The argument, (to include the linked blog) in spite of many excellently reasoned and well-written posts overnight isn't about either sense or sensibility. The matter revolves around something deeper and more atavistic that pertains to personal regard and personal "animosity" as flutter put it.
Nor has it anything at all to do with any "past history" between Cathryn and others who've posted here.
I cannot begin to fathom Cathryn's reasons for her feelings, only she can do that. But, one can easily see that they are "real" and deeply important to her. I tend, as can be seen from my own posts in this thread, firmly believe that new research hasn't in any way made less of someone else while somehow "validating" me or another transsexual.
As Rachael pointed out so well, the Bailey "definition" applies to any number of TS women (and would include men if Bailey had any notion of a personal interest in the men) regardless of age or elements of transition. That fact alone, the capablility of neatly placing everyone within a neatly labelled box makes the "science" of ->-bleeped-<- suspect at best and probably shows us the insanity and personal nature of it second.
Elegance doesn't mean that something explains and explains away everyone in a particular category. It means that the facts of the matter have been marshalled and expressed in a way that tends to sum things up in a neat and orderly fashion that leaves few if any loose ends available and still covers the territory.
Nfr is exactly correct. ->-bleeped-<- is not now and has never been included in the DSM. As I said in a recent blog post, such statements are a proof of the fashion that knowledge and the ability to convey it are lacking in many respects from the slingers of that term to paint their interlocutors with some sort of negative shade. Not that homosexual transsexual paints anyone with a positive shade: it too is a means of defining people away from what and who they know themselves to be.
The thesis is an explaining away, not an explanation and is not "scientific" in any shape or form it's been presented in. It is, however, neatly able to salve the feelings of the men who've come up with it in their own desire to make a world conform to their prejudices and dislikes and likes. Not the first time, nor will it be the last, that sort of thing has been done and called "science." Much of the "science" in the "evaluation" of racial-types over the past two centuries partakes of the same effort and shows the same general outline.
That women love our bodies and the ways we "look" is testament to the power and fortunes made by the cosmetics & fashion industries. It is NOT a means of defining away transsexuality or ->-bleeped-<-. Period.
The argument, as flutter also pointed out, has nunaces and textures that far surpass the squabbling of this or that self-designated group: ain't that just da bomb about both!? We can individually define ourselves and others to place irrevocably those who agree with us on the "sheep" side of the equasion and those we disagree with on the "goats" side. Just another human effort to show the world how worthy I am and how unworthy my interlocutor is. *sigh* References to mud-people and chosen-people spring readily to mind as I survey this cauldron of emotional and atavistic reactions.
Lisa Harney quite rightly and lucidly pointed to the very obvious fact that the designations that Cathryn wants to read into the research disqualify her as well as any and all of the rest of us from being humanly "valid." Doesn't matter whether you're a "sheep" or a "goat," for the BBL-crew and their political henchmen are after an open season on simply being "ovine" in any shape or form. There would be a cleansing of us all if their dreams reach any concensus-position.
Of course, they don't, haven't and probably never will simply because the ploy is much too visible to those willing to examine it.
My own personal animosity toward white guys who raped me doesn't disqualify white folk from being human, does it? That is hardly "scientific" regardless my feelings about white guys. It's atavistic and personal.
And therein lies the nub of the argumentation: it's about personal and visible discomfort with "those people" so I am gonna try to find a way to invalidate them while making sure I am seen as being really human. That has been the value of the Kelley Winterses, Andrea Jameses and Lynn Conways from the git on this argument. They have seen the pervasive nature of the argument to cover all of us and to invalidate all of us.
I do wish all of my sisters, particularly, and some of my brothers, could cut to the chase and see what is truly at stake: classifying yourself as a "sheep" instead of a "goat" or a "llama" or "alpaca" during an effort to kill off all the ovines is not going to protect you. The ovine-holocaust would take us all.
Nichole