Social Justice Transgender and gender identity discussion

[SKL]

I feel like when I was a kid nobody EVER discussed gender identity. If it was ever brought up it was some bad joke about a guy not knowing the hooker was a man.

Yeah, I don't know when it was that I became aware of transsexuality. Fairly late, even though I was raised around a lot of gay and lesbian people. I had only the vaguest ideas of what trans issues entailed even then. And in fact it was not really all that long ago that I learned that not all transsexuals were hypereffeminate and androphilic, having started out as especially flamboyant gay men. (I even knew some HSTS like this socially. New York club scene and all that. I have a funny story about that I'll share at some point.) But it came as a surprise to me, and I did not consider myself particularly naïve on these matters, that there were a substantial number of trans-identified males who are attracted to females. Furthermore, I had been aware, vaguely, of clinical transvestism (having been familiar with the DSM and the case study companion-there's a lot of fucked up stuff in the latter), but not really of autogynephilia as such: as I mentioned quite a while back in this thread, it was not long ago a pretty esoteric subject. I also knew very little (as I think did most people) about trans-identified females, let alone that there was anything resembling ROGD (which in fairness to me hadn't been described yet.)

Learning that there were (quite a lot of, and more recently) gynephilic MtFs running around might change a lot of people's perspectives on stuff like bathrooms, while learning that there are a lot of TiFs, who until recently have usually escaped notice almost entirely, raises it's own questions too. We all have learned a lot recently. Society just didn't used to be aware, or very much care, about this stuff.

These days teens seem obsessed with gender identity. My cousin is a trans man. I saw him grow up and he lived in a broken home. His only friend was this gay kid, who even at 11 or 12 was already identifying as gay. That always confused me how you could know that young. Anyways I always question in he questioned his identity because of his friends influence.

Now I remember being about 13 and questioning if I was gay or not. It took a day or two to confirm that I was not and never thought about it again. Being a teen is confusing with so much coming at you.

Some people have much more complicated identities. In fact, some people want much more complicated identities because today it is somehow glamorized. You're right the youth of today is fascinated with sexual and gender identity questions. They are really the first generation of ours raised in a society where homosexuality carries very little stigma. Even gay marriage has been allowed for a significant portion of their lives. And the media is absolutely saturated with gay and trans stuff. There a line to be drawn here somewhere between fair and positive "representation" and what you might call "glamorization" of alternative sexualities/identities. We as a society crossed it a while ago but certainly in the post-"Call Me Caitlyn" media world.

We shouldn't unnecessarily stigmatize people's identities and lifestyles, certainly, but the way that they are presented sometimes seems to convey the message that having an "alternative" sexual identity or practices in some way makes one more interesting, or validates one as a person in a way that vanilla, straight individuals can't be validated. And it does afford one access to a readymade community that can be very welcoming and supportive especially to the alienated, outcast, and simply "different." With all this there, why wouldn't a troubled young person want a piece of that, honestly? That may be why you see a lot of embracing of vague and rather low-maintenance "queer" identities. Almost certainly a factor in ROGD as well.

I understand homosexuality but I may never understand trans or other identifiers. I try to imagine myself if I felt like I was a woman in a man's body. I'd just say fuck it and try to make the best of it. HRT and surgery and all the other hardships trans people go through doesn't seem worth it. I just don't understand.

Yeah, as I mentioned above, it's not something that I think we can identify with or have anything to compare it to, other than imagining some kind of permanent and all-encompassing dread or alienation towards oneself and one's body. I can only imagine it to be extremely distressing and as I have repeatedly stressed knowing that this is so should lead us to be very sympathetic towards trans-identified persons and to treat the with care. I'm speaking here people experiencing "gender dysphoria." As for having a different "gender identity," some inherent feeling that you are the opposite sex, no clue what that could possibly be like. My own sex is not something I think about, I merely inhabit it and live in it and through it and experience the consequences of it and the socialization that comes along with it. Contrasting to this, the subjective experience of internal trans-identity is hard to imagine, not having experienced it myself. But people report it with some consistency, so there is certainly a particular psychological phenomenon there. To some extent we must accept that at it's own value but also must seek to understand the context and consequences, and understand that a psychological phenomenon does not necessarily correlate with some inherent ontological "gender identity" the way TRAs tend to describe it.

