My daughter... is asked by the pediatrician, by her teachers, by people who have known her for many years, if she feels like, or wants to be called, or wants to be, a boy.Davis is trying so hard to be politically correct, and everything she writes is so scrupulously polite. But in the process she's shedding light on an important problem: More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions.
In many ways, this is wonderful: It shows a much-needed sensitivity to gender nonconformity and transgender issues. It is considerate of adults to ask her — in the beginning.
But when they continue to question her gender identity — and are skeptical of her response — the message they send is that a girl cannot look and act like her and still be a girl....
Let’s be clear: If my daughter does begin to feel that the gender in her mind and the sex of her body don’t match, I will be supportive. I will research puberty blockers and hormones (more than I already have).....
April 19, 2017
At some point, the trans-friendly mom gets tired of people inquiring about whether her tomboy daughter is really a transgender boy.
An op-ed in the NYT by Lisa Selin Davis (with a headline that might make you think the woman is defensive and not as pro-transgender is she, in fact, clearly wants to appear).
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95 comments:
I like this.
I think there's a lot of pressure right now to be transgender if what you like for yourself is different than the stereotypes for your sex. I think men should be allowed to be very feminine and still be men, and I think women should be allowed to be very masculine and still be men. Maybe if we can accept that, we'll spare people a lot of pain and painful surgery.
I seem to remember us spending a lot of time and effort disposing of outmoded gender roles.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”
Things are what they are, despite liberals, and including liberals.
Well, I'm not overly sympathetic to the mother. Once you have accepted the nonsense of gender identity, and rejected objective reality, which clearly she has, you can't complain when the left forces your kid to be who they want her to be.
Harper Lee, I mean Scout would definitely have been groomed for genital mutilation by the left these days.
If people keep asking a tom boy if she thinks she's really a boy, have they REALLY moved beyond gender roles?
These cases are tragic. They are lost within the wilderness of their own bodies. It is sad and edgy but from a policy perspective it is not even a rounding error. Only a handful of people are going to struggle with this. We can all agree to not bother or exclude them, and some of us may even agree to help pay for the tools used in the mutilations they may choose to endure to create, as they think, their "true selves." Often I hear the mutilation does not solve the dysphoria and suicide is too common.
So it is very sad and we should not make it worse. But is it some major policy concern? It is not a reprise of the Freedom Marches or even the draft protests.
What is interesting about it, then, is why the Progs have picked up such an intrinsically uninteresting and marginal issue and are trying to turn it into the Next Big Thing.
But "female circumcision" is a crime against the Universe! (Just so you know, I think it is.)
Insanity seems to be contagious.
And our very "modern" society sacrifices yet even more of their children on the alter to earn favor with their God.
Davis is trying so hard to be politically correct, and everything she writes is so scrupulously polite.
The old "not that there's anything wrong with that."
She should move.
So much child abuse, under the auspices of our liberal government. A sick society, I think.
why the Progs have picked up such an intrinsically uninteresting and marginal issue and are trying to turn it into the Next Big Thing.
As a lever to Power -- see "Fallout, North Caroline Bathroom Law"
Remove the genitals from all new-born children.
They can then start with a clean slate, and assess their gender as they grow older.
Then, once a decision has been made, Medical Science can graft some crude non-functioning sexual organs onto them to make them whole.
Solved.
I am Laslo.
Gender dysphoria seems a lot like anorexia, bulimia, and body dysphmorphic disorder to me. A person feels like there is something wrong with their body and wants to change it in a dysfunctional or dangerous way. In the case of anorexia we perceive that as a disorder. In the case of gender dysphoria we accommodate them. Why?
Politics change. Why are we pushing people to make permanent life-altering changes for something that could be a fad? How is that ethical?
There are very few cases of genuine gender dysphoria, and most resolve themselves before adulthood with no intervention at all. Accept people for who they are and don't push medical interventions that will do more harm than good.
And I am supposed to care why?
tcrosse said...
I seem to remember us spending a lot of time and effort disposing of outmoded gender roles.
I don't remember that. But the wife says I don't remember quite a few things these days, and I say, "what?" Why do women start mumbling at 55?
Here's a phrase that the Mom needs -- indeed, a phrase that all parents need:
Why do you want to know? Repeat as needed, with an arched eyebrow is necessary.
(Reminds me of the old joke: I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.)
I can think of very few things that are less someone's business than the private life of my child. (At this point, it's not even my business!). If you don't know whether to apply a 'he' or 'she' to a person, reformulate the sentence so a pronoun isn't needed. Problem solved.
"More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions."
