Ron Gold on the Transgendered - A Dialogue

[Shana A]

Monday, 14 December 2009
Ron Gold on the Transgendered - A Dialogue
Zoe Brain

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/ron-gold-on-transgendered-dialogue.html

Recently, the GLBT group blog Bilerico published an article from their newest contributor. Someone who at age 90 is something of a legend for his work in helping co-found the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the USA and his agitation to remove "homosexuality" from the list of mental illnesses, on the grounds that there was no evidence that it was one.

    What is transgender? Well, there are two sorts who seem to be covered by the name, the drag kings and queens so good at portraying cartoon imitations of straight people, and transsexuals, the folks who report that from an early age they've felt themselves trapped in the wrong bodies. Despite the equipment they were born with that belies their assertions, they say they are really men or really women.

[placeholdername]

I really liked the author's effort into explaining everything, but as much as Ron Gold seems to be credited with helping the GLB community, he seems to be awfully ignorant on the facts regarding the T or I parts, so its no wonder he got such a reaction from his ill-informed post on the subject.

[Just Kate]

What happened, more than likely, is that, from an early age, when they discovered that their personalities didn't jibe with what little boys and girls are supposed to want and do and feel, they just assumed they mustn't be real little boys and girls.

Perhaps he is correct, I mean this short description certainly fits many of the stories of transsexuals I know.  However it leaves out one very important item.  Not every (or even most) little boy and girl who doesn't feel at home in their sex role ends up transsexual.  There must therefore be another component, hidden, probably biological that separates the two.  Something that causes some little boys who don't fit in as boys to believe they are girls that doesn't cause the same in the other little boys who experience the same.

This is where I feel GID comes in - as a biological base - that interacts with the environmental trigger resulting in full blown transsexuality.  If this is true, it fits in perfectly with the diathesis-stress model of psychology.

Unfortunately for Ron Gold, the same model he uses to oversimplify transsexuals was at one time used to oversimplify homosexuality.

[Shana A]

Thursday, 17 December 2009
A Dialogue with Ron Gold - Part II
Zoe Brain

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-with-ron-gold-part-ii.html

Following on from a previous post:

Ronald Gold wrote:

    Sorry, but I think I need more clarification of all this.


No problems! Glad to get a dialogue going.

    Are you saying that the neuroanatomy -- by which I think you are saying possession of what you're calling a male or female brain -- is entirely the cause of the transsexual phenomenon -- and that my guess about a societally induced cause is all wet?


Um... yes. There's two different ideas here. The first is whether the cause is neurobiological. The second is the societal cause hypothesis. That one's easier to test first.

--------

Friday, 18 December 2009
A Dialogue with Ron Gold - Part III

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-with-ron-gold-part-iii.html

Ronald Gold wrote:

    Once again I thank you for your willingness to share your vast store of information with me. You have just about persuaded me that there is such a thing as neuroanatomy and that it's the cause of transsexuality, but I think we're still far about what, if anything, should be done about it. I'll need to look over your email more thoroghly and think about it.

By all means! Exactly what I hoped for, that you'd spare your limited and valuable time to really examine the issue, and ask further questions... not take anything I say at face value, but either ask me to justify my statements, or (better) do some independent research to make sure that my subjectivity is limited. A conclusion you arrive at independently based on independently-found evidence is always more convincing than one that's spoon-fed to you.

[Butterfly]

A Dialogue with Ron Gold - Part V
AE Brain
By Zoe Brain
23 December, 2009


http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-with-ron-gold-part-v.html


Ron Gold wrote:

    I'm a bit confused. You said no more of my emails online, but sent me a comment from somebody who's obviously seen my latest email.. Or were you just explaining why no more?
    ...
    I'd thought to go back over our correspondence, make notes, then try to organize my questions and thoughts in an orderly way. I have decided, however, to just select some of the most conspicuous items that have been whirling about in my head, and see where it takes me. If I don't get to everything at once, there's always later (something I finally learned with age.)

[Lachlann]

who changed Michael Jackson from an attractive black man to a caricature of a white woman should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, even if they were conforming to their client/patient's requests.

I'm.... pretty sure that the white part was a skin condition and not a result of the surgery.

I think what's hard to get through to him is how it feels to be this way. It should also be clarified, I think, that transition for a lot(not all) is a last resort method. If it's going to keep me from dying, then who cares if it really is, in reality, mutilation?

[LordKAT]

mutilation as in piercings and tattoos? That is how I view them although I won't tell anyone not to do it, just don't tell me that I have to. Now if only Mr. Gold could say the same.

Michael Jackson thing, if you read the posting about him it says he had 2 immune disorders which explain a lot.

[Shana A]

Monday, 21 December 2009
A Dialogue with Ron Gold - Part IV

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-with-ron-gold-part-iv.html

Ron Gold wrote, in part:

    I find it unacceptable that you have put our correspondence online without mantioning that to me much less asking my permission. I do not give such permission for this or any further correspondence, and if that's not okay with you, I will regretfully have to stop writing you.

[Allamakee]

Ron Gold wrote, in part:

    I find it unacceptable that you have put our correspondence online without mantioning that to me much less asking my permission. I do not give such permission for this or any further correspondence, and if that's not okay with you, I will regretfully have to stop writing you.

He's got a point.  Although his Bilerico article was uninformed and needlessly offensive, he was at least willing to engage in private dialogue with Zoe (who has the patience of a saint.)

But in private dialogue, whether by email, snail mail or telephone people tend to speak more freely than they would in public discourse.  Of course, it shouldn't be taken for granted that such communications will remain private, but Gold did ask Zoe at least once before not to quote his emails to the public.

His emails included additional offensive remarks, and showed a person whose thinking was hopelessly mired in the 1970s.  But he might have chosen his words more carefully, and thought things through a bit more, if he intended those emails to be public.

[Butterfly]

A Dialogue with Ron Gold - Part VI
AE Brain
By Zoe Brain
23 December, 2009


http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-with-ron-gold-part-vi.html


On 22/12/2009 7:09 PM, Ronald Gold wrote:

    First I'd like to get the "born that way" thing out of the way for the time being (one of my attachments more or less deals with that, so if you read it, we'll have more to talk about anon.) I'm not persuaded that the documentation you referred me to proves that even some people are born gay or straight -- even if I was sure that the methodology of the studies was all kosher and the sample adequate. And I think that, born that way or not, people who define themselves as gay or bisexual have made a moral choice not to deny or repress their homosexual impulses the way most people do.

[LordKAT]

deny or repress their homosexual impulses the way most people do.

I was not aware of most people repressing or denying homosexual impulses.  This guy is lost still.