I think what baffles me the most is asexuality. I hear about asexuals with high libidos and I just don't understand how that works.

It is a symptom of a society oversaturated with sex that "asexuality" is an identity. Even more wild is "demisexual," which evidently means that you only want to sleep with people you are emotionally connected to. I don't know if I am a prude but that sounds pretty normal to me, and not in need of a label. Part of it is, I guess, that everyone wants a label, but the "asexual" stuff seems to have a lot to do with the perception that everyone around you is having a lot of sex and you aren't feeling the same. Which is more or less the same feeling that produces the "incel," only instead of a preoccupation with wanting sex the preoccupation is with not wanting sex. I also suspect some "asexual"-identified people have body issues and/or sexual trauma (probably mostly females, but also males.)

Anyways. I do believe the large emphasis on the lgbtq+ movement may be somewhat confusing to an already confused child. With that said I fully support lgbt rights and normalcy - just don't shove it down kids throats.

Yes. And it is indeed "shoved down kids' throats." I am reminded of the 1968-era Sexual Revolution in France and Germany (especially) where in radical "intentional communities," pedophilia was normalized or even institutionalized under the notion of aiding "natural" child sexual development, aided and abetted by some of the most notable radicals of the day. The same kind of thing went on in some religious cults like "The Family"/"Children of God" (no relation to the Grateful Dead "Family.") New information about what went on is still emerging but a lot of it was actually quite out in the open. Quite a few articles have come out on the subject recently, including about the pedophilic escapades of some very prominent intellectuals, particularly in France. But anyway, in various situations related to these, a pattern repeats itself: children were deliberately made to interact with each other and with adults sexually because it fit the radical ideology of the group.

I'm not making this comparison to accuse people of pedophilia, generally speaking, and know this is a sensitive subject. Pedophilia is not necessarily the motivation for involving kids in trans stuff, in fact it probably usually isn't, although some situations definitely suggest it: for instance, a preteen boy "drag queen" dances for adult men and has money thrown at him, while the whole thing is published on social media. Online "affirmation" of trans-questioning youth (sometimes called "hatching eggs" in the community) also sometimes has seriously pedophilic (or rather, usually ephebophilic) undertones. Again for the sake of decency I will not link publicly.

Most people, though, I think, are trying on some level and from their perspective, to do what they think is right by the kids. Unfortunately, they are coming from a place that has very questionable ideas, and their actions have the potential to be very damaging. I make the connection to the radical pedophilia of the communities I mentioned because both feature intervening with the psychosexual development of children motivated by radical ideology as part of an agenda towards "remaking" things, here, gender; there, society in general. This sort of radical agenda is certainly present with many people who advocated childhood "transition."

A friend has a pre-teen GNC daughter who started saying she is a boy. He is not putting her on hormones and he thinks she might eventually come out as lesbian, but if she/he is trans it is not an issue.

That's a hard situation. Our society is saturated with messages about trans-identification and in a child's mind GNC easily translates into identification with the opposite sex which I would imagine can lead to dysphoric feelings even if they are not there originally as well as, and this is perhaps the most important part, the interpretation of other distress or a general sense of alienation as gender dysphoria. Of course, it's very hard to tell from the outside looking in. I am glad your friend is taking a conservative approach and although I know nothing about the situation other than the bare facts you present, if his intuition is that she may be just a GNC lesbian, there is probably a very good chance this is the case. That is also probably the population that is at some of the very highest risk for sort of absorbing ideas about identity via a kind of cultural osmosis. Little kids pick up a lot but also play around in their heads with concepts they don't fully understand. "Not being girly/like other girls" and possibly "developing feelings for other girls" could easily translate into "being a boy," especially if her mind has been primed for it. I hope your friend's situation and his daughter's work out OK.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Wow @SKL

You must've written like 100,000 words in this thread so far.

