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The phenomenon of transgendered people

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I have previously written at length on the subject of the phenomenon of transgenderism, but I think it’s time for a recap of that post, plus some added photos.]

Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner refers to his/her state as “the new normal,” but transgenderism is actually quite unusual in the statistical sense, and it’s a poorly understood phenomenon as well. Some people think transgendered people are mentally disturbed, and some think they are just people trapped in the wrong body who need a body correction. But either way, it’s a phenomenon that’s neither average nor unremarkable.

I’ve written before about my view on the phenomenon of transgendered people, but I’ll recap here:

You know, I’ve got nothing against transgendered people. Based on the fairly extensive research I’ve read, both pro and con, I think the evidence indicates that transgenderism is a real issue that causes real suffering for a relatively small percentage of the population, and that for many of those it is probably something they were born with, perhaps having to do with hormonal glitches affecting fetal brain development in utero.

But I don’t think that’s always the case. I don’t think transgendered people represent a unitary phenomenon at all. Some seem to make an excellent adjustment, with or without surgery, but some are acting out rather serious problems, and the problems are hardly limited to gender dysphoria. But what percentage of the whole each group represents I don’t know; I don’t think experts know, either.

Sexual reassignment surgery is a big, big step, one that Jenner hasn’t taken yet and one that many transgendered people never take—some because of lack of money, but some because they don’t want it.

A number of people writing about Jenner have brought up the story of Mike Penner. Not only did Penner’s last name rhyme with Jenner’s, but there were certain other parallels: a life in sports (although Penner was a sports writer for the LA Times rather than a star athlete), a marriage that ended in divorce, a great deal of publicity, and even a Vanity Fair photo shoot as part of the process of coming out. But Penner’s tale, although happy at the beginning of his coming-out, went sour pretty quickly, and he ended up changing his mind about sex assignment surgery and ultimately going into a deep depression and committing suicide.

Note that I use the pronoun “he” for Penner. That’s because, some time after deciding against the surgery, he also stopped taking female hormones and asked friends to call him “Mike” again.

Penner’s end was tragic but I’m not sure how much it tells as about any other transgendered people but him, although it is certainly a warning that some transgendered people may have very serious problems that are not being properly addressed, and that all is not necessarily sweetness and light once they achieve what they believe to be their dream. One of the many catalysts for Penner’s suicide was apparently the loss of his wife, whom he had somehow believed would consent to remain in a relationship with him, and about whom a friend heard him say with deep regret, “I had the perfect life with Lisa, and I threw it all away.”

One thing that seems undeniable is that transgendered people are at very high risk for suicide attempts and for completed suicides, and this appears to be true whether they have sexual assignment surgery or not:

A whopping 41% of people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming have attempted suicide sometime in their lives, nearly nine times the national average, according to a sweeping survey released three years ago…

Nearly two-thirds of respondents who were the victims of domestic violence at the hands of a family member had attempted suicide, the study also showed. Suicide attempts were less common among transgender and gender-nonconforming people who said their family ties had remained strong after they came out…

Being “out” as transgender was also tied to steeper risk, the study showed: People who tell everyone that they are transgender or gender-nonconforming, or who said that other people could always or usually tell that they were transgender, were more likely to have attempted suicide.

The study didn’t say whether these rates decreased after sex-reassignment surgery. That’s because such statistics are hard to come by. But they are not necessarily encouraging:

[A] review warns that the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants. For example, in a five-year study of 727 post-operative transsexuals published last year, 495 people dropped out for unknown reasons. Dr Hyde said the high drop out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals. He called for the causes of their deaths to be tracked to provide more evidence.

Dr Hyde said: “The bottom line is that although it’s clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly.”…

Research from the US and Holland suggests that up to a fifth of patients regret changing sex. A 1998 review by the Research and Development Directorate of the NHS Executive found attempted suicide rates of up to 18% noted in some medical studies of gender reassignment.

It is a sobering development in the transgender world, too, that Johns Hopkins—the hospital that pioneered sex reassignment surgery in the US—has ceased doing the surgery because doctors there found the results to be unrewarding on average:

We at Johns Hopkins University””which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery”””launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied” by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied” but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study””up to 30 years””followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population.

The question, however, is whether it rose about the comparable transgender population that didn’t have surgery.

I do know that some transgendered people are extremely happy with their surgery and remain so. The problem is that medical science can’t seem to differentiate all that well, ahead of time, between those whom the surgery helps, those it does not, and those it ultimately harms. Another problem is that the intense politicization of the entire issue has made it hard for scientists to study it and publish findings with anything like the objectivity it deserves.

