Keeping a kid's gender secret...

[Adios]

I normally don't get into these huge debates, but speaking as someone who is trans, hormone therapy is NOT a harmless thing compared to facial or genital surgery. There can be major health complications due to hormones causing sweeping changes throughout the whole body. I'm personally really reluctant to go on hormones because the huge variety of side-effects caused by such including mood swings, a dead sex-drive, and risk of blood clotting.

Also, as was stated, hormone therapy isn't going to fix depression. Being comfortable with oneself and having a caring support network will. For example, I was often times depressed before I came out, and once I did come out and switched out my wardrobe for more feminine clothes and didn't lose any friends over it, I haven't felt depressed since. I really don't need hormone therapy at the moment.

Yes, this. I didn't bother busting out any science about the dangers of hormone treatment (I am reluctant to call it "therapy" in this case because I have much doubt that it is therapeutic) because the rest of that argument was already based on an interesting reinterpretation of science.

All I need to know about hormones;

Premarin is made from pregnant mares urine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Here's something I've noticed that ties in to your statement, Nigel.

In isolation (away from other trans/queer people), genderweird people tend to be much more fluid and uncategorized with their identification. When that changes, when they move into a more social environment with other queers, their identification becomes more contained. Why? Social pressure from other queers! People who previously didn't feel a need for any sort of medical intervention feel compelled towards that direction, because that's considered to be the socially acceptable choice, and in their need to fit in they feel themselves needing it too. And this just continues in a cycle of putting amazingly diverse queers into little gender boxes. Now, if there wasn't any such thing as social gender pressures these people would probably never have felt the need. And if they did, it would be a personal choice rather than a social pressure. Garrrgh.

Edit: speaking all this from personal experience, mistakes, and discovery.

Thank you for pointing this out! I have noticed the same thing in my local queer community... and it sucks when the community you turn to for acceptance, support and understanding tries to push you into a little box.

I don't think most people don't understand how promoting the concept of genderism, including transgenderism, reinforces sexism and sexist stereotypes. For example, a man seeking sex change surgery (euphemistically, and incorrectly, also called "gender reassignment surgery", as if a surgical procedure alters your gender) must live for a year "as a woman". Whoa... hold on. What the fuck does that even mean?

Better yet, who decides what it means?

1) What it means is that a queer wishing to be accepted as female legally must present herself stereotypically as female for one year before "the gates will open". Not that this says anything about her family's acceptance, or her friends, or her workplace, or that shithead down the street.

2) The psychological community likes to talk about "that which is considered normal by society at large", but since there really is no normal, they tend to settle on "that which is normal by cultural stereotype" and "that which I see as normal". So, and yes, it's scary, medicine and the psychological community decide what gender means. Never mind it's a cultural construct, never mind that they often equate sex with gender.

Yes, exactly. I like to frame those as questions in order to get people to actually think about it, and maybe even ask themselves whether they live up to these artificial gender standards that are defined in part by a community that exists to sell gender reassignment. I'm certain I don't, other than having long hair and occasionally wearing a skirt. But you nailed it: The medical and psychological community are defining gender roles and simultaneously conflating their invented roles with biological sex. And, there's money in it.

There definitely is. Surgical operations on breast and genital tissue are very expensive, as are lifetime prescriptions of various hormones and required psychiatric visits. And that's not including all the other things queers will do, like facial surgery, laser depiliation, and clothing/cosmetics. I refuse to fall into that bullshit. I refuse to jump through their hoops for their bullshit ideas.

Right on. It's an industry; like any other machine, it will grind you up. And it's interesting how, in this town at least, it's very unpopular to speak out against it. People's first reaction tends to be "YUO ARE OPRESSING TEH QUEERS!"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Call me crazy... but I always kinda figured that there were things more important about a person than what clothes they like to wear, what other consenting adult (or adults) they want to rub body parts against, or what body parts they were dealt at birth.

Maybe if there was more of THAT idea floating around, the rest of the arguments here would matter a fuckload less.

[Kai]

Here's something I've noticed that ties in to your statement, Nigel.