 

[Jabberwocky]

@PriestTheyCalledHim, you’ve brought up the issue of whether ‘queer’ is a negative slur or not. Like most derogatory words it depends when and where it is used (in Australia one may call one’s best friend a ‘cunt’ for example). To the best of my knowledge the word has been used in a derogatory sense to label homosexuals since the 1800’s. However, during the AIDS epidemic it was adopted or claimed or rehabilitated by a number of activist groups, most notably Queer Nation. To this day many people of varied non-cis sexuality proudly use the term to label themselves.

However, during the 1980’s and 1990’s a discipline of Queer Studies developed in Western Universities and ‘queer’ became more commonly used as a verb rather than a noun. There are thousands of academic papers ‘queering’ different aspects of society. These have primarily developed out of French post-modern/ structuralist thought of the late 1960s and 1970s. Although the full meaning of the term is unstable (as is every term deployed by postmodernists, since instability is their stock-in-trade) to queer something means to destabilise its normative foundations in society. That is, to question the foundations upon which it is commonly valued or disvalued.

The first thing to be queered, and still the ongoing target of Queer Studies, was the heteronormative family. This was attacked initially primarily on the basis of several streams of argument emerging from Michele Foucault’s ‘archaeology’ of human sexuality tied into Derrida’s attempts to destabilise the idea of ontological permanence in language and therefore our thoughts.

The interesting thing is how, in another example of how the left will always eat itself, transactivism works to fundamentally destabilise the categories of gay and lesbian. This is right out of the Queer Studies playbook.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Wow @SKL

You must've written like 100,000 words in this thread so far.

The ought to be published, he’s been very compelling in his arguments.

 

[Xorkoth]

I know androgynous/femme, and hyper-effeminate gay and bisexual men, and butch/androgynous lesbian and bisexual women, who if they were teens or children today would be told they are trans, and that they must take hormones and have surgery

Are kids really being told they "must" take hormones and have surgery? I mean if so that's fucked up. If people are trying to pressure kids into any of this that is really wrong and fucked up. But other than inevitable edge cases of some fucked up people doing so, I seriously doubt it is happening on a wide scale.

His only friend was this gay kid, who even at 11 or 12 was already identifying as gay. That always confused me how you could know that young

I mean at 11-12 (actually much younger) I was into girls. I had a massive crush on this girl in first grade all the way through 8th grade. In 4th grade I had a dream we were kissing and she spit in my mouth and I was aroused (lol). I mean I wasn't trying to fuck or even knew what that was, but I wanted to kiss girls, and when some of them started to get boobs in 5th/6th grade, I was really into it. I imagine it's the same for gay kids, except they're finding themselves attracted to the same sex.

Also, regarding "queer", it is my perception that it's somewhat like the word "nigga" became used among black people as something entirely different from the "er" version. Basically, taking back a painful word and making it something else to defeat its power to hurt. I have met plenty of gay people who call themselves "queer" in recent times, in fact they will refer to their community as "the queer community".

 

[mal3volent]

I have zero interest in having a discussion with people who bait me like that.

you said you disagreed with everything I said. That is pretty much the only thing I said.

"We need to find a way". If you disagree with that idk how you can claim I'm misrepresenting your views.

I've said there needs to be more dialogue and MUCH more scientific study.

@PriestTheyCalledHim, you’ve brought up the issue of whether ‘queer’ is a negative slur or not. Like most derogatory words it depends when and where it is used (in Australia one may call one’s best friend a ‘cunt’ for example). To the best of my knowledge the word has been used in a derogatory sense to label homosexuals since the 1800’s. However, during the AIDS epidemic it was adopted or claimed or rehabilitated by a number of activist groups, most notably Queer Nation. To this day many people of varied non-cis sexuality proudly use the term to label themselves.

However, during the 1980’s and 1990’s a discipline of Queer Studies developed in Western Universities and ‘queer’ became more commonly used as a verb rather than a noun. There are thousands of academic papers ‘queering’ different aspects of society. These have primarily developed out of French post-modern/ structuralist thought of the late 1960s and 1970s. Although the full meaning of the term is unstable (as is every term deployed by postmodernists, since instability is their stock-in-trade) to queer something means to destabilise its normative foundations in society. That is, to question the foundations upon which it is commonly valued or disvalued.

