११ जून, २०२२

"I’m a tomboy who is happily married to an effeminate man."

"I suppose it’s only a matter of time until this type of relationship has its own designation and advocacy group. Binary gender labels have always encompassed a wide variety of preferences and experiences. I’m glad to have grown up in a time before gender was identity and sexuality was personality. I’m also glad that I was allowed to go fishing, play baseball, and wear boys’ clothes without any suggestion that my body might need to be altered to fit my interests."

Writes Amanda, in Nashville, in the comments to "Report Reveals Sharp Rise in Transgender Young/People in the U.S. New estimates based on C.D.C. health surveys point to a stark generational shift in the growth of the transgender population of the United States" (NYT). 

The article says: "The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years...." 

There's this reaction from Dr. Angela Goepferd, medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota hospital: "It’s developmentally appropriate for teenagers to explore all facets of their identity — that is what teenagers do... And, generationally, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to explore.... We as a culture just need to lean into the fact that there is gender diversity among us.... And that it doesn’t mean that we need to treat it medically in all cases, but it does mean that we as a society need to make space for that.”

It's interesting that "a disproportionately large number of [transgender teens and adults] identified as Latino." Why would that be?

It seems obvious that the surveys can't really count how many people are transgender, but only how many people say that they are transgender. The doubling of the number has something to do with whether people have learned term and thought about their own feelings using that framework and whether they feel comfortable openly using that label to describe themselves.

Then there's the complexity of the medicalization of the condition and the radical treatments that may seem to follow on.

५२ टिप्पण्या:

Milo Minderbinder म्हणाले...

Every day can be Halloween!

mccullough म्हणाले...

Perhaps we can repurpose “Latinx” for the Latinos who are transgendered.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Amanda commented...
I’m glad to have grown up in a time before gender was identity and sexuality was personality. I’m also glad that I was allowed to go fishing, play baseball, and wear boys’ clothes without any suggestion that my body might need to be altered to fit my interests."

This poor guy, is SO gender dysphoric; that he Doesn't Even REALIZE he is stuck in the WRONG body!
Only (ONLY!) MEN are allowed to play sports or wear men's cloths. It's probably too late, but still;
Amanda NEEDS to have top (and Bottom!) surgery IMMEDIATELY. He also needs mental treatment, to help FORCE him to see that he is a BOY.

The same is true with his husband. There is NO SUCH THING, as an effeminate man..
His husband is a woman... THIS IS THE LAW, there can be NO EXCEPTIONS

David Begley म्हणाले...

A big issue here is how doctors are encouraging this to make more money. Unethical.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Amanda and his husband don't have to worry though.. Zheir insurance will pay for it ALL!

Temujin म्हणाले...

The power of social media and the pack mentality.

I mean it's one thing for humanity to just plod along on a certain path, with certain characteristics and percentages of certain kinds of traits, plodding along for millennia. Then, in the course of one-half of one generation, those percentages blow up and expand. What CDC is relaying you can bet to be old and behind the actual numbers. (it's what they do best). But what would cause a regular number of what was once called 'abnormal' behavior, to become an aspirational group? A treasured and glorified, fast-growing segment of our youth?

Plant a few influencers here and there and you've got a movement. You can manipulate the society, from the young on out, to become your vision of what you want it to be. Imagine if there was a lot of money behind a movement to change the face of a society, to manipulate it to the point of breaking it apart. Who's money, and to who's benefit? Who knows?

Nah. That could never happen.

RideSpaceMountain म्हणाले...

When the gay sub marries his dominatrix lesbian beard. New names and pronouns don't change a tale as old as time...

wendybar म्हणाले...

It so trendy though!!! The fad will be over in 5 years then the therapy starts.

Owen म्हणाले...

This article seems to be another desperate display of confirmation bias, selecting and collecting anecdotes and testimony that can characterized as support for an insane theory —of an infinity of genders that need to be declared and activated and advocated and written about and fought over.

You know it’s a garbage theory because it cannot be falsified. Further evidence that it’s garbage is the way it is used: as a political weapon to divide and stigmatize anyone questioning it. Such people are bigots, you see. Not merely skeptical but irredeemable haters.

Critical race theory is Marxism in blackface. Transgender theory is Marxism in drag. The point of such theories is not the quality of their ideas; the point is not the theory at all, but using it to gain control.

Lloyd W. Robertson म्हणाले...

