If Johnny Wore Pink
In what ways is gender identity arbitrary?
Published on October 1, 2011 by Azadeh Aalai, Ph.D. in The First Impression

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-first-impression/201109/if-johnny-wore-pink

Dr. Keith Ablow, commentator for Fox News, recently cautioned parents not to let their kids watch transgendered Chaz Bono on "Dancing with the Stars," for fear that their own gender identity would become confused. If we were to take this commentator at his word, gender identity would be a flimsy construct susceptible to change in the same way that a craving for a salty food can change on a whim to one for a cupcake.

To the Ablow's out there in the world: gender identity is not so impressionable that one depiction of an unconventional version of it would suddenly disrupt one's own development. Becoming transgendered is no more contagious than is becoming homosexual. Have we really progressed so little as a culture that commentators are condemning a network that is featuring a contestant who just happens to have had gender reassignment surgery as posing a dangerous threat to our innocent kids' fragile sense of respective masculinity or femininity? Doesn't this sound ominously close to outdated notions of isolating same-sex oriented adults from kids, lest they contaminate their sexual identities and (gasp!) turn them gay?

First of all, this is not a CHOICE.  Second, some of us don't have problems with our genders, but with our biological sex, and this IS a biological problem which we treat through biological means.  We're not out to shock, we're not out to challenge anyone's notions of masculinity or femininity, we're simply living the internal self dictated by our brains that was originally denied us because our bodies didn't match what was between our ears.

Quote from: Zoë Natasha on October 05, 2011, 09:41:31 AM
First of all, this is not a CHOICE.  Second, some of us don't have problems with our genders, but with our biological sex, and this IS a biological problem which we treat through biological means.  We're not out to shock, we're not out to challenge anyone's notions of masculinity or femininity, we're simply living the internal self dictated by our brains that was originally denied us because our bodies didn't match what was between our ears.

I can't believe that this publication, of all publications states that transsexualism is a choice.  I didn't choose to be born this way, I had no say in the matter, I was born this way, so where is the choice?  No wonder everyone is so screwed up out there, they have no concept of what we are.

CD's and TV's have a choice.

I am OK with being transgender, yes, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice or even my 100th. I tried everything in my power not to be transgender. It finally after years of struggle became obvious to me that I had no choice I am transgender and I need to deal with it or I will never be healthy.

Huggs

Emily

Watching Fox News is a far greater danger anyone's mental health and intellectual capacity than watching Chaz Bono trying to dance. Ablow should be struck off, utter assh*le that he is.

QuoteOne is born male or female, but becomes a man or woman in large part by abiding by the often arbitrary standards of what constitutes masculinity or femininity within his or her respective culture.

I was born a female with a physical defect. I am correcting that defect. It has ->-bleeped-<- all to do with social standards of any kind.

Article is just as bloody dumb as Keith Ablow's.

  Doncha jus love these "Blanket statements " these so- called Experts throw down ? No wonder the suicide rates in the Gay and Transgender communities is what it is !!!!!!!!!!! As long as we tolerate this Bull S----. WE WILL NEVER EDUCATE America . Make it a habit to explain in HONEST GRAPHIC detail if necessary to anyone who is willing to listen to the truth . I do as I belong to a group here in Virginia which educates Medical professionals as to exactly who we are an aren't !!!!!!!!! ellen