In isolation (away from other trans/queer people), genderweird people tend to be much more fluid and uncategorized with their identification. When that changes, when they move into a more social environment with other queers, their identification becomes more contained. Why? Social pressure from other queers! People who previously didn't feel a need for any sort of medical intervention feel compelled towards that direction, because that's considered to be the socially acceptable choice, and in their need to fit in they feel themselves needing it too. And this just continues in a cycle of putting amazingly diverse queers into little gender boxes. Now, if there wasn't any such thing as social gender pressures these people would probably never have felt the need. And if they did, it would be a personal choice rather than a social pressure. Garrrgh.

Edit: speaking all this from personal experience, mistakes, and discovery.

Thank you for pointing this out! I have noticed the same thing in my local queer community... and it sucks when the community you turn to for acceptance, support and understanding tries to push you into a little box.

I don't think most people don't understand how promoting the concept of genderism, including transgenderism, reinforces sexism and sexist stereotypes. For example, a man seeking sex change surgery (euphemistically, and incorrectly, also called "gender reassignment surgery", as if a surgical procedure alters your gender) must live for a year "as a woman". Whoa... hold on. What the fuck does that even mean?

Better yet, who decides what it means?

1) What it means is that a queer wishing to be accepted as female legally must present herself stereotypically as female for one year before "the gates will open". Not that this says anything about her family's acceptance, or her friends, or her workplace, or that shithead down the street.

2) The psychological community likes to talk about "that which is considered normal by society at large", but since there really is no normal, they tend to settle on "that which is normal by cultural stereotype" and "that which I see as normal". So, and yes, it's scary, medicine and the psychological community decide what gender means. Never mind it's a cultural construct, never mind that they often equate sex with gender.

Yes, exactly. I like to frame those as questions in order to get people to actually think about it, and maybe even ask themselves whether they live up to these artificial gender standards that are defined in part by a community that exists to sell gender reassignment. I'm certain I don't, other than having long hair and occasionally wearing a skirt. But you nailed it: The medical and psychological community are defining gender roles and simultaneously conflating their invented roles with biological sex. And, there's money in it.

There definitely is. Surgical operations on breast and genital tissue are very expensive, as are lifetime prescriptions of various hormones and required psychiatric visits. And that's not including all the other things queers will do, like facial surgery, laser depiliation, and clothing/cosmetics. I refuse to fall into that bullshit. I refuse to jump through their hoops for their bullshit ideas.

Right on. It's an industry; like any other machine, it will grind you up. And it's interesting how, in this town at least, it's very unpopular to speak out against it. People's first reaction tends to be "YUO ARE OPRESSING TEH QUEERS!"

To which I would reply, NO, /THEY/ ARE OPRESSING THE QUEERS!

[East Coast Hustle]

I will keep my mouth shut. I will keep my mouth shut. I will keep...

Being opposed to this kind of twisted parental manipulation is not the same as being opposed to allowing your child to be gender ambiguous or supporting your child in gender role exploration.

Exactly.  My whole thing is that the child isn't in on this.  It is being decided FOR the child.  Because a 4-month child obviously can't make an informed decision on this matter. 

But the only thing they decided was not to tell people the kids gender...

It's not the treatment of the 4-month-old that is so telling, it's the older children. A baby doesn't have a gender, it has a sex and gender roles don't exist for infants aside from those imposed by family and society. I am not opposed to concealing an infant's sex from onlookers. But they are giving the message to their older kids that their approval is based partly or largely on gender role defiance and/or ambiguity, and so, naturally, the kids are going to do what kids do, which is seek approval from their parents by acting out the roles that have been defined for them, in this case creating a dissonance between what the oldest child wants (social recognition of being a boy) and what the parents want (a child who defies gender roles).

Is it really so hard to see what they're doing wrong?

Sounds like what they are doing is actually a mirror image of what they are trying to point out as wrong.

Trans and genderqueer children get forced into gender roles that don't fit them through basically exactly this process.

YES, YES, YES.

Okay, yes, I definitely agree with this. I just didn't want this to turn into a drama shitstorm with me screaming "fuck your gender bullshit". Because I have done that before, and probably will again at some point.

So then don't impose your personal values and ideas about gender (which you've had a lifetime to accumulate and refine) on a conversation about whether or not these idiots' method of parenting is effective or ethically sound. I don't see anyone ITT saying that people who have the ability to choose a gender role (or lack thereof) for themselves shouldn't be free to so so as they please.

[Cain]

Meh.  People like getting upset and outraged.  These parents like attention from people getting upset and outraged, as it allows them to be smugly superior.