NOTE: I want to add the following observations about transgenderism in twins:

In 2013, a twin study combined a survey of pairs of twins where one or both had undergone, or had plans and medical approval to undergo, gender transition, with a literature review of published reports of transgender twins. The study found that one third of identical twin pairs in the sample were both transgender: 13 of 39 (33%) monozygotic or identical pairs of assigned males and 8 of 25 (22.5%) pairs of assigned females. Among dizygotic or non-identical twin pairs, there was only 1 of 38 (2.6%) pairs where both twins were trans.[26] The significant percent of identical twin pairs where both twins are trans, and the virtual absence of dizygotic twins (raised in the same family at the same time, but not genetically identical) where both were trans, provides evidence that transgender identity is significantly influenced by genetics.[

Evidence, not proof.

I also find these photos to be fascinating. They are of identical twins in which only one of the pair is transgendered:

twins1

twins3

twins4

twins5

Comments

The phenomenon of transgendered people — 46 Comments

  1. I work with a fair number of transgendered people. That is, not all that many, but way more than most people will ever deal with. Covering on the children’s unit I have suddenly gotten to know more. I think this is becoming a common idea among teenagers who feel unhappy and are certain that gender dysphoria is the key. It usually isn’t and the Swedish long-term study should give us pause.

    It is statistically rare. If you take out the Klinefelter Syndrome males (the identify as male and are hurt and insulted when others call that into question) and the Turner Syndrome females (ditto), then take out the personality disorders, the numbers are very small. Autogynephilia is controversial, but some of us believe it explains 25-50% of male to female transgenderism, so that would depress the numbers even further.

    And yet, they do not reduce the number to zero. There are genuine hard cases.

    In America, maybe you can indeed be whever you want, without reference to the culture around you. It is the degree of accommodation you can insist on that becomes the issue.

  2. There is no doubt that it is a complex situation. I may have reported that we had friends who went through years of agony with a transgender daughter. There was little doubt that it was an authentic issue for her. She eventually had surgery, and it apparently was successful; and I have no idea how.

    That said, I do not understand how we get from there to here. Here, being a presumed right for someone to invade any space they choose to without question Before the basic right to privacy of the many (pro choice efforts validated this right) is trampled by accommodation for the very few, there simply has to be a formal screening procedure and protocol.

  3. Well, that’s all very interesting and goes to show that human sexuality happens along a long spectrum of possibilities.

    That said I’m fresh out of compassion for the next favored minority group. I suspect most have had it with this endless parade of one victim group followed by the next in a never-ending freak show of who we need to care about next.

    All trannied out.

  4. There was an article I read a few days ago-wished I had saved a link-where the author pointed out the inconsistency of the LGBT s on insisting that people are born with sexual preferences and transgender persons expecting their mates to switch to having relations with the transgender’s new supposed sex.
    On the one hand, I have sympathy with anyone who does not feel at home in their body, but don’t expect me to validate their delusion. I say they need help, and some illnesses are incurable. The rest of us should not be forced by law to pretend cosmetic surgery and hormones really changes the sex of a person. (Yes , I am aware of the folks mentioned who might have an extra sex related gene. ) A while back Breitbart had a link to a British study that showed young people in Britain were far more likely to identify as non polar sexually than the previous generations. That’s more likely a mass social change, not a mass genetic change. Unstable kids are going to be swept along on this newest fad.

  5. FVD: Forced Validation of Delusion : where me must all use the “proper ” pronoun or else.

  6. “we’ not “me”

    FVD: Forced Validation of Delusion : where we must all use the “proper ” pronoun or else.

  8. I have to wonder about the teens who go on and get their bodies pumped full of hormones, or go onto surgery. Teen-agers are mostly crazy. When I was a teen, the popular books were about schizophrenics: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Eden Express, I Never Promised You A Rise Garden, et al, and the troubles teens all were sure they were schizophrenic. Troubled teens glom to whatever they think explains why they’re troubled.

  10. Seems to me that this small segment of our society is being intentionally overblown via the 31+ variety of genders the Left is now pushing. If you look at the list of gender identities provided by NYC (as part of their push to punish employers for not validating and employee’s preferred gender identity), a lot of them seem to based on a person’s apparel. What is the difference between, say, “cross-dresser” vs. “drag queen” vs. “drag king” vs. “butch”? None of these imply any physical modification (temporary or permanent), simply dressing in the opposite sex’s clothing.

    So how is one to know if they are interacting with a transgender, who believes they were born in the wrong body, vs, a man who likes to dress-up as a woman on occasion and only refers to himself in female pronouns while in drag? Or is it just a woman who likes to dress in androgynous, preppy attire – chinos, oxford shirts, penny loafers – but who has no gender identity issues whatsoever (a non-girly girl heterosexual woman)? Or is it a lesbian who may similarly wear androgynous attire who also has no gender identity issues, she just happens to be sexually attracted to women. Do clothes now hold some magical ability to temporarily or permanently transform one’s gender identity, like kids playing dress-up?

