Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 11:01:49 AMThat being said, is it possible there is also a mystical/spiritual component to sex and gender?

If there is an answer, it's we don't know. I think it's most likely there's a wide variety of reasons why people are trans some of which are nature and some nurture. The theories offer people tools to help find their way through their personal maze, but it's even if we had a definitive answer, it wouldn't be possible to unwind gender identity any more than it's possible to unwind someone's sexual preferences. Nor would it be logical, or fair because we'd put them through hell twice.

Your mention of your daughter reminds me of another story of Ginny. Her parents were away a lot, so we were often alone in the house, during which time she threw her wardrobe wide and plunged us into a long period where we swapped roles as freely as our clothes. We made all the rules and continually dared each other to go further but it was very affectionate. I vividly remember her saying, 'I'll teach you how to be a girl if you teach me how to be a boy,' so this was definitely a two way trade.

I can remember spinning coins to choose who we were going to be. And staging a performance of part of Romeo and Juliet with her Juliet, but dressed as Romeo, and me the other way around. The audience went to sleep midway, but as dogs go, he was quite old, so we forgave him.

That changed me. It loosened the bonds of how I personally experienced gender and it did the same for her. All these years later, there's some of her about me and, I like to think, some of me about her. It was a good experience.

David Reimer (John Money's patient) was someone who neither by nature nor nurture was trans. If poor David's chilling story is to benefit future generations, it's that you can't bring up someone whose gender identity develops to be strongly masculine as a female, or vice versa without terrible consequences. If you've read Colapinto's book, David's gender id was developing by the time he was about four or five and its no coincidence many here began to experience their first realisation something's going wrong with the way we're being raised at about the same age.

Bringing us up in a gender we're unhappy with is clearly a very bad idea. Why then, is fire and brimstone not descending on the heads of parents who bring up children who are trans as cis?

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 11:01:49 AMis it possible there is also a mystical/spiritual component to sex and gender?

As a life-long mystic, I believe that there is.

When we understand that our subconscious mind is intimately linked with spirit (Holy Spirit, Vital Life Force, or whatever name you want to use), it makes sense that it could affect the developing fetus in the womb. We know that this link exists because the subconscious is the innermost part of who we are, and that the conscious mind has not developed yet. Yet the body still knows how to fight infections, heal wounds, and do what is needed to survive, long before the brain has had a chance to develop any form of "intelligence". Self-awareness is one of our first conscious activities, so we "know" who we are before we have had a chance to figure out what hands and feet are for. That is just my sense of it anyway.

Quote from: TanyaG on April 12, 2025, 03:24:14 PMWhy then, is fire and brimstone not descending on the heads of parents who bring up children who are trans as cis?

I'm assuming (always dangerous) the question is rhetorical. I am familiar with David Reimer but not Colapinto's book (though I soon will be). And I fully agree; knowing what is in the sausage is unlikely to make it taste better but may very well make you become a vegan. As for Ginny, the more you share her story with me, the more enamored I become. In my experience, Ginnies are vanishingly rare. Maybe that's the answer to your rhetorical question: parents should raise their children, cis or variant, to be just like Ginny.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 04:08:25 PMI'm assuming (always dangerous) the question is rhetorical.

Semi-rhetorical?

At a logical level I can't see a difference between Money's attempt to bring up David Reimer (whose natural gender id when it emerged was strongly male) to be gendered female and what has befallen many of us here. Plenty of members of Susan were brought up to be gendered strongly male despite having expressed their natural gender id as being strongly female to their parents. Or, conversely, that they didn't want to be gendered strongly female when their natural gender id was strongly male. Or they were non-binary and didn't want to be brought up in any gender.

A large part of what destroyed David (it wasn't all of it, because there was other, seriously bad stuff, if you read Colapinto's book, which destroyed his poor brother too) was a deliberate attempt to ignore a child's expressed wish to live a life consistent with his gender identity.

Read enough biographies here and you can see parents getting away with doing what Money did, except there was only one of him and there are tens of thousands of them. Such parents get to hide behind a screen of compliance with society's norms, their excuse being they are gendering their children to match their sex assigned at birth. Money didn't have that excuse, which is why what he did stands out so much and is so reviled.

But the experience of any child brought up to live with a gender they can't cope is similar to David's, yet no-one is turning around and condemning parents for doing it.

