Quote from: Kristi on May 06, 2008, 08:12:57 PM
I thought it would be an interesting discussion starter. Please remember that in almost 30 years, times have changed. Also, I am not interested in religion bashing, so please keep that out.
Alright, I'll bite. Initially, my first read through made me think of religious propaganda. There's just something about the way it reads. There are details, but not enough details. Not the right details, if that makes sense.
Quote" I was eventually stationed in Hawaii. There I totally pursued darkness, immersing myself in Honolulu's gay scene. Many homosexuals are mature and responsible but I, like many others, was not. I got involved in minor prostitution, drug abuse, and the sometimes dangerous life of the street."
The red flag that went off for me was the "dangerous life of the street". It just sounds like a badly written day time soap. What was so dangerous about the life of the street? It wasn't life on the street-- Sy was
stationed in Hawaii. Not stranded or abandoned. He had a place to live that was provided by the military. So what was he doing in addition to drugs and prostitution that was so dangerous, or at least sometimes dangerous?
Try deconstructing the rest of the quote. What's wrong with this picture?
Many homosexuals are responsible, but many are not? Which is it? Is it an even split? Upon what is this assertion based? We're not given even a hint of personal experience by which such a judgment could be made.
We know that Sy used drugs, but we're never told what drugs. Were you addicted to drugs, you might say "I was addicted to heroin". You wouldn't say "I was addicted to drugs". You might not always call it heroin, you might say "the drugs", but I don't think you'd ever just say "drugs".
He was involved in minor prostitution? What does that mean? Solicitation of minors? Or is he trying to make a distinction between major prostitution? What does that mean? Is minor prostitution a less serious crime? Was he the prostitute or the john? Was he ever arrested?
QuoteI threw away my female hormones and stopped buying women's clothes.
He was on hormones, but he doesn't mention any of them by name. They are simply "female". I mean, what other hormones was he going to be taking? People just don't talk like that. You might say "I threw away my hormone pills" or "I threw out my prescription hormones" but I don't think you'd say "I threw away my female hormones".
We're either dealing with Really Bad Writing, or Really Bad Propaganda. Or both. <shudder> There's too much missing information and an overuse of cliche phrases. The lack of details makes the account seem poorly thought out, or at least poorly written. The use of cliche sounds too forced when a person is telling a story about themselves, especially something like this. Maybe I'm being too critical, nitpicking over word usage, but the account just doesn't sound authentic to me.
Maybe it's editing. Maybe a lot of info got chopped to keep the story short. But writing a short article doesn't mean that you gloss over major events. And there are a lot of issues in Sy's life that just seem to be treated as though they were no big deal. This strikes me as the omission of the fiction writer who doesn't know enough about his subject. The author doesn't realize he's leaving out the details of a troubled life that would give it a stronger echo of truth, a feel of authenticity. All the things that are missing could make the story more powerful; their omission makes it weaker. He did drugs. No big deal. Prostitution? Fugedaboutit. What is the deal with this guy? Sy treats his RLE as no big thing, but we all know how big a deal it is just to go to the store dressed up. On hormones and everything, you don't just go get a job and live as a woman. It's very stressful (and difficult), which is why it's required before SRS. The way Sy treats it as a non-issue makes the account ring hollow to me. There's no information about how hard things were during this phase of his life, and you know there'd be at least one incident that would stick out-- some bit of discrimination, something that would make it sound like all this had happened to a real person. "Life was really hard for me while I was waiting for surgery. One night when I went out to the ......." I don't know, maybe I'm just being too critical.
There is some info that seems to be correct-- enough to make the story seem plausible. Johns Hopkins did indeed have a gender identity clinic (one of the first in the nation from what I can tell). Unconfirmed (by me anyway) rumors on the internet seem to indicate the clinic shut down in 1979 which is in keeping with Sy's timeline (as far as I can tell). Johns Hopkins still has some ongoing work through their psych unit, though. I'm not aware whether this is a reincarnation of the GIC. The story seems to contain at least an element of facts such as the closure of the clinic, but I'm still skeptical.
QuoteWhat issues do you see confused in this story?
The very marked confusion between being gay and transsexual is the most obvious. Interestingly, it's also one of the things that strikes me as being "off" in this story. Regarding the portrayal of the professionals, I realize that even a few decades ago the prevailing thought was that all transsexuals were gay. So that's not off. It's the author's description of himself that strikes me as being unusual.
I at least get the sense that the author is gay, but I never got the sense that he was a transsexual. His decision to transition was not motivated by the interior feeling of being a woman, and wanting to change his exterior so that he could be accepted for the person he is/was. He wasn't unhappy as a male because he felt like he was a woman. He was unhappy as a male because he was unsuccessful as a male. Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that health professionals at least understood enough about homosexuality in the late 70's to understand when a person was "just gay" and not also a transsexual. As I understand it, his therapists might have mistaken him for being gay were he a transsexual, but they wouldn't have mistaken him for being transsexual simply because he is or was gay. I just don't believe that he could have been misdiagnosed in this sense. As I've said, this is where I'm making some assumptions about health care professionals in the late 70s. It's possible that someone could be so horribly misdiagnosed but I just don't find the sequence of events to be probable. It would be more believable if the author always had felt himself to be a transwoman and was diagnosed as being gay, too.
Quote from: Kristi on May 07, 2008, 11:39:15 AM
Personally, I think telling this particular guy to transition and have SRS would be a lot like prescribing antibiotics to cure an amputation. Wrong treatment for the wrong ailment. Then it makes the jump that antibiotics are always wrong because the amputation did not grow back.
I couldn't agree more. I think that the article is attempting in a not-so-subtle way to present that type of illogic as a thesis. I'm becoming more convinced that it's really just propaganda masquerading as someone's real life tale of woe. I don't think it would be the first time that people were misled by a little truth padded with a lot of lies. Everyone gets a dozen "urban myth" emails every week that fall under that category.
I hadn't intended to write so much. Hopefully it's somewhat coherent.