    This isn’t just mainstreaming body dysmorphia, it’s weirdly reinforcing what was considered outdated gender stereotypes. Now, if you’re a woman who wears unisex clothes you’re considered exhibiting a male identity instead of just being a preppy/tomboy/outdoorsy. If you’re a man interested in fashion you’re exhibiting a female identity instead of just being a man who is invested in looking sharp. In addition to exaggerating what is considered transgender (at least for civil rights purposes), we’re greatly reducing the acceptable spectrum of what is male vs. female at the same time we’re being told there are no differences between the two. This is insanity.

  11. I really hate the fad and activism elements of this issue. Jenner should never have gotten all the coverage he did. Little kids should be given time for their hormones to kick in and their parents should be ignored by the broader public. Confused teens should not find this an issue they can use to get attention. Let the individuals, their families, and their friends have some time to work things through.

    Most of the activists don’t give a damn about real individuals, just like Al Sharpton doesn’t give a damn about poor black kids growing up in totally dysfunctional homes.

  12. I am weary of the confused puppies. Yes, some of the ‘transgendered’ are legitimately in a dilemma and genuinely in need of compassion. But I suspect most are in need of mental health services. We are talking about less than 1% of the population! In a sane society they get our pity, not carte blanche access to shower rooms.

  13. expat says it best.
    My impression is this sexual nuttiness is unique to our time and place. How about other countries, other cultures, other times? How about Japan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, France?

    The concept of Romantic Love first appeared in the West in the Middle Ages.

    We have granted more and more license to more and more deviants because of their “civil rights” ever since we accepted homosexuality. Homosexuality was unacceptable in American society through the LBJ era.
    Now we are in the era of Bill Clinton’s ejaculate on an employee’s dress, the “Act Up” aggressive homosexual crowd that successfully agitated for more AIDS research, with the implicit “Gay Rights Matter” being a forerunner of today’s normalized polyperversions. Poor little victims all, and mighty sorry excuses for human beings.
    It’s enough to make me turn to Islam.

  14. Frog,
    Don’t you think that all this craziness gives Muslims even more reason to despise the West? I bet the radical imams use this stuff against us all the time.

  16. When I worked in the ER of Emanuel Hospital in the 1980s in Portland, Oregon, we saw some transgender patients, both m-to-f and f-to-m, quite regularly on the night shift, to the point where I can still remember one f-to-m patient’s name. He was overweight, strange-looking, always accompanied by a wife and two small children I presumed came from the woman’s previous liaison. Carey (that was is first name) complained of headaches most often, but sometimes of abdominal pain. All of the transgender patients we saw came in frequently, were on welfare, and their complaints seemed more the product of hypochondria than of any real or serious ailment. The m-to-f often presented with minor injuries they would allege were the result of either domestic violence or odd stranger-to-stranger encounters, the stories of which were hard to believe. i

  17. Two cases in NE.

    1. My female co-worker played high school basketball in a small town in Western NE. Her classmate switched to male after college. As part of a case, I had a sample of her handwriting. It was quite feminine. That was unchanged by surgery and hormones.

    2. About ten years ago People magazine did a profile of a Nebraska-Omaha college professor who went from Wally to Meredith. Poli Sci. He remained married to his female wife. People published a picture of them sitting on their bed. I thought they were idiots to pose that way and get exploited.

    His wife taught at my son’s all male high school and he had her for class. Imagine the talk.

  19. Assistant Village Idiot
    I work with a fair number of transgendered people. That is, not all that many, but way more than most people will ever deal with. Covering on the children’s unit I have suddenly gotten to know more. I think this is becoming a common idea among teenagers who feel unhappy and are certain that gender dysphoria is the key. It usually isn’t and the Swedish long-term study should give us pause.

    It’s a matter of trends.

    Some years ago, everything was PTSD. After that, everything was ADHD. Now, trangenderism seems the next new trend. And I’m afraid it’s gonna leave some bodies in the closet in some years.

    After all, you give a kid Ritalin, and then you don’t, and it goes to normal. But hormonal treatment and surgery is something from which there is no way back.

    I’m gonna make a prediction, and I usually succeed. If this trans trend goes ahead, in some years from now the ones who made mistakes and screwed their life will be demonized. Society is no good in recognizing mistakes, and they will be blamed fiercely.

  20. My husband flipped on CNBC last night and Bill Griffith was being congratulated for 25 years there by a female newscaster who was also there when he started. The differences in their hair was amazing

    The pictures brought up an important question: Do the hormone treatments prevent male baldness? What happens if a MtoF decides to go back to M? Everyone talks as though the sex change operation is the biggest thing in transitioning, but what exactly do the hormones do?

  21. Expat: The hormones are the heart and soul of the process, so to speak, not really the surgery. The surgery is always touted as “it” but a lot happens before that occurs, if it does, and frankly, the changes that the sex-typed hormones make are far more dramatic and really create the physical and psychological changes. I think I’ve said this before.

    To answer your question, which is a smart one, MTF or male to female (trans women) will not have male pattern baldness if they are on estrogens (and often, anti-androgens). FTMs or transsexual men, male to female — can become bald if they take testosterone, it depends on your family genetics. If a person has hairy men in the family who are also bald, that person will become bald and hairy with testosterone even if they started out female. If your family has a full head of hair or less male pattern baldness you will have less etc It all about genetics. The hormones will bring to expression what a person has genetically, nothing else.