Sucks for the kid, but since they're almost certainly going to be sold into lifetime serfdom or act as advanced target practice for jihadis, in the grand scheme of things, I'm struggling to get a reading on my "give-a-damn-ometer".

[East Coast Hustle]

Also, the very existence of the terms "trans" and "genderqueer" are based on the existence of sex-linked gender roles, which these parents are reinforcing.

Transexualism is actually a physical condition.  Trans people have hormone receptors in their brains that match the other sex.  They don't just identify as the other gender, they actually have the brain of the other sex (in many cases, not all)

I'm sorry, I think it's bullshit.

There's a fair amount of science backing it up.

I can link papers if you want but they tend to be pretty dry.

The physical brain structure is actually different between men and women and trans people have brains that are more similar to their identified sex than the sex indicated by their genitals.

Right, but in biological anthropology you have to be careful about attributing differences to brain structure, because brain structure is highly mutable. The brains of people who were abused as children, for instance, are different from the brains of those who weren't. Using the logic you appear to be using, that would mean that the children caused themselves to be abused by virtue of having the brain structure of someone who is abused.

Right?

I don't believe that the brain structure of the transgendered person doesn't match their bodies. In fact, I think that's so absurdly stupid an assertion as to belong in the same realm as otherkin. I think, with my brain that is part of my body, that we have assigned sex to gender, and are falsely imposing the expectation that a person with a perfectly normal healthy body must "really" be the other sex because they "think like" the other sex. That's gender role imposition.

WE CREATED THE PROBLEM. The body didn't create the problem. The solution is not to use technology to resolve the dissonance, the solution is to remove the dissonance by dissolving the artificial assignments of "gender".

GOD FUCKING AMEN HALELUJIAH! KILL THAT GENDER! DESTROY IT! FUCKING GENDER CAN GO DIE IN A HOLE!

LONG LIVE THE QUEERS! LONG LIVE THE QUEERS! LONG LIVE THE QUEERS!

What about the people who are perfectly happy and content with their gender roles? Is that not just as valid as deciding to reverse or ignore gender roles?

Your posts ITT have the distinct smell of radicalism about them. If you don't like having contrary values imposed upon you by those who conform to "societal norms", perhaps you should return the favor?

[Cain]

That's just what the patriarchy wants you to think, ECH.

FIGHT THE POWER!

[East Coast Hustle]

Call me crazy... but I always kinda figured that there were things more important about a person than what clothes they like to wear, what other consenting adult (or adults) they want to rub body parts against, or what body parts they were dealt at birth.

Maybe if there was more of THAT idea floating around, the rest of the arguments here would matter a fuckload less.

So much this.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Here's something I've noticed that ties in to your statement, Nigel.

In isolation (away from other trans/queer people), genderweird people tend to be much more fluid and uncategorized with their identification. When that changes, when they move into a more social environment with other queers, their identification becomes more contained. Why? Social pressure from other queers! People who previously didn't feel a need for any sort of medical intervention feel compelled towards that direction, because that's considered to be the socially acceptable choice, and in their need to fit in they feel themselves needing it too. And this just continues in a cycle of putting amazingly diverse queers into little gender boxes. Now, if there wasn't any such thing as social gender pressures these people would probably never have felt the need. And if they did, it would be a personal choice rather than a social pressure. Garrrgh.

Edit: speaking all this from personal experience, mistakes, and discovery.

Thank you for pointing this out! I have noticed the same thing in my local queer community... and it sucks when the community you turn to for acceptance, support and understanding tries to push you into a little box.

I don't think most people don't understand how promoting the concept of genderism, including transgenderism, reinforces sexism and sexist stereotypes. For example, a man seeking sex change surgery (euphemistically, and incorrectly, also called "gender reassignment surgery", as if a surgical procedure alters your gender) must live for a year "as a woman". Whoa... hold on. What the fuck does that even mean?

Better yet, who decides what it means?

1) What it means is that a queer wishing to be accepted as female legally must present herself stereotypically as female for one year before "the gates will open". Not that this says anything about her family's acceptance, or her friends, or her workplace, or that shithead down the street.

2) The psychological community likes to talk about "that which is considered normal by society at large", but since there really is no normal, they tend to settle on "that which is normal by cultural stereotype" and "that which I see as normal". So, and yes, it's scary, medicine and the psychological community decide what gender means. Never mind it's a cultural construct, never mind that they often equate sex with gender.

