The Gender Identity and Transgender Thread - Lounge

HigherThanTheSun

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Location: UK

sp4cetiger wrote:

HigherThanTheSun wrote:

Yeah but that's not the same as consistently and for a long period of time behaving as if he were the opposite gender and because of that receiving some sort of diagnosis from a psychiatrist/ medical professional. I mean certainly there's potential harm from dressing your boy up in a dress and sending him off to school. But there's also potential harm in forcing your child to present as the wrong gender if they're not happy doing it.

That's true. I suppose it's a really unlikely scenario, but I have been thinking about how I would respond to that situation. I definitely wouldn't try to forcibly change their behavior, but then I would have to be very, very confident about their desires, both short and long term, before I started going out of my way to dress them as the opposite gender for school or giving them hormones. It's just hard to see ever being that confident about the gender of a pre-K child... and the potential for psychological scarring is just too great (e.g., the famous John/Joan case).

Yeah, I'd say you'd have to be a very irresponsible parent not to. Hormonal treatment wouldn't start until puberty though but yeah you'd have to be pretty sure at this stage since you're getting close to the point of no return here. Up until puberty you're still right in that there's still a lot of harm you could do to a child by letting them present as opp gender when really they're not, just from potential social exclusion and stuff like that.

I guess that the chances of you facing this situation are pretty slim but there's no harm thinking about it in case!
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Kiki

I think sp4cetiger is sort of right. Although perhaps not putting enough faith in the younger people.

In the end it's just people can do what they do. Think

Most of the countries with the highest standard of life are all about freedom. The topic doesn't need lots of text really. There wouldn't be much to talk about if there was no context of the past.

Revolution909

Age: 29

Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Talking about potentially trans children: I wonder how many children repeatedly and consistently say "I want to be <INSERT THE GENDER THAT DOESN'T CORRESPOND TO THEIR BIOLOGICAL SEX>" and then, when puberty comes round, they do a 180 and decide "Nope, I was born in the right body after all".

I pose this question because such arguments are used by those opposed to hormone blocking children and I wonder how prevalent it is, compared to the number of "trans children" who are indeed just that, trans and who are not just going through a "phase".
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mickilennial

The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female

Age: 35

Location: Detroit

Revolution909 wrote:

I didn't/don't think that gender identity is a political or religious topic. Smile

I would be delighted to here hear some of your thoughts though.

In the past fifteen years, I’ve known five friends online who have come out as transgender or stated their struggle with the psychology of their sex. I’ve been unsure where I’ve stood on the issue on several occasions though I’ve always supported others. Also, as you can tell from the comments here on BEA and the way debate has sprung this should be in the P&R subforum since this is a delicate issue at the front of things and the fact that this is a huge social debate that you could lodge into socio-politics or just extended discussion merits – I’ve always felt AM made the lounge to be less debate-centric and more of a friendly yet casual area. But since no moderator has spoken of this topic’s appropriate nature I will move on as I am not an authority by any means.

I’ve never been particularly diagnosed, but my psychology is a mess that lends itself towards several things of which I’ve “self-diagnosed” myself with including but not limited to: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Seasonal Depression, Neurotic personality issues, and GID.

That last one took some time to be able to say, though I feel especially certain about my own mind there is always room for error – but given thoughts and struggles throughout childhood and my adult life, I do truly believe I have a degree of gender dysphoria.

Which is why a lot of what went down in this thread refrained me from speaking; myself being uncomfortable and not sure. I’ve only told three people about this before and I know them both locally.

…not sure how I feel about that. But what is done is done. Sure there is plenty more to address in the thread, but there you go.

Revolution909

Age: 29

Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Gowi wrote:

In the past fifteen years, I’ve known five friends online who have come out as transgender or stated their struggle with the psychology of their sex. I’ve been unsure where I’ve stood on the issue on several occasions though I’ve always supported others. Also, as you can tell from the comments here on BEA and the way debate has sprung this should be in the P&R subforum since this is a delicate issue at the front of things and the fact that this is a huge social debate that you could lodge into socio-politics or just extended discussion merits – I’ve always felt AM made the lounge to be less debate-centric and more of a friendly yet casual area. But since no moderator has spoken of this topic’s appropriate nature I will move on as I am not an authority by any means.

I’ve never been particularly diagnosed, but my psychology is a mess that lends itself towards several things of which I’ve “self-diagnosed” myself with including but not limited to: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Seasonal Depression, Neurotic personality issues, and GID.

That last one took some time to be able to say, though I feel especially certain about my own mind there is always room for error – but given thoughts and struggles throughout childhood and my adult life, I do truly believe I have a degree of gender dysphoria.

Which is why a lot of what went down in this thread refrained me from speaking; myself being uncomfortable and not sure. I’ve only told three people about this before and I know them both locally.

…not sure how I feel about that. But what is done is done. Sure there is plenty more to address in the thread, but there you go.