I think it's more that people recognize children often try on personas to see how they feel and how they are treated as this version of themselves. It's no different from an introverted girl going out for the cheerleading team. Is that really who she is? Is she revealing her "true self"? Or us she just putting on a different costume to see how it fits?
Most people are not gay. But many have strong feelings for someone of the same sex during the confusing years of puberty. Given the current social climate, it's not surprising many kids will try on the identity of transsexual. And it's not going to be surprising if most of them eventually take it off.
The real tragedy would be people with doubts who feel pressured to go through with the surgery because they've lived the persona for so long. In that regard, the continuing openness of people to accept that they might change their mind helps them be open to making a truly free choice.
More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions.
For 'pliable', read 'idiotic'.
And frankly dangerous.
"an important problem: More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions." You are right, of course, but it is only a "problem" from a rather traditional un-PC point of view. To make everyone conform to nonconformity, to marshal medicine for the transvaluation of values, to impose the new order by any means necessary, even at the expense of the actual happiness of actual children, is the point of this episode in the culture war.
Also, gay people. It seems to me that someone who is gay could get pressured to change genders at a young age. In fact, a lot of childhood gender dysphoria cases resolve by the client coming out.
A lot of cultures force gay people into the other gender for convenience... something worth thinking about.
I think men should be allowed to be very feminine and still be men, and I think women should be allowed to be very masculine and still be men.
Maybee, I don't think this is what you meant. Is it?
More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions.
Given the suicide and drug abuse rates involved, erring on the safer side seems warranted.
Children are affected by the way adults regard them. I think it would be best for adults to keep quiet and give children the room to make their own discoveries. Too many adults seem to be caught up in the current excitement over transgenderism. They need to resist encouraging children to think about themselves this way.
At some point, what these adults are doing is very similar to the old, discredited efforts to "cure" young people of homosexuality.
It reminds me more of the archetypical villainous parent in TV/movies who pressures their kid into something -- like the dad who forces his son to be a football player or the mom who forces her daughter into beauty pageants.
"In many ways, this is wonderful: It shows a much-needed sensitivity to gender nonconformity and transgender issues. It is considerate of adults to ask her — in the beginning."
Seriously, Mom, embrace the power of, "Mind your own business and go fuck yourself." You'd be a better mother and your daughter free of These ideological vampires.
One minute you find yourself unable to refuse a light stick, the next minute someone is trying to turn your daughter into a freakish dude.
The world would be a very dull place without Butch women and Nellie men.
Thanks mockturtle. No you are right, I meant women should be able to be masculine and still be women.
John Lynch: Gender dysphoria seems a lot like anorexia, bulimia, and body dysphmorphic disorder to me. A person feels like there is something wrong with their body and wants to change it in a dysfunctional or dangerous way. In the case of anorexia we perceive that as a disorder. In the case of gender dysphoria we accommodate them. Why?
Agreed.
Kevin: Most people are not gay. But many have strong feelings for someone of the same sex during the confusing years of puberty. Given the current social climate, it's not surprising many kids will try on the identity of transsexual. And it's not going to be surprising if most of them eventually take it off.
Great Point.
Ann Althouse said...
Children are affected by the way adults regard them. I think it would be best for adults to keep quiet and give children the room to make their own discoveries. Too many adults seem to be caught up in the current excitement over transgenderism. They need to resist encouraging children to think about themselves this way.
At some point, what these adults are doing is very similar to the old, discredited efforts to "cure" young people of homosexuality.
Yes!
The androgynous dogs made me uncomfortable.
Thanks mockturtle. No you are right, I meant women should be able to be masculine and still be women.
I wasn't sure you weren't being sarc or something. ;-)
I'm with MayBee above. All true.
Prof. A: "At some point, what these adults are doing is very similar to the old, discredited efforts to 'cure' young people of homosexuality."
This may be the end stage of helicopter parenting.
"You're wonderful! You can be anything you want! We are supporting you as you follow your dream!"
Translation: "We are too spiritually vacuous to define a set of values and help you to adopt and defend them. We are going to let you drift into whatever way of life seems most immediately gratifying and painless, that allows you to remain childishly self-absorbed as the Protagonist in your personal drama."
It is a funny kind of love. Sincerely felt but not well-reasoned.
AA: But in the process she's shedding light on an important problem: More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions.
Yes, it is problem. At least this woman's instincts are healthy enough to tell her that there is something wrong with the whole "transgender" trend, and to resist it, albeit in a cringing way. More disturbing are the mothers who buy into this latest fad (and fad it is) out of gullibility and expert/authority worship, or their own mental/emotional dysfunctions (attention-seeking, narcissism). I'd like to see some stats on the family situations of children whose parents seek medical treatment for them. (E.g., what percentage fatherless? What percentage with "non-traditional" parents?)
