Does anybody have knowledge of transgenderism?

Lucas · July 26, 2014

I would turn the conversation towards feminism and the war that has been long waged against children, especially young boys. Knowing what we know about the role women play in child abuse in the home, isn't it a little concerning that more then 1300 men each year elect to undergo sex reassignment surgery in North America alone? How many women claim to be discontented with their gender or treatment of their assigned gender? How many of women who feel that they are discriminated against for their gender will subsequently seek SRS to become men? This is not a rhetorical question; I was unable to find any data as yet on female-to-male SRS.

Hello EndTheUsurpation,

I think you have some good questions.

Among children, the ratio of boys to girls referred to gender clinics ranges from about 6:1 to 1:1 (Zucker & Lawrence, 2009; Riley, 2012). It is very often suggested that the higher ratio of boys to girls is likely influenced by the parents higher sensitivity to "sissy" behavior from boys as opposed to "tomboy" behavior from girls.

In regards to FtM SRS data:

Rachlin, K. (2002). Transgender individuals’ experience of psychotherapy. International Journal of Transgenderism, 6(1).
- Abstract: This research examined Transgender and Transsexual individuals' experiences in psychotherapy accross a range of treatment settings. Participants completed a survey that asked why they had sought mental health services and what their experience of treatment had been. The sample consisted of 93 participants (70 Female-to-Male and 23 Male-to-Female) who reported on 150 contacts with various psychotherapists. Results indicated that it was common to have seen a psychotherapist for general personal growth issues earlier in life and to later seek out a therapist who had experience in transgender work in order to focus on gender issues. Provider experience in working with gender issues was associated with a higher number of positive changes, higher patient satisfaction with progress in both general personal growth, and gender related issues. Individuals consistently expressed appreciation for therapists who were flexible in their treatment approach and demonstrated respect for the patient's gender identity.
- Here is quote from the article: "The incidence of postoperative regret is generally extremely low…. Less than 1% in FTM and less than 1-1.5% in MTF."
Dhejne, C., Lichtenstein, P., Boman, M., Johansson, A. L., Långström, N., & Landén, M. (2011). Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: Cohort study in Sweden. PloS one, 6(2), e16885.
- Abstract. Context: The treatment for transsexualism is sex reassignment, including hormonal treatment and surgery aimed at making the person's body as congruent with the opposite sex as possible. There is a dearth of long term, follow-up studies after sex reassignment. Objective: To estimate mortality, morbidity, and criminal rate after surgical sex reassignment of transsexual persons. Design: A population-based matched cohort study. Setting: Sweden, 1973-2003. Participants: All 324 sex-reassigned persons (191 male-to-females, 133 female-to-males) in Sweden, 1973–2003. Random population controls (10:1) were matched by birth year and birth sex or reassigned (final) sex, respectively. Main Outcome Measures: Hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for mortality and psychiatric morbidity were obtained with Cox regression models, which were adjusted for immigrant status and psychiatric morbidity prior to sex reassignment (adjusted HR [aHR]). Results: The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9). Comparisons with controls matched on reassigned sex yielded similar results. Female-to-males, but not male-to-females, had a higher risk for criminal convictions than their respective birth sex controls. Conclusions: Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.
Davis, S. A., & Meier, S. C. (2014). Effects of Testosterone Treatment and Chest Reconstruction Surgery on Mental Health and Sexuality in Female-To-Male Transgender People. International Journal of Sexual Health, 26:113–128, 2014.
- ABSTRACT. Objectives: This study examined the effects of testosterone treatment with or without chest reconstruction surgery (CRS) on mental health in female-to-male transgender people (FTMs). Methods: More than 200 FTMs completed a written survey including quantitative scales to measure symptoms of anxiety and depression, feelings of anger, and body dissatisfaction, as well as qualitative questions assessing shifts in sexuality after the initiation of testosterone. Fifty-seven percent of participants were taking testosterone and 40% had undergone CRS. Results: Cross-sectional analysis using a between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance showed that participants who were receiving testosterone endorsed fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression as well as less anger than the untreated group. Participants who had CRS in addition to testosterone reported less body dissatisfaction than both the testosterone-only or the untreated groups. Furthermore, participants who were injecting testosterone on a weekly basis showed significantly less anger compared with those injecting every other week. In qualitative reports, more than 50% of participants described increased sexual attraction to nontransgender men after taking testosterone. Conclusions: Results indicate that testosterone treatment in FTMs is associated with a positive effect on mental health on measures of depression, anxiety, and anger, while CRS appears to be more important for the alleviation of body dissatisfaction. The findings have particular relevance for counselors and health care providers serving FTM and gender-variant people considering medical gender transition.

P.S. It is easier to create a "hole" than a "pole," which may help explain why fewer transgender males elect to go through with "bottom surgery." The technology is just not that great yet.

MMX2010 · July 26, 2014

Among children, the ratio of boys to girls referred to gender clinics ranges from about 6:1 to 1:1

How many clinics are referred to in the sentence above, and are those clinics spread among multiple cultures or localized in singular cultures?

Eternal Growth · July 27, 2014

MMX: I am not posting here to be the target of your abuse. If this forum had a user blocking feature, I would have employed it against you. A small percentage of what you're saying are interesting points that I would enjoy discussing, but because you're being extremely disrespectful, this will be the absolute last I acknowledge you. Considering that you're talking about a topic which does not really concern your life at all and yet concerns the lives of others enormously, more sensitivity would be my recommendation.

I'd really like more elaboration of what kind of girl things you wanted to do, and why; and what kind of "right" the feeling was, like correct? or preferable to someone? Tying ages to specific events may help. Why did you envy girls?

Wear the clothing and hairstyles, participate in the sports and activities, be able to identify and be perceived as one, and things like that.

The feeling of "rightness" was one of internal harmony, of self-actualisation, and of being who I was.

From every direction the social pressure coming at me was to be masculine, so not only was there nobody for whom it would have been preferable that I were a girl, I've never had anything close to a people pleaser personality, and so it wouldn't be in my nature to choose an identity or behave in a certain way in order to be liked or more convenient to others. If anything, my experience of being trans has been the opposite of meeting peoples' preferences.

Though I don't discount the possibility that a cis male who has a people pleasing personality, little self-knowledge, a dysfunctional home environment and who is surrounded by anti-male influences (as many little boys are) could develop the feeling that being a girl was more "right", I don't think this is representative of trans people or what causes them to transition.

I envied girls because they had the social role and body that I would have been most comfortable in.

I'm sorry to hear you were so alone. Would you go so far to call it neglect? Personally, I was left alone with my younger brother for the majority of my childhood. We were neglected. Were you by yourself at home? Do you have siblings? Did your parents divorce? Will you describe what behavior and interactions you parents had with each other, and you? Any memorably phrases or conversations? I accept they were poor role models, why and how?

My parents didn't divorce, though from a very young age I wanted them to. There is that Dr Phil quote about kids preferring to be from a broken home than living in one, and my experience couldn't have been more in agreement.

Too young, too immature, too incompetent, too uneducated, with dysfunctional backgrounds of their own that were entirely unprocessed, with mental health issues where there was not even the desire for examination or treatment, and with such lack of financial responsibility that they could only house/feed/clothe my brother and me through government welfare and going deeply into debt.

Yes, I would call it neglect. There was deprivation in a lot of areas.

I presume for your latter questions you mean specifically in gender-related ways? There is a lot I could write but nothing in particular stands out as significant in the context.

Being sensitive, expressive and open are great. I like being that, they're great characteristics to have. Shame they were presented to you as gender specific. Not into explicit competition, especially between friends, then one take it seriously, like winning a card game is the best thing to happen that year or something. It sounds like guys get the short end of the stick in that lesson. Being a boy is lame.

In terms of freedom of expression (especially for things which are gendered), girls (pre-teen) are in a more privileged position in modern society than boys are. Though I think it balances out in the teen years and beyond, because the social pressure for women to be physically attractive is so extreme.

I find this very interesting. I interpret this like you've got a male brain, but choose to be female. I don't know whether that's correct or not, just the impression I get. Probably not politically correct either. Bear with me.

As I've said earlier in this thread, my concern is the types of child abuse experienced by transgendered, all other stuff aside. I don't know if it's causal or not, but I do know it's not something talked about much.

I really appreciate your openness, Liberalismus. Thank you!

Would you apply the same standards to cis people? Assuming you're familiar with Rand's works, would you consider Dagny Taggart and Kira Argounova to have "male brains, but choose to be female"?

Something to be aware of is that it is rather common that trans people are criticised both for the ways in which they are masculine and for the ways in which they are feminine, creating an "impossible to win" situation. A trans woman who is too masculine is told she is "actually still just a man", whereas a trans woman who is too feminine is told she is "acting out a stereotype of womanhood". In both cases, the standards applied are never applied to cis people.

My mother would do both of these - criticism of the ways in which I was feminine as well as the ways in which I was masculine. I realised at some point that there was no honesty in either criticism, and that her only intention was to make me self-attack. Though I think it can arise out of misunderstanding as well as abusive intent.