This post reminds me of one of the best writers I ever encountered in the pages of the Toronto Star--Rosie DiManno. She covered sports superbly, but late in her career the editors kind of realized what an asset she was, and got her covering different stories, sometimes two on the same day. She grew up in Little Italy, rebelled against her fairly strict parents, became a hockey groupie, a tomboyish but definitely heterosexual girl. As she started to write about her life, she mentioned that for a while she dated a U.S. Marine. She thought things were going great, then one night the two of them were caught in an altercation in a bar, and she more more or less rescued boyfriend by throwing a decisive punch. She wrote that boyfriend never looked at her the same way again, and the relationship didn't last.

paminwi म्हणाले...

It’s a fad.
And not enough young people are given therapy before they are given drugs or have surgery IMO.
It’s sad to me that so many parents go the quick route (drugs, surgery) versus the “let’s take our time with this” major life decision.
Why is that?

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

"Then there's the complexity of the medicalization of the condition and the radical treatments that may seem to follow on."

You said a mouthful, Althouse. It would be a good idea to defer a medical or surgical treatment of what is a essentially a mental condition until at least the middle twenties. Doctors doing otherwise are quacks, or worse.

Michael म्हणाले...

How much of this is simply a matter of seizing on the hot new thing? A new medical specialty - and possibly fame and fortune - for practitioners, and a new way for teenagers (and Progressive parents!) to feel really special, each reinforcing the other. Some things just need leaving alone. Will these kids feel the same way at 20? Who knows.

Saint Croix म्हणाले...

The Democrat party is less and less about reality and more and more about fantasy.

All parties do this a little, with propaganda and exaggerations of how bad the other party is. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking specifically about how the national Democrat party -- and the left in general -- has veered more and more into fantasy as part of its ideology.

Examples:

The globe is getting hotter and hotter and we're all heading towards armageddon any day now, but definitely next year.

Donald Trump was conspiring with Putin to take over the USA.

January 6 was an insurrection and worse than 9/11. Worse than Pearl Harbor. We need to have a pretend trial so people know how bad it was.

I am mad about Roe v. Wade potentially being overruled. I always use birth control and I've never gotten pregnant but this is infuriating! I am going to dress up like one of the people in my favorite TV show and talk over and over about the Patriarchy.

I am a man and I want everybody to call me a woman and if you do not, you are an evil hater. No wait, I'm a girl, you have to call me a girl. If you call me a woman you are an evil hater.

What inflation? I see no inflation. We need to raise taxes on millionaires and this is proof. And also we need high gas prices so everyone will get an electric car, which solves all our problems. And inflation just happens, it has nothing to do with the government.

What riots? There are no riots. It's a peaceful protest.

We need to teach "whiteness" to children so they will never be white again.

We want to teach children to read, and fantasy is good. So transvestites reading to children is even better. In fact we should talk to children about sex all the time. And if you say that's weird, you're a hater.

We saw our 6-year-old boy wearing a dress. So now we're drugging him and we're trying to cut off his penis.

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

The article says: "The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years...."

This is a more dramatic way of saying it went from a very small number to a small number.

I love it when journos pull this stunt.

Rollo म्हणाले...

What mom and dad assumed would "solve" the "problem" of homosexuality.

I wish them well, but would advise her to find another word for "effeminate."

Jamie म्हणाले...

And, generationally, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to explore....

I don't think "explore" is the word we're looking for here, nor is "more socially acceptable" accurate. Gender has always been a part of sometimes identity; now, however, along with "race," it appears to be compulsory to discuss and obsess over.

I'm so glad the American social milieu when I was a child allowed me actually to explore what my gender meant in my life: allowed 5yo me to love my red cowgirl outfit with the circle skirt and fringe that I could twirl in and love getting dirty at the construction sites in our neighborhood and throwing hunks of broken drywall like frisbees, for instance.

I'm pretty passionate on the subject of not encouraging kids - through high school at minimum and maybe older - to "transition" just because they feel they don't fit a gender stereotype or they feel they fit a different gender stereotype better. But here's the one concession I have to make: it was easier for me to be an occasionally girly tomboy than it was, at the same period, for a boy to be an occasionally macho but generally "effeminate" boy. In matters of dress and appearance, it was functionally impossible for a boy to go that way. This is an evolution that has at least begun to take place, and though it hits my eye oddly (I'm in my fifties now and not as flexible as I used to be), it's only fair that boys and men have the same right to look the way they want to look, and to explore their appearance choices, as I did growing up.