    I think if a person who is MTF goes back to F, which does not happen that often in spite of the Mike Penn case, that person can again get male pattern baldness. Of course, going back is hard if changes have already taken place because of the hormones or — the surgery. But even the hormones can create changes that are irreversible.

    To the point: a ‘sex change’ or “gender transition” is a long process that is medical, legal and social. It generally starts with therapy and getting a letter from the therapist for hormones. Then, IDs can be changed depending on the state. The surgeries, and there is NOT just one, but different ones and different techniques can be undertaken at appropriate times when the person wishes. A person generally needs a therapist’s letter for these as well. Each step is usually certified by a “gatekeeper” – generally a therapist. Also, again, IDs are changed depending on the state up to and including the birth certificate. Everything is changed… and this has been true for at least thirty or more years depending again, on the state. It is a process and actually takes years. This is not an “instant” thing.

    It is significant to me that in one of the studies that Neo quotes that the trans people who have the most trouble, tending more toward suicide, are the ones who have been rejected by family. That makes sense and anyone who is subjected to cruel rejection by family for any reason is often depressed by that. Also, it is significant to me that the trans people who are the most “out” are often the most depressed. Often, there is no reason to come “out”, it is kind of the opposite of being gay. Being gay and coming out you are revealing your true self; being a trans person and coming “out” you are subject to people negating your true self and insisting you are your birth sex and are only “pretending” to be the sex you have become. So, that is depressing. It takes a strong person to do reveal their status as trans and a lot of social support. I think it is better ultimately just to live one’s life. As one guy told me, a trans guy like me, “I didn’t do this to become a trans activist, I did this to become a man.” Period, end of question. So sometimes revealing one’s past or medical history is the last thing we want to do. We want to be known as who we are, not as the person we never felt comfortable being.

    Also, I do believe that Hopkins study is pretty old and has been discredited as the sample was small and came from a small and troubled group. I think similar studies were made in the past on gay and lesbian people and had similar results when people being studied were from patient populations. Also, this was some time back… that study is older.. it is not even quoted much any more unless it is quoted (unfortunately) by social conservatives or – oddly, by radical feminists who dislike trans women. This is where extreme social conservatives and the far left meet, in their skepticism and often extreme dislike or even hatred toward trans people. There is a part of the left that is now supportive of trans people but a segment of radical feminists are not and have made that very clear.

    I am not saying you are an extreme social conservative Neo — haha — I know that is not true.

    I know there has been some kind of debunking of the Swedish study but frankly, I am too lazy to go and look it up. I don’t spend as much time on this since I have moved on. I know the world has not and we are getting more publicity than ever and a lot is not positive. However, it is not, again, really about THE SURGERY but about the entire process which includes hormones and often more than one surgery. Not that THE SURGERY is not important but really, the entire process is so much larger than that.

    Now… This is not to say that there is not more suicide within transsexual populations than among non-trans populations. But with the pressures we face, I am not entirely surprised. Hopefully as things get better that will also diminish.

    And again — many of us are just fine thank you and are doctors, professors, writers, and just people. We get married and have been doing so legally for some time – as heterosexuals in our “new sex” and now as gay people. Some marriages do stay together by the way through transition though it is a challenging time…

    Many of the people here talk to trans people every day or have talked to one of us and would not know the difference.

    I don’t tell everyone though I have been in films and written a memoir. It is there for people to google. But I also am tired of the subject after 27 years and consider myself a man with an unusual history and that’s the end of it. You get tired of answering the same questions after awhile, particularly if you don’t even think much about it any more. So I often refer people to my memoir if they have a lot of questions.

    I am against these stupid bathroom laws pro or con — since I’ve been going to the bathroom in the Men’s room for a long time and no one would know the better. We don’t need a law to allow us to go and we don’t need a law to ban us. Things are fine as they are. This is possibly one of the only things Donald Trump got right. Things are fine as they are and no laws are needed in either direction and no special bathrooms. And, yes, we can change our birth certificates any way (though not all of us do and some states don’t allow it, however 47 out of 50 states do).

    As for the “they” crowd and the “genderfluid” crowd… well that’s a whole other thing. It is a bit faddish but for some it may be more real. I can’t be the ultimate judge of that. But they are very different than folks like me, this is not about being in-between and I share some of the exasperation expressed here about these folks. Though, to each their own! However, I think politically people like me, real transsexuals — should separate as the goals of the fluid and genderqueer and “they” crowd are very different from actual goals of people who have undergone transsexual medical processes and legal processes.

    I think one of the first transsexuals was an American – Christine Jorgenson. She was certainly the epitome in some ways of the American dream and the pursuit of happiness… I think the hyper-politicization of all of this by the far left is detrimental finally.

