The American Dream - and Nightmare?

[lilacwoman]

Just watching 2002 movie Far from Heaven.. perfect family living 1950s American Dream then wife goes to see why husband is working late and finds him kissing his male assistant.

Two points caught my attention.  in early scene wife is being interviewed as being perfect example of happy local family and she replies she is just typical wife and mother etc.   which is very close to what an interviewer was told a few years ago by girls in rural USA who said they wanted to be homemakers.  Is this wife/mother/homemaker indoctrination the reason why so many women and men are so unaccepting of the reality of transsexualism?

second point is the husband went to shrink to be cured of being bisexual of what he says is 'this hateful thing,  I have to beat it.'  Shrink says it can be treated with electroshock or hormonal rebalancing.   I was aware that electroshock was usual treatment for lots of sexual differences back then but when did it stop being used? 

And knowing what we on Susans know of hormones what sort of hormonal therapy would make a bi-guy un-bi? T would perhaps cause an estro spike to make him more gay?  E might confuse him more to increase the gayness or did they think E would increase the maleness to make him want hos wife again?
Scene  now with guy kissing wife then shoving her away when he can't get an erection. 

[Tyler]

You bring up interesting points, and I feel I have nothing to add other than the fact that that movie is awesome!

[Amaranth]

Sounds like a great movie, at to answer your question about indoctrination, I don't think it's just that area of life.  Gender role indoctrination in general is a huge setback for any sort of gender equality, including anything in the TG umbrella.  I've never understood the road block in everyone's minds, but society seems to find it hard to wrap its head around the idea that you can fulfill different roles regardless of birth sex, or whatever sex you end up with.

[pebbles]

Hormone "Rebalancing" as they called it was a prime exsample of psychological quackery that became mainstream. it's a massive error.

Early on in it's deployment in attempts to treat men they originally gave them testosersone supplimentation to try and "masculinize them" it was disastrous because Testosersone dosen't change your orientation it just makes it higher... So if anything it made gay men more gay and craved sex more.

So following this they administered estrogen to gay men not to turn them into females per say but to lower their libido this was usually manditory and court ordered as homosexuality was illegal. a famous case of this disgusting bigotry. was the story of Alan Turing grandfather of modern computing during WWII he assisted the allies in cracking the enigma code and was infact probably the major contributor.

He commited suicide a short while after begin forced to take significant quantities of estrogen in an attempt to suppress his homosexual urges whitch also feminized his body and made him extremely depressed.

[JoanneB]

IMHO the best movie of this genre is the 1970's "Boys in the Band" based upon the off-Broadway play. Well worth seeing.

I'm proud to admit to wanting to live up to societal dreams of women being a good wife/mother/homemaker. Unfortunately it wasn't in the cards for me. I was always told I had a different role to fill. Hence, like some of those guys in the movie, I too have often referred to one of my techniques for dealing with being trans as beating the devil down once again.

Societies, human as well as others in the animal kingdom, function by everyone having a defined role within. Without that you have anarchy and the group dies. Without the group the individual cannot survive. The survival of the group including the elimination of things harmful to it, must take precedence over any individual. Like a lot of biology it is hardwired. Being trans is in effect a threat to the groups existence.

Yes, the human brain is capable of processing a world far beyond the bounds imposed by the reptilian medulla oblongota. It takes work, something many/most people are unwilling to do in a world where you constantly feel your life is precariously balanced on the edge of survival.