I still have choices my husband doesn't - I traveled cross-country this weekend on one of the discount airlines for a family event, and was able to pack into a backpack even though I needed "church clothes" because a woman's "church clothes" don't have to be long pants, a decent shirt, and big shoes. My husband would have had to wear his "church clothes" on the plane to get away with not being charged for a bigger bag.

My daughter, 20, is dating a guy who is a total gearhead and mechanical wizard, a huge soccer fan (English dad), jock, and MMA enthusiast... and has double-pierced ears and sometimes paints his nails. As explorations of gender go, he's not far down the "girly man" path, but he's farther down than any young man of my youth (except the hair bands, of course). Even though I myself don't find those explorations particularly attractive, I can recognize that it's fair that he's allowed to make them.

Darkisland म्हणाले...

So they are cis heterosexual?

John LGKTQ Henry

~ Gordon Pasha म्हणाले...

It’s the modern equivalent of the Dutch Tulip Mania.

Saint Croix म्हणाले...

I was pregnant and I didn't want to be pregnant so I went to my doctor and I said, "I'm pregnant. Is there anything we can do?" And he said, "yes, there is." And now I'm not pregnant any more! Isn't that amazing?

Oh, that's nothing. I was pregnant and my baby was going to have Down's syndrome. And I said, "oh my God, that's a horrible disease." And my doctor said, "Don't worry about it, we have a treatment for that." And now I don't have a baby with Down's syndrome!

It's incredible, it really is. I heard they cured Down's syndrome in Europe.

Oh yeah, you never see anybody with Down's syndrome in Europe. Europe is really advanced.

Did you hear about little Timmy across the street? He was wearing a dress. So they took him to a doctor and now he's going to become Amanda.

It's amazing what doctors can do!

mikee म्हणाले...

Self-reported srveys of young people are notoriously unreliable, because young people taking anonymous school surveys lie like dogs for the fun of it.

What this survey says, then, is that 2x more kids wrote down that they were Trans, versus an old survey. Not that they were Trans. Only objective 3rd party observation of behavior can identify those participating in an activity.

Kids lie. Back in my middle school days, we all said we took acid, shot heroin, and drank all day on the National Drug Survey. Today it is being trans. Tomorrow it will be, "I met an alien and we got jiggy."

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"can't really count how many people are transgender, but only how many people say that they are transgender"

A little residual essentialism there. These days, you are what you say you are, and your claim compels others to agree.

Marty म्हणाले...

I think Dr. Angela Goepferd, medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota hospital, needs to lean into the fact that she is an evangelist for a weird and destructive religion, proselytizing for a neo-Marxist belief that humanity can recreate itself physically to accord with the imperatives of socialist man. "Give me a scalpel and I will fix all of humanity's failures." Bah.

Richard Aubrey म्हणाले...

It's hard to think of ANY of these phenomena without thinking of what is called the Slenderman stabbing. It was attempted murder.
Two twelve year old girls wanted to be proxies of Slenderman (I have no idea what that means) and concluded that murdering a friend was part of the package.

If it's all over the web, in school officially and unofficially, and you can't get away from it, a kid with time on his mind might think he's being transgender. If there's nothing that the kid thinks makes him stand out, then...what's getting the attention?

And with time on his mind to think about it, he might end up sufficiently convinced to wonder if transgender is who he is.

If, on the other hand, he's comfortable with himself and sees he's a worthwhile person as he is.....not happening.

Yesterday, working a Feeding America mobile food bank, a lady brought her four-year old boy to watch us work. Turns out Isaac wanted to help. I was passing out milk. I'd go to a vehicle coming through the line and inquire if they wanted some of our gallon jugs. It wasn't my idea, but we eventually worked out a plan. If I held up one finger, Isaac would hustle over with a jug for me. Or want to put it in the trunk himself. If two or more, I'd signal go to the cartons where Isaac would hand me one and tell me he'd get the other and off we'd go. I had him tell the folks how much the gallon jugs weighed. "Eight Pounds!" and the folks were all suitably impressed. Then, when we had some empty cartons, he'd put them on his mini fork lift and haul them back to the truck.

I had another gig, so I told Isaac to finish without me--there was another adult allowing him to be "in charge"--and we shook hands and I left.

