Transgendered people?

[Dakota_Roberts]

From the link:

No, I have not had surgery to alter my male anatomy, but those parts have atrophied and retracted to the point that there’s an “innie” where I used to have an “outie.”

The individual has reported being very suicidal and is obviously under great distress. Her attempts to blog about her experience leave much to be desired. There are a lot of problems with this case, that is why I said the report is unverified.

Either way, we both understand that there are well documented cases of individuals being born with a vagina and growing a penis during puberty. This clearly shows that the “male - female gender dichotomy” is not truly a dichotomy, but a spectrum with many variations.

It doesn’t make any sense biologically how that could actually happen.

It is a type of PAIS that causes people to “grow a penis” during puberty since they didn’t properly get it in the womb.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I’m still confused as to how someone knows they are the opposite sex from what their physical organs indicate. Seems to me the criteria is something trivial like the person enjoyed wearing the clothes or playing with toys frequently associated with the opposite sex. Such a definition is certainly at odds with the rest of modern thinking which claims there is no difference between the sexes and that there is nothing strange about a woman who wants to be like a man. If transgenderism is true then there is something wrong with a woman who wants to be like a man. I find it amazing the contradictory ideas floating around in the minds of modern man.

One of the problems is that people have not been trained to THINK properly. There is little logic involved in the modern thought process. People cannot even follow a thought out to its logical conclusion. It seems all based on our fleeting emotions, “I FEEL this way, so it must be reality.” What folly!

Education used to be training in how to think and in what to learn. Now it seems to be just fact-cramming and then dumping (grades based on exams) and emotional reactions.

 

[SwizzleStick]

The only moral means available for determining gender are by asking the person what their gender is. If you would please read the history of the type of surgery you are suggesting, I’m confident that you are wise enough that when you look back upon the errors you are currently making, you will feel regret.

Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones
Milton Diamond
Hormones and Behavior 55 (2009) 621–632

We are going in circles! I feel like I am on a roundabout. Again, I’ll just quote myself again from another thread.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to take that sentence seriously? I would guess that to most people, that sentence is just :whacky:.

If a person is born with a fully formed penis and thinks of himself as a female, that person needs correction to take place between his ears instead of between his legs UNLESS further DNA testing actually indicates the person is a female with a birth defect.

Rarely, a baby is born with ambiguous genitalia. In such cases, gender would have to be determined by experts and then appropriately deal with such cases individually. But, that is something different altogether.

 

[Viviphilia]

I’m still confused as to how someone knows they are the opposite sex from what their physical organs indicate. Seems to me the criteria is something trivial like the person enjoyed wearing the clothes or playing with toys frequently associated with the opposite sex. Such a definition is certainly at odds with the rest of modern thinking which claims there is no difference between the sexes and that there is nothing strange about a woman who wants to be like a man. If transgenderism is true then there is something wrong with a woman who wants to be like a man. I find it amazing the contradictory ideas floating around in the minds of modern man.

exnihilo, how do you “know” you are whatever gender you are? Don’t you just know what you are, and take it for granted? Do you feel the need to justify your gender to anyone? What if someone were to look at one particular trait of yours that might be considered the opposite of whichever gender you identify as, and gendered you by that? Wouldn’t you find it awkward and unconvincing? Wouldn’t you insist that you are not to be gendered by that one characteristic and you should instead be gendered according to your whole person?

Of course there are differences between sexes. You might be referring to an obsolete form of feminism from the 1960s. The goal of modern feminism is equal rights for women, not to make women into men. Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano, goes into some detail on that topic.

 

[Viviphilia]

It doesn’t make any sense biologically how that could actually happen.

It is a type of PAIS that causes people to “grow a penis” during puberty since they didn’t properly get it in the womb.

I didn’t claim to understand it. I have even expressed skepticism that it could be true. There is quite a lot about the Human body which is not understood by modern science.

 

[Viviphilia]

We are going in circles! I feel like I am on a roundabout. Again, I’ll just quote myself again from another thread.