Some members have correctly identified this as what it is, while others have rationalised it. A few have engineered explanations designed to let their parents off the hook and to to give themselves permission to love their family and avoid dealing with what went on. That's a form of Stockholm syndrome and I saw it over and over in people I worked with, as you do in victims of any form of abuse. Some among us took so long to understand our gender identity that our parents can't be blamed because we never told them at the time.

Anyone who did tell their parents and who was ignored was cast into the same fire as David. If you take away the fig leaf of normativity, they were abused at a deep and intensely destructive psychological level. Just as he was.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 11:01:49 AMMy daughter is the most beautiful woman in the world and she has strong masc tendencies (she never wears a dress and often has a hammer or a rifle in her hands).

That phrase would describe half the women I grew up with and perfectly encapsulates something women can do which men can't because men are so more strongly gender policed than they.

I just looked up the word tomboy and found it emerged with its current meaning in English during the sixteenth century, so women with a mix of masculine and feminine gender identification have been identified for a long time. I guess they've existed even longer than the 500 year history of the word tomboy suggests, given the human race doesn't change very much.

Until the 1914 European war, standards for women's dress were highly gendered, but with every available man in the armed forces, women had to work in factories and you can't work in a dress. They were allowed to wear trousers, boots, work shirts and jackets because they were more appropriate, but it was such a big change government declarations had to be involved and it became policy. So many women enjoyed the freedom that by 1945 the swing of the pendulum was unstoppable and by the 1960s women whose natural gender identity wasn't highly feminine had carved out a slice of fashion for themselves and could walk down any street without fear of discrimination.

In the process, women changed the bounds of femininity as society accepted it. The change they wrought is a good example of why social scientists and the whole GAMC system see gender (WHO sense) as a social construct and not as an innate property of the human race. How we think of gender changes across societies and over time.

Reframing this (I find reframing irresistible because of the way it changes everything you see by altering the angle of the mirror) I could be compared to the assigned male at birth equivalent of a tomboy.

I can't think of a word for it. Janegirl? That sounds crazy, but only because it hasn't been around half a millennium. There was a time when I thought seriously about transitioning. I had laser twenty years ago, or whenever I first judged it was safe. But then I reframed and thought about what my gender identity would be if I didn't have to live with society's definitions and pressures.

It was extremely hard to do, despite being steeped in psychology and life sciences and having an analyst on tap who I didn't have to pay for, but I finally realised I'd spent decades failing to see what our Romeo and Juliet had been telling me. That was a long time ago now.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 11:01:49 AMMaybe that's the answer to your rhetorical question: parents should raise their children, cis or variant, to be just like Ginny.

For some of us, me included, it would work just fine. Tomboys have carved out a much loved exception that crosses the gender divide, but society's construct of gender isn't forgiving enough to allow the same to happen for people who are assigned male at birth.

I'm beginning to think I should get back in touch with Ginny, if only to find out what she thinks of all this. It's a shame the dog is dead now because he saw at least half our play before he dozed off and he has to have had an opinion of his own 

Quote from: TanyaG on April 13, 2025, 04:20:02 AMIt's a shame the dog is dead

That was one lucky dog! I can almost visualize you and Ginny strutting across a makeshift stage filled with sound and fury. I ordered Colapinto's book. In a few weeks, I will read it and, if my memory is accurate (which it seldom is anymore), offer a rebuttal to the possibility of nurture playing a significant role in gender variance. Partly because I equate Money with the likes of B.F. Skinner and even James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. The cruelty so many parents imposed on their children was justified by words such as operant conditioning and conversion therapy. My parents had no awareness of the pain they inflicted upon me. More tragically, neither did I. The excuse of ignorance or using cherry-picked data is no longer viable. Not if we refuse to give credence to such brutal nonsense. I love you, TanyaG, and I am fully aware that the depth of my experience, qualifications, and compassion pale in comparison to your own. But I need to be convinced nurture had a darn thing to do with who I am. At least in regard to my queerness.     

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 09:27:10 AMBut I need to be convinced nurture had a darn thing to do with who I am. At least in regard to my queerness. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think nurture necessarity played much if any role in how many of us turned out and you would probably know if it had done in your life. I'd put 'understanding why we are trans' some way down the list of 'things do do' because of what I've written before: there isn't anything we can do about it. But it can be useful knowing about it because of how our gendering develops.