The other day I noticed the "new books" shelf at my (very preciously-PC-staffed) public library displaying a book titled Your Transgender Child. I'd say the odds of this being checked out by, and helping, a parent with a genuinely transsexual child are pretty low. More likely, it will attract someone from the "gullible mom" category, and I pity her kid.
I also think that pointless neologisms like "gender-role fluidity/noncomformity" contribute to the problem. They, ironically, imply that there is something going on here requiring intervention. All cohorts of kids have quieter, "nice" boys and rough-and-tumble girls. Even if the more extreme outliers have it rough (effeminate "sissies" always have a tougher time than tomboys), the idea that there was no expected and tolerated gradient of behaviors within each sex is b.s. Most of the "outliers" also, as expected, will even grow up to be heterosexual.
Somehow we've reached a spot where harassing and bullying the parents of tomboys, and completely fucking up pre-adolescent kids for life with pseudo-scientific propaganda, surgery, and hormones, is supposed to be a big improvement on a world where kids sometimes get harassed and bullied by their asshole fellow-kids for being sissies.
I'm not sure that there is a very large population in this country that actually believes this stuff.
It came to me last night that we may be seeing a pathology, especially in the elite colleges, that is limited to the "Intellectual Elite" that Charles Murray was worried about in "The Bell Curve" and which has come to exist and be described in "Coming Apart."
The "snowflakes"we read about may be mostly (aside from the BLM blacks) there paid for by well off parents who are exhibiting a pathology unique to the "selective mating": described by Murray in his books.
Queen Victoria gave the royal families of Europe hemophilia.
Maybe "selective mating" at "elite colleges" give us a mental disease, which might be transmissible through the New York Times.
Of course, anarchists and criminals have always been around. They just have new inspiration.
Much worse - the society at large, and girls, are now getting a social message that they are either "girly" girls, or probably living in the wrong body. It's an elevation of stereotypes in the guise of concern. This is a pretty explicit way for adults to give girls the message "There's something wrong with you."
This slapped us all in the face with Jenner's transformation, the treatment of it, and Jenner's comments.
The society is jumping on board a theory of human existence that, in its essence, utterly refutes feminism's drive to remove the socially imposed female norms from women's shoulders - and let them be the type of human beings they wanted to be and they naturally were.
It's grossly harmful.
Too many adults seem to be caught up in the current excitement over transgenderism.
I think that should be "current bullshit."
Transgenderism in regards to children is a perfect way for those individuals suffering from Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome to satisfy their urges without risking prison if caught out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy
Children are affected by the way adults regard them. I think it would be best for adults to keep quiet and give children the room to make their own discoveries. Too many adults seem to be caught up in the current excitement over transgenderism. They need to resist encouraging children to think about themselves this way.
THIS exactly. Just because your daughter likes "boy" type activities doesn't mean that she wants to physcially BE a boy. And the same for sons who like typically classified "girl" activities.
I, as a child, like to play some sports, was more interested in my chemistry set, helped my father rebuild his 1950's MG convertible, fascinated by machinery, constructing things and playing war games in the fields with the rest of the kids. I was not in the least interested in dolls. In high school I took wood shop, drafting along with home ec as electives. Science was my main interest, chemistry, geology, even physics.
None of those things made me a boy or want to be a boy. Today.....that child that I was would be probably forced into some mental contortions and possibly even "transitioned" into a male. To do this is absolutely child abuse.
My parents didn't judge or decide I must be a boy. They just let me be and bought me the microscope and other things I wanted for Christmas. They encouraged my interests and didn't try to force me to play with dolls. Thank you!!!!
Just let your children be. Let them discover what they like, don't like and where their skills may be. Hey....teacher/parents.....leave those kids alone.
Also, I agree with Michael K. I don't think that many people in the US buy in to Transgenderism. Its simply the newest shibboleth one is required to honor if one is going to be admitted to the proper social circles. Its also the antithesis of everything Feminism! was supposed to be about.
I remember reading an article a couple of months ago where an old school feminist was complaining that all of the women's rights groups were being taken over by rich gay men who were having surgery in order to pretend to be women. Or in some cases, weren't even bothering to have the surgery.
She was, of course, denounced as a double-plus ungood crimethinker.
What Maybee said.
Also what Matthew said: It reminds me more of the archetypical villainous parent in TV/movies who pressures their kid into something -- like the dad who forces his son to be a football player or the mom who forces her daughter into beauty pageants.