Okay well firstly, I'm saying well done for sharing this. I think it's wonderful that you are able to talk about what you describe as your experience with gender dysphoria. It's hard coming out, as I'm still in the looooong process of doing IRL (in my case as gay (and now asexual but I digress, it's a similar principle). It takes significant courage, so a pat on the back to you. Applause

Be sure to drop in and post on the new LGBTQ thread also, I'm sure others would be very interested in your story and I'm positive that the response will be overwhelmingly positive (can't guarantee there won't be the crazies and the close-minded but c'est la vie).

This thread has really opened my eyes as to how common gender identity issues are among people. An eye-opener. Smile

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HigherThanTheSun

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Location: UK

Revolution909 wrote:

This thread has really opened my eyes as to how common gender identity issues are among people. An eye-opener. Smile

This is BEA though Razz

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Serenity Now

Gender: Male

Age: 31

Location: Cork, Ireland

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HigherThanTheSun wrote:

This is BEA though Razz

Yeah, it really is a site like no other! Love

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WindowAbove

Gender: Male

Age: 25

Location: Iowa

Personally I never heard of or thought about the idea of gender identity and being transgender until being on the internet a few years ago. I have always identified as male and did so because that is my sex, and I thought gender was an objective thing that was the same as sex. As for my views on this topic, I fully support transgender rights and I believe that if you identify as a gender opposite of your sex, then you are that gender and have every right to identify as being a gender or not. However, I don't fully understand the concept of identity; as in I don't understand how one could feel male, female, or neither. To me, I don't view male and female qualities as being very separate; I just think that women and men are both people. For those of you whom identify as the gender opposite of your sex, I would be interested in hearing about your history of gender identity and why you identify with your gender. I'm not trying to be insensitive and transphobic at all, I'm just very interested in what makes people transgender or agender and I would like to learn more.

Also, what do we think about Rachel Dolezal, the white NAACP member who claimed to be black and identifies as being black? Do you think that being transracial should be treated with the same respect and be held to the same level as being transgender? I think that it's a weird situation to compare with gender identity and I think there may be a difference between gender and race in terms of if you can identify as something else.

Last edited by WindowAbove on 06/13/2015 20:17; edited 1 time in total

Satie

WindowAbove wrote:

Also, what do we think about Rachel Dolezal, the white NAACP member who claimed to be black and identifies as being black? Do you think that being transracial should be treated with the same respect and be held to the same level as being transgender? I think that if she identifies as a race that she was born as then she should have every right to do so.

It's an ahistorical and materially destructive thing to conflate gender and race. This is a key part of intersectionality that gets lost in translation - the intersection of different matrices of oppression is important, but so is their disjunction. To specifically elaborate on this, transgender identification predates Stonewall, Year 0 for the contemporary western LGBTQ movement. Transgender identification is a historical reality and one that has a long, diverse history of acceptance in some cultures and violent subjugation in others. The only way that we know to stand for transgender rights is because of the lived experiences of transgender people that are communicated to us. "Transracial" identification is not a historical reality, and to my knowledge, Ms. Dolezal does not even claim such. Any of this Wrongskin business you see is 4chan parody.

There is another problem that is present in "transracial" identification. Passing for white as a black person was actually a crime (punishment being death IIRC) for many years, and even now, the one-drop rule serves to establish white as "normal" and other races as "variations" and so it is important to note that this identification is only materially safe for white people "identifying down" if you will. This is hugely problematic because it comes off more as an extension of white guilt that is extreme than genuine identification. Compare this to transgender identification, which does not come from identification with the oppression of women and a bleeding heart to free them from patriarchy but rather from a "feeling" of being a different gender identity (again, going off of the expressed experiences of transgender people).

Ms. Dolezal's identification comes across as incredibly opportunistic. She never outrightly claimed black identity, something that would seem necessary and edifying for someone "transitioning" to a different race (via bronzer and a perm), but left it as a perpetual blank space. She made thousands of dollars for paintings of a false African heritage and invented threats against her person to "validate" her presentation. She secured a six-figure NAACP job and the ensuing speaking event invitations and prestige that come with such a position. Most importantly, she went from being a white woman who probably had very good intentions and empathized strongly with black struggle to a white woman taking up space through insinuation and silence when directly asked about her racial identification and pushing out the voices of African-Americans who had actually had these lived experiences. When you talk to transgender people, they don't have complete fictions about others identifying them as the opposite gender early on but rather have stories of their dysphoria in their biological sex. None of these themes come across from Ms. Dolezal.

And I think that's the most important point here -- no one is claiming a transracial identity, and this conversation is becoming incredibly widespread among primarily cisgender white people. It is infuriating, to paraphrase my friends of color on social media who have discussed this issue, to see the real life destruction of black and brown bodies and material oppression of these people get put on the sidelines for a thought experiment. We do not come to new identities through thought experimentation but through hearing the testimony of people who truly "feel" and inhabit new identities.