(I understand you didn't state that as a criticism, at least insofar as you didn't define what was meant by "male brain".)

It is my pleasure. The implications of philosophy and libertarianism for trans people is something that very little has been said about, and I don't think there has been a single FDR podcast or call-in show where the topic came up. I know there are a number of trans women in FDR's audience and in libertarianism though they tend to stay in the background.

Personally, I don't take the issue of surgically removing genitalia very lightly being an infant when I was circumcised against my will, which has often negatively affected my enjoyment of sex. I also understand that not all male to female transgenders will elect to hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (NATALT!), but for the few that choose to go that route, I would want to ask them why they decided such a radical solution. If I knew a man who was considering becoming a female, I would be curious enough to ask some difficult self-knowledge questions first. Is that acceptable or considered politically incorrect? Why should I be concerned about offending sensibilities when he is at the point of enduring difficult and expensive elective surgery to become a woman? Will being a woman make him happier? Are women, in general, happier than men? Why would that be so?

I would turn the conversation towards feminism and the war that has been long waged against children, especially young boys. Knowing what we know about the role women play in child abuse in the home, isn't it a little concerning that more then 1300 men each year elect to undergo sex reassignment surgery in North America alone? How many women claim to be discontented with their gender or treatment of their assigned gender? How many of women who feel that they are discriminated against for their gender will subsequently seek SRS to become men? This is not a rhetorical question; I was unable to find any data as yet on female-to-male SRS.

For added perspective, here's a web site I stumbled upon about the tragedy of transgender regret. http://www.sexchangeregret.com/

A voluntary decision to undergo SRS by an adult who would typically have spent years of research, therapy, jumping through medical hoops, discussing with other people who have gone through the procedure, who will generally already have been presenting in the target sex for a long period of time (this is called the "real life test" or "real life experience" and multiple years of it are required to receive SRS, unless you find a surgeon in the third world who doesn't care), and who also prior to presenting as the target sex experienced gender dysphoria for most of their lives, is a very different situation to the involuntary genital mutilation of children, and you certainly have my deepest sympathies for being a victim of that.

The numbers who undergo hormone therapy are a lot higher than those who undergo SRS - with hormone therapy in general being a very safe treatment (for those who are voluntarily choosing.

I think the way in which you are wording your questions suggests an misunderstanding of the internal experiences of (most) trans people. It's not that one day there is a man and the next day there is a woman - this is just the outside appearance of transition. There is a long, if not life-long internal discomfort with the assigned gender role that precedes the (desire to) transition, and Adrej Pejic said as much in your quote of her.

Moreover, the decision to transition is not a pragmatic decision that people take after weighing out the pros and cons of what society gives each gender. I don't think women are happier, on average, than men - yet knowing this was completely irrelevant to my decision to transition. It is not about what society gives to each gender: it is about whether my internal identity is concordant with my external presentation, and for genuinely trans people, transition does make them a lot happier as the study I linked to in my previous post (and other sources) confirms. Transition isn't a panacea: you still have to live your life and be concerned with as many worldly things as a cis person is - yet in this specific area of life, in gender identity, it brings harmony and removes distress.

With respect to the discussion about the numbers of trans men vs. the numbers of trans women, it is honestly quite difficult to say. Whenever I have gone to groups for young trans people (and I have been to quite a few), trans girls have been a small minority, with a clear majority being trans guys. The popular conception of there being more a lot more trans people who were assigned male at birth than trans people assigned female at birth as far as I can tell arises out of gender variance being more socially stigmatised for those assigned male at birth. Though I wouldn't doubt that there are more trans women receiving "bottom surgery" than trans men, and as Lucas suggested, that has mostly to do with the logistics of the situation.

Entering into a discussion about feminism, one thing that is of note is that there has been a big history of feminist opposition to the existence of trans women - transphobia, exclusion of trans women from their groups and events, and rejection of the identities of trans women. If female supremacism has created trans women (which I don't believe in the slightest, especially in light of the reality that trans people have always received worse treatment as a group by society than either men or women), they certainly don't approve of their product.

MMX2010 · July 27, 2014

MMX: I am not posting here to be the target of your abuse.

Accusing someone of being abusive on the FDR board is highly serious. As such, I would respectfully ask that you either: (a) copy-and-paste which posts (or parts of my posts are abusive), and explain why, or (b) withdraw the claim with profuse apology.

Alice Amell · July 28, 2014

Agree with this 100%. If transgender is a biological reality, then the ratio of male-to-female-transitions divided-by female-to-male transitions should be roughly equivalent across all cultures. But if this ratio fluctuates from culture-to-culture, (and especially if there are significantly more examples of demeaned-gender-to-esteemed-gender-transitions), then this strongly suggests that transgender is a cultural-myth.

Liberalismus said earlier: "From being around other children, the lessons I learnt were that: Girls were allowed to be more sensitive, expressive and open about their emotions."

But is he (and are you) familiar with a sociological study mentioned (I think) by Lloyd DeMause in "The Origins of War in Child Abuse"?

In it, infants were spread into four groups: girls-wearing-pink, girls-wearing-blue, boys-wearing-pink, and boys-wearing-blue. Females of varying "caregiving ages" were told to interpret each infant's "fussy behavior". The results were: (1) If the infant was wearing pink (girl colors), the females interpreted "her" fussy behavior as sadness. (2) If the infant was wearing blue (boy colors), the females interpreted "his" fussy behavior as anger.

This is highly important because sadness is a "bonding emotion" - in that, whenever someone you love feels "sad", this creates sympathy, and spurs you to help. Whereas anger is an "anti-bonding emotion" - in that, whenever someone you love feels "angry", this creates distress, and spurs you to defend yourself.

Hence, FROM BIRTH female-caregivers discriminate against the fussy behavior of male infants. And Liberalismus noted this as a (what seemed to me) highly-influential reason that he became transgendered.

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/1748

In podcast 1748, Stef talks to a woman who says something similar but she talks about it in terms of gender studies. How baby boys are put in blue and girls in pink, which could influence the results.

I tried looking up rates of transgenderism but it was hard to find reliable data across different cultures. There also may be issue in how people define transgender and how prevalent the idea is in a particular culture - until recently I think it was mostly unheard of to most people, and if that's the case in some cultures or if there is nowhere to get treatment, it could be hard to measure.

I won't quote your other post to save space but in response to that, I do agree that brain differences aren't evidence of biological causes. Behavior shapes the brain. Although, isn't schizophrenia in the brain and genetic? Regardless, it isn't conclusive proof as far as I understand it.

Your question as to whether there is a study where scientists can separate transgender from those pretending to be transgender.. I don't think that has happened. Couldn't you say the same about being able to tell someone is homosexual? Not being able to identify it doesn't mean there isn't a biological or environmental (and non-social) cause.

I take issue with Laci's transgender adventure video. Why must the accusation of ignorance be leveled at people not able to understand the reasons behind a complicated life decision? If a friend makes a decision to marry or date someone radically different than before, don't I have the right to be curious and ask questions about the cause of the new situation? What if a friend decides one day that he wants to begin the process of identifying and becoming transgender? Should I have the right to be genuinely curious and ask questions about the reasoning behind it? If I don't know you well and I'm not certain with which gender you identify, can I openly ask you without causing shame or embarrassment? Why exactly does this have to be a delicate and touchy subject?

Here's an interesting article about a 22-year old male model that recently came out as trans. https://www.yahoo.com/health/model-andreja-pejic-comes-out-as-transgender-92841649992.html

An article about the same model undergoing SRS: http://www.refinery29.com/2014/07/71780/andrej-pejic-sex-reassignment-surgery-andreja

I found this quote troubling:

Personally, I don't take the issue of surgically removing genitalia very lightly being an infant when I was circumcised against my will, which has often negatively affected my enjoyment of sex. I also understand that not all male to female transgenders will elect to hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (NATALT!), but for the few that choose to go that route, I would want to ask them why they decided such a radical solution. If I knew a man who was considering becoming a female, I would be curious enough to ask some difficult self-knowledge questions first. Is that acceptable or considered politically incorrect? Why should I be concerned about offending sensibilities when he is at the point of enduring difficult and expensive elective surgery to become a woman? Will being a woman make him happier? Are women, in general, happier than men? Why would that be so?

I would turn the conversation towards feminism and the war that has been long waged against children, especially young boys. Knowing what we know about the role women play in child abuse in the home, isn't it a little concerning that more then 1300 men each year elect to undergo sex reassignment surgery in North America alone? How many women claim to be discontented with their gender or treatment of their assigned gender? How many of women who feel that they are discriminated against for their gender will subsequently seek SRS to become men? This is not a rhetorical question; I was unable to find any data as yet on female-to-male SRS.

For added perspective, here's a web site I stumbled upon about the tragedy of transgender regret. http://www.sexchangeregret.com/

I don't think it is offensive at all to be curious; I think that is a good thing. That sexchangeregret website scares me somewhat. I read through one of the entries so it isn't a representative sample by any means, but it seems the person's main regret was that they did not pass and others did not accept them for who they are, rather than their feeling was invalid to start with.

