Althouse: "Because I'm transgender, I was always completely disconnected from my body."

May 16, 2013

"Because I'm transgender, I was always completely disconnected from my body."

Says Chaz Bono, blithely purveying a stereotype about transgender persons. Apparently, they are all completely disconnected from their bodies!

This head-body disconnect is offered as an explanation for obesity: "I really lived in my head and just kind of tried to ignore everything from the neck down."

39 comments:

KJE said...: So did I, when I was a fat guy.

I am not transgender. I always liked the company of women. Still do!

Amazingly, losing, weight, I found out that they liked me too.; 5/16/13, 2:36 PM
MadisonMan said...: How nice that being transgender means you can do anything you want to to your body.

You know, 'cause you're disconnected from it.

It's not my fault!!!; 5/16/13, 2:39 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: If you think you're a dude, and you've got ladyparts, playing with yourself must be a blast.; 5/16/13, 2:39 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Chris Christy said (overheard near water cooler)...

I'm so glad that Chaz brought this up. It's very important to me, because I, too, am a fat-American.; 5/16/13, 2:42 PM
Sorun said...: Someone should do a study on whether people who change their sex go on to live satisfying lives. It's quite possible that most of these people are just chronically unsatisfied, no matter what their circumstance is.; 5/16/13, 2:43 PM
edutcher said...: Sorry, he grew up in a very strange marriage.

That's why he has problems.; 5/16/13, 2:43 PM
garage mahal said...: tag: Obama scandals; 5/16/13, 2:44 PM
chuck said...: I really lived in my head and just kind of tried to ignore everything from the neck down.

Shoot, I'm looking for a relevant passage in "Caliban to the Audience", but it seem that little of Auden's work is available online. Great poem, IMHO, well worth the read.; 5/16/13, 2:47 PM
Anonymous said...: It's hard reconciling this 'guy' with the cute little girl who would wander out at the end of the 'Sonny and Cher Show'.; 5/16/13, 2:47 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: I'm a thin man trapped in a fat man's body.; 5/16/13, 2:55 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: Correlation / causation ALERT!

edutcher said...
Sorry, he grew up in a very strange marriage. That's why he has problems.; 5/16/13, 2:55 PM
bagoh20 said...: Nobody gives a shit that I'm a 14 year old boy trapped in an old fart. Help! Get me out of here. It's gross!; 5/16/13, 2:56 PM
chuck said...: Sometimes sex change happens naturally. Example:

Actually, I am a Rocket Scientist. Also hormonally odd (my blood has 46xy chromosomes anyway) and for most of my life, I looked male, and lived as one, trying to be the best Man a Gal could be. Anyway, in May 2005 that started changing naturally for reasons still unclear, and I'm now Zoe, not Alan : happier and more relaxed not to have to pretend any more.

More here. It made his marriage difficult, for understandable reasons.; 5/16/13, 3:00 PM
SteveR said...: Yeah some how I don't think its a plumbing problem; 5/16/13, 3:03 PM
Carnifex said...: I'll have everyone here know that I have the body of a GOD!!!

Budha...; 5/16/13, 3:07 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: bagoh20, I care.

I do.

But let's be honest with ourselves. Is jumping off a cliff strapped in a kite really the best way to work out this unfortunate body displacement, considering your responsibilities and the people and animals that rely on your wellbeing?; 5/16/13, 3:08 PM
Carnifex said...: anyway, I'm glad it's disconnected from its body. Nobody should be forced to associate with something like that.(yes I DID go there); 5/16/13, 3:08 PM
Carnifex said...: I have the brain of a german sheperd too. No leg is safe from my humping ways; 5/16/13, 3:10 PM
Crunchy Frog said...: Studies have shown that TGs have the same type of neural dysfunction that people that have elective amputations do, but at least in this country we don't let "this leg doesn't feel like it's part of me" be an excuse to hack it off.

No, it's not a plumbing problem.; 5/16/13, 3:27 PM
Paddy O said...: I'm thinking about becoming transrace. I've never felt "white." Plus, it would free me up for more fellowship awards and suchlikes.; 5/16/13, 3:28 PM
Bender said...: No, she is completely disconnected from reality. And she has had lots of help in encouraging her to detach herself from reality.; 5/16/13, 3:31 PM
Known Unknown said...: Too bad we couldn't ignore what was going on from the neck down.; 5/16/13, 3:34 PM
rhhardin said...: If you're disconnected from your body, you might use your time to ponder the question why there's something rather than nothing.

