Some general thoughts about transgenderism
Every time the topic of transgenderism comes up, a great many people generalize about the transgendered population. It’s often said that such people are deluded and/or mentally ill. And there’s no question that research shows a higher percentage of emotional difficulties (suicide, for example) in people who identify as transgendered as compared to the rest of the population. But it’s not a universal, by any means.
When people state that there’s no such a thing as a transgendered human being (for example, here), I think that perhaps what they might mean is that there’s no such thing as a person born biologically transgendered (i.e. “in the wrong body”). In other words, I believe they are saying that they feel the condition known as transgenderism or gender non-confromity is 100% psychological in origin. But still, if that were true it wouldn’t mean that transgenderism has no existence as a psychological condition.
I’ve written about transgenderism (or transsexuals) several times before (the most thorough treatment is here), but it probably bears repeating that we know very little about its causes. Whether it is a biological (and innate) condition, a 100% psychological one, or often (as I strongly suspect) some combination of the two to varying degrees, is therefore unknown. One can cite all sorts of research one way or the other (and I’ve read a good deal of it and discussed some of it), but the jury is out.
I also have come to the conclusion that transgenderism is most definitely not a unitary thing that’s the same in all people who report being transgendered. For example, some transgendered people have had the conviction from earliest childhood, but some have only come to the realization late rin life. That suggests that a different entity is operating in these different populations.
Not only that, but some people identify as transgendered for a while and then change their minds. Some—although certainly not all—of that particular group say it was fear of being gay that caused them to declare they were transgendered, and that once they accepted their homosexuality they were able and willing to de-transition (go back to their original birth sex). That’s clearly a different population, too.
In fact, there are a great many YouTube videos posted by people telling their detransition tales, and every now and then I watch a few. These detransitioning people often report being recipients of a great deal of antagonism from the transgender community when they decide to do this, as you might imagine.
Lastly, I happen to know two people who are transgendered, and both are among the most well-functioning and emotionally healthy people I know. That’s anecdotal, of course, but it strongly indicates to me that mental illness and/or dysfunction definitely do not inevitably go with the transgender territory.
I knew a family with a “transgendered” daughter. I don’t anything about her chromosone structure; only that she was never happy as a female. She eventually had surgery; and reportedly it was successful. I lost contact with the family because, the father, my friend died young. I have no reason to believe that the emotional toll on him played a part.
I do know that it was a long and agonizing situation for the family.
It is, as some might say, a situation that is fraught.
I strongly believe that the military has no business in this business. From just one point of view, I was very fortunate to qualify physically, mentally and emotionally to be a Naval Aviator. I had several friends who did not qualify for one reason or another. Should they have been accepted so that the Navy could accommodate them, and possibly correct their problems? No. The military does not exist to correct personal problems.
Oldflyer:
You write: “The military does not exist to correct personal problems.”
Hear, hear!
Has there ever been an issue that involves so few yet has received so much attention?
I’m still looking for a definition of gender and transgender that makes sense. Sex is based on chromosomes and has a physical manifestation as male and female. What is gender based on and what is the physical manifestation? I eagerly await an explanation.
The specific cause of hand preference hasn’t been identified, but I’m pretty sure it exists.
And lefties often don’t like being forced to use the right hand instead.
But the military issue has different issues — or extra issues. We could modify 16 million dollar jets for many types handicapped people, but I don’t think anyone really thinks we should spend that kind of money, even though there is nothing wrong with the patriotism of handicapped people or their willingness to serve and sacrifice.
Many people focus on the denial of reality, but there’s another subtle aspect to that: the denial of a proper life-governing philosophy.
We all have things we would like to believe when growing up. Life swats that down and we are forced to come to terms that life doesn’t work that way.
The trans- community rejects that idea. They enthusiastically embrace the idea that if you believe something hard and long enough, then it’s true.
I note that this is very similar to progressive ideology in general.
I recoil from this idea. It revolts me.
For me, one of the reasons that I believe that there’s a fundamental underlying issue at play in most cases of transgenderism is that the very idea of obsessing over gender identity – whether it’s perceived to be right or wrong – would itself be abnormal and unhealthy.
I was born female. Do I spend every waking moment obsessing about the inherent rightness of my femaleness and its relationship to every activity I undertake, to every chance encounter I have? Does my femaleness affect how I walk my dog or put gas in my car? Is that even a thing? I have never heard of anyone reporting that kind of experience. That would be a person with just as much of an obsessive issue (although perhaps a more positive one) than a person who spends much of their life obsessing about how the genitals they were born with are inherently wrong in relation to every other aspect of their life.