Rarely, a baby is born with ambiguous genitalia. In such cases, gender would have to be determined by experts and then appropriately deal with such cases individually. But, that is something different altogether.

I’ve shown you the way out, and I can’t help it if you choose to keep going around in circles. Your idea of “experts” dictating gender to others has been tried and failed miserably. If you took the time to research the topic, you’d already know that.

 

[SwizzleStick]

I’ve shown you the way out, and I can’t help it if you choose to keep going around in circles. Your idea of “experts” dictating gender to others has been tried and failed miserably. If you took the time to research the topic, you’d already know that.

Nobody is dictating gender to anybody. Most of us are born and it is obvious that we are either male or female. Rarely, it is not obvious due to a developmental issue. Those rare cases can be dealt with accordingly and a decision has to be made for the child regarding gender with the evidence that is available. I don’t see that as dictating gender.

 

[Viviphilia]

Nobody is dictating gender to anybody. Most of us are born and it is obvious that we are either male or female. Rarely, it is not obvious due to a developmental issue. Those rare cases can be dealt with accordingly and a decision has to be made for the child regarding gender with the evidence that is available. I don’t see that as dictating gender.

I can lead a thirsty horse to water, but I can’t make him drink!

Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones
Milton Diamond (2009)

 

[exnihilo]

exnihilo, how do you “know” you are whatever gender you are? Don’t you just know what you are, and take it for granted?

I do not believe in gender outside of language studies. I believe in sex. And I know what sex I am because of my sexual organs. Sex is certainly a real thing because we know there are two sexes and in man both are required for reproduction.

Yes I do just know who I am. And that is all that I can know. If there is such thing as a male mind/soul and female mind/soul I can not know what it is like to be either one. All I can know is what it is like to be me. And if my body says I am male then I have reason to believe that my mind/soul is male. But even if for some strange reason I doubted I was really a male I would still never be able to know what it is like to be female. It is ridiculous to think people can have such knowledge.

What if someone were to look at one particular trait of yours that might be considered the opposite of whichever gender you identify as, and gendered you by that? Wouldn’t you find it awkward and unconvincing? Wouldn’t you insist that you are not to be gendered by that one characteristic and you should instead be gendered according to your whole person?

Again I don’t believe in gender. If someone said something like I throw like a girl that would not be awkward and unconvincing it would be insulting since that is what someone means by that since I am a male. Of course it might also be true. If they say something like I’m not a gentleman they dont mean I’m not a man. They mean I misbehave and do not follow the rules of society in regard to proper male behavior. Since I am no doubt male this would not be a problem of identification of my sex but an issue regarding my behavior. And it would either be true or false depending on my behavior.

Of course there are differences between sexes. You might be referring to an obsolete form of feminism from the 1960s. The goal of modern feminism is equal rights for women, not to make women into men. Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano, goes into some detail on that topic.

There is an obsolete form of feminism? If it is obsolete I must conclude it was wrong and immoral otherwise it would still be a valid form.

 

[SwizzleStick]

I do not believe in gender outside of language studies. I believe in sex. And I know what sex I am because of my sexual organs. Sex is certainly a real thing because we know there are two sexes and in man both are required for reproduction.

Yes I do just know who I am. And that is all that I can know. If there is such thing as a male mind/soul and female mind/soul I can not know what it is like to be either one. All I can know is what it is like to be me. And if my body says I am male then I have reason to believe that my mind/soul is male. But even if for some strange reason I doubted I was really a male I would still never be able to know what it is like to be female. It is ridiculous to think people can have such knowledge.

Again I don’t believe in gender. If someone said something like I throw like a girl that would not be awkward and unconvincing it would be insulting since that is what someone means by that since I am a male. Of course it might also be true. If they say something like I’m not a gentleman they dont mean I’m not a man. They mean I misbehave and do not follow the rules of society in regard to proper male behavior. Since I am no doubt male this would not be a problem of identification of my sex but an issue regarding my behavior. And it would either be true or false depending on my behavior.

