, and they communicated by poking each others palms in presumably significant patterns.
The gender issues were communicated via the translator to my girlfriend at the time who was earning extra bucks acting as a note-taker for him/her.
Also, he would frequently appear wearing women's clothing. Strangely, it was usually provocative women's clothing, like tiny hotpants and 80s style boob tubes. In fact, he seemed to be a big fan of the 80s and scrunchies also featured heavily.
Perhaps the blindness had something to do with this...
I heard both NPR stories, and I have to say warning lights went off in my head when they were talking about "making children comfortable with their biological sex." The child that wen through this therapy was obviously miserable. They were being constantly punished for being a normal, curious, creative and imaginative child. It doesn't matter if this child is transgender or not. When a child acts like a drug addict, hiding their toys and true selves from their parents, then something is seriously wrong.
Let children have fun and explore the world, and explore who they are! Only conservative society has the problem with "boys wearing dresses." It's not unnatural, It's no more natural than anything else assigned to a specific gender role. It's a social construct, not something ingrained in our biology. The problems GLBT people suffer are symptoms of societal guilt, shame, and persecution.
And besides, let us not forget intersex people. No convenient genetics or appearances to pigeonhole them with! Gosh, we have to judge what gender they are by their personality... their mind!
Now from the small knowledge I have, I've read that growing up is not just a "software" programming but a "hardware" one as well, and your brain doesn't stop wiring itself even as late as 25 years of age. So this attitude of society has real physical effects on children, but the origin is purely social. I believe a society with complete lack of interest about gender roles where men and women are actually equal would be a society without transgenderism at all.
Yeah. To the people that think forcing children to accept their biological gender is plausible, just look at how they used to treat the gays. Making yourself 'like' a certain gender is rebelling against your very biology, and trying to live a certain gender is as well.
People still have an expectation that their bodies will be built in a certain way. How we develop our internal mental models of our own bodies is still largely a mystery to us... but we do know that sometimes that model can go wrong. The phenomenon of Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where somebody believes themselves to be an 'amputee living in a normal person's body' and consequently desires of have a limb surgically removed - is an example of that.
Even in a culture without gender roles, it's still conceivable that some people would grow up wondering why their sexual anatomy feels alien and bizarre to them.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've known a lot of very active transgendered people and they often made me rather frustrated. They would talk out of one side of their mouth about how gender is a cultural and societal construct and then remind you that they were a man out of the other. Feeling trapped by one particular stereotype, they rejected it and mired themselves in another, glamorizing it. Having grown up as the skinny kid who went into puberty late, I always feel kinda resentful of F>Ms who talk about what it's like to be a man. The thing is, they really don't know. They never really dealt with the stereotypes of maleness that I dealt with, no matter how young they started. I can't speak for the other side because, obviously, I didn't grow up as a woman.
This is all, obviously, informed just from my subjective experience with transgendered people with whom I have talked about this. /rant
This is exactly how I perceive the situation. Oprah had a show about a 3-year-old who insisted he was a girl (Oprah is fascinated by topics involving alternate sexuality or gender). All sorts of specialists went on about his transgenderedness. Later it came out that he also insisted that he was white (his father was black and mother was white) and that he insisted that he loved his mother but not his father.
The specialists (who make a living and get to be on Oprah because of the fashionable topic of transgendered youth) dismissed all of that as just side effects of being transgendered. Maybe they are right, I am not the expert specialist on Oprah, but I say this course is risky. This boy seemed to have a larger issue altogether, maybe skin color identity, maybe abuse, who knows? All of it was swept under the rug as "transgender" without any convincing explanation.
Every real experience I've had with someone who is transgendered has involved a host of other psychological issues. Again, not naming any names, often (IMHO) these people will display a neurotic and unreasonable dissatisfaction with many things in their life, including where they live, their family, their job, etc. Maybe that's all just side effects of transgender, maybe transgender is just a side effect of a larger problem. I don't know.
I'm all for further research into the many aspects of gender, and I believe that someone who is physiologically both genders is in need of some counselling and any assistance that can be offered to live as they are or perhaps choose one gender to live as. I think someone who is physiologically definitely one gender but "wants" to be the other is someone who ought to be happy with who he is, ought to consider therapeutic introspection into why he wants to change what he is, but is nevertheless free to do to himself whatever he (or his legal guardians) will. Kind of like how I feel about cosmetic surgery.
As I mentioned before, in the vast majority of situations, treating the gender identity disorder by helping the patient live as their "inner" gender results in a remission of the halo of comorbid emotional problems you describe.
Treating the patient's emotional problems without addressing the gender identity disorder is typically less effective.
Treating the gender identity disorder by trying to help the patient live as their biological gender is typically ineffective.
The logical conclusion to this is that the comorbid emotional problems are either caused or largely exacerbated by the gender disorder.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yeah, this.
Plus, a lot of people in this thread still seem to be of the opinion that gender identity == gender role. A boy who wants to do "girly" things is not necessarily a boy who wants to BE a girl. There's a huge difference between "It really sucks that because I'm a boy I'm looked down on for liking these things" and "I'm really a girl trapped in a boy's body"
Hell, I was a serious tomboy growing up, I pretty much hated all of the girls in my class (in a small town that meant all of the ones in town my age), I preferred to hang out with the boys, I liked math, I made swords & shields out of scrap wood with my brothers, but never in my mind did it occur to me that I might BE a boy. The same way it never occurred to me when I got older that I might not be interested in boys. It's a matter of who I am.
Now, I admit that a "tomboy" girl is somewhat less socially stigmatized than an effeminate boy, but still, there's a distinction between someone's identity and their role choice.
I think you're right but it's important to avoid the false dichotomy. It's possible that "inner gender" - style therapy works better because the patient is at some point convinced it is going to work (I'm obviously not a psychologist, but it seems like the patient would have a very powerful ''way out'' with "you're actually a man in a woman's body"), or maybe it does work on some level that we don't understand, and it's possible treatment that focuses on dealing with the patients emotional problems/helping the patient live as their bio gender are more prone to failure because of a number of things: problems like poor techiniques or the issues inherent in being raised in a modern society maybe.
So if a patient presents with A, B, and C symptoms, and dealing with A and B doesn't necessarily work, but C fixes all 3, then that means the situations caused C to work so well are great places to start looking for answers, not that C is logically the root of A and B.
Yeah, you're right here. That's a good point.
I'll revise my statement: C (gender reassignment) works so damn well, and A (non-gender-oriented therapy) and B (biological gender acceptance) so poorly, that until we can collect some more data and develop a more sophisticated model of the psychology (and neurology) of gender in general, we just have to go with what works.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.