I also agree with most of what Liberalismus said. I don't think anyone transitions for pragmatic reasons. Feminists as an example play the victim and oppression card at any chance but they strongly identify as women (the female feminists, anyway). They don't want to be men in order to gain some status (whether perceived or not). Furthermore I don't think anyone (or at least it is highly unlikely) would gain any status at all for deviating from their assigned gender. Most transgender people face discrimination unless they completely pass, and it could take a long time (and lots and lots of money) to do so.

Lucas · July 28, 2014

Entering into a discussion about feminism, one thing that is of note is that there has been a big history of feminist opposition to the existence of trans women - transphobia, exclusion of trans women from their groups and events, and rejection of the identities of trans women. If female supremacism has created trans women (which I don't believe in the slightest, especially in light of the reality that trans people have always received worse treatment as a group by society than either men or women), they certainly don't approve of their product.

Hey Liberalismus,

Like Nick, I want to thank you for being open and willing to share.

With regards to the feminist opposition, your right. There does seem to be a history. In an article on the semantics of transgender identity, the author quotes Janice Raymond, a self-described cisgender lesbian feminist. Raymond was one of the first feminist to discuss transgenderism, she says: "All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves. However, the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist violates women’s sexuality and spirit, as well. Rape, although it is usually done by force, can also be accomplished by deception."

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/1748

In podcast 1748, Stef talks to a woman who says something similar but she talks about it in terms of gender studies. How baby boys are put in blue and girls in pink, which could influence the results.

I tried looking up rates of transgenderism but it was hard to find reliable data across different cultures. There also may be issue in how people define transgender and how prevalent the idea is in a particular culture - until recently I think it was mostly unheard of to most people, and if that's the case in some cultures or if there is nowhere to get treatment, it could be hard to measure.

I won't quote your other post to save space but in response to that, I do agree that brain differences aren't evidence of biological causes. Behavior shapes the brain. Although, isn't schizophrenia in the brain and genetic? Regardless, it isn't conclusive proof as far as I understand it.

Your question as to whether there is a study where scientists can separate transgender from those pretending to be transgender.. I don't think that has happened. Couldn't you say the same about being able to tell someone is homosexual? Not being able to identify it doesn't mean there isn't a biological or environmental (and non-social) cause.

I don't think it is offensive at all to be curious; I think that is a good thing. That sexchangeregret website scares me somewhat. I read through one of the entries so it isn't a representative sample by any means, but it seems the person's main regret was that they did not pass and others did not accept them for who they are, rather than their feeling was invalid to start with.

I also agree with most of what Liberalismus said. I don't think anyone transitions for pragmatic reasons. Feminists as an example play the victim and oppression card at any chance but they strongly identify as women (the female feminists, anyway). They don't want to be men in order to gain some status (whether perceived or not). Furthermore I don't think anyone (or at least it is highly unlikely) would gain any status at all for deviating from their assigned gender. Most transgender people face discrimination unless they completely pass, and it could take a long time (and lots and lots of money) to do so.

It is really hard to get an accurate rate of the occurrence of transgenderism across cultures. Many people might just not be "out" yet. Acceptability of being transgender can depend on where you live. Also, much of the current data on adults come from self-referred clients (who may be more likely to have resources).

Another note, in case your curious, there has been a long history transgenderism cross-culturally (depending on how you define it). For example, see Two-Spirit, Fa'afafine, Kathoey, Hijra, and Muxe.

Eternal Growth · July 28, 2014

I don't think it is offensive at all to be curious; I think that is a good thing. That sexchangeregret website scares me somewhat. I read through one of the entries so it isn't a representative sample by any means, but it seems the person's main regret was that they did not pass and others did not accept them for who they are, rather than their feeling was invalid to start with.

Doing a small amount of research about the sexchangeregret website, it seems that the man behind it is a Christian with multiple personalities, one of whom is female. Because of this female personality, he received a diagnosis for gender dysphoria and transitioned. He later detransitioned and received a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, and today works to petition the state to introduce force into the voluntary interactions between trans people and medical professionals. His message to trans people is, instead of transitioning, to find salvation in Jesus. I don't see a lot of rational philosophy and self-knowledge going on here, and this seems essentially the trans equivalent of the religious ex-gay movement. Given the very strong connection between DID and childhood sexual abuse, my guess would be there there is a whole lot of dysfunction going on in his case beyond the religiosity.

As a side note, this would be another instance of religious groups targeting the vulnerable for recruitment (overwhelmingly of course happening to children, though they manage to grab the occasional alcoholic, drug addict or repressed gay or trans adult too.)

Personally I'm skeptical whenever a person uses the term "sex change". It is a tabloid term that no trans person, no person with trans friends, or any person with non-dogmatic intentions or mild familiarity with the topic uses. I've seen medical professionals using "gender reassignment", whereas with other trans people it is always "transition".

With regards to the feminist opposition, your right. There does seem to be a history. In an article on the semantics of transgender identity, the author quotes Janice Raymond, a self-described cisgender lesbian feminist. Raymond was one of the first feminist to discuss transgenderism, she says: "All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves. However, the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist violates women’s sexuality and spirit, as well. Rape, although it is usually done by force, can also be accomplished by deception."

A couple more who I can name who are active (and highly respected within academia and the media) in the UK are Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel.

It is really hard to get an accurate rate of the occurrence of transgenderism across cultures. Many people might just not be "out" yet. Acceptability of being transgender can depend on where you live. Also, much of the current data on adults come from self-referred clients (who may be more likely to have resources).

I would agree. It is also worth exploring that "transgender" is a blanket term for a variety of identities or modes of expression, only some of which are argued to be, and have evidence for being, biological in origin (e.g. transsexualism).

Tundra · July 28, 2014

One point that I find interesting (maybe no one else does) is that transgendered people almost always feel like the right brain in the wrong body, that is to say a male feels like he was born female brain with a male body. One thing I've always heavily questioned is why this is framed as a physical issues rather than a mental one? Why is the body seen as the "wrong" part and not the brain? Maybe your physical body is perfectly fine and it's the feeling you're the wrong gender which is the issue?

full disclosure: I am a transgender person

Well because talk therapy and drug based therapy have been both shown to be abysmal failures at 'treating' trans people (PS: transgender is an adjective, transgendered would be like saying... gayed or blacked when talking about a person, it's odd.)

What has been shown to work is transitioning. And to directly answer your question, there are a few studies, i'll link them at the bottom of the post, that have proven that trans people's brains are structurally different. Male and female brains (note I'm using words denoting sex here not gender) are different and there are ranges that males and females typically fall into. With transwomen (that is someone who was assigned male at birth and later identifies as a woman) their brains fall into female ranges in many of the important sexed areas of the brain and transmen (that is someone who was assigned female at birth and later identifies as a man) falls into male ranges.

These have been seen in transpeople who have never taken hormones too and have never undergone any treatment. since there are a few differnt studies there have been a few different control groups. including: cismen and ciswomen (that is men and women are are not trans.) gay cismen and gay ciswomen were also compared, along with some individuals who were cis but for some reasons either had no sex hormones etc.

And it was found that the gender identity of the person (IE: what they FEEL like) was aligned with how their brain was structured.

So sure you can look at it as a brain problem because... well it is. But there is no treatment other than transitioning. There is no magic brain surgery, there is no magic pill that can alter the physical structure of your brain in multiple places in severe and serious ways. There just isn't.

So the choice isn't between treating their brain or treating their body, it's between treating their body or not treating them at all.

Here are the medical studies I promised above:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16870186

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15724806

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10843193

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7477289

These four studies involve an area of the brain called the BSTc which is part of the brain that is sexually dimorphic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961

This study involved a section of the brain called INAH3 and the results echoed the results of the other four studies, transsexuals' brains fall into typical ranges of the gender they identify with not the gender they were assigned.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803

This study used MRIs to look at the overall brain structure of transsexuals who had not yet taken hormones, and while this study shows that Transwomen's brains were more in common with men in overall structure, they lay outside the normal range of men.

Well I hope that answers your question.

Alice Amell · July 29, 2014

full disclosure: I am a transgender person

Well because talk therapy and drug based therapy have been both shown to be abysmal failures at 'treating' trans people (PS: transgender is an adjective, transgendered would be like saying... gayed or blacked when talking about a person, it's odd.)

What has been shown to work is transitioning. And to directly answer your question, there are a few studies, i'll link them at the bottom of the post, that have proven that trans people's brains are structurally different. Male and female brains (note I'm using words denoting sex here not gender) are different and there are ranges that males and females typically fall into. With transwomen (that is someone who was assigned male at birth and later identifies as a woman) their brains fall into female ranges in many of the important sexed areas of the brain and transmen (that is someone who was assigned female at birth and later identifies as a man) falls into male ranges.