That kid isn't going to have to wonder who he is and what he needs to do to be somebody.

Bender म्हणाले...

What could have happened in the environment in the last 25 years to cause this explosion in people being born into the wrong bodies?

Was it, like some 1950s nuclear scare movie, a population-wide exposure to atomic radiation that led to so many women being born with the birth defect of having male bodies and DNA?

Wa St Blogger म्हणाले...

The doubling of the number has something to do with whether people have learned term and thought about their own feelings using that framework and whether they feel comfortable openly using that label to describe themselves.

two reasons. One, Kids like identity movements that shock the older generation. Two, they gain a level of acceptance, and attention they don't get by just being a normie. Every one knows that kids who act up will do it for attention, even if that attention results in negative attention. Trans is much like that.

Bender म्हणाले...

It seems obvious that the surveys can't really count how many people are transgender, but only how many people say that they are transgender.

That's because the number of people who are ontologically transgender is exactly zero. The reality of the person is revealed in the body, either male or female. A person in a male body is male.

The idea that nature would put a woman in a man's body is nothing more than absurdity and fantasy.

The fact is that a penis/testicle inseminator person is and always will be male regardless of his subjective beliefs, assertions and self-labels.

Bender म्हणाले...

Then there's the complexity of the medicalization of the condition

A girl's/woman's body is not a "condition" or disease.

Hasn't there been enough of people and culture teaching girls to hate their bodies over the decades without this misogynist crap being pushed on them?

stlcdr म्हणाले...

What has being a tomboy and being effeminate got anything to do with transgender? As quoted, there was a time when this transgender thing never existed. Tomboys are not transgender, effeminate men are transgender. There’s nothing special about this. But people want to make themselves ‘special’ but part of a persecuted (sic) group.

Richard म्हणाले...

"It's interesting that "a disproportionately large number of [transgender teens and adults] identified as Latino." Why would that be?"

It should be Latinx, you racist!

Oh, that's not what you meant. Never mind.

BG म्हणाले...

I grew up on a farm in the 50s and 60s. I much preferred following my dad around as he did field work and chores and interacting with the animals. Wore pants and played "Cowboys and Indians" with my cousins. I even had my own toy guns. "Girly" things in the house that my mom did...not so much. But then I entered puberty and discovered BOYS. (Never gave up my horses, though.) I am so thankful I my parents considered me "normal" and just let me be.

effinayright म्हणाले...

"It's interesting that "a disproportionately large number of [transgender teens and adults] identified as Latino." Why would that be?"
*****************
Don't wanna be seen as White, can't pass for Asian or Black."

NEXT!

Jaq म्हणाले...

Ever read Hemingway’s “Garden of Eden”? It’s about a man who discovers on his honeymoon that his wife, well, you read it, it’s kind of interesting and the headline couple here comes to mind.

n.n म्हणाले...

Trans/gender or trans/social? With the normalization of abortion rites, politically congruent ("=") constructs, Twilight faith, Pro-Choice "ethical" religion, and diversity [dogma], there has been progressive confusion through conflation of sex, gender, and social etiquette.

That said, binary sexes: male and female, binary genders (i.e. sex-correlated attributes): masculine and feminine, respectively, and a narrow (i.e. fringe) trans- (i.e. state or process of divergence) spectrum.

n.n म्हणाले...

Perhaps we can repurpose “Latinx” for the Latinos who are transgendered.

The "X" suffix either refers to alien or mutant, including: medical (e.g. viral-effect vaccines, surgical, and social mutagenic forcings).

n.n म्हणाले...

One, Kids like identity movements that shock the older generation.

Rebels with a cause and without a clue is the bread and butter of liberal movements.

Two, they gain a level of acceptance, and attention they don't get by just being a normie.

#LookAtMeToo #ButNotTooCloselyPrivacy

n.n म्हणाले...

Hasn't there been enough of people and culture teaching girls to hate their bodies over the decades without this misogynist crap being pushed on them?

Worth repeating... and they are by pushing the same crap targeting boys under their religious doctrine of equity and inclusion.

realestateacct म्हणाले...