The first thing to be queered, and still the ongoing target of Queer Studies, was the heteronormative family. This was attacked initially primarily on the basis of several streams of argument emerging from Michele Foucault’s ‘archaeology’ of human sexuality tied into Derrida’s attempts to destabilise the idea of ontological permanence in language and therefore our thoughts.

The interesting thing is how, in another example of how the left will always eat itself, transactivism works to fundamentally destabilise the categories of gay and lesbian. This is right out of the Queer Studies playbook.

Not disputing anything you said, just adding my own anecdote. Queer definitely WAS a slur to me growing up. A very potent one honestly. Such an odd word with a very deliberate purpose for people around where I'm from. Queer and faggot were on the same level to me. Both hit me the same way.

I'd say in the last ten years or so is when I noticed Queer being taken back. I've never been on the cutting edge so it was probably well before that. It's an umbrella term to describe anyone outside the heteronormative sphere.

Which age is this?

I don't know. But I do know at some point trans folks get old enough that they simply cannot undertake such a seismic physiological change. They just say, "well I'm too old now, maybe if I were younger...". It's different for everyone obviously. But I've talked to multiple older people who have told me they wish they were born into this generation.

I just don't want to see young people live in the wrong body for so long that it becomes intimidating to make the leap. But as I continue to say , I recognize that there are risks and challenges and this decision should never be made lightly. It requires more honest dialogue than either side is willing to participate in right, it seems.

This argument also contains the assumption that the only "safe way for trans individuals to live happy and fulfilled lives" necessarily involves medical/surgical intervention, the object of which is a mostly cosmetic

no, I think you should take my comment in context. I was responding specifically to birdup.

Depends on the definition of "plenty," I suppose. "Pansexual," a recent concept, implicitly seems to refer to trans-identified individuals, so I'll grant you that. The assumption that bisexuality would mean you are more into them seems to invoke a rather crude and possibly offensive understanding of bisexuality, though.

How so? I have a very good comprehension of bisexuality, I'm curious as to what I said that was crude or offensive? I'm friends with a guy who dated a trans female and viewed her purely as a female. These things aren't cut and dry. He could identify as pansexual if he wanted, but doesn't.

"Full transition" is a problematic descriptor. What exactly do you mean?

From where they are to where they want to be. For many people this involves surgery. Not for everyone.

This rhetoric assumes a concept of an essentialist and permanent quality of "gender" which can differ from biological sex, something I've discussed at some length in earlier posts. This is a different claim than one that states that "transition" is a treatment for "gender dysphoria," something that unlike the former claim, which is almost theological ("female soul in a male body"), admits at least some scientific study. Where, again, there are a lot of unknowns.

Yeah, I'm honestly not interested in peddling rhetoric or talking points or anything like that. I'm only interested in the truth. And I think both sides have room to grow in this discourse. We are still at the infancy of this movement and it's going to require a lot of research and generations of sacrifice to get to where we need to be.

 

[SKL]

Wow @SKL

You must've written like 100,000 words in this thread so far.

The ought to be published, he’s been very compelling in his arguments.

I'm flattered. I'm glad people read, let alone liked, the stuff I've posted here. I wrote the stuff I've said in dialogue with people (one of whom has sadly deleted all the relevant posts) and in a somewhat haphazard and stream-of-consciousness manner but sometimes this is the best way for me to get stuff out of my head and onto "paper." I hope I have not been overly repetitive though and that I've been able to at least impart some new information and perspective each time I've posted here. What I've posted here is as I've said my own views which derive from a couple of different perspectives and what I have learned from observing various online communities and reading the literature.

Observing the communities has actually been probably the most enlightening for me. Given how hyper-online these individuals tend to be, more people should probably be doing this type of research. Littman does some digging in this arena as does 4th Wave Now, but there's really a lot of untapped potential to learn about people's experiences by simply "listening" to what they write online. I owe much of perspective and the development of my case to doing this.