These have been seen in transpeople who have never taken hormones too and have never undergone any treatment. since there are a few differnt studies there have been a few different control groups. including: cismen and ciswomen (that is men and women are are not trans.) gay cismen and gay ciswomen were also compared, along with some individuals who were cis but for some reasons either had no sex hormones etc.

And it was found that the gender identity of the person (IE: what they FEEL like) was aligned with how their brain was structured.

So sure you can look at it as a brain problem because... well it is. But there is no treatment other than transitioning. There is no magic brain surgery, there is no magic pill that can alter the physical structure of your brain in multiple places in severe and serious ways. There just isn't.

So the choice isn't between treating their brain or treating their body, it's between treating their body or not treating them at all.

Here are the medical studies I promised above:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16870186

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15724806

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10843193

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7477289

These four studies involve an area of the brain called the BSTc which is part of the brain that is sexually dimorphic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961

This study involved a section of the brain called INAH3 and the results echoed the results of the other four studies, transsexuals' brains fall into typical ranges of the gender they identify with not the gender they were assigned.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803

This study used MRIs to look at the overall brain structure of transsexuals who had not yet taken hormones, and while this study shows that Transwomen's brains were more in common with men in overall structure, they lay outside the normal range of men.

Well I hope that answers your question.

Thank you Tundra for those sources. I'll need to spend time reading them.

MysterionMuffles · July 29, 2014

WHOA despite of this having its own other thread, this one blew up big time. I don't usually go to this section of the forum so I hadn't noticed, but thanks for the input everyone, I'll have a good time reading your posts!

Frosty · July 30, 2014

Because, at least with current technology, it is a lot easier and more successful to change the physical to match the mental than it is to change the mental to match the physical. Moreover, the mental is where a person's identity resides. To change a person's brain is to change fundamentally who they are. In comparison, a physical transition keeps a person's ideas, thoughts, feelings, personality, identity, inner life, etc. intact, it just makes their body compatible with the person inside.

There has been no successful corrective psychological therapy to convince trans people to be comfortable in their assigned-at-birth sex, and this isn't for lack of trying (much as has been the case with attempts at corrective therapy for gay people).

Right, so that's an issue of practicality, which is fine and I take no issues with. However I'm talking about the framing that is used by trans people, I almost always read that they're born with the wrong body and that the mentality, the brain part is the part that's "right" - if that even really means anything, which I'm not convicned it does, how is one thing inherently right and the other thing inherently wrong? It would be more correct to say they feel mismatched.

I think that stems from some kind of attachment to your own brain as it contains your mental individuality and sense of self, I'm guessing a lot of other people would also refer to as the soul although no such thing has been demonstrated to exist.

But from a purely biological perspective the brain is just another organ, I've never seen a good argument that makes the case for any kind of objective reason to consider the brain as inherently right and the rest of the body wrong, however there is I believe a good reason to suspect the opposite is true, simply because you've got the genetic makeup of a male or female yet what is typical among males/females is a difference in brain development, at least due in part to exposure to testosterone in the brain.

And I want to be really careful here and be as clear as possible, I'm NOT saying that trans people are wrong in how they feel, I'm NOT saying they should seek one corrective measure or another, I'm NOT saying that one treatment is better or more "right", I'm simply interested in the reasons why this is framed the way it is. I suspect it's to do with the taboo of altering ones sense of self rather than altering the body which today is common place. I'd honestly be interested to hear from trans people on their opinions that if they were given a choice to perfectly and magically correct the body or the brain which they'd opt for, do any trans people struggle with which identity they feel is the "real" one, are there any trans people who actually disagree with the notion that one identity is inherently right and one is wrong and that instead they're simply mismatched?

Eternal Growth · July 30, 2014

Right, so that's an issue of practicality, which is fine and I take no issues with. However I'm talking about the framing that is used by trans people, I almost always read that they're born with the wrong body and that the mentality, the brain part is the part that's "right" - if that even really means anything, which I'm not convicned it does, how is one thing inherently right and the other thing inherently wrong? It would be more correct to say they feel mismatched.

I think that stems from some kind of attachment to your own brain as it contains your mental individuality and sense of self, I'm guessing a lot of other people would also refer to as the soul although no such thing has been demonstrated to exist.

But from a purely biological perspective the brain is just another organ, I've never seen a good argument that makes the case for any kind of objective reason to consider the brain as inherently right and the rest of the body wrong, however there is I believe a good reason to suspect the opposite is true, simply because you've got the genetic makeup of a male or female yet what is typical among males/females is a difference in brain development, at least due in part to exposure to testosterone in the brain.

And I want to be really careful here and be as clear as possible, I'm NOT saying that trans people are wrong in how they feel, I'm NOT saying they should seek one corrective measure or another, I'm NOT saying that one treatment is better or more "right", I'm simply interested in the reasons why this is framed the way it is. I suspect it's to do with the taboo of altering ones sense of self rather than altering the body which today is common place.

If you were married to a person for 20 years and you were given a choice between either their brain becoming that of a completely different person (so their personality is different, they have different interests, they don't remember the relationship, they have no idea who you are, etc.) yet their body remaining identical or the opposite - their identity remaining the same but having a completely different physical appearance, which would you choose?

I suspect the general population would overwhelming vote for same brain, different body, and that this would be even more so on FDR where people are more in touch with their inner lives and those of the people closest to them. Intimacy happens with another person's consciousness - not with external appearance.

And we would do that when the person involved is another person. Given that on a hierarchy of intimacy it is unavoidable that our own self must be at the top (i.e. there is no identity we can be more intimate with than our own), it is even more important - infact, essential if we are to continue to exist - that we choose same brain, different body when it comes to ourselves.

Wrt. the brain being "just another organ", I know you said you were speaking purely from a biological perspective, and it is indeed interesting to think about biology. But only very rarely does "purely biological perspective" mean the same thing as "perspective from which it is healthy, useful or even required for a human being to live their life". To look at something from a purely biological perspective, and expect a human to live their life in accordance with it, is to dehumanise them. Case in point: your desires for love, intimacy, connection, meaning, life fulfilment, freedom and happiness are from a purely biological perspective urges with no significance beyond getting you make babies before you die. We recognise the biology, but in order for us to be organisms that are functioning at a level above the "be born, eat, reproduce, die" cycle in which most life functions, we have to see something more than the purely biological - our identity, consciousness and ability to reason and make value judgments (and those of other humans), all of which happen in the brain (and in the brains of other humans).

I'd honestly be interested to hear from trans people on their opinions that if they were given a choice to perfectly and magically correct the body or the brain which they'd opt for, do any trans people struggle with which identity they feel is the "real" one, are there any trans people who actually disagree with the notion that one identity is inherently right and one is wrong and that instead they're simply mismatched?

The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon.

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

If you were married to a person for 20 years and you were given a choice between either their brain becoming that of a completely different person (so their personality is different, they have different interests, they don't remember the relationship, they have no idea who you are, etc.) yet their body remaining identical or the opposite - their identity remaining the same but having a completely different physical appearance, which would you choose?

I suspect the general population would overwhelming vote for same brain, different body, and that this would be even more so on FDR where people are more in touch with their inner lives and those of the people closest to them. Intimacy happens with another person's consciousness - not with external appearance.

And we would do that when the person involved is another person. Given that on a hierarchy of intimacy it is unavoidable that our own self must be at the top (i.e. there is no identity we can be more intimate with than our own), it is even more important - infact, essential if we are to continue to exist - that we choose same brain, different body when it comes to ourselves.

Liberalismus, you earlier accused me of "abusive posting" towards you. I asked you, quite nicely, to either: (1) cut-and-paste the posts (or parts of my posts) that you find abusive, and to explain why OR (2) revoke the claim with profuse apology.

Continuing to post in this thread, without responding to my request, is, in itself abusive. (Especially on the FDR-message boards, wherein accusing someone else of being an abusive poster is as serious as accusing a person of child-molestation in general society.)

Eternal Growth · July 30, 2014

If anyone is interested in my reasoning for that earlier statement, feel free to PM me. I don't want to spam this thread with the unrelated.

In any case, these two posts demanding a response from me have been two more instances of my clearly-stated preferences not being acknowledged. To quote myself previously: "this will be the absolute last I acknowledge you."

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

Your question as to whether there is a study where scientists can separate transgender from those pretending to be transgender.. I don't think that has happened. Couldn't you say the same about being able to tell someone is homosexual? Not being able to identify it doesn't mean there isn't a biological or environmental (and non-social) cause.

Homosexuality and transgender are completely different. They're, in fact, so different that they're mostly dissimilar.

"MMX2010 is a homosexual." involves observing his actions with other people. Because I'm not a homosexual, it's impossible for me to pretend to be homosexual for an extended period of time.

"MMX2010 is a transgendered person" involves exactly zero interactions with other people. (In Stefan's "Introduction to Philosophy" series, he expresses mild frustration with certain arguments because they can never be proven false. He compares, "We're all just brains in a vat, with no control over our lives." to "I had a dream about a sparrow last night." Because there's no zero-conclusion, no way to objectively prove that we're just brains in a vat, and no way to objectively prove that I had a dream about a sparrow last night, then neither of these two statements are philosophically true. You may sincerely believe that we're just brains in a vat, but sincere belief isn't objective philosophical truth.)