I've read a couple of accounts of Christian children becoming transgender (from the left) and their parents always say something like, "we tried to make him stop playing with dolls and dresses and he just wouldn't!" Since when do you forcibly stop your children from playing with age appropriate toys? And how does that make a bro a girl? My sons really like My Little Pony; my girls really like Star Wars (got one Darth Vader pjs from the boys section for Christmas. It didn't change who she was.) They are kids; they like stuff their siblings do. Big deal.
@Dust Bunny Queen
Exactly. You know, its going to be pretty hard to get to equity between the sexes in STEM if every time a girl shows a propensity towards those fields, the adults around her declare her to be a boy and have her "transition."
Nor - continuing my highly worried theme - is the harm in any way avoidable if we normalize the psychological delusion transgenders hold as a societal norm.
The definition of gender as being related to genitalia/reproductive role is a physical, not a psychological one. Societal stereotypes that attach to it are easily refuted by reality. I had a very good friend in high school who wanted to become an actuary and did. She was no less feminine than anyone else!
If we demand that everyone publicly endorse the delusions of a very small number of very psychologically disturbed individuals, who objectively speaking, do themselves harm, then we MUST adopt the idea that gender is purely a mental construct, which then inevitably leaves us with a social/behavioral definition of gender. The only definition is the stereotype, because there's no objective basis for the distinction.
That's how you get a 60 year-old mtf like Jenner, plastered with makeup, stuffed into a corset looking like some weird sort of parody of a Brigitte Bardot pinup. That's how.
Feminism told women that if they wanted to be an engineer or a doctor or mathematician or a scientist rather than a nurse, teacher or social worker, it was perfectly normal. And it is. Feminism told women that if they didn't feel like wearing gobs of makeup, didn't like the feel of nail polish, and found mascara yucky, they should feel no need to try to look like those ladies in the magazines. I happily went with that. I won't wear much makeup at all. I don't like it. It's never hurt my sex life!
Society does not need to persecute transgender individuals. It doesn't need to stand in the way of them feeling the need to adopt what that individual feels to be the appropriate and necessary social role for that individual. But society MUST not demand that the explanations transgenders have come up with (which all flatly are contradicted by objective, external reality) to explain and justify their own desires should be endorsed by normal people. They ARE delusions.
Do you know there are no more young butch lesbians anymore? They've all become men,because somehow if you don't want to wear a dress, you must be a man.
Feminism told women that if they wanted to be an engineer or a doctor or mathematician or a scientist rather than a nurse, teacher or social worker, it was perfectly normal.
My high school girlfriend became an engineer, going to Purdue. She began college in 1956, the same year I did. That was before "Feminism" got going as a cult thing.
We were 2500 miles apart and she married a classmate. They moved to California where she eventually worked on the space program and had three kids.
Feminism was not the start of women doing what they wanted to do.
Remind me again: Why do we have a minimum age for marriage (and gun ownership)? It can't be because we thought people under a certain age are not mature enough to make important potentially life changing decisions; otherwise there wouldn't be a discussion about whether or not a child can use pubescence-retarding drug treatments.
The doctors of Johns Hopkins invented the sex-change operation.
They won't do it anymore.
The suicide rate is off the charts.
To do this sort of medical malpractice on children before puberty is awful.
Michael K - that's quite true, but then feminism in the US and UK started in the 1800s, with the drive for the vote and retained rights after marriage.
This transgender stuff is throwing it all away, though.
My sons really like My Little Pony;
This can grow into something very weird in adults....look up Bronies.
Feminism was not the start of women doing what they wanted to do.
Exactly, Michael! To paraphrase Shaw, Those who can, do. Those who can't, protest.
Teenagers are brain damaged, they just are. Having them permanently take on anything is a mistake. Most will change their mind many times over.
My parents didn't judge or decide I must be a boy. They just let me be and bought me the microscope and other things I wanted for Christmas.
Me, too, DBQ! I still have the beautiful microscope I got as a Christmas present when I was nine. And I LOVED my chemistry set! That said, once in my teens, my interest ran to boys 24/7.
LOL Mockturtle.
I think we must be twins.
"But when they continue to question her gender identity — and are skeptical of her response — the message they send is that a girl cannot look and act like her and still be a girl...."
I don't even ask adults if they are dating, it's impolite and I figure if they were seeing someone significant they would tell me.
Why ask abouta child if have a change of gender identity?
Poor kid.
Child abuse.