Having said "my case," and you having referred to my "convincing argument," I'm not even sure what that is. I'm just calling it as I see it. Getting this stuff written down helps me figure things out, too.

The first thing to be queered, and still the ongoing target of Queer Studies, was the heteronormative family. This was attacked initially primarily on the basis of several streams of argument emerging from Michele Foucault’s ‘archaeology’ of human sexuality tied into Derrida’s attempts to destabilise the idea of ontological permanence in language and therefore our thoughts.

Speaking of French pedophiles, eh?

The interesting thing is how, in another example of how the left will always eat itself, transactivism works to fundamentally destabilise the categories of gay and lesbian. This is right out of the Queer Studies playbook.

QFT

I just don't want to see young people live in the wrong body for so long that it becomes intimidating to make the leap. But as I continue to say , I recognize that there are risks and challenges and this decision should never be made lightly. It requires more honest dialogue than either side is willing to participate in right, it seems.

"Live in the wrong body." This is as I've said a number of times in a number of ways a problematic way to refer to the issue of gender dysphoria or trans-identification. I won't reiterate why as I already have, a few times. And in fact you replied to my critique of a similar statement by saying:

Yeah, I'm honestly not interested in peddling rhetoric or talking points or anything like that. I'm only interested in the truth. And I think both sides have room to grow in this discourse. We are still at the infancy of this movement and it's going to require a lot of research and generations of sacrifice to get to where we need to be.

Being "only interested in the truth" here means that you will have to deal with some uncomfortable facts and uncomfortable ways of reading these issues. By dropping statements like "living in the wrong body" you have already subscribed to an ideological and non-falsifiable exegesis of trans-identification. However, you're very much spot on that both sides have room to grow. I've tried in my posts in this thread so far to not get too hung up on one particular "pole" in this controversy. I'm neither "TERF" nor "TRA" (both of which actually mean something but which have been reappropriated as general snarlwords/terms of opprobrium going in opposite directions). I just try to proceed with both compassion and a critical eye.

You're also right that this "movement" is in it's infancy. But it is an enfant terrible which is starting to grow too fast. Many in the transgender movement have exceeded the bounds of reason and safety in a number of places. Certainly the bounds of what we have scientific evidence for. Intervening with children is a prime example here. So too is the extension of the "trans" label to a variety of different kinds of GNC which are not all the same, as is making broad and unsubstantiated claims about the nature of gender identity. All of this muddies the waters considerably and makes it difficult to have a conversation about the issues.

How so? I have a very good comprehension of bisexuality, I'm curious as to what I said that was crude or offensive? I'm friends with a guy who dated a trans female and viewed her purely as a female. These things aren't cut and dry. He could identify as pansexual if he wanted, but doesn't.

Thinking that a trans-identified person would be more acceptable to a bisexual person seems to me to invoke something of the "will fuck anything" stereotype that sometimes surrounds bisexuals. I'll accept that maybe I am reading too much into what you said, though.

Are kids really being told they "must" take hormones and have surgery? I mean if so that's fucked up. If people are trying to pressure kids into any of this that is really wrong and fucked up. But other than inevitable edge cases of some fucked up people doing so, I seriously doubt it is happening on a wide scale.

"Must?" Depends on what you mean. There is a lot of pressure on GNC youth from a variety of places in a variety of ways to identify as "trans" and to, once doing so, transition. Transition is also sometimes touted as a cure-all for various things which are either problems of teenhood or genuine emotional issues as well as a way to be "your authentic best self." It is also presented from some quarters as being the only way to be GNC. And trans-identification is rewarded with a lot of attention and a readymade social group, very appealing to the same young people. Some of the more toxic online communities operate much like cults, with "love-bombing," their regimented way of thinking replete with thought-terminating cliché, stuff like that. For a confused teenager looking to belong, some or all of this very well may add up to what seems like a "must."

I think that's it for me for tonight though. Cheers, folks.