Because of the above explanations, and because transgendered-people have never exposed themselves to extreme scientific skepticism, the statement "I'm a transgendered person" doesn't currently acquire the status of philosophically true. It's, at best, a sincere belief.

--------------------------

Seriously, if I had a couple of million dollars, I'd conduct the following simple study.

Part One - Hire twenty actors to spend two-hundred hours acquiring the language that transgendered-people use to describe themselves.

Part Two - Make an "announcement video" on January 1st 2015 wherein these actors say, "Hi, my name is X. I am not, and have never been, a transgendered person. But I'm being paid to convincingly pretend to be one. My goal is to infiltrate transgendered-clinics to see if I can convince the clinicians there to prescribe hormone therapy."

Part Three - Have them execute the plan. (At this point, two distinct outcomes are possible. (1) I'm right about transgender, in which case the majority of my actors should easily acquire hormone therapy. If this were to happen, I'd be right that transgender is a highly subjective, socially-reinforced phenomenon that scientists have no reliable means of detecting. (2) I'm wrong about transgender, in which case all of my actors should be rejected when they seek hormone therapy.)

Part Four - Confront the clinicians with the "announcement video", just to see how they react. (Either highly uncomfortable, if I'm right about transgender - or highly satisfied, if I'm wrong about transgender.)

Part Five - Release the video to the public.

To me, the most reliably-predictable reaction is that the transgendered community would be offended either way. If I'm right about transgender, they'll hate me; if I'm wrong, they'll still hate me. But being offended by the skeptical use of science isn't a good reason to not conduct such experiments.

I won't quote your other post to save space but in response to that, I do agree that brain differences aren't evidence of biological causes.

Right. Nor is my skepticism of transgender evidence that transgender isn't primarily biological. It's just skepticism.

Frosty · July 30, 2014

If you were married to a person for 20 years and you were given a choice between either their brain becoming that of a completely different person (so their personality is different, they have different interests, they don't remember the relationship, they have no idea who you are, etc.) yet their body remaining identical or the opposite - their identity remaining the same but having a completely different physical appearance, which would you choose?

I suspect the general population would overwhelming vote for same brain, different body, and that this would be even more so on FDR where people are more in touch with their inner lives and those of the people closest to them. Intimacy happens with another person's consciousness - not with external appearance.

And we would do that when the person involved is another person. Given that on a hierarchy of intimacy it is unavoidable that our own self must be at the top (i.e. there is no identity we can be more intimate with than our own), it is even more important - infact, essential if we are to continue to exist - that we choose same brain, different body when it comes to ourselves.

Wrt. the brain being "just another organ", I know you said you were speaking purely from a biological perspective, and it is indeed interesting to think about biology. But only very rarely does "purely biological perspective" mean the same thing as "perspective from which it is healthy, useful or even required for a human being to live their life". To look at something from a purely biological perspective, and expect a human to live their life in accordance with it, is to dehumanise them. Case in point: your desires for love, intimacy, connection, meaning, life fulfilment, freedom and happiness are from a purely biological perspective urges with no significance beyond getting you make babies before you die. We recognise the biology, but in order for us to be organisms that are functioning at a level above the "be born, eat, reproduce, die" cycle in which most life functions, we have to see something more than the purely biological - our identity, consciousness and ability to reason and make value judgments (and those of other humans), all of which happen in the brain (and in the brains of other humans).

The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon.

(please excuse the long and rambling post, it's very much me exploring these ideas out loud and I'm still forming my opinion, despite how it might appear I don't lean one way or another on this issue yet, I'm simply interested why people tend to lean one way or the other in specific circumstances, I'm simply being skeptical about our approach to thinking about this in order to try and get an understanding that's deeper than just "i feel it should be this way", part of exploring that is by playing devils advocate)

Well I wouldn't choose for someone else, that would be immoral, people choose how to deal with decisions related to their own body. if it was me who had the choice to change it would depend on a lot of factors for example how unhappy I felt vs what the repercussions of your change were.

You're doing several things to weight your argument here, first of all you're creating a false dichotomy of changing one thing vs the other, where as personally I would be much more inclined to simply accept that I was born abnormal and that's just part of who I am, I can't say for sure how I'd behave because I've never been in that situation. Second of all you're creating a condition that you'd become a completely different person, obviously to what degree it changes who you are is not trivial here, it could be that changing the brain translates to relatively minor changes in personality and beliefs/memories but eliviates negative feelings of mismatch between gender and sex. Who knows...but I'm hesitant to address your question, you're leading an answer, so my response is it depends to what degree change occurs.

I also suspect that the general population would overwhelmingly vote for the same brain, I'm acknowledging this appears to be the case based on the framing we see from trans people, I'm simply interested as to why it's framed this way and if that kind of framing is done for fundamentally good/right reasons or not. I don't think that you've demonstrated why it's essential that if we're to continue to exist that we choose the same brain, I don't really know what this means or how you arrived at that.

People get injured or go through trauma where they're psychologically altered in some way, we can lose memories, we can have personalities split or merge, humans can experience a lot of very fundamental changes to our brain and our capacity to reason or think, you seem to be suggesting that any kind of fundamental change to someones mentality would or should upset the relationship between people. What if your partner of 20 years suffers something like that, are you then justified in leaving the relationship simply because part of them has changed? I think it's a nice sentiment that people ignore the purely physical and focus on the menal but I don't think it has anything to do with reality because we're fundamentally attracted to the physical form and have different reactions to it. Maybe the best example is if your partner of 20 years changed sex completely, if you're heterosexual and your partner is of the opposite sex but changed to have a body of the same sex. What do you think the general populations reaction to that would be? Physical appearance isn't completely unimportant to most people, despite what we'd like to aspire to.

I take a few issues with the rest of your post. First of you talk about dehumanizing people by looking at things from purely a biological perspective, but isn't to say modify your biology like your sexual organs doing the same thing? It's it dehumanizing to say that part of you is wrong so you'll just cut it off, treating parts of your body as simply accessories that don't belong. Don't get me wrong I have no moral issues with people doing whatever they want to their own bodies, I just don't think that completely aligns with what you're saying here.

I disagree that the physical part of someone isn't part of their identity, your brain acts through your body, how you control yourself, how you perceive the world, and how you live your life, having a different body alters who you are and your mentality, your identity might be stored in your brain but it's constructed in tandem with your body. If you were born blind instead of sighted do you think your personality would be constructed differently? I think you've downplayed the physicality of people somewhat. It might be the case that for you personally that it literally doesn't matter at all and that's fine but I don't think that represents everyone nor does it appear to represent any kind of ideal moral position.

I mean its a nice idea that we love someone for their "soul" (ugh - a friend used this term recently) and by which I mean their personality, thoughts, ideas, experiences etc...but that stuff can change in somoene just as much as their body can. That raises the interesting question of should you stay with somoene if their body/mentality does change in ways that are off putting.

I know one thing for sure I wouldn't bail on a relationship of 20 years with someone I loved just because their body had changed in some way, nor would I bail if their mentality changed in some way, there's limits to which both can change that are acceptable, those limits differ from person to person. So i guess to answer your first question, "no", if they mentally changed completely I'd like end that relationship, if they changed a bit but were mostly the same I'd stay with that person.

Thinking about that from another perspective it's sort of like looking at the range of people you find acceptable for long term relationships to begin with, that's a range of acceptable mental and physical characteristics, most people not raised indoctrinated on Disney movies know there's not some 1 magical person out there perfect for you, real life is all about tolerances within ranges you'll accept.

Anyway it's an interesting topic, I've not yet made up my mind on this, it'll require more thinking but it's interesting to me. Just to add one last thing, it's interesting to hear Tundra's opinion as a trans person (thank you Tundra) and I'm sort of surprised to hear the opinion that is indeed a brain problem but again as we've discussed already that changing the body is an issue of practicality. I'd like to politely ask Tundra if you had the option to alter your brain chemistry to relieve the feeling of brain/body mismatch would you do that, and to what degree would side effects of change in personality affect your decision? Please don't feel any pressure to answer, that's a personal question and I completely respect any decision to decline.

Also another thought occurred to me, people taking hormones to alter the growth of the body to aid in transitioning do actually see changes in their personality? I mean aside from the fact that you deliberately decide to change your gender (gender being separate from sex) by altering your behaviour, don't the hormones also change things like how emotional you can be and various other subtle mental changes? Liberalismus how do you feel about the body/brain divide when it comes to hormones used to help transition, if they have effect on both, does that affect the "identity" of people in your opinion? Would you draw the line at a partner of 20 years using hormones if that subtly altered their personality as part of a transition?

Thanks everyone, enjoying the discussion and learning a lot!