Hormone treatment for young children because of an expressed gender nonconformity seems close to monstrous, to me. I don't have kids and try to stay out of parents' business, but something like that is edging up to the "child genital mutilation" line.
The NYT article blurb I read earlier this month on the topic (hormone treatment for prepubescent or pubescent children) highlighted that "it's reversible later!" I don't have the medical knowledge to dispute that, but I'm skeptical. Even if so, it's a hell of a risk to take.
Physically altering your children in response to a social/cultural fad seems like a problem, to me. I don't know if it's a problem the law/government should address, but it's a problem.
Ooh, I can use a fun word the Media loves! It's troubling.
Sidebar: is the Media discussing this stuff as "controversial?" I haven't seen it, if so. More like this is just accepted now, and anyone who has any kind of problem w/any of it is a horrible bigot who hates kids.
Haha. I know all about Bronies. I'm not worried too much about that. They are little kids, why wouldn't they like My Little Pony?
I just found out recently that my brother and my cousin's brothers thought one of my cousins who was my age was gay because of the way he acted when he was young. The thought had never entered my mind. Apparently if you play dolls with your sisters and cousin because that's what they want to do and you don't want to play by yourself, you come under suspicion. I find that silly. Today we've moved on to thinking that kind of kid is transgender. My cousin is married to a woman, btw. He has four kids.
Some people are thinking there is a link between trans-genderism and autism. Interesting, if true.
First we were told that it is sexist to have have girls’ and boys’ toys. Boys should be allowed to play with dolls, and girls should be allowed to play with Legos (I was going to say guns but we know that no child should be allowed to play with them). Now if a child does that, we say the boy is really a transgendered girl and the girl is really a transgendered boy. In other words they now believe in gendered roles.
"Child abuse". I know we give a lot of leeway to parents to decide on how to raise their children, but I'm entitled to my opinion. What about Female Genital Mutilation? This is a lot worse.
This can grow into something very weird in adults....look up Bronies.
Don't watch any of their videos, though. Some put up NSFW(or kids) videos and don't always label them as such. Other MLP fans go looking for them to get them removed so children won't find them by mistake. Don't look up "clopping".
Semi-related: this song came into my head when reading this post and I didn't put together why until I pulled up the video. The brain is a funny ol' thing.
YT: Annie Lennox - No More I Love Yous"
Michael K: "Maybe 'selective mating' at 'elite colleges' give us a mental disease, which might be transmissible through the New York Times." Agree. The virulence of this disease is very high, because it is a tiny cultural particle that is hard to stop and easy to spread, that replicates aggressively in a wide variety of hosts on any college campus. The self-importance of late adolescents makes them natural substrate for colonization by this exquisite bullshit.
As for gender confusion in my own case: if my sisters had had any decent soldier stuff, or trucks or trains, I would have agreed to play with them. But Nooo.
Inga posted a story here a few weeks ago that I thought was horrific but she believed showed "true Christianity" - Christian parents who had accepted that their 5 year old boy was really a girl. He liked girly stuff and wanted to be called by a girl's name.
If that child ends up being screwed up, confused and desperately unhappy 15 years down the road, will any follow-up story appear in the media?
I find 5 year olds are always wise judges of what is in their own best interests. When I was 5 I wanted to eat ice cream for dinner every night. My kid brother wanted to jump off the roof with an umbrella because he had seen "Mary Poppins" and thought he would gently float down to the ground like Mary did. Alas, my mom just wouldn't let us be us.
I'm trying to think deeply about what leeway we as a society owe to parents w/r/t raising their kids.
For a behavior or belief to be considered pathological it has to impede what's considered normal function. The 4-D test is deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger.
Pretty clearly we've all decided that gender nonconformity is no longer deviant (in the sense of being unacceptable by society at large)--quite the opposite! Distress goes to the mental state/feelings of the person themselves, ans with nonconformity being accepted and/or celebrated I doubt that's as much of a problem. Dysfunction is where it's at, problem-wise--if society hasn't sufficiently adapted (by allowing persons with male genitals to shower in the "women's" locker room, etc) then clearly there's a conflict whereby the behavior and beliefs society now wants to embrace is dysfunctional due to another (non-minority) portion of society...so that non-minority portion must be crushed.
Ok, the point is: we as a society take the position that parents can raise their children as they see fit within some pretty broad ranges. We don't prohibit parents from raising their children in a strictly religious manner, or as Mennonites, or with extreme political views, etc. Raising kids in those ways may disadvantage the kids relative to other kids when considering how they would live in the wider world, but we don't prohibit that. (A child raised without electricity or access to a computer could be considered to have been reared to have a dysfunction w/r/t the outside modern world, but it's not against the law to raise a kid that way).