    I don’t see myself as a victim though certainly it can be stressful. Again, my memoir is called _The Testosterone Files_ . It is a little wild and racy, be warned but many get a better understanding from reading it. It is unpopular with some feminists, this may make it more popular with some here! 😉

  22. Oh, in my haste I sounded quite confusing here… I wrote:

    When I said it is not really about the infamous “sex change surgery” or SRS or now “gender confirmation surgery” — I mean to say that the Swedish study again focuses on “the surgery “and not on the entire process. So it makes me wonder about the entire study and the credibility of its results. Could it be that some people had false expectations about surgery (sensation, appearance) or? This does not mean they were not transsexual but maybe they got lousy surgery! Or, they had unrealistic expectations. It is important to not have unrealistic expectations and to know all your choices. There are many…

    In the USA we have more medical choices and I hope this continues. One of the issues with places like Sweden or in the EU generally is that while the government pays, the choices are more limited generally and waiting lists are long. Here we have many choices and surgeons compete Competition, we know as free market folks is a good thing!

    Oh by the way, a good example of a well-known classic liberal trans woman is Deirdre McCloskey who is an economist and professor and a writer here for the WSJ. A splendid article on classic liberalism!

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-west-and-the-rest-got-rich-1463754427

  23. Gee, sorry about the italics folks, I am screwing up tonight! But I think you get the picture.

    The one thing I do like about Caitlyn Jenner is she’s a conservative and a Republican! She gets more shit about that than nearly anything else. Well at least from her fellow LGBT people. Or from abashed liberals or lefties… But it proves we are just folks and yes, we walk among you! ;0

  24. What exactly do hormones do?

    I had an unusually close look a few weeks when I drew a young man (my choice of words) who prefers to be a woman, in a life drawing class. The drugs had put some weight on his hips and backside and his breasts are like those of a middle aged man who is out of condition, without any of the roundness of a small breasted woman.

    Drugs cannot alter the bone structure of the hands and the jawline. Because I am soft-hearted I took those features back a bit in the drawing to make him feel better.

    If in doubt about a person’s sex look at their hands – always the giveaway.

  25. Caedmon, well sometimes yes, and sometimes no – the hands. But yes, hands are often “the giveaway” if that’s what you want to call it, though we are not trying to “fool people” – we are who we are. Also, I have met trans women who have small hands and trans men with larger hands. And actually the jaw does change as the muscles in the face shrink and become smaller in the case of trans women or become larger in the case of trans men and the adipose layer fills in different areas. I think the fat is redistributed all over the body and that means the face too. Also, the skin texture changes… Women have an extra layer of fat and smoother muscles and trans women will get those features- which softens even their jawlines, all in time. It all depends also on how long the person has been on hormones and what they had to begin with. But yes people with massive jaws will have a harder time… but again, over a period of years even that changes to some degree or another.

    And if it doesn’t – so what?

    I have met a few non-trans women with some big jaws myself. Think of Greta Van Susteran! Haha

    I have also met trans women with full breasts, even a d cup in one case, that grew – and they grew all by themselves! Yes it happens!

    I think at some point, one quits looking for “the giveaway” and just accepts people for who they are. This might mean accepting a lady who is a little taller or who has larger hands. I used to look for “the giveaway” too — but finally realized that while we may be complex in some respects, trans people are who they say they are. Yes, maybe some of us look funny that’s all. Some of course, are gorgeous and maybe just a little bit larger than life. When it is good, it is really good.

    It is generally a bit easier to go from woman to man, to be a smaller man than a larger woman.

    People trying to “read us” might be surprised at all the trans people you don’t see, who are working with you or at your church or… you only see the people who look more “obvious” to you. Frankly, even I can’t tell usually — not when it is a trans man — FTM and sometimes even a trans woman — MTF. I sometimes think non-trans men are trans men…

    That said, of course this process is not perfect though it is awesome and sometimes nearly perfect. I am so privileged to live in such an amazing time when this is possible.

  26. Liberty Wolf,
    Thank you for your very informative response. I have a lot of trouble with the current activism because I can’t believe that people going through such an enormous change and the self questioning it must entail would want to make a bathroom stall the center of their existence. I can’t deal with people as groups, only as individuals. And I want to reserve the right to judge them on the totality of who they are. I’ve known gays who were fantastic people and others who were total a**holes, and I want to reserve my right to judge them on how they act without being called a homophobe. I also don’t want to know the full sexual history of every person I encounter, be they hetero, gay, or trans. I never walked around with a sign saying I had my period. Private is private.

  27. Expat: I do agree. What is important is the individual and the group identity is secondary or even tertiary. Sometimes it barely matters at all.