 

[Xorkoth]

"Must?" Depends on what you mean. There is a lot of pressure on GNC youth from a variety of places in a variety of ways to identify as "trans" and to, once doing so, transition. Transition is also sometimes touted as a cure-all for various things which are either problems of teenhood or genuine emotional issues as well as a way to be "your authentic best self." It is also presented from some quarters as being the only way to be GNC. And trans-identification is rewarded with a lot of attention and a readymade social group, very appealing to the same young people. Some of the more toxic online communities operate much like cults, with "love-bombing," their regimented way of thinking replete with thought-terminating cliché, stuff like that. For a confused teenager looking to belong, some or all of this very well may add up to what seems like a "must."

I will say that I have seen this somewhat, though not towards children. Specifically, my girlfriend's sister, who has always been gay, has recently decided to transition to a man and has been taking hormones. She's 35, though. My girlfriend says she never had any idea she felt herself to actually be a man, though of course that could be something she just didn't know, as they haven't been very close since becoming adults. But her queer community (she's one of the people who I have heard use this term a lot) has a lot of people transitioning. She told us one time recently that we're such normies for being cis-gendered and heterosexual. I was like... okay come on, that's not only insulting, it's dumb. Most people identify with the gender they were born as, and that's not going to change, nor should anyone hope it does. It seems, to me, that it's a very trendy thing for her that is giving her some sort of feeling of validation or something. But I don't want to assume too much as I actually don't know her very well at all, we've only met a couple of times, even my girlfriend has only seen her 3 times in the 6 and a half years we've been together.

I shared that anecdote to say that I can see where some people could be influenced by it being trendy, and I could see where that could be something negative about the movement. But at the same time, it's still an important movement because there are people for whom all they seek is acceptance and the ability to be who they really are without living a lie to others. Rather than being some sort of liberal plot to destabilize society or whatever some people think it is, I think it's just growing pains and in some decades, or a generation, or two, it will just be normal and everyone will simply be who they are and it won't be such a big deal one way or the other. At least I hope so.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

@SKL

I second @Atelier3. Your posts are worthy of publication. Very impressive stuff. Extremely well written.

you said you disagreed with everything I said. That is pretty much the only thing I said.

"We need to find a way". If you disagree with that idk how you can claim I'm misrepresenting your views.

I've said there needs to be more dialogue and MUCH more scientific study.

You said 3 things that I quoted.

1) We need to research trans people starting young.
2) They will be able to live more fulfilled lives if they can transition young.
3) We need to find a way despite the risks.

Here are my problems with those statements:

1) You can't research without conducting unethical trial-and-error medical experiments on children.
2) There is no evidence of this. I'm yet to be convinced that transitioning at any age helps people.
3) The risk is greater than the reward.

You then said this:

why don't you want... trans individuals to live happy and fulfilled lives ?

Don't tell me I don't want people to be happy.
We disagree about what is the right thing to do.

Frankly, you often do this. I'm happy to have a discussion with you if you're respectful and you give me the benefit of the doubt and you don't post strawman BS. Please don't question my humanity. I am very caring person. I look after people for a living. I don't want anyone to suffer and I really don't appreciate you (or anyone else) suggesting otherwise.

Thanks.

 

[mal3volent]

Don't tell me I don't want people to be happy.
We disagree about what is the right thing to do.

Frankly, you often do this. I'm happy to have a discussion with you if you're respectful and you give me the benefit of the doubt and you don't post strawman BS. Please don't question my humanity. I am very caring person. I look after people for a living. I don't want anyone to suffer and I really don't appreciate you (or anyone else) suggesting otherwise.

Thanks.

You're welcome. (I despise sarcastic "thanks" at the end of posts. Just tell me to go fuck myself, I won't mind. Well I guess you can't do that huh. Against the rules and all. Ok fine.)

In all seriousness, you are the one who chose to make the very dramatic statement that you disagree with ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of what I said. Part of what I said is that we need to find a way to help these people despite the risks. If you think "the risk is greater than the reward", fine. That doesn't mean we disagree that we want to find a way to help people. It means we disagree with what "helping" means.

You see, we actually agree on something, which is what I was trying to highlight by calling you out on the 100% thing.