So how does subjecting a kid to hormone therapy or other medical procedures compare, in terms of extremeness (or otherwise) to subjecting a kid to an unusual upbringing along other lines? I dunno, I dunno, deep thought needed. Just saying "it's weird and I have an aversion to the idea of it" doesn't seem adequate, even if true.
Girl. Feminine with diverse interests and expression. No evidence of a homosexual orientation masked by a crossover treatment.
That said, it seems that social liberals are targeting prepubescent and adolescent boys and girls with greater vigor in popular culture, especially focusing on children in captive environments (e.g. school). Perhaps part of the female chauvinist revolution that is a first-order forcing of progressive social and moral corruption.
if my sisters had had any decent soldier stuff, or trucks or trains, I would have agreed to play with them. But Nooo.
My brother and I would play with army men. Those green plastic guys We would have our own opposing armies. I marked my guys with my mom's nail polish so we could tell the difference....We then placed them strategically around the house, on the fireplace mantle, coffee tables, backs of sofas etc. We then had rubber band guns or just shot the rubber bands with our fingers and tried to kill the other person's army. My mom wasn't all that thrilled because sometimes we killed one of her knickknacks and didn't appreciate using her nail polish but it was better than the alternative....fighting with each other.
That was way more fun that playing with a stupid doll.
:-D
Angel-Dyne,
"The other day I noticed the "new books" shelf at my (very preciously-PC-staffed) public library displaying a book titled Your Transgender Child."
Time for a little civil disobedience, wouldn't you say?
"So how does subjecting a kid to hormone therapy or other medical procedures compare, in terms of extremeness (or otherwise) to subjecting a kid to an unusual upbringing along other lines? I dunno, I dunno, deep thought needed."
Women used to routinely get hormone therapy to help ease them though menopause. That practice was discontinued when it became clear there was a link between breast cancer rates and hormone therapy.
I am not a medically trained person, but pumping a child's growing body full of hormones they are not naturally producing to create the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite gender seems like an undertaking that - I dunno, just might backfire in a big way. Do we really know what the longterm effects are?
As you pointed out, HoodlumDoodlum, there are other ways to screw up a kid. Do we really need to add another variation?
Bruce Jenner has not only had breast implants put in and his penis removed, turned inside out and inserted into his body, he has had surgery to shave down his Adam's apple so it doesn't stick out, and changed the shape of his jawline to make it more feminine. Now Jenner is an adult and has the money to burn on surgeries costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it seems like an awful lot of money and time under the scalpel has to be spent to turn these people into who they "naturally" are.
That was way more fun that playing with a stupid doll.
:-D
Now don't go dissing Barbie, Dust Bunny Queen. You put her in a sequined evening dress, load her in a slingshot and send her flying across the backyard to go fight crime and that's 10 times better than Wonder Woman.
Plus, my Barbie didn't have anything to do with that pajama boy, Ken. She hung with GI Joe.
And remember this.
"David Reimer, the Canadian man raised as a girl for most of the first 14 years of his life in a highly touted medical experiment that seemed to resolve the debate over the cultural and biological determinants of gender, has died at 38. He committed suicide May 4 in his hometown of Winnipeg, Canada.
At 8 months of age, Reimer became the unwitting subject of "sex reassignment," a treatment method embraced by his parents after his penis was all but obliterated during a botched circumcision. The American doctor whose advice they sought recommended that their son be castrated, given hormone treatments and raised as a girl. The physician, Dr. John Money, supervised the case for several years and eventually wrote a paper declaring the success of the gender conversion."
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/13/local/me-reimer13
exiledonmainstreet said...Bruce Jenner has not only had breast implants put in and his penis removed, turned inside out and inserted into his body, he has had surgery to shave down his Adam's apple so it doesn't stick out, and changed the shape of his jawline to make it more feminine. Now Jenner is an adult and has the money to burn on surgeries costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it seems like an awful lot of money and time under the scalpel has to be spent to turn these people into who they "naturally" are.
Eh, you're not wrong here, but that's "not who we as a society are." I know, it's tough to read that without an urge to vomit...but here we are. We all know the only acceptable way to feel and talk about Caitlyn Jenner is to into that she's "stunning and brave." It is dangerous to do otherwise.
Really, though, the life choices of adults bother me a lot less than possibly-irreversible choices made for children. Adults can do whatever they want to themselves. I'm not as stridently libertarian when it comes to what's permissible to do to kids.
"Bruce Jenner has not only had breast implants put in and his penis removed,"
I had not hear that. I thought he kept his dick, just in case.