Latino culture may be more hostile to homosexuality than mainstream America. Transgenderism cures homosexuality by re-framing it as the Iranians do. It's a shame vagrant adolescent impulses might lead to such a distorted life in the name of tolerance. I'm assuming Latino means boys here.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Consider the possibility that maybe he is only "effeminate" because he can't keep up with her boyish energy. It's possible or likely that neither one is gay or trans. Maybe it's just another case of "opposites attracting." Househusbanding has been a valid option for a generation now. Perhaps she's the tough one and he's the nurturing one, and while nurturing hasn't usually been men's main role in relationships, it's not something entirely alien to them. But, then, we don't know enough about these people to pass judgment on them.

effinayright म्हणाले...

For years, I've been tortured by the fact that I'm a MAN assigned a MAN'S body at birth!!!

All that toxic masculinity! Ick!

No wonder everyone hates us.

Anthony म्हणाले...

Yet another phrase that will never, ever pass my lips: "lean into".

gilbar म्हणाले...

Sebastian said...
These days, you are what you say you are, and your claim compels others to agree.

As they said in the movie, in answer to the question..
"a woman is someone that calls themselves a woman"

Rabel म्हणाले...

Dr. Angela Goepferd has his (or her) Pat imitation down pat.

John henry म्हणाले...

McCullough,

Define "latino(a, x)" please

John LGKTQ Henry

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
charis म्हणाले...

"Human beings are marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating objects. it is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on them."
(Montaigne)

WK म्हणाले...

After they become adults, will the children of today who had chemical or surgical procedures preformed that they are no longer satisfied with, have legal recourse against their parents for approving the elective procedures? Trying to think where this ends.

effinayright म्हणाले...

Re: effeminate males:

The decline in average male testosterone has been going on for some time, and one hypothesis is that estrogens in drinking water may be the culprit.

Yet, there are no standardized widespread studies to determine estrogen sources and concentrations in our drinking water, or their effects on males.

https://our.oakland.edu/bitstream/handle/10323/11433/Torres%2c%20Hayley%20-%20Thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Of course, effeminate males are easier for women to control, so.........nahhh..that can't be it.

effinayright म्हणाले...

Speaking of gender-benders:

A parade of middle-school kids just went by a park filled with younger student soccer players in my town of Belmont, MA near Boston. Rainbow flags everywhere, held by kids in grades 6-8.

But the teachers aren't grooming anyone.....nahhhh.

They aren't encouraging boys that it's good to be gay, or for them to cut off their penises and be girls. Naaahhhh.

Or vice versa for the girls. Naaaahhh. After all, insurance will pay for your addadictomy and a lifetime of hormone injections!

(Makes you wonder how many of those teachers and administrators are kids stay "after school" for "counseling"....doesn't it.)

The town school superintendent should be taken out and publicly flogged. He's a complete invertebrate, a modern Sergeant Schultz: "I know NUFFINK!"

Ditto our State Senator Brownsberger, who flees from the scene whenever he is confronted by stuff like this. But ask him about new bus schedules? He's on the case!!

Also, the town vice school superintendent has been recorded on tape saying that CRT/DEI is her "religious" mission.

Yet the ultra-lib residents seem to shrug it all off.

Sickening.



Insufficiently Sensitive म्हणाले...

The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years...."

Astounding! From 0.0001% of the population to 0.0002%! Another Guiness World Record!

pdug म्हणाले...

This was the thing I don't like about "latinx" is that making this term makes it seem like its people of Latin descent that are unique among races in being designated with an explicitly and notably gender neutral term. Like, does this mean more latinos are non-binary or trans?

Well, it seems like it does....

As to the question why: when you look at statistics on how "more young people are doing X [going to movies, say]" the driver of the thing is often Latinos: the future teens of america are increasingly Latino, so if latinos go to movies more, then you just see an uptick in teen movie watching. But its latino driven.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

I watched quite a few young white girls and boys come out to excite their leftist parents and to get in line for the diversity goodies train. They got special attention at school and eligibility for special scholarships. They got to bully their peers, get media attention, scream in adult people's faces with no consequences, and participate in fascistic outings of people who accidentally called them the wrong gender of the week.

Anyone wonder why the quantity of complex new genders keeps growing? So they can do what they want sexually while pretending it's a new victim status. And we had better keep up with it. Maybe HRC wasn't so crazy when they tried to keep the trans activists off their boards in the 90s.

It's more power than sexuality. Like all revolutions, it will eventually eat they/them self. The warped parents and teachers and doctors encouraging this will eventually find themselves at the guillotine too. At least there's that comfort.