Being "only interested in the truth" here means that you will have to deal with some uncomfortable facts and uncomfortable ways of reading these issues. By dropping statements like "living in the wrong body" you have already subscribed to an ideological and non-falsifiable exegesis of trans-identification.

My favorite facts are the uncomfortable ones. As long as they're actual literal facts and not just strongly held opinions. Living in the wrong body is not just a cliche. That's how I've heard it described over and over. It's existential terror and tragically the only escape some people see is death.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

@mal3volent.

Yeah, I read the first paragraph.
That's enough for me.

 

[mal3volent]

@mal3volent.

Yeah, I read the first paragraph.
That's enough for me.

oh dear.
really clinging hard to this strategy aren't you?

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Look, mate, I honestly have no idea what that means.
There is no "strategy".

I don't want to have a discussion with you.
Can we move on please?

For the record, my thanks was not sarcastic.
It was (misguidedly) optimistic.

 

[deficiT]

I feel like when I was a kid nobody EVER discussed gender identity. If it was ever brought up it was some bad joke about a g,uy not knowing the hooker was a man.

These days teens seem obsessed with gender identity. My cousin is a trans man. I saw him grow up and he lived in a broken home. His only friend was this gay kid, who even at 11 or 12 was already identifying as gay. That always confused me how you could know that young. Anyways I always question in he questioned his identity because of his friends influence.

Now I remember being about 13 and questioning if I was gay or not. It took a day or two to confirm that I was not and never thought about it again. Being a teen is confusing with so much coming at you.

It may seem like it's a different world these days, but trans people have been around forever. It's just slightly more acceptable to be open about it these days, and it's talked about in politics and media more than it was in years past. Partly that's because trans people especially face harsh discrimination and hatred, having way higher likelihood to die from murder or suicide. The individual needs of trans people are now clashing with the feelings of moral authoritarians that believe being trans is wrong. Bathroom bills and the like are highly propagandized and slanted to make it seem like trans people are predators. Which statistically is false, as trans people are more likely to be victims of sexual assault.

As a kid, you knew that you were male at a young age right? Well I imagine it might be the same for some trans people. They might get gender dysphoria at a young age, and not even know what it is. Or they could know right away that they identify as the different sex. I think it's a difficult question about how to handle a trans kid. It's a bit of an exaggeration that parents are "shoving" stuff on anyone, they are likely trying to do the best to raise their kid and do the right thing by them. I don't think you have an unreasonable take, just maybe consider the points I made. They might have already been made, I haven't read the whole thread, but anyway...

I have had numerous close friends I grew up with come out as trans. I had no idea, but I'm glad that they are at least able to be true to what their mind and body tell them. And I wish that people weren't so misinformed and hateful about them.

 

[mal3volent]

Look, mate, I honestly have no idea what that means.
There is no "strategy".

I don't want to have a discussion with you.
Can we move on please?

For the record, my thanks was not sarcastic.
It was (misguidedly) optimistic.

yo, did we have a minor disagreement or did I murder your entire family? I honestly can't tell based on your responses. This silent treatment you're giving me is really pressing my buttons.

but honestly I actually don't want to talk to you anymore, either. So we're good. Now maybe you can take some time to heal.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

@

There certainly used to be quite a lot of trans people on this forum some years ago. I hope people expressing their unfiltered selves (as I often have) hasn't resulted in them feeling unwelcome to contribute to discussions such as these... I don't like having discussions about any group of people in the absence of said representation. But, it's such a sensitive topic. We're told to not express certain feelings about the trans community, so they end up living in a bubble to some extent. They are shielded from what some people think, in the name of political correctness.

It is always more upsetting to realize that you have been lied to than it is to face an uncomfortable truth.

 

[cduggles]

Is there any trans BLers here? I’ve read this entire thread so far thourand couldn’t find any that went though transitioning or are currently transitioning/ thinking about transitioning. I asked that question many pages ago and still haven’t got an answer?

If there are so many free more people out there that are identifying as Trans now, for whatever reason (whether it be people feel more comfortable this day an age to come out, or because Trans is in vouge now, or is even, as some suggest, encouraged in some ultra liberal communities), are the only opinions I really give a shit about, and I figured we had a few here?