    I have always been against the strident bathroom activism actually. Unfortunately I am outnumbered. There are some of us with common sense; one trans woman I know who is long transitioned felt as though the whole thing didn’t matter, the bathroom law, since most of us could change our birth certificates any way. So it was a moot point since the law would require us to go to the bathroom on our birth certificate. Of course, no one is going to be checking birth certificates at bathroom doors. I doubt that. Anyway, it is a little dingy. I am not sure why activists latched onto this as a key point of activism but it would not have been my choice. And, the original law to give us permission to go into bathrooms is written too broadly to include “self-identification” which is could mean so many things. It is the left wing of trans activism and like so many things the left does it is wrong-headed.

    I guess this is just a good lesson in what happens when the government gives you “rights”. They can take them away. Since trans people were just using the bathroom of our new gender/sex any way, for over sixty years now – since the first sex changes happened, we did not need a law There is a craze about making laws for this and that and sometimes a law is just not necessary. People do things as they will and usually things are just fine. So if someone makes a law to give us a right someone else can make a law to take it away. I say – don’t even make the law. We don’t need it.

    Yes, private is private! The left wants everything to be political and politicized identities are at the heart of the issue. No need to politicize this as an identity, it is something one does, not really something one is.

  28. The underlying issue that doesn’t get discussed much is how the liberal mind seems compelled to champion these unusual causes in a constant one-upmanship in “see how compassionate I am”.

    There’s nothing compassionate in the record of liberals feeling sorry for people and subsequently “helping them out”.

  29. @liberty wolf

    One question:

    What do you think about the men/women discrimination issue? Is it better/easier to live as a woman or as a man? Are women really that oppressed or discriminated in comparison with men?

  30. Liberty wolf – I appreciate your insight and honesty.

    My issues with the current bathroom and civil rights activism for transgenders is really about the way they are seeking to erase binary sex with a ridiculous number (31 in NYC, 50+ on facebook, etc.) of gender identities. All of this energy spent on deciding and parading one’s unique gender identity is more likely narcissism than living life as one’s true self with dignity. I have no idea what the endgame is other than chaos, but it certainly isn’t much about assisting transgenders who do commit to the opposite sex (and eventually have the surgery). It seems to be the new tool with which to legally harass institutions and businesses now that they’ve had so much success with their same sex marriage activism/lawsuits. Many of us are weary from that, constantly having our values and religions demonized when we, like you, would rather just live and let live (and feel safe from perverts and predators in our bathrooms/locker rooms/dressing rooms).

  31. They want to give Leftists easier physical access to children, in order to implement direct neutral training, than merely indirect propaganda indoctrination via linguistics.

  32. It’s enough to make me turn to Islam.

    Check out the non mainline Christian religions in the US. There’s a reason why the Left hates them.

    Right now, it’s mostly about taking sides. There are a lot of neutrals who want to be left alone. While Christians might leave them alone, the Leftist alliance and Islamic Jihad, will not allow you to Sit on a Fence and remain neutral.

    Even if you could, that’s not going to make your children and relatives immune either.

  33. http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html

    There are still Christian lines who are against homosexual marriage and various other Leftist or Islamic based supremacy beliefs.

    But the link is interesting, I thought, and came from Bookworm. It’s a story about True Love, rather than identity politics. But it does paint a light on identity supremacy and why people would prefer using that to dominate slaves rather than allowing humans to decide.

  34. Yann asked:

    I do talk about this some in my memoir, The Testosterone Files, though it is not the main subject of the book. However, I would say that NOW living in the USA that one set of circumstances and expectations is exchanged for another. I did notice right away that people appeared to take me more seriously when I spoke (of course my voice changed into a male range with testosterone – baritone) even though I was not saying anything more perceptive than I was before. Women and men both did this and even feminist women. I did of course, notice certain women who were probably lesbian or hardcore feminists of a certain kind (not all but a few) being nastier to me or impolite. That was interesting. I also noticed that I certainly did not have to worry about being raped on the streets late at night. This was a huge thing, however, I also noticed that women acted afraid of me when I was walking near them late at night and would cross the street. That was weird though I understood why. That is not something I liked though again, I understood it. Men do get mugged and have violent things happen and certainly I became aware of a certain kind of male-on-male violence that was in certain places. I would have to be careful now not to look at anyone’s girlfriend too long or — step on certain young men’s feet by accident. Some guys wanted to fight – that was new and kind of intimidating but I learned to not act afraid or aggressive but to be in control and not be intimidated. This is the process of resocialization. People are not as sympathetic to my pain — emotional or physical as a man. People are generally not quite as friendly either, I mean strangers are not as friendly though there are men who will try and bond with me now. I am judged more on how much money I make. So it is not always easier being a man, not a royal red carpet as some would have you believe but there are perks.

  35. Lizzy you write:

    Yes, I don’t take these things real seriously either, the crazy number of genders. I understand people are complex and I won’t go out of my way to rain on someone’s gender parade but ah, I agree a lot of this is just silly. I think they are on a very different page, that genderqueer genderfluid group, than actual transsexual people and we really should pull back from any serious political alliance we have with them. Of course, this is not PC at all but many trans people like myself feel this way. The people who as you say — commit– to medical transition and not just a weird pronoun. We really don’t have all that much in common with these folks except sometimes, it is a phase people go through before they do commit . Even so, there is something faddish about it.