I even read somewhere he was thinking of switching back.
Michael K said...
"Bruce Jenner has not only had breast implants put in and his penis removed,"
I had not hear that. I thought he kept his dick, just in case."
Nope. Finally got the Big Cut.
I know surgeons are, by definition, not squeamish, but still, slicing off a living man's genitals has to be a strange experience. I mean, that is something barbarian armies used to do to prisoners (and still do, in the ME.)
Bruce Jenner has not only had breast implants put in and his penis removed, turned inside out and inserted into his body, he has had surgery to shave down his Adam's apple so it doesn't stick out, and changed the shape of his jawline to make it more feminine. Now Jenner is an adult and has the money to burn on surgeries costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it seems like an awful lot of money and time under the scalpel has to be spent to turn these people into who they "naturally" are.
And yet, it might not be enough. I think that for many, the comparison to anorexia is apt. The ideal is unobtainable.
First we were told that it is sexist to have have girls’ and boys’ toys. Boys should be allowed to play with dolls, and girls should be allowed to play with Legos (I was going to say guns but we know that no child should be allowed to play with them). Now if a child does that, we say the boy is really a transgendered girl and the girl is really a transgendered boy. In other words we now believe in gendered roles.
Now that I think about it this type of thinking is straight from 1984. O’Brian (the Left) is holding up 4 fingers and Winston (us) are being asked how many fingers he sees. “Four, says Winston. If the Party says there are five, says O'Brien, how many are there? Winston says there are four. O'Brien shocks Winston, again and again… Finally, after more torture, Winston gives O'Brien the answers he wants: that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, that he invented the photograph of the three traitors, and that he sees five fingers instead of four.”
…
“He asks Winston if he knows why the Party wants power. Trying to say what he thinks O'Brien wants to hear, Winston replies that the Party seeks power for the good of the majority. O'Brien shocks him for this answer, and tells him that the Party seeks power for power's sake—absolute power over all individuals, so that they are nothing unless they merge themselves with the Party.”
Camille Paglia has some interesting thoughts about our current "transgender" mania. These are not exact quotes, but essentially she says any medical intervention before the age of 18 (at a minimum) is child abuse and it is a crime against humanity; that the movement towards transgenderism is ominous; and it is an all-out assault on masculinity (assisted by eager bureaucrats and pseudo-intellectuals who are all too happy to help stamp out "toxic masculinity"). Finally, she points to history, which shows that once a society moves toward transgenderism, it is rejecting its own culture and is in decline. Invariably, without exception, that particular civilization dies.
https://youtu.be/I8BRdwgPChQ
The key thing to remember here is no one has a frame of reference to declare that they are a sex other than what their genitalia says they are. As a man, I do not know what it is to be a woman and, furthermore, there is no way for me to experience it beyond superficial things which provide no true insight. It is ridiculous for a grown man to say he is a woman because he has no idea what it is to be a woman. For a five-year-old boy to declare he is a girl is beyond ridiculous and cannot be taken seriously. For someone else to declare that a five-year-old boy is actually a girl is pure insanity.
"David Reimer, the Canadian man raised as a girl for most of the first 14 years of his life in a highly touted medical experiment that seemed to resolve the debate over the cultural and biological determinants of gender, has died at 38. He committed suicide May 4 in his hometown of Winnipeg, Canada.
To be fair, enduring just one Winnipeg winter would probably have me contemplating suicide.
I differ greatly with my husband on this, because he once had a little niece, who is now a man. I think that doing pre- or peri-pubertal sex reassignment is monstrously unethical. If your kid is seven and female and is acting like a boy, you don't make her a boy. You see how her girlhood plays out. If, as an adult, she decides to "transition," it will then genuinely be her decision and no one else's. If she does it earlier ... well, who do you think holds the whip in a debate between a seven-year-old and Mom & Dad?
I was the consummate tomboy/nerd. (No sports -- that's the "nerd" part. My sister was the athletic one, but as hers were gymnastics and cheerleading, she was safely female.) Mine were stuff like D&D and Nomic and Math Club (don't knock it -- DUSO came in second -- to the NYC A team, which always wins -- the year I was in it). And lots and lots of model aircraft, with a few rockets thrown in. I read tons of sci-fi and mysteries, and still do. I played the violin, and still do, though now it's mostly viola. I was voted "most likely to be a space alien" by my sixth-grade class. I spent huge swaths of time alone, as I do now.
Suppose that the likes of MSNBC and HuffPo and Vox and TPM had been around forty years ago. Would I still be female? I doubt it. Because now the "you act like this gender, and therefore you must be this gender" pressure is far too strong. Little Shelly acts more like a boy than a girl, so let's make her one.
