Please be sure to review The Site terms of service, and rules to live by
Started by Shana A, March 24, 2008, 07:09:41 AM
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
QuoteGreetings, Amanda Hoffman;First, thank you for getting the pronouns right when referring to Niki. Too often, those who oppose gender transition insist on disrespecting the transitioning/transitioned individual, and denying/belittling them their experience by always referring to them in terms of the body's sex, which in their case has nothing to do with their gender.Second, disclosure. I am a post-operative male-to-female transsexual. I followed the rigorous WPATH Standards of Care, meeting or exceeding the requirements for therapy and medical supervision for my transition.I find your article full of fundamentalist Christian talking points on transsexuality. I'll not rebut them point by point, as this is by design a 'tar-baby' of supreme stickiness. I will, however, compliment you on your 'dogwhistle' writing -- I really had to read some of the passages carefully to realize you were condemning me for my experience. The first clue, though, was referring to Gender Reassignment Surgery as 'surgical mutilation'. Your team really needs to find a better dogwhistle term, as that one is becoming obviously a term of condemnation.For me and my trans-brothers and -sisters, it really isn't about sex, but about gender roles. I made a lousy male - having the factory equipment conferred none of qualities of personality that are attributed to what the doctor checks for when we're born. Trans-men have the same problem with external configuration not denoting the personality that will emerge.The books by Steven Pinker are a great read. He footnotes and biblios the research he uses. In "The Blank Slate", he makes a conclusive argument that children turn out like their parents because of genetics (nature,) not the care with which their parents raised them to be a certain kind of person (nurture.) Basically, children turn out conservative and devout because they received those qualities from their parents the night they were conceived, not because dad beat it in to 'em.Speaking of beatings, my reactionary stepfather couldn't beat the gay out of me...http://christianglbtrights.blogspot.com/2008/01/symbolism-nuditiy-and-sexuality.htmlThis article speaks of the paradox of enticement/revulsion many feel when they are confronted with a gay, lesbian or trans person. I don't think about sex any more often than the average woman, and perhaps less as I'm still on high feminizing doses of female hormones, which tend to take away all libido.But my being in the room is like telling someone "Don't think of an elephant!" You can't not. And just like that, when you find out I was born male but now am female, you can't not think about sex, you can't not be simultaneously attracted and revolted by those thoughts you feel. And you feel it must somehow be my fault, and you project many things you think/feel/fear onto me and my -brothers, and especially -sisters -- that we are all perverts, waiting to recruit impressionable young innocent blank slates to a 'lifestyle'.But as I pointed out earlier, that recruiting can't be done. At least 97% of us DO 'accept who we are', by which you mean be happy you were born with a *****(*), and by definition can't be recruited. But (and here's the truly scary part,) you can't stop someone truly committed to transitioning from transitioning -- a fact the vast majority of the psychological community knows to be true (and those who say you can change are no better than the 'researchers' who pimped for the cigarette companies in the 50's and 60's to try to counteract the inconvenient truth of cigarettes=lung cancer.)Finally, Amanda, I'm post-op. Say we're in a seminar together, and it's break time. Your bladder is uncomfortably full but you see me (born male) disappear into the only womens restroom ahead of you. My question to you is; how long will you wait before going in?Hazumu Osaragi