Quote from: TanyaG on April 13, 2025, 09:35:02 AMI'd put 'understanding why we are trans' some way down the list of 'things do do'

And I fully understand that, TanyaG. I'm concerned allowing 'nurture' into the discussion enables the justification for destructive therapies and the withholding of effective treatments. Even Hilary Cass said to provide all the talk therapy a child could endure, just don't give them any puberty blockers and never say HRT until they're so old they need their larynx shaved. You are an amazing therapist. Every time I ask you a question, you respond with a peer reviewable paper. I'm just frustrated. I wish there was a way to get the gender variance discussion out the hands of politicians and back into the hands of the gender variant, their families, and their medical providers. It just makes me sad. And sometimes angry.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 11:13:39 AMI'm concerned allowing 'nurture' into the discussion enables the justification for destructive therapies and the withholding of effective treatments

It's far better to recognise abuse as abuse than to collude with abusers by allowing them to label what they are doing as treatment. In other words, an abuser should never be allowed to use events in a person's life history to justify treating them against their will, regardless of whether the reason appears logical or not.

The prime issue here is consent, not the theory behind how someone's gender identity developed. The moment you focus on anything but consent, you open the door for abusers to wriggle around their wishes.

Imagine for a moment that we find being trans is a genetic disorder, so it is definitely 'nature'. Now say someone isolates the gene and a Money of the future finds a child whose gender identity is strongly male, but who was assigned female at birth, and this scientist convinces the child's parents to do a gene edit to which the child does not consent. Now where does the argument that believing in 'nature' protects against abuse stand?

Someone who ignores consent, which David clearly did not give once he was old enough to express himself, will ignore every other argument too. Which, if you read Colapinto's book, is what happened to David and his brother. Everyone else involved wrapped themselves up in knots over nature vs nurture and in the process they failed to see what was happening in front of their eyes. In the gene edit scenario, the same could happen if the 'nature' argument was used to overrule consent, because a Money of the future could argue that our nature lies in our genetic code.

I used to serve on an ethics committee. We had a member who was a lawyer and I learned a lot from him about how to see the wood for the trees!

Quote from: TanyaG on April 13, 2025, 12:16:41 PMThe prime issue here is consent,

I feel as though I'm beginning to grasp your 'nurture' defense (finally, right? Sorry to put you through all of that). If I'm reading you correctly, it just doesn't matter (nurture v nature). What matters, is recognizing all of us are 'ends' in ourselves (Kant's argument poorly rephrased and more defectively remembered). I have long believed intersex children should be allowed to determine their own gender identity prior to undergoing any gender defining surgery. David was never given that choice but, assuming his penis was severely damaged, did his doctors have any other choice? (I guess I'll read the book and find out) Final asides on a tangential topic (and realizing you may not be an endocrinologist or gender affirming surgeon): would you recommend puberty blockers and HRT at the earliest appropriate ages for a trans male (thereby avoiding mastectomies and facial reconstruction surgeries)? Conversely, is it better to delay HRT for trans females to allow for adequate penile tissue maturation (I've read anecdotal reports of torn vaginal lining due to vaginoplasties using immature penises)? Or is everyone case by case? In any event, should social transitioning ever be discouraged? God, I wish Ginny had been my friend, too. In some ways, she is. And so are you.

Quote from: TanyaG on April 13, 2025, 12:16:41 PMI used to serve on an ethics committee.

Clarifications: social transitioning at home. Elsewhere depending on risk and community acceptance.
Categorical Imperative in making medical decisions for children (give them the same agency granted adults with caveats for safety and risk/benefit analysis).
Sorry, TanyaG. So much of this is driven by my curiosity and regard for you professional/personal opinion. Please don't go too far out of your way to respond. On the lighter side: you convinced me. I will not be preparing a robust rebuttal as I read Colapinto's book.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 02:33:56 PMIf I'm reading you correctly, it just doesn't matter (nurture v nature). What matters, is recognizing all of us are 'ends' in ourselves

That's it, basically. There's no single cause of why we end up how we are, which explains why we're so diverse.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 02:33:56 PMDavid was never given that choice but, assuming his penis was severely damaged, did his doctors have any other choice?

The way I'd look at this is, 1. David wasn't intersex, his penis had been damaged by a procedure that went wrong. 2. He was a very young child, so no decisions needed to be taken about what to do other than remediate the damage as much as possible. 3. At the stage plastic surgery was at then, it would have been possible to offer a reconstruction, so why wasn't that recommended? 4. How did they even get to the point of considering surgery to make David 'more female' and bringing him up as a girl when there was a perfectly viable alternative which would have left him with a similar level of urinary continence while bringing him up as a boy?

