A good summary of the trans medicalization phenomenon
The whole discussion on this video was of interest to me because it’s about how “affirmation therapy” is not actual therapy, and how therapists have been pressured into not offering real therapy for people identifying as trans or presenting with gender dysphoria. But I’ve cued up a two and a half minute segment that I think encapsulates something very basic about trans medicalization:
Marchiano quotes a trans clinician featured in a Canadian documentary who states that he/she knows his/her gender because “I feel it way down deep where the music plays.” One obvious question: What is the music that is playing? It could be anything from Bach’s Mass in B Minor or Mozart’s Requiem to “La Marseillaise,” “The Internationale,” or even “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” I don’t see the connection between music, even music “way down deep,” and knowing one’s gender, but maybe I just haven’t gone deep enough.
S/He would not want to hear my grandson’s music playing.
The whole “Trans” thing is anti-gay and anti-woman. I have read that most kids with “gender dysphoria” end up as gay adults. We have had gay adults for all of history. Sometimes it has a social source as in classical Athens where women were kept out of sight and in harem-like confinement. It’s a bit like the prison situation. I don’t think Sparta had the same pressures. Certainly Thebes had a similar culture, with the Sacred Band as an example. Not all of these were sexual but it was approved. There is nothing in history like the trans thing. Female impersonators and transvestites are as close as I can see.
Geez. That’s a line out of “Conspiracy Theory.”
Mel Gibson plays a wacko cab driver who is obsessed with conspiracy theories. He seems to have fastened upon Juliia Roberts as a love interest, but actually…
[SPOILER ALERT] Gibson was an MKULTRA programmed assassin assigned to hit Roberts’ father, but Gibson managed to break his programming and promised Robters’ father to look after her.
However, his memories are jumbled. So he drives her to a place where he hopes he can recover his memories:
________________________________
Julia Roberts: This is my father’s place.
Mel Gibson: This is where the music is playing.
–“Conspiracy Theory” (1997)
I remember reading, back in the 80s or 90s, a critique of the psychotherapy profession for how it facilitated the big increase in the divorce rate by switching from helping couples work out their differences and stay together to validating their dissatisfaction and need to split up, even going so far as saying that it’s better for the children. So it’s not the first time that profession has sold out. And not the second either, with all of the “updating” of the DSMs to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders and the condemnation of conversion therapy. I believe gender dysphoria is still in the DSM-5, but let’s see if it remains there.
PA+Cat…try “Dude looks like a Lady” or “Lola”…I could go on… 😉
Jimmy:
Plenty of therapists still try to help couples stay together if in fact that seems like even a remote possibility. Others don’t do this. There’s enormous variation in therapy approaches. That’s why people need to be careful when they choose a therapist. But the entire profession certainly didn’t switch to automatically recommending divorce.
On the other hand, several states have LAWS that prohibit therapists from doing anything but “affirming” gender choices. This ties the hands of therapists – which is discussed towards the end of that video, in a part that isn’t the portion I cued up. There are many therapists who do not want to affirm such choices, certainly not automatically, and certainly not in terms of medicalizing the solution or the treatment. In some states that’s okay and in others not okay, but you are correct that the main therapy professional organizations seem to have gone along with the affirmation approach, having been pressured by activists to do so.
I had a therapist who was always pushing me to see a shrink and get on antidepressants. She pushed pretty hard.
I had seen my mother destroyed by psychiatric meds, so I was quite reluctant.
When I managed to find my own way out of depression, my therapist explained that she was afraid she would be sued for not recommending antidepressants.
Huxley: If I may ask, how did you find your way out? Thanks
Neo, I wish I could remember the writer (possibly Alan Bloom, not sure), but he was focused on those who promulgated the lie that kids were better off if the parents split up versus having unhappy parents. He claimed this eased the couples’ consciences and gave them a rationale for splitting up, versus the idea of staying together for the sake of the children. Obviously not all therapists did this, but the claim was that it was a relatively new thing and gave the paying clients (the couples) what they wanted to hear. I’m sure you know much more about the profession than I do, I’m just reporting what I read. And as one whose parents split up in the early 1970s, with four children aged roughly 9 to 16, and it was devastating to us.
Neo, I wish I could remember the writer (possibly Alan Bloom, not sure),
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Allan Bloom offered the view that there was an insuperable conflict of interest in the practice of child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry. He also offered complaints about what he saw were the structural flaws of psychology as a discipline, but these were not developed arguments, just passing opinion. (IMO, he did identify a problem with child and adolescent practitioners. Some of Helen Smith’s commentariat also offered the view – drawn from personal experience – that marriage counselors favor wives because their continued employment is contingent on pleasing the wife, not the husband).
the latest shooter is a black transgender psycho, the evil roots of brandon’s drunken ramble,
We’re all doomed.