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

If anyone is interested in my reasoning for that earlier statement, feel free to PM me. I don't want to spam this thread with the unrelated.

In any case, these two posts demanding a response from me have been two more instances of my clearly-stated preferences not being acknowledged. To quote myself previously: "this will be the absolute last I acknowledge you."

Let's recap the facts, Liberalismus.

You PUBLICALLY accused me of abusing you, and now you've offered (to the curious, but not to the public) PRIVATE justifications of your argument?

Can you explain, in simple terms, how this is NOT bullying?

Tundra · July 30, 2014

Homosexuality and transgender are completely different. They're, in fact, so different that they're mostly dissimilar.

"MMX2010 is a homosexual." involves observing his actions with other people. Because I'm not a homosexual, it's impossible for me to pretend to be homosexual for an extended period of time.

"MMX2010 is a transgendered person" involves exactly zero interactions with other people. (In Stefan's "Introduction to Philosophy" series, he expresses mild frustration with certain arguments because they can never be proven false. He compares, "We're all just brains in a vat, with no control over our lives." to "I had a dream about a sparrow last night." Because there's no zero-conclusion, no way to objectively prove that we're just brains in a vat, and no way to objectively prove that I had a dream about a sparrow last night, then neither of these two statements are philosophically true. You may sincerely believe that we're just brains in a vat, but sincere belief isn't objective philosophical truth.)

Because of the above explanations, and because transgendered-people have never exposed themselves to extreme scientific skepticism, the statement "I'm a transgendered person" doesn't currently acquire the status of philosophically true. It's, at best, a sincere belief.

Um... okay...

first of all, being homosexual is not an action, it doesn't involve other people. To say that to be homosexual you must engage in homosexual behavior is like saying you're not straight if you're a virgin. it IS possible for you to pretend to be homosexual for an extended period of time, just like it's possible to pretend to be straight. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that it's impossible to pretend to be gay.

secondly trans people HAVE submitted to scientific skepticism, earlier in the thread I linked some studies, why don't you look at them, it looks like liberalisums also posted some studies. (and again, transgender is an adjective transgendered isn't a word it's like saying blacked-people. this isn't an argument but it does kind of show your ignorance on the matter.)

--------------------------

Seriously, if I had a couple of million dollars, I'd conduct the following simple study.

Part One - Hire twenty actors to spend two-hundred hours acquiring the language that transgendered-people use to describe themselves.

Part Two - Make an "announcement video" on January 1st 2015 wherein these actors say, "Hi, my name is X. I am not, and have never been, a transgendered person. But I'm being paid to convincingly pretend to be one. My goal is to infiltrate transgendered-clinics to see if I can convince the clinicians there to prescribe hormone therapy."

Part Three - Have them execute the plan. (At this point, two distinct outcomes are possible. (1) I'm right about transgender, in which case the majority of my actors should easily acquire hormone therapy. If this were to happen, I'd be right that transgender is a highly subjective, socially-reinforced phenomenon that scientists have no reliable means of detecting. (2) I'm wrong about transgender, in which case all of my actors should be rejected when they seek hormone therapy.)

Part Four - Confront the clinicians with the "announcement video", just to see how they react. (Either highly uncomfortable, if I'm right about transgender - or highly satisfied, if I'm wrong about transgender.)

Part Five - Release the video to the public.

To me, the most reliably-predictable reaction is that the transgendered community would be offended either way. If I'm right about transgender, they'll hate me; if I'm wrong, they'll still hate me. But being offended by the skeptical use of science isn't a good reason to not conduct such experiments.

Right. Nor is my skepticism of transgender evidence that transgender isn't primarily biological. It's just skepticism.

No offense but that is quite possibly the worst 'study' I've ever seen. That wouldn't prove anything regardless of the results

For starters you're acting like being trans is about using certain language, and that you have to be educated in this to be trans. This is just blatantly false. When I sought help for the difficulties I was struggling with as a result of being trans I didn't really know anything about trans issues, the language used to talk about the subject etc. All I knew was how I felt and that I needed some help.

next, being able to convincingly fake being trans does not disprove it. you can fake a lot of illnesses and disorders and trick doctors if you've done a bunch of research. especially illnesses or disorders that effect the brain.

next, I have linked scientific medical studies that prove that the physical structure of the brain of trans people differs from others. So you claiming that it's just some social construct is blatantly incorrect, and even after I linked that you have the gall to claim there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that trans people are more than some social construct.

And your skepticism, to me, seems like more than just skepticism, it seems like you have some serious beef with trans people, thats just what I got from reading all the posts in this thread by you and the thread you made on the subject. If I may ask, why is this subject important to you? it obviously is important to you and you obviously don't have to answer the question if you'd prefer not to.

PS: here are those studies again.

Here are the medical studies I promised above:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16870186

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/15724806

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10843193

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/7477289

These four studies involve an area of the brain called the BSTc which is part of the brain that is sexually dimorphic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18980961

This study involved a section of the brain called INAH3 and the results echoed the results of the other four studies, transsexuals' brains fall into typical ranges of the gender they identify with not the gender they were assigned.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19341803

This study used MRIs to look at the overall brain structure of transsexuals who had not yet taken hormones, and while this study shows that Transwomen's brains were more in common with men in overall structure, they lay outside the normal range of men.

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

Um... okay... first of all, being homosexual is not an action, it doesn't involve other people.

Homosexual - "to feel strong physical / sexual attraction to members of the same sex." How can a definition which requires the presence of other people, be deemed to "not involve other people"?

I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that it's impossible to pretend to be gay.

I didn't. I concluded that it's much more difficult to extensively and convincingly pretend to be gay than it is to extensively and convincingly pretend to be transgender.

next, being able to convincingly fake being trans does not disprove it

Right, but I never said that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" disproves that being trans is primarily-biological.

Instead, I've implied that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" in an environment where people are attacked for being trans-phobic whenever they disagree with trans-people would provide strong evidence that being trans is such a highly-cultural phenomenon that its biological-origins and aspects should be viewed as "limited, but not zero".

(Not to mention that, in your post so far, you've: (1) mis-represented two of my more important points, and (2) attacked me by saying, ", it seems like you have some serious beef with trans people, thats just what I got from reading all the posts in this thread by you and the thread you made on the subject. If I may ask, why is this subject important to you? And furthermore, (3) Lucas has ignored my questions, and frozen me out of the discussion. And (4) Liberalismus has publically-accused me of being abusive, and has refused to provide evidence of my so-called abusiveness.)

(Alice Amell has remained wonderfully polite, curious, and open-minded.)

next, I have linked scientific medical studies that prove that the physical structure of the brain of trans people differs from others.

Yes, yes you have.

But I've offered two counter-points earlier in this thread.

(1) A study of religious/spiritual people has concluded that their brains differ significantly from those of non-religious people. A scientist within that study speculated that repeated exposures to religious services, religious meditation, and religious thoughts permanently alters the brains of religious people. It is also true that practically all religions/forms-of-spirituality describe certain "core elements" of God/spirit using overlapping/downright-identical definitions. Finally, it is also true that those descriptions match feelings which can be induced in anyone by electrical stimulation to certain areas of the brain.

The overall conclusion is that religions/spirituality are almost entirely socially-constructed, with a very small amount of biological-origins. (Basically, you first get "religious / spiritual feelings" because one out of a possible million stimuli triggers that feeling. And then society explains that feeling using a religious / spiritual myth.)

(2) "The phrenology debacle" occurred in science less than 150 years ago. Back then, society wrongly believed two things: that larger brains equaled more intelligence, and that the natural intelligence of men was far superior to women's. In this social environment, a bunch of scientists used a "grain-filling" method to determine the volume of empty skulls.

But when the scientists knew the gender of the empty skulls, they measured skull-volume in self-serving ways. (If the skull was male, they sub-consciously really "packed the grain in" to produce higher-volume measurements. If the skull was female, they sub-consciously put less grain in.) Meanwhile, when the scientists didn't know the gender of any skulls, they sub-consciously used an equal-grain-filling method. (Not surprisingly, this second measurement-method was more accurate, and it concluded that women and men have roughly equal skull volumes.)

----------------------------------

The first study, with the religious people, suggests that "strongly believing you're a transgendered person from a young age" can produce permanent physical alterations to your brain.

The second study, with the brain volume, suggests that "if you begin investigating transgendered people BY ONLY investigating transgendered people, scientists will eventually discover brain-differences because they know they're supposed to discover something".

Because of the two studies I mentioned in my counter-argument, I think a "let's see if non-transgendered people can trick clinicians into prescribing hormone therapy" is highly useful. It can determine, with reasonable accuracy, the degree to which scientists' understanding of transgendered-brains is accurate AND the degree to which clinicians just "go along with" the testimonies of transgendered-people because they're culturally trained to do so.

BEAR IN MIND, please, that I've drawn no conclusions about transgendered-people. I've strongly-felt suspicions based on speculations and hunches - but I don't use those suspicions, speculations, and hunches to look down on transgendered people. (If you realize this, then you'll understand the bleak-irony pervading this entire thread.)

