Transgender teen who died of an apparent suicide: ‘Fix society. Please.’

[Havard]

How would you know if you didn’t feel like a girl? What do girls feel like exactly?

It seems to me that this is where things really fall apart. There is no shortage of academics (as well as non-academic writers) who assert that while the sexes may be real, the traditional genders are outdated concepts.

I am curious what the people here who believe in self-experienced gender of trans-folk have to say about the issue. Isn’t saying “it’s how one feels” circular logic? It seems to me that if no observable trait is truly male or female, then the deconstructionists are correct. I.e., gender was a construct of our species’ development that was useful for a time, scripture/theology is wrong, etc.

 

[SMGS127]

How would you know if you didn’t feel like a girl? What do girls feel like exactly?

I’ve wondered this too, BUT…

I’m very much a tomboy. In the lesbian world, I’d be called soft butch/chapstick. I’m an avid NFL fan, only occasionally wear makeup and never anything that takes more than 5 minutes to put on, wear guyish clothes, etc. But I’m still very much female. I love being a girl. I can’t possibly imagine myself being comfortable as a dude, whether it be biologically, societally, whatever. It bothers me if people think I’m a guy from afar based on how I dress. And so I see this as my innate gender given to me from God. It’s not really something I ever think about, but maybe it’s just more apparent when it’s discordant with one’s fallen body.

I wish we could get an answer from a transgender person on how gender dysphoria feels from their perspective.

 

[Darryl1958]

That would be a useful paper of research demonstrating how gender for heterosexuals is a social construct, while gender for non-heterosexuals is biologically determined.

 

[gracepoole]

That would be a useful paper of research demonstrating how gender for heterosexuals is a social construct, while gender for non-heterosexuals is biologically determined.

Or is social construct as powerful for us all as biology?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

That would be a useful paper of research demonstrating how gender for heterosexuals is a social construct, while gender for non-heterosexuals is biologically determined.

Transgender people get attacked by TERFs and they are most definitely not welcome in Michigan.

 

[Dawnia]

I’ve wondered this too, BUT…

I’m very much a tomboy. In the lesbian world, I’d be called soft butch/chapstick. I’m an avid NFL fan, only occasionally wear makeup and never anything that takes more than 5 minutes to put on, wear guyish clothes, etc. But I’m still very much female. I love being a girl. I can’t possibly imagine myself being comfortable as a dude, whether it be biologically, societally, whatever. It bothers me if people think I’m a guy from afar based on how I dress. And so I see this as my innate gender given to me from God. It’s not really something I ever think about, but maybe it’s just more apparent when it’s discordant with one’s fallen body.

I wish we could get an answer from a transgender person on how gender dysphoria feels from their perspective.

I don’t fit the girl mold either. I was mistaken a lot for a boy when I was younger, because I looked like one and acted like one. I’ve never been much much for typical girl things… From the back I still get mistaken for a boy. (Guess I’m a pretty hot male from behind. ) That doesn’t make me any less a female than my friend who spends an hour doing her hair (just her hair. Completely crazy to me.)

 

[Dawnia]

Transgender people get attacked by TERFs and they are most definitely not welcome in Michigan.

TERFs?

 

[gracepoole]

TERFs?

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TERF

(I’m sure there are better definitions out there but perhaps this will suffice.)

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

TERFs?

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists are firebrand transmisogynists, widely considered the Westboro Baptist Church of feminism, they believe that transwomen are really fifth columnist men sent to infiltrate womyn’s spaces to enforce patriarchy and rape real womyn.

 

[Dawnia]

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists are firebrand transmisogynists, widely considered the Westboro Baptist Church of feminism, they believe that transwomen are really fifth columnist men sent to infiltrate womyn’s spaces to enforce patriarchy and rape real womyn.

Alrighty then.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Alrighty then.

I forgot to mention that they think transwomen want to gain access to womyn’s restroom to rape real womyn.

 

[cena]

The boy was confused, but he didn’t get these ideas that he was a ‘girl in a boys body’ just out of thin air. He had people who reinforced this obviously deranged notion, and my guess is it would be teachers or counselors from school. He said he had been feeling this way since he was four years old, come on. Most people cant remember things that are concrete events from that early an age, much less vague notions like ‘I’
m a girl’.

For crying out loud, what does it even mean to say ‘I feel like a girl’ in this anti-gender discrimination society we live in any way? We are constantly bombarded with the idea that there is no real difference between what girls can do and what boys can do, so in that context how does one possibly ‘feel like a girl’?