There is an obsolete form of feminism? If it is obsolete I must conclude it was wrong and immoral otherwise it would still be a valid form.

I have wondered about people who think they are the opposite sex trapped in the wrong body and how they think and what they think. I don’t think about being female at all. I just am.

Thinking on that now, I suddenly have two songs running through my mind.



I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty, and witty and gay,
And I pity
Any girl who isn’t me today.

and

'Cause I’m a woman…W-O-M-A-N. I’ll say it again. …I can make a man out Of you.



Sorry for that detour.

 

[irishpatrick]

Correct me if I am wrong about this.

My understanding (for MtF) is that during early development there is a probem with the brain’s development, not enough testosterone to the appropriate areas of the brain, while the physical body gets the right amount of testosterone. So, in a way, that person would have a physical male body, while having a more female brain. If that is accurate, wouldn’t be correct to say the person is a male with a female brain, rather than saying the person is a female with a male body (as so many seem to say)?

 

[GEddie]

Correct me if I am wrong about this.

My understanding (for MtF) is that during early development there is a probem with the brain’s development, not enough testosterone to the appropriate areas of the brain, while the physical body gets the right amount of testosterone. So, in a way, that person would have a physical male body, while having a more female brain. If that is accurate, wouldn’t be correct to say the person is a male with a female brain, rather than saying the person is a female with a male body (as so many seem to say)?

Ah, that’s the very question!

Are you the sex/gender of your external body, or that of your feelings?

ICXC NIKA

 

[Viviphilia]

I do not believe in gender outside of language studies. I believe in sex. And I know what sex I am because of my sexual organs. Sex is certainly a real thing because we know there are two sexes and in man both are required for reproduction.

Yes I do just know who I am. And that is all that I can know. If there is such thing as a male mind/soul and female mind/soul I can not know what it is like to be either one. All I can know is what it is like to be me. And if my body says I am male then I have reason to believe that my mind/soul is male. But even if for some strange reason I doubted I was really a male I would still never be able to know what it is like to be female. It is ridiculous to think people can have such knowledge.

Again I don’t believe in gender. If someone said something like I throw like a girl that would not be awkward and unconvincing it would be insulting since that is what someone means by that since I am a male. Of course it might also be true. If they say something like I’m not a gentleman they dont mean I’m not a man. They mean I misbehave and do not follow the rules of society in regard to proper male behavior. Since I am no doubt male this would not be a problem of identification of my sex but an issue regarding my behavior. And it would either be true or false depending on my behavior.

There is an obsolete form of feminism? If it is obsolete I must conclude it was wrong and immoral otherwise it would still be a valid form.

Hi exnihilo,

If you are going to claim that there are only two sexes based on male and female sex organs, where do intersex people fit in with their ambiguous genitalia? I hope they are not invisible to you. They really do exist.

The concept that one’s sex depends on one’s genitalia suggests that if one’s genitalia were lost in some kind of accident, that one would no longer be that sex. Yet there are many people who have been in such accidents, and they still identify as the gender they did before they lost their genitalia. That’s because gender is independent from sex.

I’m not sure what you mean when you say you don’t “believe” in gender. When I was younger, I thought of myself as genderless. Looking back I can see that was my way of dealing with my gender dissonance. It was fairly successful for me, and I have heard other transgender folks have independently used such a concept.

Like you appear to be doing, I rejected the idea of gender. I knew I wasn’t a man, despite my male body parts. I thought I couldn’t be a woman because of my male body parts. Therefore I embraced that I was genderless. Now that I understand gender is independent from sex, I realized what gender I really am (after dealing with a lot of denial and self-hate). My life has improved dramatically and demonstrably since consolidating my gender identity.