Lucas · July 30, 2014

I take a few issues with the rest of your post. First of you talk about dehumanizing people by looking at things from purely a biological perspective, but isn't to say modify your biology like your sexual organs doing the same thing? It's it dehumanizing to say that part of you is wrong so you'll just cut it off, treating parts of your body as simply accessories that don't belong. Don't get me wrong I have no moral issues with people doing whatever they want to their own bodies, I just don't think that completely aligns with what you're saying here.

I disagree that the physical part of someone isn't part of their identity, your brain acts through your body, how you control yourself, how you perceive the world, and how you live your life, having a different body alters who you are and your mentality, your identity might be stored in your brain but it's constructed in tandem with your body. If you were born blind instead of sighted do you think your personality would be constructed differently? I think you've downplayed the physicality of people somewhat. It might be the case that for you personally that it literally doesn't matter at all and that's fine but I don't think that represents everyone nor does it appear to represent any kind of ideal moral position.

I mean its a nice idea that we love someone for their "soul" (ugh - a friend used this term recently) and by which I mean their personality, thoughts, ideas, experiences etc...but that stuff can change in somoene just as much as their body can. That raises the interesting question of should you stay with somoene if their body/mentality does change in ways that are off putting.

I know one thing for sure I wouldn't bail on a relationship of 20 years with someone I loved just because their body had changed in some way, nor would I bail if their mentality changed in some way, there's limits to which both can change that are acceptable, those limits differ from person to person. So i guess to answer your first question, "no", if they mentally changed completely I'd like end that relationship, if they changed a bit but were mostly the same I'd stay with that person.

Thinking about that from another perspective it's sort of like looking at the range of people you find acceptable for long term relationships to begin with, that's a range of acceptable mental and physical characteristics, most people not raised indoctrinated on Disney movies know there's not some 1 magical person out there perfect for you, real life is all about tolerances within ranges you'll accept.

Anyway it's an interesting topic, I've not yet made up my mind on this, it'll require more thinking but it's interesting to me. Just to add one last thing, it's interesting to hear Tundra's opinion as a trans person (thank you Tundra) and I'm sort of surprised to hear the opinion that is indeed a brain problem but again as we've discussed already that changing the body is an issue of practicality. I'd like to politely ask Tundra if you had the option to alter your brain chemistry to relieve the feeling of brain/body mismatch would you do that, and to what degree would side effects of change in personality affect your decision? Please don't feel any pressure to answer, that's a personal question and I completely respect any decision to decline.

Also another thought occurred to me, people taking hormones to alter the growth of the body to aid in transitioning do actually see changes in their personality? I mean aside from the fact that you deliberately decide to change your gender (gender being separate from sex) by altering your behaviour, don't the hormones also change things like how emotional you can be and various other subtle mental changes? Liberalismus how do you feel about the body/brain divide when it comes to hormones used to help transition, if they have effect on both, does that affect the "identity" of people in your opinion? Would you draw the line at a partner of 20 years using hormones if that subtly altered their personality as part of a transition?

Thanks everyone, enjoying the discussion and learning a lot!

Hello Frosty,

I really appreciate your perspective and your tone. I think you explained your thoughts very well. Prior to reading your post I did not fully consider the important role that the physical body can have on identity development.

There is very little that you said that I would disagree with in your previous post. But I do have some questions/observations.

In an early post you wrote:

"However I'm talking about the framing that is used by trans people, I almost always read that they're born with the wrong body and that the mentality, the brain part is the part that's 'right' - if that even really means anything, which I'm not convicned it does, how is one thing inherently right and the other thing inherently wrong? It would be more correct to say they feel mismatched."

My assumption is that some transgender individuals often say they were born with the wrong body because it is easier for the lay person to understand. There's likely to be a wide range alternative words and phrases that could also describe the experience of being transgender. In other words, would it be accurate for a trans* person to say "I feel an incongruence between my mind (or brain) and body"? Probably.

Liberalismus wrote, "to look at something from a purely biological perspective, and expect a human to live their life in accordance with it, is to dehumanise them." Perhaps it would have been more accurate, or a better metaphor, to say something along the lines of "if you look at something from a purely biological perspective, you will not understand the whole experience of what it is to be human." Does that make sense? However, I am not quite sure what you mean when you state "It's it dehumanizing to say that part of you is wrong so you'll just cut it off, treating parts of your body as simply accessories that don't belong" (Italics added). Perhaps that is your point, that the term dehumanizing is problematic unless it is properly defined. Idk.

Liberalismus wrote:

The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon.

I wonder if you would disagree if I tweaked the last sentence: "The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influenced by the physical body."

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

I wonder if you would disagree if I tweaked those the last sentence: "The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influenced by the physical body."

I wouldn't disagree at all.

But at what point does irony set in?

If "the physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity because identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influence by the physical body" is TRUE,

then "the brain (independent of the physical body) doesn't have an identity because identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influenced by the brain" is ALSO TRUE.

Which means, the statement "being transgender is an identity that originates in the brain" is FALSE. (Identity doesn't arise in the brain; it doesn't arise in the body either; it arises in both.)

Eternal Growth · July 30, 2014

People get injured or go through trauma where they're psychologically altered in some way, we can lose memories, we can have personalities split or merge, humans can experience a lot of very fundamental changes to our brain and our capacity to reason or think, you seem to be suggesting that any kind of fundamental change to someones mentality would or should upset the relationship between people. What if your partner of 20 years suffers something like that, are you then justified in leaving the relationship simply because part of them has changed? I think it's a nice sentiment that people ignore the purely physical and focus on the menal but I don't think it has anything to do with reality because we're fundamentally attracted to the physical form and have different reactions to it. Maybe the best example is if your partner of 20 years changed sex completely, if you're heterosexual and your partner is of the opposite sex but changed to have a body of the same sex. What do you think the general populations reaction to that would be? Physical appearance isn't completely unimportant to most people, despite what we'd like to aspire to.

There are actually a lot of stories of trans people who get married, have children and then only come out to their partner later. I think what this reveals is the enormous lack of intimacy and openness that was in the relationship to begin with, although such lack of intimacy could be understandable for those in a culture with a heavy stigma against trans people who have to hide it for survival. In some of these cases the relationship stays intact (there was sufficient intimacy between the two consciousnesses that the relationship could survive one person's physical changes and changes in external identity, and the coming out may be regarded as a movement towards more intimacy), whereas in many there is a break-up. For those in that situation either option could be the more appropriate, though ideally the situation would never occur to begin with, if sufficient intimacy and honesty had been established prior to marriage.

I'm mostly heterosexual but panromantic, so although physical appearance is important to me for sexual attraction, I can have a "life partner" arrangement with someone of any physical appearance so long as the psychological intimacy is there.

Also another thought occurred to me, people taking hormones to alter the growth of the body to aid in transitioning do actually see changes in their personality? I mean aside from the fact that you deliberately decide to change your gender (gender being separate from sex) by altering your behaviour, don't the hormones also change things like how emotional you can be and various other subtle mental changes? Liberalismus how do you feel about the body/brain divide when it comes to hormones used to help transition, if they have effect on both, does that affect the "identity" of people in your opinion? Would you draw the line at a partner of 20 years using hormones if that subtly altered their personality as part of a transition?

Thanks everyone, enjoying the discussion and learning a lot!

That's a really good point. In my post I was making it out as though there was a very strong divide between the brain and the rest of the body (though I was doing this in the context of the false dichotomy of completely changing the brain or completely changing the body), whereas in actuality the brain and body are constantly in communication and influencing each other via the endocrine and nervous systems.

In my case, the psychological effects of taking estrogen and suppressing testosterone were actually some of the most beneficial effects I experienced from the treatment. For background: My entire life between the onset of puberty at ~12 and starting HRT at 17 was completely non-functional (I was a Western hikikomori and spent 5 years out of school). Within months of starting HRT, even though I was still presenting male at the time, my life began an upwards trajectory that continues to this day. Philosophy also explains part of the upward trajectory, however I had been involved in it for multiple years prior to starting HRT without reaping much benefit.

Under the influence of testosterone, I can't even say that I was depressed all of the time: I was completely emotionally numb. Not once during those years of male puberty did I smile, cry, feel sadness or even laugh. I also had to deal with the distress of my body and face becoming covered in hair and my voice deepening (complete horror for a teenage girl). Moreover, the mode of sexuality testosterone stimulates wasn't compatible with me. I was an active and outgoing kid until the onset of male puberty (in a suboptimal family environment but getting by), and became unable to leave the house for months at a time.

Though I don't think being trans and the testosterone were the exclusive reasons for the dysfunction in my life during that period. The parental response when my social withdrawal started certainly played a role in its severity. This is an area in which I am pursuing further self-knowledge. It does seem to be the case that depression and underachievement are very common in trans people prior to transition and tend to improve afterwards, though some trans people seem to be able to meet social, educational and career commitments without trouble pre-transition, so an area to explore would be what differentiates the two.