Most likely what is meant is something in terms of sexual and social roles and all the ‘enlightened’ are telling the spoon that he is really a tea cup if he thinks he is, never mind the shape he has or utility.

This is an insanity that has come to permeate our society and we need the church to lead the way in a Truthful and loving manner. But the Truth cannot be simply jettisoned in order to play nice with an obviously mentally warped person who has notions not associated with reality.

This always confuses me. If there is no difference what is the point of changing?

 

[RGCheek]

I’ve been lurking this thread since page 1, but I’ll have to disagree here. I distinctly remember quite a few moments from when I was four, in particular the time I found some books underneath a sofa in the hospital room my younger brother was born in. It’s not infeasible to remember events from when one was four.

It is not infeasible, but it is unlikely, implausible and unreliable.

When we remember things we tend to do two things; remember images and how we felt or thought expressed in words. We also form memories by spatial location and procedure ( at least according to almighty Wikipedia). But the latter two seem irrelevant to the memory of a feeling. How else is memory of feeling stored except in verbal description with perhaps some imagery that seemed particularly important then?

And where does the memory of a feeling come in when you barely have any knowledge of the language such as most four year olds have?

It seems more plausible to me that these words and notions were put into the kids head by ideologues for whom mere factoids like genetic determination of gender is merely a tricky matter.

That being said, the statement may well be an exaggeration, but it is not insignificant that most transgender individuals report these feelings from an extremely young age. What most people allegedly can or cannot do or remember does not mean that there are no exceptions, and we have no real reason to disbelieve that the individual in question did not experience these feelings at such an early age, other than the average person’s reported memory.

Sure we do, and we have plenty of reason to doubt the accuracy of the memory as memory morphs with each time we recall it, emphasizing the details we think most important at any one time and ignoring and eventually forgetting those things unimportant to us at the time of recall.

I see absolutely no good reason to simply accept on its face a claim to remember feeling like a girl. And what does that really mean anyway? He remembers wanting to put on Mommy’s shoes or what? A bunch of gender stereotypes are supposed to fill in here, but are these things not taught by the culture?

I don’t buy it.

 

[RGCheek]

I’ve got to agree with Kurisu. Memories from early childhood aren’t nearly as rare as some may believe. In fact, these can be unbelievably powerful in comparison with later memories. These memories may fade later in adulthood but it’s not at all surprising that a 17-year-old would remember something from the age of 4.

Additionally, though our communities have made efforts to eliminate gender discrimination, this doesn’t mean that gendering is no longer present. Take a trip through a store like Babies 'r Us – it’s almost impossible to purchase baby gear that isn’t gendered (primary colors for boys and pastels for girls, for example). A girl who chooses not to shave her legs, not to wear make-up, etc. is most definitely aware that she’s bucking the norm (the norm which certainly still exists). Boys who choose to play with kitchen sets and baby dolls are definitely bucking a norm, as well. There is still plenty of social meaning to be being a girl or being a boy. It’s not necessary for us to believe that boys can only do boy things, for example, in order to accept that gendering is still present. I can build a gas grill and change a tire but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like a girl.

So you assign this feeling to the emotional identification with social norms?

And how does a person with all of maybe two years of cognitive awareness possibly recognize and conclude that his preferences are all only for girly things without people telling him so?

That points to social maladjustment far more than to some weird notion of being a different gender ‘inside’, whatever that means.

 

[gracepoole]

So you assign this feeling to the emotional identification with social norms?

And how does a person with all of maybe two years of cognitive awareness possibly recognize and conclude that his preferences are all only for girly things without people telling him so?

That points to social maladjustment far more than to some weird notion of being a different gender ‘inside’, whatever that means.

I don’t actually assign the feeling to anything, as I’m not transgender. I was instead pointing out that attempts to remove gender discrimination from our communities do not mean that gender is now socially meaningless.

I think you’re seriously discounting what a four-year-old absorbs and understands. No doubt it’s easier to think that those identifying as transgender were just propagandized into the whole thing. But that’s likely a very superficial and oversimplified answer based only in assumptions and not in work actually done with transgender people.

How did/do you know that you were/are male or female?

 

[meltzerboy]

It is not infeasible, but it is unlikely, implausible and unreliable.

When we remember things we tend to do two things; remember images and how we felt or thought expressed in words. We also form memories by spatial location and procedure ( at least according to almighty Wikipedia). But the latter two seem irrelevant to the memory of a feeling. How else is memory of feeling stored except in verbal description with perhaps some imagery that seemed particularly important then?