The very idea of rightness/wrongness of being implies that there IS a rightness or wrongness, but frankly, outside of biological matters of producing offspring with one’s own genetic material, what exactly is a “boy” thing? A “girl” thing? What would you be fitting in with, or feeling a sense of not fitting in with, when there’s nothing to stop you from playing with whatever toy you want, going wherever you want, doing whatever job you have the skills/attributes for, etc? If there was a mass-pining of genetic males desperately wanting to be pregnant it would be one thing, but I don’t recall that being a feature of any male-to-female transgender fantasies I ever heard. It’s the 21st century in Western civilization – there’s nothing gender-related stopping you from doing anything, except from certain fundamental biologically limited matters related to procreation that technology currently cannot quite rebuild.
Thus, there’s a new push to actually re-create hard-set gender roles. The truly insidious part of the lefty set’s push on transgenderism=normal/cool is a kind of re-drawing of gender constraint boxes in which to place people, so that most people fall outside of them. No girl is 100% stereotypically female in their thoughts and actions all of the time any more than is any boy 100% stereotypically male. Instead of that being what we used to call “normal” that’s now evidence for 50 different genders.
On Gay Patriot, V the K posted a meme about transgendered people that generated a very long set of comments with good info on transgendered issues and mental status. It was pretty interesting. http://www.gaypatriot.net/2017/07/27/heh-10/
Kyndyll:
Here is a good example of what you mean, I think. You can see how intelligent and articulate this person is, by the way.
By the way, my guess is that this woman’s deep voice on the video is the result of having taken testosterone; once the voice change happens, it can’t be reversed.
I also strongly suggest you watch this one as well, on the subject of ideas of what gender is.
It’s a half-full glass. As Stilton has pointed out, Trump still supports the transgendereds’ right to believe they are in the military.
That is a very good and informative video and pretty much corroborated what I have believed the deep desire to assign one’s gender truly is, a manifestation of a deeper psychological problem, and the feeling of desperation will not go away by going through the operation without having the root cause corrected, the desperation will simply manifest in a different way
A couple I know discovered their future son-in-law wants sex change surgery. The couple are quite progressive so they won’t object but both wish it were otherwise. I met the son-in-law once and he seemed a decent studious guy.
An interesting sidelight is the daughter’s previous boyfriend was trans too.
A male (born female) gay transgender marrying a female (born male) gay transgender technically equals a heterosexual couple
Transgenderism has an explanation as reincarnation gone wrong.
Sometimes the new incarnated identity fails and the soul falls back on its previous incarnation. If that incarnation was wrong-gendered, the person may end up cross-dressing or trans.
For the record I’m half in the bag for reincarnation, so I find this interesting.
I’m sure everyone here is happy to be so informed.
I believe I said it elsewhere, but i think it fits here as well.
Since I was in the Army, possibly before but i wasn’t watching, the marginalized group which is the flavor of the day can demand and get special treatment and escape certain disciplinary issues by claiming or threatening to claim discrimination.
See, for example, Nidal Hasan. Physcians start as captains and come up for promotion every so often. Fail promotion twice and you’re separated from the service.
His appalling professional performance was well known, as was his demonstrated islamic nutcasery. Yet he was promoted, which means certain captains were not, which is to say he was seen to be better as a prospect for field grade than they. It’s hard to believe anybody actually believed that.
The Army announced it was going to investigate thirty-nine officers who may have been in a position to stop his greased slide to the shooting gallery. Their excuse, that it was well known that it would be career suicide to give a Muslim officer less than a superlative efficiencyy report, not to mention a negative letter in the file. But that excuse won’t fly, since it’s not written down. It just is and you’d damned well better fly by it.
Indeed, you’ll recall that the first response from Gen. Casey was that he hoped this wouldn’t damage diversity which is our strength.
I am old enough to recall gay activists snorting that we’re paranoid to say we don’t like the prospect of gay marriage. Never happen, they said. Feminists insisted there would never be a call for gender norming physical requirements for female cops, soldiers and firefighters. Hubert Humphrey said that if affimrative action turned into a quota issue, he’d eat a copy of the bill.
Part of the special treatment is the left’s continuing attempt to disrupt good order and discipline. Why this mechanism should not show up wrt some trans folks has yet to be demonstrated.
They can probably sniff each other out; and I am only half joking.
There is however an interesting logical aspect to this pathetic topic, which arises the moment that you hypothetically ask the transgendered … whatever … what it is that it wants.
And what it wants, by all public indications, and their own definitional constructions and theorizing, is a social thing/response … an affirmation of an identity – supposedly “socially constructed” – which requires for its realization the active participation of others, both natural male and female, to indulge and affirm what is clearly untrue.
So, when Jimmy wants to be a girl, it is not enough for him to castrate himself and go off into the woods and dress up in lacy frocks, but he is demanding that others, and that would include normal males whose best interest is to decline, to participate in his pathetic charade.