My current hypothesis is that my brain is feminized, or rather, was never masculinized, since we all start as females. This may be due to some kind of resistence to testosterone in my brain. I have other phenotypic signs of reduced masculinization which I won’t go into. But basically, I look like a girl and always have.

You claim it is impossible to know what it’s like to be “the other” gender. I claim that I have never understood what it is like to be a man, despite being forced into that role. And in addition, I feel natural and comfortable in my new feminine role. I know this all seems very strange and I understand skepticism towards it, since I was myself in denial about it for many years. At some point, it became totally obvious that the facts pointing to me being a female outweighed the facts of my body parts.

As for feminism, philosophies evolve and change. In the past, some influential feminist writers promoted the idea that women should be equal to men. As time went on and more facts revealed themselves, that idea became obsolete. There are well established factual differences between men and women. The current goal of feminism is not equality in an absolute sense, but equality in a socio-legal sense.

As much as I hope this clears things up a bit, I have a feeling it might lead to even more confusion! :hypno:

• V

 

[Viviphilia]

Correct me if I am wrong about this.

My understanding (for MtF) is that during early development there is a probem with the brain’s development, not enough testosterone to the appropriate areas of the brain, while the physical body gets the right amount of testosterone. So, in a way, that person would have a physical male body, while having a more female brain. If that is accurate, wouldn’t be correct to say the person is a male with a female brain, rather than saying the person is a female with a male body (as so many seem to say)?

Hi irishpatrick,

As a person with just such a problem, and as a philosopher, I believe that my mind is more important than some skin on my body. I’m surprised to hear anyone suggest the mind takes a secondary status to a small part of the body. I’m a female with a few male body parts - or a trans woman, if that is less confusing.

Sincerely,

• V

 

[Viviphilia]

I don’t think about being female at all. I just am.

Since I can’t take my femininity for granted, I often think about it.

By the way, I apologize for assuming you were male. Since the face in your picture has a beard, I assumed you were male. My mistake.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Hi irishpatrick,

As a person with just such a problem, and as a philosopher, I believe that my mind is more important than some skin on my body. I’m surprised to hear anyone suggest the mind takes a secondary status to a small part of the body. I’m a female with a few male body parts - or a trans woman, if that is less confusing.

Sincerely,

• V

As it is the brain that failed to properly become male it doesn’t mean it is female so much as not male. I supposed the way to figure out the sex is to look at genes, the unaltered body and mind, going with the majority.

 

[GEddie]

Hi irishpatrick,

As a person with just such a problem, and as a philosopher, I believe that my mind is more important than some skin on my body. I’m surprised to hear anyone suggest the mind takes a secondary status to a small part of the body. I’m a female with a few male body parts - or a trans woman, if that is less confusing.

Sincerely,

• V

Sex/gender is far more than some “skin of the body,” or even the mechanisms used in sexual behavior (which occupies only a small fraction of our alive-time).

Sex/gender also appears in the body build, muscular strength, voice, and even the senses and the mind. You cannot separate genetic sex/gender from the mind. A female mind is different from a male mind, and each is formed in and for the body whose head it resides in.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA

 

[AthenaC]

Sex/gender is far more than some “skin of the body,” or even the mechanisms used in sexual behavior (which occupies only a small fraction of our alive-time).

Sex/gender also appears in the body build, muscular strength, voice, and even the senses and the mind. You cannot separate genetic sex/gender from the mind. A female mind is different from a male mind, and each is formed in and for the body whose head it resides in.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA

Not always, and therein lies the problem. I read somewhere (of course I can’t find it now) that in autopsies of trans-gender people, they physically had the brain of the gender they identified as.

Now please tell me - which physical component should one look to in determining gender? the brain? (which is still a physical organ, by the way, although it has the most direct impact on the perception of the mind) Or the body?

Allow me to quote myself from somewhere else:

…individuals who identify with the opposite sex physically have the brain of the opposite sex, based on autopsies that had been performed. So for example, Chaz Bono (born a woman) actually has the brain of a man and reports feeling normal and being at peace with himself. My coworker went on to describe this phenomenon (charitably) as a birth defect - something the individual can’t control that makes it very difficult (and unhealthy) to continue living the way they are unless something changes.