Yes, exactly. I like to frame those as questions in order to get people to actually think about it, and maybe even ask themselves whether they live up to these artificial gender standards that are defined in part by a community that exists to sell gender reassignment. I'm certain I don't, other than having long hair and occasionally wearing a skirt. But you nailed it: The medical and psychological community are defining gender roles and simultaneously conflating their invented roles with biological sex. And, there's money in it.

There definitely is. Surgical operations on breast and genital tissue are very expensive, as are lifetime prescriptions of various hormones and required psychiatric visits. And that's not including all the other things queers will do, like facial surgery, laser depiliation, and clothing/cosmetics. I refuse to fall into that bullshit. I refuse to jump through their hoops for their bullshit ideas.

That. In spades. I have an M2F friend who chases all those surgeries and alterations with the zeal of a Crusader chasing the Grail. She is fighting the good fight. She wants that societal ideal because society's concepts of 'woman' are the only thing that will validate her femininity. Which isn't true at all, because she was always more of a woman than I ever was. But she wants it, and has been doing the hormones and laser depilation and therapy and every other thing there is. If this will make her happy, more power to her.

But when I decided not to chase gender reassignment as well, we sorta lost part of that common ground.

There's a whole huge shit-long list of stuff I could talk about, relating to this topic, but I guess that's the gist. Besides, y'all say it better anyhow.

[Kai]

Also, the very existence of the terms "trans" and "genderqueer" are based on the existence of sex-linked gender roles, which these parents are reinforcing.

Transexualism is actually a physical condition.  Trans people have hormone receptors in their brains that match the other sex.  They don't just identify as the other gender, they actually have the brain of the other sex (in many cases, not all)

I'm sorry, I think it's bullshit.

There's a fair amount of science backing it up.

I can link papers if you want but they tend to be pretty dry.

The physical brain structure is actually different between men and women and trans people have brains that are more similar to their identified sex than the sex indicated by their genitals.

Right, but in biological anthropology you have to be careful about attributing differences to brain structure, because brain structure is highly mutable. The brains of people who were abused as children, for instance, are different from the brains of those who weren't. Using the logic you appear to be using, that would mean that the children caused themselves to be abused by virtue of having the brain structure of someone who is abused.

Right?

I don't believe that the brain structure of the transgendered person doesn't match their bodies. In fact, I think that's so absurdly stupid an assertion as to belong in the same realm as otherkin. I think, with my brain that is part of my body, that we have assigned sex to gender, and are falsely imposing the expectation that a person with a perfectly normal healthy body must "really" be the other sex because they "think like" the other sex. That's gender role imposition.

WE CREATED THE PROBLEM. The body didn't create the problem. The solution is not to use technology to resolve the dissonance, the solution is to remove the dissonance by dissolving the artificial assignments of "gender".

GOD FUCKING AMEN HALELUJIAH! KILL THAT GENDER! DESTROY IT! FUCKING GENDER CAN GO DIE IN A HOLE!

LONG LIVE THE QUEERS! LONG LIVE THE QUEERS! LONG LIVE THE QUEERS!

What about the people who are perfectly happy and content with their gender roles? Is that not just as valid as deciding to reverse or ignore gender roles?

Your posts ITT have the distinct smell of radicalism about them. If you don't like having contrary values imposed upon you by those who conform to "societal norms", perhaps you should return the favor?

Perhaps I like to shake things up. You of all people should appreciate that. Maybe only when it's convenient for you. And me, imposing social norms?  What fucking century are you living in?

And of course they're radical. I'm radical. Not that its very hard to be in this country.

Not fucking going to get apologetic about it either.

[Don Coyote]

Coyote's stance: if she had a vagina she would go 'DUDE I HAVE A VAGINA AND IT'S FUCKING AWESOME!!!" If he had a penis he would go 'DUDE I HAVE A PENIS AND IT'S FUCKING AWESOME!!!" Everything else is just set dressing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

 

Fucking hippies.

[Payne]

Natural progression, in the OP.

Other highlights in this progression include:





PROTIP: Kids are not billboards for your Consumerism, Lite Bite Ideology or Diseased Worldview.

[Bruno]

Wake me up when we have the technology to give me 3 sets of every kind of genitalia plus some I made up.

Until then.