Seen in the comments on the recent Philly shooter, who may be Trans.
…”These people are possessed by satin.”
And, no, from the rest of the comment, I don’t think that this was some kind of deliberate attempt at a smart remark.
not corderoy, the church lady is sorely missed,
Huxley: If I may ask, how did you find your way out? Thanks
DisGuested:
I did just about everything that made sense to me. I lifted weights, took St. John’s Wort, took dancing lessons, read Julian Simon’s “Good Mood” book, and stayed in regular therapy. But what made the biggest difference, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit, was attending many Tony Robbins events.
Tony didn’t teach me much I hadn’t run across before, but he did so in an extraordinarily energized environment which gave me the emotional mobility to break out of depression. I did enough events that the training stuck and I was able to better use the insights from sources like Simon’s “Good Mood.”
Which BTW is freely available online:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Good_Mood/
I don’t know how well my experience generalizes. I was a hard case and my therapist was correct to be worried. My mother, father and aunt had committed suicide while depressed. I was worried too.
I’ve been in good shape since about 2000.
@ Neo >”I’ve cued up a two and a half minute segment ”
My browser started at the beginning; what is the time range for your segment of interest?
huxley,
Glad to hear you are in a good place and have been for decades. I would not have guessed you suffered so severely from depression based on your musings, here. You write with a positive, intelligent and thoughtful disposition that genuinely seems to come from a man who is content with life and his journey through it.
Well done!
Rufus T. Firefly:
Why, thank you! I am mostly content with my life, I’m excited about my various projects, and I’m grateful for my health.
From my perspective society has gone on a terrible victimization binge, which is practically a factory assembly line for manufacturing unhappiness. If one can’t be happy until Something Out There is Fixed, well, good luck.
I can’t speak directly to trans. I’m sure it’s something real. Nonetheless, I suspect if one enters “gender-affirming care” expecting at last to be happy, one will be disappointed.
So many people live their lives in “If Only…”
AesopFan:
It’s from 26:53 to 29:24.
“transition is a reassertion of metaphor but in a perverse form”
“there’s something Satanic about engraving your subjective reality onto your physical body”
“the right impulse but the wrong ritual”
That is an interesting take indeed.
Huxley, fantastic! Truly….
But didn’t you forget to mention the surfing?
Huxley: “I’ve been in good shape since about 2000.”
Heartwarming! Keep it up!!!!
“Satanic”. We have a winner.
Mike K,
The Spartan males, from the top caste that made up the elite warriors, were separated from their families at a fairly young age to undergo full time military training. And even after reaching adulthood, they lived in barracks with the other warriors. Up until a certain age, they even had to live separate from their wives if they married and were expected to play this game where they had to sneak off to sleep with their own wife and not get caught. ” The Peloponnesian War” by Kagan talked about the social situations in both Athens and Sparta.
@ Jimmy
“So it’s not the first time that profession has sold out.”
My mother had a successful career in the mental health field. Every week she had a staff meeting, and her team of professionals would give quick updates on their patients, etc. Shortly after the movie Sybil came out my mother noticed that her staff was now currently treating more patients with Multiple Personalities than they had over the past 10 years combined.
After everyone had finished their updates, my mother noted that fact. Then went on to say that they all know that it is not unusual for patients to self-diagnose or self-treat themselves, and that patients are influenced by the news, popular topics, etc. However, as professionals it was their responsibility to diagnose – to the best of their abilities – not the patients.
To her staff’s credit she only had to address the topic once, and the total number of Multiple Personalities cases dropped immediately – with no harm to the care delivered. Still, my mother told me that she was amazed that so many of her staff appeared to have been taken in by the popularity of the movie: “Seems like they wanted to say they had a Multiple Personalities patient too.”
I’ll add that this was still a time when there were both adults-in-the-room, and the willingness to act as adults (i.e., not Boomers or Gen X).
As I think I’ve commented here before, I am always amused when I see today’s “youts,” who have pierced, scarred, and tattooed themselves up the ying-yang.
The nose ring—reminiscent of Elsie the cow–my favorite.
I can see all of these things as being valid in primitive societies, where they often signify passing an initiation into manhood or womanhood, membership in some secret society or particular clan, passing some difficult and dangerous ritual or test, and/or if you come from some current day African tribe.
But here, in our Western societies today?
Perhaps such markings are to show their initiation into the society of rarely or never employed.