David's parents were offered a false choice. Even if he'd suffered total penile and scrotal loss, there was no argument for bringing him up as a girl and every argument for bringing him up as a boy. That was really bad, but when you read the book, you'll realise it got much worse after that. Poor guy.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 02:33:56 PM...realizing you may not be an endocrinologist or gender affirming surgeon... would you recommend puberty blockers and HRT at the earliest appropriate ages

I'm neither and this really is case by case stuff, depending on whether someone is binary or non-binary and which way they're travelling. Right now there are arguments for delaying vaginoplasty because of immaturity and arguments against delaying because of the huge issue of development of secondary sexual characteristics and the dysphoria they bring with them.

On balance, I'd be in favour of progressing GAMC as soon as everyone had given considered, informed, assessed and stable consent on the ground that avoiding the psychological distress and further surgery associated with dealing with the development of secondary sexual characteristics more than outweighs the disadvantages of not waiting.

Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 13, 2025, 02:33:56 PMIn any event, should social transitioning ever be discouraged?

I don't think so, as long as everyone involved realises it isn't a walk in the park. Social transitioning is good for helping families and friends realise that this isn't just a phase and for testing trans people's ability to live in the gender of their preference. If someone feels psychologically better after a reasonably long period of social transitioning then it's a boost for them and a signpost to the future.

Lots of trans people socially transition at home and never present in the gender of their choice outside. I have no issues with it because if it works for them, then it's good for them. I'm not married to the idea that anyone has to go any further with being trans than they actually need to go, if that makes sense. It's not an all or nothing thing and the best and most comfortable solution for each of us will be different. Which is why I have this thing about describing being trans as like being on a railway network with numerous routes and many stops

No problem asking as many questions as you want, I only wish someone had been there to do the same for me. Other than Ginny, bless her.

Being raised as female would have made it easier for my work in progress social interaction.
Less of a transition for sure!

Chrissy

Quote from: ChrissyRyan on April 13, 2025, 03:47:05 PMBeing raised as female would have made it easier for my work in progress social interaction.

Without any doubt. Gender is something we 'do' and we learn how to do it. Romeo and Juliet taught me that, because Ginny stopped me a few times to say, 'Juliet would do it this way,' and it was always over small things. In the last year we were together she had a motorbike and she taught me how to get on it as a woman. Which was hilarious because there was a moment when we looked at each other and laughed, because it hit us that she did it instinctively the way a girl would because that was how she'd been brought up and vice versa. Yet part of her felt more comfortable as a boy and part of me as a girl. The irony was too much.

This is what I'm getting at when I write about gender being part nurture. If we're brought up with gendered behaviour which is different to our gender identity, we have to unlearn it and relearn new behaviour, or we won't be a good fit with society's convention on that gender.

Being raised as a female beds in feminine traits and behaviours, making them so instinctive they feel natural, so it's 100% easier to be raised in the gender you identify with than the one society corresponds to your sex assigned at birth. A whole bunch of homework doesn't need to be done.

There's a game I've played with people I've worked with, which can be magical if you want to explore your own or someone else's gender identity, but only if you or they are absolutely honest when you play and don't overthink it in the first round!

Down the bottom of this post is a list of words and phrases describing gender traits separated by semi-colons. Type out these traits one below another on a sheet of paper. Put the traits in a column on the left and leave three blank columns to the right.

You'll need to print two copies.

Cut one copy up so each trait is on its own strip of paper and put three cups on the table. Shuffle up the strips.

Now drop each strip into the first cup if the word or phrase on it describes you as you are, into the second cup if it describes the opposite of who you are, and into the third if it does neither. Label the first cup 'me', the second cup 'opposite of me' and the third one 'neither'.

Don't cut up the second sheet you printed out because it's your scoresheet. When every strip of paper is in a cup, take the first cup and tick off each trait listed on a strip of paper in it using column one; do the same with the second cup but tick off the traits into column two; and finally, deal with the third cup.

I've done it with flash cards where I've shown them to someone for a second and asked for an instant yes no, dumping cards where there isn't a quick answer into the third cup. That can work really well because it leaves no time to overthink or to come up with answers superimposed by the gender you were brought up in, if you know what I mean. The faster you play the first round, the more accurate it'll be.