See this being Trans thing is completely foreign to me. I would hear their thoughts, because at the end of the day, they are the ones living that way. Other peoples assumptions of what being a Trans person is practically irrelevant. It’s the same reason I don’t want to hear about racial discrimination (unless you have experienced or currently experiencing racial discrimination).

It’s of no interest of mine to me hear woke people tell about a trans people and what it’s like to be part of that community.

We’ve had a couple of BLers openly identify themselves as transsexuals.
The one I’m aware who posted in CEP&S didn’t post more than a few times. It wasn’t pretty. I felt pretty embarrassed. It was awhile ago though.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

@PriestTheyCalledHim, you’ve brought up the issue of whether ‘queer’ is a negative slur or not. Like most derogatory words it depends when and where it is used (in Australia one may call one’s best friend a ‘cunt’ for example). To the best of my knowledge the word has been used in a derogatory sense to label homosexuals since the 1800’s. However, during the AIDS epidemic it was adopted or claimed or rehabilitated by a number of activist groups, most notably Queer Nation. To this day many people of varied non-cis sexuality proudly use the term to label themselves.

However, during the 1980’s and 1990’s a discipline of Queer Studies developed in Western Universities and ‘queer’ became more commonly used as a verb rather than a noun. There are thousands of academic papers ‘queering’ different aspects of society. These have primarily developed out of French post-modern/ structuralist thought of the late 1960s and 1970s. Although the full meaning of the term is unstable (as is every term deployed by postmodernists, since instability is their stock-in-trade) to queer something means to destabilise its normative foundations in society. That is, to question the foundations upon which it is commonly valued or disvalued.

The first thing to be queered, and still the ongoing target of Queer Studies, was the heteronormative family. This was attacked initially primarily on the basis of several streams of argument emerging from Michele Foucault’s ‘archaeology’ of human sexuality tied into Derrida’s attempts to destabilise the idea of ontological permanence in language and therefore our thoughts.

The interesting thing is how, in another example of how the left will always eat itself, transactivism works to fundamentally destabilise the categories of gay and lesbian. This is right out of the Queer Studies playbook.

Ok I learned about queer theory in a literary theory class or basically it was the short history of literary theory. It is fine for writing essays on literature, film, TV series, poetry, art, etc. But as far as society goes, it is too theoretical, super outdated, and it is not really relevant. Most people are not bisexual and people can be heterosexual or homosexual. I am bisexual but I have friends who are homosexual/gay and even the ones who once had girlfriends or wives said how they did it in their youth to hide that they are gay and how sex with women was little better than jerking off, they had to think about men the entire time to get aroused, finish, etc. and oftentimes would make up excuses when their woman partner wanted to have sex, some would fake orgasms, etc.

I am not sure if most modern day French people even read, discuss, or know who Foucault and Derrida are or care about their philosophies/theories, or about post-modern structuralist philosophies? French philosophers and writers who are much more recent and who were more popular than them are no longer read or discussed, or popular.

 

[deficiT]

Is there any trans BLers here? I’ve read this entire thread so far and couldn’t find any that went though transitioning or are currently transitioning/ thinking about transitioning here? I asked that question many pages ago and still haven’t got an answer?

I imagine there are, and I certainly don't want to speak over or for anyone. I can imagine it's difficult having conversations when people doubt your right to exist how you'd like. Not saying that's you or anything. Just contributing what little I know about it from knowing trans people.

They are shielded from what some people think, in the name of political correctness

I don't really think they are though. People say all kind of nasty and dehumanizing things about them. They can't escape that no matter where they go, even if some people try to defend them.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I am not sure if most modern day French people even read, discuss, or know who Foucault and Derrida are or care about their philosophies/theories, or about post-modern structuralist philosophies? French philosophers and writers who are much more recent and who were more popular than them are no longer read or discussed, or popular.

You have a point. Foucault and Derrida - together with the rest of the French postmodernists were always more popular in the Anglophone world (where they were only ever used in some times faulty translations) than they were in the Francophone world.