Multitask!; 5/16/13, 3:40 PM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: Chaz does look suspiciously like Bitchtits Mahal.

Has anyone ever seen the two of them together at the same time?; 5/16/13, 3:52 PM
Methadras said...: So when your disconnected body told your disembodied head that it was hungry, did your unattached hands not get the message to stop shoveling food to your incorporeal mouth? Oh wait.; 5/16/13, 3:58 PM
traditionalguy said...: She/it is one confused spoiled brat that cannot take responsibility for being alive.; 5/16/13, 4:07 PM
bagoh20 said...: Chip I haven't flown for months for just that reason. I'm getting my will and trusts in order so that things can continue on without me as smoothly as possible.

I've been expecting to die any day now for years, but things just keep going and getting better all the time. It's very frustrating. You just can't count on anything anymore.

If I had my choice, I would love to check out while flying. A heart attack while flying over Yosemite Valley would be ideal. Followed by a series of clunks against the face of Half-Dome on the way down like Wylie Coyote, with a nice landing in a meadow of high grass at the base of a waterfall. Aaaaaahhhh. I need to get "Acme Flying Machines" stenciled on my glider. Then a bear could bear could come along and drag me off. It would be a mystery in all the papers. Fame without the paparazzi. I might even make it on Althouse and everyone could give me the Darwin award treatment.

Doesn't that beat the hell out of months of bed pans, I.V.s, respirators, shitty sheets and morphine?; 5/16/13, 4:13 PM
Astro said...: Any excuse is a good excuse when you don't want to do something.; 5/16/13, 4:29 PM
rhhardin said...: Brains in vats is a good model.

Stanley Cavell brain in a vat "That one just there is you."; 5/16/13, 4:38 PM
MayBee said...: It seems very anti-individual, this idea of thinking you are a gender that doesn't belong in your body. How do you know you feel anything other than *you*?

I see a lot of transgendered as the same types of people as those who cover tevery inch of skin,or face, with tattoos. There is something about their body and identity they want to be different, permanently. I don't know if anyone really knows what it is.; 5/16/13, 4:53 PM
John henry said...: I think a more appropriate headline might have been:

"Because I am a Bono, I am completely disconnected from reality"

I was going to say Sarkisian because Sonny always seemed like the smart and sane one of the pair. But nobody knows what's a Sarkisian.

John Henry; 5/16/13, 5:05 PM
John henry said...: Word going around town is that I have the body of an 18 year old.

I am scared to death that the cops are going to find out and make me dig it up.

If you don't see any more comments from me, you will know the reason.

John Henry; 5/16/13, 5:06 PM
Sam L. said...: What she said--I been trying to do that for her, but starting at the head.; 5/16/13, 5:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Someone should do a study on whether people who change their sex go on to live satisfying lives. It's quite possible that most of these people are just chronically unsatisfied, no matter what their circumstance is.

Sorun: At least one such study has been done at Johns Hopkins:

The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jon Meyer was already developing a means of following up with adults who received sex-change operations at Hopkins in order to see how much the surgery had helped them. He found that most of the patients he tracked down some years after their surgery were contented with what they had done and that only a few regretted it. But in every other respect, they were little changed in their psychological condition. They had much the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before. The hope that they would emerge now from their emotional difficulties to flourish psychologically had not been fulfilled.

Paul McHugh, the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins, concluded:

...Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness. We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia.

Which sounds reasonable to me.

See the McHugh article here.; 5/16/13, 6:22 PM
Anonymous said...: There's a genuine mental disorder called "Alien Hand Syndrome" in which one hand seems to have a mischievous mind of its own.

In extreme cases some patients have opted for amputation. These patients are usually satisfied with the surgery.; 5/16/13, 6:28 PM
Michael Haz said...: I'm beginning to feel more like I belong Europe than I do in America. I am becoming a transcontinentaled person.; 5/16/13, 8:18 PM
Michael Haz said...: Hey, at least Chaz can tell Chastity "I've got you, babe."; 5/16/13, 8:19 PM
Methadras said...: creeley23 said...

There's a genuine mental disorder called "Alien Hand Syndrome" in which one hand seems to have a mischievous mind of its own.

In extreme cases some patients have opted for amputation. These patients are usually satisfied with the surgery.

As the bible states, "If they hand offend thee, cut it off."; 5/16/13, 8:23 PM
Tom Perkins said...: @creeley23

The hormones and surgery are only supposed to help them with the one issue.

How is it cooperating with a mental illness when it does in fact help them with the one issue it is supposed to help what?; 5/17/13, 1:15 PM