And where does the memory of a feeling come in when you barely have any knowledge of the language such as most four year olds have?

It seems more plausible to me that these words and notions were put into the kids head by ideologues for whom mere factoids like genetic determination of gender is merely a tricky matter.

Sure we do, and we have plenty of reason to doubt the accuracy of the memory as memory morphs with each time we recall it, emphasizing the details we think most important at any one time and ignoring and eventually forgetting those things unimportant to us at the time of recall.

I see absolutely no good reason to simply accept on its face a claim to remember feeling like a girl. And what does that really mean anyway? He remembers wanting to put on Mommy’s shoes or what? A bunch of gender stereotypes are supposed to fill in here, but are these things not taught by the culture?

I don’t buy it.

Here I must agree with you about memory. Memory is reconstructive, which means it is constantly changing as we develop. Even important details often become confused; some false information may be added and other true information may be omitted. We tend to remember the gist of events rather than the details. As we age, most of what we accurately remember involves procedures or skills rather than past emotions, the intensity of which fades over time, and specific facts we learned, which become more difficult to retrieve.

 

[RGCheek]

I don’t actually assign the feeling to anything, as I’m not transgender. I was instead pointing out that attempts to remove gender discrimination from our communities do not mean that gender is now socially meaningless.

So you admit then that it makes no sense to you either, you just accept the nonsensical words at face value?

I think you’re seriously discounting what a four-year-old absorbs and understands. No doubt it’s easier to think that those identifying as transgender were just propagandized into the whole thing. But that’s likely a very superficial and oversimplified answer based only in assumptions and not in work actually done with transgender people.

Why?

IF you were on a jury putting a bank robber on trial, and the only witness was a 17 year old who saw the robbery at the age of four, you would consider that four year old’s memory to be as reliable as an adults?

I don’t believe you.

How did/do you know that you were/are male or female?

Genitalia and genetics. How else?

I also believe that we are almost all bisexual by nature and society imposes gender differences to discourage same sex intimacy in order to accelerate demographic growth or to comply with religious demands.

This idea that we have so much behavior determined at birth I do not think is supported in reality.

 

[RGCheek]

Here I must agree with you about memory. Memory is reconstructive, which means it is constantly changing as we develop. Even important details often become confused; some false information may be added and other true information may be omitted. We tend to remember the gist of events rather than the details. As we age, ***most of what we accurately remember involves procedures or skills ***rather than past emotions, the intensity of which fades over time, and specific facts we learned, which become more difficult to retrieve.

Agreed. This systematic memorization was part of the why that oral historians remembered accounts verbatim using memory aids like rhyme and meter, and thus was born poetry in this effort to fight the dynamic nature of memory.

 

[gracepoole]

So you admit then that it makes no sense to you either, you just accept the nonsensical words at face value?

I accept that there are many experiencing this phenomenon and many others studying it. I’m not a fan of forming conclusions based solely on my own assumptions.

Why? IF you were on a jury putting a bank robber on trial, and the only witness was a 17 year old who saw the robbery at the age of four, you would consider that four year old’s memory to be as reliable as an adults?

Of course not. Thankfully, this analogy is entirely unrelated so there’s no need to believe or disbelieve me.

I would recommend, though, that you consider that while memory does shift as we age, we’re speaking about a 17-year-old. A 40-year-old remembering how she felt at the age of 4 is quite different than a 17-year-old doing the same. (There are actual studies on this sort of thing, which I generally find more convincing than gut reactions to controversial issues.)

I also believe that we are almost all bisexual by nature and society imposes gender differences to discourage same sex intimacy in order to accelerate demographic growth or to comply with religious demands.

This idea that we have so much behavior determined at birth I do not think is supported in reality.

Given what you’ve claimed here, what if those identifying as transgender simply don’t follow the socially proscribed approach to gender? If gendered behavior isn’t determined at birth, what confusion remains about why some might identify as transgender?

 

[Path_Finder]

So you admit then that it makes no sense to you either, you just accept the nonsensical words at face value?

Why?

IF you were on a jury putting a bank robber on trial, and the only witness was a 17 year old who saw the robbery at the age of four, you would consider that four year old’s memory to be as reliable as an adults?

I don’t believe you.

Genitalia and genetics. How else?

I also believe that we are almost all bisexual by nature and society imposes gender differences to discourage same sex intimacy in order to accelerate demographic growth or to comply with religious demands.

This idea that we have so much behavior determined at birth I do not think is supported in reality.

Excellent argument. I like the way you think.