Keeping that in mind, I think there are basically two ways of attempting to treat this condition:

1. Recognizing that the body is in conflict with itself (i.e. brain/mind vs. rest of the body), one could treat the brain/mind as having won the fight and basically subjugate the body to the brain/mind, by hormones, gender reassignment surgery, etc. You may have observed that this is really the only standard response today. This response rests on the core assumption that the brain/mind/soul is the core of who / what we are, and the body doesn’t matter (as much). This assumption is not really all that off-base, considering that such a viewpoint has really helped our society make great progress with regard to racism, sexism, etc. But when you think about it this way, it is easy to see how and why gender reassignment became more accepted.

1. Recognizing that the body is in conflict with itself (i.e. brain/mind vs. rest of the body), one could treat the body as if it won the fight and basically subjugate the brain/mind to the body, by therapy, medication, both of the above, etc. This is not nearly as common an approach, in part because it is a lot more dicey to try to heal the brain/mind side, and also because the assumption that the body represents the core of who / what we are is contrary to much of our cultural wisdom, and for good reason. That is (I think) why this is a tough sell. In addition to the fact that the effectiveness of this approach is spotty, at best, but results for #1 (above) are much more reliable, in my understanding.

So, in sum - it is very easy for us non-transgendered people to parse out the ethical issues and the related theology of the body. It is probably just as easy for transgendered people to do the same with a proper understanding of the theology of the body. But realistically, if you woke up every day feeling deeply out-of-place to the extent many transgendered people do, what would you do? What if you knew that option #1 would give you healing and option #2 would be a constant struggle? What if option #1 was the ONLY option presented to you? Under tremendous stress, people do prioritize survival instincts, and I think this issue quite easily falls under the mental survival umbrella. My point - charity first; let that drive everything else.

P.S. The above thoughts also apply somewhat neatly to homosexuality.

 

[Viviphilia]

As it is the brain that failed to properly become male it doesn’t mean it is female so much as not male.

Incorrect. We all start as female.

“Two processes: defeminization, and masculinization, are involved in producing male typical morphology and behavior. Disruption of either of these processes in males produces female-typical development. The opposite is not true, disruption of normal sexual development in females does not lead to male-typical endpoints.”

I supposed the way to figure out the sex is to look at genes, the unaltered body and mind, going with the majority.

In doing so, you are negating and invalidating a person. Nobody gets to choose another person’s gender. A much easier, more respectful, and more charitable way to determine gender is to simply ask the person. If they are too young to ask, then wait until they are old enough.

As I have shown in several other posts, genes and phenotype can be misleading, such as in the case of the 46,XXY genotype. There is no good reason to choose those criteria over the self-determination of the individual. Just because you might feel more certain with some objective test, doesn’t mean you get to choose. The history of the matter shows us how damaging the approach you’re suggesting is to trans people.

Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones
Milton Diamond (2009)

 

[Viviphilia]

Sex/gender is far more than some “skin of the body,” or even the mechanisms used in sexual behavior (which occupies only a small fraction of our alive-time).

Sex/gender also appears in the body build, muscular strength, voice, and even the senses and the mind. You cannot separate genetic sex/gender from the mind. A female mind is different from a male mind, and each is formed in and for the body whose head it resides in.

Hi GEddie,

I agree that sex and gender are far more than some “skin on the body.” That is why I said that the mind is a more important criteria in determining gender. As Christ told us in Matthew 5:

“29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

If some body part of mine has caused me to stumble, am I not authorized by Christ Himself to “cut it off and throw it away”?

I have a feminine body, voice, senses, and mind. And most important, I have feminine behavior. I’ve always acted like a girl. From my perspective, my main problem is a few male body parts. Why would you deny me my agency in favor of a test which might provide you with more certainty?