P.S.–From my time as a medic, I’m pretty sure that all of those puncture marks are going to leave permanent indentations, with all of those little pits going to be a permanent feature later on in life, as are stretched and fading tattoos as well.
I understand laser removal of tattoos is very expensive (and probably painful as well), and I don’t know what you can do to remove a lot of scarification so that it is no longer obvious.
Snow on Pine, I don’t care for the tattoos either. However, one should never judge a book by its cover. About five years ago, a family joined our conservative church. The wife/mother has tattoos covering all of her limbs and trunk so far as can be seen, and also has multiple ear and face piercings. She has just finished putting both of their children through a rigorous home-school classical education, and teaches online high school English and composition classes for home-schooled students. (The kids don’t have tattoos.)
However, one should never judge a book by its cover.
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The cover is what the publisher wants you to see… first.
How do you single out anything as being something you might want to buy, to read, to eat, to view, or to otherwise enjoy, what might attract you to a potential friend or sexual partner and, conversely, how do you decide—often in a split second—who or what you want to avoid, or would not be interested in?
It seems obvious to me that it is usually by what you see as you encounter who or whatever it is; your “first impression.”
Sayings are there because they often encapsulate some aspect of the truth, and one of those sayings is, “you only have one chance to make a first impression,.”
And by scarring yourself up, by displaying all sorts of piercings and tattoos, you are making a display, you are “signifying,” you are—very much “in their face”—telling people who you are, what you are all about.
Visually you are telling a story, and might as well be dragging a transparent bag of likely characteristics and assumptions along behind you.
You may be a great person, have a heart of gold, but such body modifications get in the way, send the wrong message.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible….
–Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Of course, traditionally tattoos/piercings are meant as signifiers of social membership and status. They can be serious business, as among Russian criminals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_criminal_tattoos
For young people, that is somewhat true, but it also strikes me as a form of cosplay.
P.S.–Perhaps it is all show–say, for instance, youthful defiance, a finger given to the world, or just a lot of bad, stupid, trendy choices made–perhaps the display of piercings, tattoos, and perhaps even scarifications you have decorated yourself with is all camouflage, and you are really not the person you appear to be, or perhaps you have “moved on,” matured, and changed.
But displaying that layer of camouflage means that someone will have to want to invest the time it will likely take to penetrate it to the “real” you beneath it, and my belief is that your outside appearance will discourage a lot of people from wanting to get close, and to take the time to do that investigation.
…my belief is that your outside appearance will discourage a lot of people from wanting to get close, and to take the time to do that investigation.
Snow on Pine:
I suspect that’s a feature, not a bug.
A conservative lawyer friend a few decades ago had a passionate, disastrous love affair with a woman he met at a bar. She was thoroughly tattooed and her taste in men ran mostly to bikers.
When the affair hit the rocks, she told him that she should have known it wouldn’t work because he had no tattoos and she did. He agreed.
cont’d–It is also said that “clothes make the man.”
How about a little thought experiment.
Picture, for instance, three men, all dressed and behaving very differently.
One man is very well “turned out,” his hair very well cut and styled.
He is wearing a very elegant and likely expensive, very well-fitted three piece suit, white dress shirt, expensive looking, color coordinated silk tie, and perhaps even a pocket handkerchief, dress shoes shined to a mirror shine, and he is also wearing some jewelry, and an expensive looking watch. This man, in repose, is also very still.
The second man has long hair that is falling/curling over the back of his collar and he obviously needs a haircut, he is wearing a a well worn flat cap, or perhaps a frayed John Deere or baseball cap, worn, heavy weight jeans, a jeans jacket, and very scuffed, heavy boots, and he might also be wearing a cross on a heavy chain that looks like it might be gold, and a basic watch on his wrist. As he stands, he is a solid presence, and is sometimes pretty animated.
The third man is unshaven, and has hair that is long and obviously greasy–he smells, and needs a shower, a shampoo, a haircut, and a shave, he is wearing a dirty watch cap, mismatched, dirty clothes that look like someones castoffs, some of which are approaching rag status, and the old sneakers he’s wearing have not been tied properly.
Standing in line, this man can’t stand/stay still, his movements are abrupt, he fidgets, sways, and shifts from one foot to the other.
Now, what sort of story do you tell yourself, in your mind, about each one of these men, when you first catch sight of them?