    I am totally against any silly law that will fine a business for not picking up on these esoteric pronouns. I guess they have this sort of law in NYC. I don’t know how they will enforce it since the cops will have to arrest or fine nearly the entire city of NY because who knows these pronouns except people who went through a Gender Studies program?

    All in all our “activists” need to get a life IMHO. Some do good work, educating people or disseminating useful information or working to help litigate actual cases of real discrimination, or finding resources for trans people and their families… but some of it is leftist lunacy and in service of an agenda that is even destructive to folks like me. I mean I hate being associated with this sort of silly 50 pronoun stuff. Of course, again, this is an opinion many don’t come out with out loud but it is more prevalent than it seems. I think most trans people are not that exotic, no weird pronouns and just want to live our lives in relative peace.

  36. @liberty wolf,

    Thank you very much, Max (that’s your name if I am right about the book I checked in amazon). It’s a pity voices like yours are not more heard nowadays.

    Your comment was very insightful. As a suggestion, I think that a book about the differences in how society treats men and women could be a really interesting one. As long as I know there’s only one book about that subject, and the writer (Norah Vincent) was the whole time a woman (she isn’t trans). She lived and dressed like a man to write the book, but she never went through any hormonal process. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think any book about that subject has been ever written by a trans person.

  37. @liberty wolf,

    By the way, with regard to

    Yes, I don’t take these things real seriously either, the crazy number of genders. I understand people are complex and I won’t go out of my way to rain on someone’s gender parade but ah, I agree a lot of this is just silly. I think they are on a very different page, that genderqueer genderfluid group, than actual transsexual people and we really should pull back from any serious political alliance we have with them.

    Let me use a metaphor.

    I live in a region that has been asking to be independent for decades. We had even a terrorist group fighting for independence not long ago. Sometimes, when the independence debates comes up, one issue uses to be “so then, every area that just asks for independence should get it? that will be an endless story!”

    And even I don’t like it (I’m pro independence), that’s a point to deal with.

    Otto von Bismark said that politics is the art of the possible. You must grant people some freedom, but at the same time you must prevent it of flooding until a point it becomes impossible to handle every little boundary or label.

    In my (subjective) opinion, one clue to tell apart what it’s real issues from whims is that people have been years fighting for it. That can be applied from the independence of countries to the rights of minority groups. From that point of view, I consider gay and trans issues as important ones, since people have been fighting for it for long. And from this point of view, I consider the “gender fluid” stuff the whim of spoiled sons of First World.

    You go to Third World, where people are hungry, and murdered, and you still will see there people fighting for the right to be gay or the right to swap gender. You won’t see anybody fighting for being “fluid”. That’s a clue of what really matters and what is a spoiled whim.

  38. Yann:

    Thank you… I did read the Norah Vincent book years ago and was struck by many of her observations. I could also tell that because she did not truly feel male inside and did not take testosterone that she did not seem to understand the “inside” of the male experience as she experienced it through living as a man and having people treat her like one. But not having those essential ingredients a lot of things went past her and were experienced as inexplicable or simply stressful. She ended up having a nervous breakdown as I recall at the end of the book which was interesting also — though unfortunate. It was a really fascinating book however and worth a read.

    I do talk about how I am treated differently in the memoir but focus more on my changes physically and psychically — but that is a part of it. That is a very interesting part as things do change so completely yet it is not always so simple as now I am not oppressed and I was. But I am not living in Pakistan or Iran so… which is a good thing! I mean men definitely have more rights than women in those countries so I would notice that kind of empowerment immediately. But I did notice that people appeared to take me more seriously, which is interesting… However again, people also seemed more distant and less friendly in a way… strangers on the street etc. I am not smiled at as much.

    And, yes my name is actually Max. Can’t be too careful out there with people searching the internet, I mean – I am more stealth as a conservative than as a trans person in a way but that may change soon. 🙂

  39. Yann:

    That is a good analogy about independence…

    The “genderfluid” people imagine themselves to be more “cool” and cutting edge since theirs is a very leftist stance based on a utopian ideal of identity – being “non-binary” or beyond gender with many genders (that is a strange way to do it). Like many with an agenda they can actually be quite boorish and a little too smug. The type of person one wants to avoid at the party…

  40. What you say (having more help as a woman, being more seriously considered as a man) makes quite sense. And it’s logical: if one group of people gets helps more easily, their merits are going to be diminished. Something similar happened with wealthy families when I was in the University: whoever came from a wealthy family was less valued since he was supposed to have had it easier.

    Of course, this is profiling and profiling is many times statistically right and individually wrong. Though we are imperfect beings living in a world of imperfect information. You have lived it when you said that when you adopted a male look, women suddenly looked more afraid. You were the same person (just a different look), but suddenly you were identified as part of a group whose members are more likely to be violent. As a positive side, it meant that you were identified and accepted as a member of the club you wanted to belong (paraphrasing Groucho Marx). It must be a contradictory feeling feeling to feel a bit happy that a woman feels slightly afraid of you because that means that she identifies you as a man.