Gee whiz Mr. Science! I have a question. What would a transgendered person do if they lived in one of those unisex fantasy lands imagined by crackpots back in the 1970s? Golly, what if there were no extreme stereotypes [or exemplars] naturally generated by real, nubile, sexually fecund and signalling females who are out to attract a mate,to be mimicked? What would a wannabe fake-girl do?
And Mr. Science, if the transgendered entity is demanding social recognition as a member of a sex he is really not, and is entering the public arena soliciting interactions by pretending to be something it is really not, is that not fraud? Or is that a question for Mr. Morals, and not Mr. Science?
Suppose there were no frilly things for anyone, even women, to wear? Oh what would a poor transgendered boy do?
Maybe that is why they invented sewing machines and mirrors.
One of the highlights of worshipping Bhaal in the old days (translated as “the Lord” in Hebrew) consisted of a specific sacred ceremony:
1. They would offer up living infants to be burned alive, as a prosperity sacrifice to Bhaal, which is to say “the Lord”.
2. They would have bisexual relations with each other in a group orgie. Unwanted pregnancies can be terminated or again offered up as a prosperity sacrifice, later on.
America as Mystery Babylon is a consistent and loyal adherent of the ancient ways.
Sex is a matter of genetics, biology and physiology. There can be no argument about it, unless you are a “science denier.” Children born with genitals that were not normal was exceedingly rare, and a result of a rare genetic disorder.
Gender dysphoria is a real thing, but until recently was rare. The psychological dimensions cannot be denied, and should be fully explored before any pharmaceutical or surgical options are taken, since they have such serious and sometimes irreversable effects.
Now it is the flavor of the month. Everyone is deciding they are transgender, and delusional leftist parents are encouraging their TODDLERS to cross-dress. I read about schools in England where it is so trendy that if there is a child in class whose parents allow them to cross-dress/behave as the opposite sex, several kindergarteners each month also miraculously decide they are also transgender. It’s a FAD, for God’s sake.
Children have no concept of what the gender identity of either sex entails, and over the course of childhood and adolescence will explore/play/fantasize about both sexes. It’s called mental, emotional, and physical maturation. Parents who encourage their children to role play/assume the opposite sex, and begin puberty blocking drug treatment, sometimes as young as 9 years old, are guilty of gross mental and physical child abuse. The idea that parents would allow/encourage chemical and physical mutilation of children and adolescents is barbaric.
I want to know how many transgendered adults there are. Why is the world going crazy over a microscopic percentage of people and twisting our society into craziness?
The story of this world is coming to a finish.
neo-neocon Says:
July 28th, 2017 at 3:26 pm
Oldflyer:
You write: “The military does not exist to correct personal problems.”
Hear, hear!
* *
Indeed. Although I understand Boot Camp involves some correctional exercises. Or did, at one time.
Griffin Says:
July 28th, 2017 at 3:50 pm
Has there ever been an issue that involves so few yet has received so much attention?
* * *
Pretty much anything the SJW brigades are pushing at the moment, to wit,
Richard Aubrey Says:
July 29th, 2017 at 11:04 am
I believe I said it elsewhere, but i think it fits here as well.
Since I was in the Army, possibly before but i wasn’t watching, the marginalized group which is the flavor of the day can demand and get special treatment and escape certain disciplinary issues by claiming or threatening to claim discrimination.
RTWT
I’m with Kyndyll G. I’m not a feminist, but believe that men who “feel” like they are women (and vice versa) are delusional. What, pray tell, does being a woman “feel” like? And even if such a thing DID exist, why should I take someone’s word that what they experience really does ‘feel’ like what it actually does?
It’s mental illness. Are some people happier when we indulge their mental illness? Sure! Perhaps they seem well-adjusted, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are mentally ill.
Do we amputate limbs when people feel they shouldn’t have a leg? No. Or at least not yet. I fail to see if being very different from transgenderism in essence.
Do we applaud someone with anorexia with losing weight?
I view this leftist ‘injustice of the day’ as just another volley in the culture war. I’m past caring about them.
de·lu·sion
[dəˈlo͞oZHən]
NOUN
an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder
I don’t give a flying rat’s hindquarters if the person who believes he’s Napoleon appears to be well adjusted otherwise.
He obviously has difficulties accepting reality, and I do not want him making decisions upon which other people’s lives depend.
As to why he’s got screw loose, I don’t care.
That’s his problem, not mine, and certainly not the military’s.
But it really isn’t about that.
This is just another example of “point deer, make horse”.
We are being asked to accept something manifestly untrue to evidence political loyalty.
Nothing more, noting less.
The same people making the push will happily discard the interests of their delusional clients. The loyalty runs one way, and one way only.