As I recall, tattoos, piercings and scarifications went mainstream with this book, “Modern Primitives” (1989):
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At the time of its publication, Modern Primitives was the first text to attempt to comprehensively address the issues, aesthetics and meaning involved in the subject of body modification. The public knowledge of the term Modern Primitive is primarily due to the widespread popularity of this book.[1] [2] of the images in the book would have been familiar to persons involved in the movement, but the book exposed several “underground” practices to a vastly greater public, including graphic images of genital piercing and genital bisection and scarification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Primitives_(book)
Now, what sort of story do you tell yourself, in your mind, about each one of these men when you first catch sight of each one of them?
Snow on Pine:
What sort of story do you suppose those people tell themselves about you, based on your presumably straighter appearance?
Social signaling is a two-way street.
Obviously, first impressions do matter. I am glad that my first impressions of my tattooed church friend did not cause me to reject knowing her. I do at least try to withhold judgment. There are some instances where first impressions call for judgment, especially when there might be danger. Women out in public alone have to think about this, even in parking lots.
Kate:
Quite so. It’s complicated.
Huxley–I realize this.
The persona I’ve adopted is for comfort, and I present–I believe–as some species of farmer–in winter a ball cap, heavy blue jeans, heavy suspenders, a casual long sleeve shirt, in the summer the same ball cap, shorts, a short sleeve shirt, and as always, running shoes.
During my career as a government reference librarian in D.C., I never did like confining monkey suits, and in fact, at my work I once scandalized my whole workplace–at get togethers they’re still talking about it to this day, I believe–by wearing shorts to work a few days during a very hot summer, when I was working at my desk, behind the scenes, and not in contact with the public.
Unfortunately, a that time they had not adopted any dress code and, when challenged, I merely pointed out that some of the female staff were wearing pedal pushers to work.
I must admit, while it probably didn’t help my chances for promotion to management, I really enjoyed pushing their buttons.
I guess I am stubborn, and a contrarian.
As “Rules for Radicals” advised, “make them live by their rules,” or, the lack thereof.
Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, has frequently suggested that a good first step towards slowing down the federal juggernaut would be to outlaw air conditioning in DC. You were ahead of the curve.
Huxley–Oh, I almost forgot.
To add to that picture of the persona I present, add my thick white mustache and sometimes unruly beard–at work, one Christmas, they asked me to play Santa Claus.
Snow on Pine:
Well and good. You understand how your persona could be problematic for others and it doesn’t particularly concern you.
However, from what I read earlier you didn’t seem to understand how other people might not care or might even relish how their persona would be problematic for you.
Humans are always signaling what groups they belong to and what groups they don’t belong to.
It may seem silly, but that’s how we work. We are deeply tribal.
Generally I find that conservatives don’t understand this.
Language learning tangent…
From what I’ve read, YouTubes I’ve watched and my own experience, speaking a foreign language like a native speaker is a problem because:
(1) It’s usually very difficult to retrain your mouth, ear, and brain for a different set of phonemes.
(2) To speak like a native also feels at a deep level like renouncing one’s own tribal group and claiming membership in another. Both feel wrong. It can be done, of course, but one must work on both fronts.
I feel like a fool and poser when I lean into a French accent as I practice French.
But that’s a barrier one must break through. Otherwise one is just another American saying BAWN-jor for Good Morning.
Here’s polyglot Steve Kaufmann interviewing a Ukrainian woman, who learned Russian and English, then married a Mexican and moved to Mexico. She was pretty and wanted to become a TV hostess, so she had to nail the Mexican accent.
She sure did. When I listen to her speak English, she sounds far more Mexican than Slavic.
Steve Kaufmann offers her as an example of a non-native who deeply wanted to belong to the culture of Mexican speakers. Now even Mexicans think she was born in Mexico..
______________________________
Steve Kaufmann: But part of it is that you wanted to be Mexican.
You wanted to fit in.
And I think that’s a very important part of, of learning a language.
And it’s a very important part of pronunciation.
So if you, you want to be like them, you want to be part of that.
So then you don’t resist the way they pronounce things.
You absorb the way they pronounce things.
You start to use their, their structures, their, and their, their, their
phraseology and all of these things, because you, you sympathize with them.
You want to be them.
And I think that’s a big part of pronunciation and a big
part of language learning.
–Steve Kaufmann, “Key to Pronunciation: Feel You Want to Belong”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8WtLT5yq_E
huxley, in a hotel in India I met a Mexican-American woman. She spoke American English with a discernible Mexican accent. Everywhere she went in India, people thought she was an Indian, because the way the consonants are pronounced, at the front of the mouth, and the rapid speech made her sound to them like their own English accent.
Huxley:
Thank you for the response. I am glad you are well. It is inspiring. I will check out the book you linked to. Thanks for the reminder that there is hope.