    With regard to “gender fluid”… yeap, it sounds like people who want to be special. That’s the big problem with incentives. I use to say that human beings, we behave according to incentives. If you create incentives for people to say they’re “fluid”, they will do. That’s why I think that the best policy with LGTB issues is to keep it possible and private. Don’t encourage it publicly, just make it possible, make it private, and whoever needs it, he or she will know.

    However, the problem is that incentives have many tentacles. And people want their 15 minutes of glory, their moment of moral highground, the moment something good happens (and LGTB rights were a good thing), there will be people wanting to take a step forward to take credit of it, even if they have to bring all that good to a parody of itself.

  41. My assessment of Leftist strategy is very simple. In order to ensure trans whatevers are back on the Leftist plantation, they need to destabilize the social acceptance and class unison which trans people have achieved in their lives. The Left must expel them back out of normal middle class society, which allows them to be radicalized and submitted to the Leftist hierarchy as “victim groups” or “minorities”. The path to Normalization will then be to gain power as a victim. Once a taste of that power addiction hits, the minority will never get away from the control of the Left.

    The Left focused on homos and hijacking black minorities first, because they were more numerous. Trans are statistically to minor for the Left to worry about. The fact that the Leftist alliance is targeting trans people for re integration in their command hierarchy, means that they are nearing the end game. Especially as even the US military is falling for it.

  42. I know a couple of women who want to be men: both lesbians. One was attacked physically by her mother, a Puerto Rican, and locked in a closet with roaches when she “came out” as a lesbian to her at age 16; Yolanda also had been drafted to play “husband” to her mother, as her biological father, a PR ganglord from the Bronx, was just a sperm donor, there and gone.

    The other woman was the oldest in an Irish-Catholic brood of 15 kids, also drafted to play husband to her mother, who was overloaded and really emotionally abandoned by her husband. Terry is a butch lesbian and a Marxist, a woman of somber mien. But she told a group of us something I’ve never forgotten, and I think anyone who’s trying to figure all this out had bloody well better consider this possible etiology of the condition as well.

    She had already had her breasts amputated, and was telling us she was getting ready to have her womb and vagina amputated as well. Then she said something that gave me chills:

    “I had a nightmare a couple of days ago after my doctor’s appointment [to discuss the surgery], and I woke up in a cold sweat — I dreamed I was a little girl again, and I was screaming in terror.”

    Then she dismissed the dream: but in that moment, I saw her as the castrating Mother-figure who had the little girl she truly is strapped down on the operating table, and is ready to wield that knife and amputate her femaleness. I was horrified; she was oblivious.

    Such a vivid impression. No one can tell me that there aren’t a LOT of these people who have been made to despise their own sex/sexuality, and are acting out their perpetrators’ cruel wishes.

    [Footnote: Jenner still has his twig and berries, he is a man. And 2 plus 2 still equals 4, goddammit.

  43. Beverly: I had written a reply and lost it! Dang it! Suffice to say that I have met many, maybe hundreds of trans people in my life, and I honestly can’t trace the etiology of their being trans to anything in particular. I have met many traumatized heterosexual people who are not trans, and many gay and lesbian people who are not trans and who were traumatized as children for whatever reason. What I mean to say is this.. Most people are not trans and many had horrific childhoods. So it is a mystery to me. My own family story is not at all so dramatic or sad, thank goodness. I come from a family that is intact, my dad was a career military man, my mother was a talented pianist and a homemaker and later she worked when we went to school. No drugs, no crazy horrors as you describe. We settled in a well to do suburb when my father retired and I went to good schools etc. I had my challenges, my childhood was not perfect but I don’t know anyone who had a perfect childhood. I have had a clean bill of health from therapists over the years and well, I am fortunate to not have the histories you describe.

    No one really knows why people are lesbian or gay either, and — likewise no one is sure why any one is transsexual. In any case, like most people who do this I knew from the age of 3 and that feeling, that knowledge about being more male than female, never went away. At any rate, I certainly can’t boil it down to some traumatic event and no one ever made me despise my biological femaleness (I think that’s what you mean) – and in fact I did spend some time trying to cover up the fact that I really felt male inside — that my sexuality and gender was male and not female. Of course I tried to conform to femaleness and felt family and other pressure to conform to femaleness – but it never felt like – me.

    My first reply was probably better but that’s the gist of it.

    Ymarsarkar: I agree the left wants trans people on their plantation. They love keeping people in victim status so they can be exploited and used for the left’s agenda.

  44. Those of you who mentioned imams and Islam might be interested to learn that Iran has the second highest transgender surgery rate in the world–transgenderism is accepted in some schools of Islam and seen almost as a “cure” for homosexuality.

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