And for the record, the My Little Pony brony phenomenon is not indicative of much of anything. The show was written to be appreciated by both young children, primarily girls, as well as their parents. It is much like Looney Tunes in that regard. It's smart, adorable, and funny. A lot of the bronies were just as surprised that they liked it as you are.
Before puberty kids have no idea about sex, have not yet sharply defined sex roles. I thought girls were cute and attractive but not till puberty would I turn and look and walk into a post or drool over them. (yeah I know, I'm a caveman) After puberty I also took much more interest in competition, became more ambitious, did better in math, started lifting weights and running, etc etc. It changed me. To take the feelings of a kid and think that will persist is simply not in accord with reality.
a society moves toward transgenderism, it is rejecting its own culture and is in decline
It was a choice in Sodom and Gomorrah, which required no divine (i.e. extra-universal) intervention to force a dysfunctional convergence. Mother Nature['s] rules are well established and nonnegotiable. The key is that behaviors antithetical to fitness are a progressive condition.
that is something barbarian armies used to do to prisoners
... and abortionists do to life deemed unworthy. Surely, a progressive slope.
"a society moves toward transgenderism, it is rejecting its own culture and is in decline"
Bollocks. It's a mental health issue, not a morality one. The slimy Left insists it's neither, though.
It's a mental health issue, not a morality one.
This is probably the first in about ten thousand comments I've read or heard from people that has brought up morality with respect to transgenderism. I don't know that I've ever seen or heard anyone claim that it is immoral, for example, for a man to say that he is really a woman.
Morality, per se, does not enter into it. Except . . . having brought up morality, we must also consider that aspect of morality that is about being truthful. (Although, in fact, all of morality ultimately comes down to the question of truth.)
And truth does enter into transgenderism quite prominently. It is, in fact, central to it. And this is also largely the basis of objection by all those who object to the whole idea. To demand that everyone now say that, for example, Bruce Jenner is now a "she" would be to demand that they say and hold in their mind something that is objective false, that is, it expects them to tell what they know to be a lie. And lying is "immoral."
He is not a "she" as a matter of objective truth, he is at best a "trans-she" in his subjective assertions. He will never be a real she, a real woman in the same way that persons with a real vagina and real ovaries and uterus and XX chromosomes are. He will always be a man with his penis mutilated and turned inside out.
"He will always be a man with his penis mutilated and turned inside out."
I don't know how you "turn a penis inside out" but I have never done that surgery. I imagine they might use the urethra as a labia and the head of the penis as a clitoris.
We were talking a week or two ago at work; doctor talk about crazy cases.
One guy, a GYN doc, had seen a patient who came in for infertility. He had a penis and a small opening at the base which they assumed was a hypospadias urethra, which can be severe enough to open at the base of the penis. Most cases are just behind the end of the penis.
Anyway, they started to work this patient up and found the opening was a vagina. The "penis" was a hypertrophied clitoris.
The "male patient" was a female with male secondary sex characteristics but was not a androgen insensitivity syndrome, which used to be called "Testicular feminization syndrome."
This person was a female with a uterus and ovaries. Probably a case of adrenal Pseudohermaphrodite syndrome.
They explained the situation to the patient and he elected to have a hysterectomy and continue to live as a male. He had three children, none of them biologically his (I don't know that story) and did not want to disturb their lives with this unwelcome news.
He had been having intercourse for years with that hypertrophied clitoris.
Life can be more bizarre than even the trannies imagine.
Having seen the ... establishment, "received wisdom", whatever you want to call it on, e.g., abortion go from "Oh, we just need to stop the back-alley abortions, but it'll never be in every neighborhood" to the point where you can actually find doctors who will "reduce" identical twins (i.e., kill one of two identically healthy twins because the second would be "inconvenient"), I'm deeply concerned about where this ends up.
Imagine any other similar disorders (I mean the word as empirically as possible) being similarly indulged. Medically supervised fasting unto death for anorexics? Feeding people with Cotard's delusion into crematoriums alive? Severing the spinal cord of someone whose body identity disorder convinces him he's really a paraplegic?
At some point, reality (you have a Y chromosome or you don't) has to come into play, hurt feelz or no...
Michael K, you've just blown my mind. Wow. Just wow.
"Michael K, you've just blown my mind. Wow. Just wow."
Reality is often more fun than fiction
Reality is often more fun than fiction
Yes, it is. So, what is a reasonable division between tolerance and promotion?
You said it. Good for you, Ann.
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