The first time through, play the game as described.

The second time through, take more time to consider each word or phrase and drop the words into the cups to fit the values of the gender you were brought up in.

Third time around, if you think of yourself as binary, take as much time as you did the second run through, but drop the words into the cups to match your understanding of the values of the gender you see as the opposite of the one you were brought up in. If you are non-binary, skip this round because it doesn't apply to you.

If anyone does play the game, I'll explain how you process it in a later post, but that's fun too, because anyone can do it and it can make it very easy to understand aspects of dysphoria that aren't driven by the body you were born with. Not to mention where your gender lies on the spectrum.

The trait list:

Independent; dependent; protective; vulnerable; reflective; unreflective; curious; non curious; assertive; acquiescent; docile; defiant; cooperative; uncooperative; amenable; unamenable; empathetic; aloof; soft; hard; sensitive; insensitive; impetuous; controlled; fearless; fearful; modest; humble; ambitious; unselfish; selfish; leader; follower; forward; retiring; obliging; disobliging; forgiving; unforgiving; rational; irrational; submissive; dominant; supportive; distant; yielding; unyielding; cheerful; austere; emotional; unemotional; gives love freely; love has to be earned; I should take decisions; my partner should take decisions; I should be cautious; I should be willing to take risks; sexual activity should have a physical focus; sexual activity should have an emotional focus; I should initiate sex; my partner should initiate sex; I should be the more sexually experienced; my partner should be the more sexually experienced; when I have sex I like to be in control; when I have sex I like to be controlled; I should always be ready for sex; there are times when it's okay not to be ready for sex.

Quote from: TanyaG on April 14, 2025, 06:10:56 AMIf anyone does play the game, I'll explain how you process it in a later post, but that's fun too, because anyone can do it and it can make it very easy to understand aspects of dysphoria that aren't driven by the body you were born with. Not to mention where your gender lies on the spectrum.

Tanya, this game sounds really fun, I think I'll give it a try with some friends.

Thanks for sharing!


~ Lilis 💗

Quote from: TanyaG on April 14, 2025, 06:10:56 AMIf anyone does play the game, I'll explain how you process it in a later post, but that's fun too, because anyone can do it and it can make it very easy to understand aspects of dysphoria that aren't driven by the body you were born with

I love games, TanyaG! And look forward to playing this one. It might take me a few days so, please, no spoiler alerts.

No spoilers until everyone reports back, meanwhile I'll play it again and we can compare notes!

As everyone has probably worked out, you need three copies of the score sheet if you are binary, not one for each person who plays. Even if you are non-binary, the third round can be illuminating.

I've arranged the traits into a list because it makes it easy to paste them in complete with their numbers into a word processor and I've renamed a couple to make them easier to understand, as well as adding a couple.

If you play with the list in the earlier post, it'll amount to the same thing because what we're interested in is the split, not the precise totals, since all of you will be throwing out quite a few trait pairs anyway.

1 Dependent
2 Independent
3 Vulnerable
4 Protective
5 Reflective
6 Unreflective
7 Curious
8 Non curious
9 Acquiescent
10 Assertive
11 Docile
12 Defiant
13 Cooperative
14 Uncooperative
15 Amenable
16 Unamenable
17 Empathetic
18 Aloof
19 Soft
20 Hard
21 Sensitive
22 Insensitive
23 Impetuous
24 Controlled
25 Fearful
26 Fearless
27 Modest
28 Ambitious
29 Humble
30 Proud
31 Unselfish
32 Selfish
33 Pack member
34 Pack leader
35 Reluctant to give an opinion
36 Keen to give an opinion
37 Obliging
38 Disobliging
39 Forgiving
40 Unforgiving
41 Irrational
42 Rational
43 Submissive
44 Dominant
45 Supportive
46 Distant
47 Yielding
48 Unyielding
49 Cheerful
50 Austere
51 Emotional
52 Unemotional
53 I give love freely
54 My love has to be earned
55 My partner should take decisions
56 I should take decisions
57 I should be cautious
58 I should be willing to take risks
59 Sexual activity should have an emotional focus
60 Sexual activity should have a physical focus
61 My partner should initiate sex
62 I should initiate sex
63 My partner should be the more sexually experienced
64 I should be the more sexually experienced
65 When I have sex I like to be controlled
66 When I have sex I like to be in control
67 There are times when it's okay not to be ready for sex
68 I should always be ready for sex.