I'd just like to disclaimer the above (given that we live in a society which has coined the phrase "testosterone poisoning" yet not "estrogen poisoning") that I don't think testosterone is worse than estrogen overall. My point is not that testosterone is bad - it is that testosterone was incompatible with me, reduced my ability to function, and that it did that because, as a woman, I have evolved to thrive on estrogen, just as men have evolved to thrive on testosterone. There is a lot of evidence that anyone can find on Google showing that when cis men have reduced testosterone levels they experience depression and lack of motivation, and there is a lot of evidence showing that when cis women have reduced estrogen levels they also experience depression (see: the menopause). The same is the case in trans people when their levels of sex hormones aren't within the healthy ranges of their identified sex.

Being on estrogen, I have the ability to connect to my emotions, both positive and negative. I can process my life situation, and have the basic drive/motivation necessary in order to work with it.

Getting back to your question, I guess it depends to what extent we see emotions (to the extent to which they are influenced by hormones) as being part of a person's identity. Certainly, I am the same consciousness I was at 15 and have the same memories and mostly the same personality, but my way of engaging with my emotional life is very different now than it was then, and this was largely influenced by the medical suppression of testosterone and administration of estrogen bringing me to standard female levels.

To answer your question about the partner of 20 years who starts HRT: Well, why are they starting hormones? If I have been intimate with the inner life of my partner, I might understand the problems that their current hormone levels are causing them. They will remain more or less the same person inside as they are taking HRT, the way in which they experience their emotions will just experience changes. If these changes are positive for my partner, and I am with them throughout the gradual process of them taking place, is there any loss in intimacy between my consciousness and my partner's consciousness? I don't think so.

Thank you! I really appreciate and find interesting the points you are raising very interesting.

I wonder if you would disagree if I tweaked the last sentence: "The physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity. Identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influenced by the physical body."

It seems fine. After all, the brain can only develop in the presence of stimuli that is sensed by the body.

MMX2010 · July 30, 2014

It does seem to be the case that depression and underachievement are very common in trans people prior to transition and tend to improve afterwards, though some trans people seem to be able to meet social, educational and career commitments without trouble pre-transition, so an area to explore would be what differentiates the two.

My guess?

The more a trans-person believes that his/her life-misery is due to "discrimination against trans people", the less-capable the trans-person is of achieving success pre-transition.

Alice Amell · July 31, 2014

Homosexuality and transgender are completely different. They're, in fact, so different that they're mostly dissimilar.

"MMX2010 is a homosexual." involves observing his actions with other people. Because I'm not a homosexual, it's impossible for me to pretend to be homosexual for an extended period of time.

"MMX2010 is a transgendered person" involves exactly zero interactions with other people. (In Stefan's "Introduction to Philosophy" series, he expresses mild frustration with certain arguments because they can never be proven false. He compares, "We're all just brains in a vat, with no control over our lives." to "I had a dream about a sparrow last night." Because there's no zero-conclusion, no way to objectively prove that we're just brains in a vat, and no way to objectively prove that I had a dream about a sparrow last night, then neither of these two statements are philosophically true. You may sincerely believe that we're just brains in a vat, but sincere belief isn't objective philosophical truth.)

Because of the above explanations, and because transgendered-people have never exposed themselves to extreme scientific skepticism, the statement "I'm a transgendered person" doesn't currently acquire the status of philosophically true. It's, at best, a sincere belief.

--------------------------

Seriously, if I had a couple of million dollars, I'd conduct the following simple study.

Part One - Hire twenty actors to spend two-hundred hours acquiring the language that transgendered-people use to describe themselves.

Part Two - Make an "announcement video" on January 1st 2015 wherein these actors say, "Hi, my name is X. I am not, and have never been, a transgendered person. But I'm being paid to convincingly pretend to be one. My goal is to infiltrate transgendered-clinics to see if I can convince the clinicians there to prescribe hormone therapy."

Part Three - Have them execute the plan. (At this point, two distinct outcomes are possible. (1) I'm right about transgender, in which case the majority of my actors should easily acquire hormone therapy. If this were to happen, I'd be right that transgender is a highly subjective, socially-reinforced phenomenon that scientists have no reliable means of detecting. (2) I'm wrong about transgender, in which case all of my actors should be rejected when they seek hormone therapy.)

Part Four - Confront the clinicians with the "announcement video", just to see how they react. (Either highly uncomfortable, if I'm right about transgender - or highly satisfied, if I'm wrong about transgender.)

Part Five - Release the video to the public.

To me, the most reliably-predictable reaction is that the transgendered community would be offended either way. If I'm right about transgender, they'll hate me; if I'm wrong, they'll still hate me. But being offended by the skeptical use of science isn't a good reason to not conduct such experiments.

Right. Nor is my skepticism of transgender evidence that transgender isn't primarily biological. It's just skepticism.

I don't see what that study would imply other than people can be fooled. Doctors trust their patients data in order to make a diagnosis. That's why medical histories are important and so on. A study like the one you purpose WAS conducted (though not about transgender). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

To summarize it: he sent "psuedopatients" to go pretend they had schizophrenia and were admitted to an institution. Then they acted normal, but the doctors, since labeling them, saw their behavior as being schizophrenic. All of them were forced to admit they had schizophrenia and agree to take drugs in order to be released. The researcher used it to say that labeling is based and causes biased behaviors and so on, and that seems to be true. However, they were only labeled because they lied and pretended to be mentally ill. Someone could pretend to be homosexual - a man could have sex with other men and say he's homosexual, and there's no real way to disprove him. Similarly, a man could lie about being transgender and get hormones and take them. Does that mean homosexuality can't be philosophically true, as you put it? And what does that mean? It wouldn't really matter, if it's just a voluntary interaction, no?

Homosexual - "to feel strong physical / sexual attraction to members of the same sex." How can a definition which requires the presence of other people, be deemed to "not involve other people"?

I didn't. I concluded that it's much more difficult to extensively and convincingly pretend to be gay than it is to extensively and convincingly pretend to be transgender.

Right, but I never said that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" disproves that being trans is primarily-biological.

Instead, I've implied that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" in an environment where people are attacked for being trans-phobic whenever they disagree with trans-people would provide strong evidence that being trans is such a highly-cultural phenomenon that its biological-origins and aspects should be viewed as "limited, but not zero".

(Not to mention that, in your post so far, you've: (1) mis-represented two of my more important points, and (2) attacked me by saying, ", it seems like you have some serious beef with trans people, thats just what I got from reading all the posts in this thread by you and the thread you made on the subject. If I may ask, why is this subject important to you? And furthermore, (3) Lucas has ignored my questions, and frozen me out of the discussion. And (4) Liberalismus has publically-accused me of being abusive, and has refused to provide evidence of my so-called abusiveness.)

(Alice Amell has remained wonderfully polite, curious, and open-minded.)

Yes, yes you have.

But I've offered two counter-points earlier in this thread.

(1) A study of religious/spiritual people has concluded that their brains differ significantly from those of non-religious people. A scientist within that study speculated that repeated exposures to religious services, religious meditation, and religious thoughts permanently alters the brains of religious people. It is also true that practically all religions/forms-of-spirituality describe certain "core elements" of God/spirit using overlapping/downright-identical definitions. Finally, it is also true that those descriptions match feelings which can be induced in anyone by electrical stimulation to certain areas of the brain.

The overall conclusion is that religions/spirituality are almost entirely socially-constructed, with a very small amount of biological-origins. (Basically, you first get "religious / spiritual feelings" because one out of a possible million stimuli triggers that feeling. And then society explains that feeling using a religious / spiritual myth.)

(2) "The phrenology debacle" occurred in science less than 150 years ago. Back then, society wrongly believed two things: that larger brains equaled more intelligence, and that the natural intelligence of men was far superior to women's. In this social environment, a bunch of scientists used a "grain-filling" method to determine the volume of empty skulls.

But when the scientists knew the gender of the empty skulls, they measured skull-volume in self-serving ways. (If the skull was male, they sub-consciously really "packed the grain in" to produce higher-volume measurements. If the skull was female, they sub-consciously put less grain in.) Meanwhile, when the scientists didn't know the gender of any skulls, they sub-consciously used an equal-grain-filling method. (Not surprisingly, this second measurement-method was more accurate, and it concluded that women and men have roughly equal skull volumes.)

----------------------------------

The first study, with the religious people, suggests that "strongly believing you're a transgendered person from a young age" can produce permanent physical alterations to your brain.

The second study, with the brain volume, suggests that "if you begin investigating transgendered people BY ONLY investigating transgendered people, scientists will eventually discover brain-differences because they know they're supposed to discover something".

Because of the two studies I mentioned in my counter-argument, I think a "let's see if non-transgendered people can trick clinicians into prescribing hormone therapy" is highly useful. It can determine, with reasonable accuracy, the degree to which scientists' understanding of transgendered-brains is accurate AND the degree to which clinicians just "go along with" the testimonies of transgendered-people because they're culturally trained to do so.

BEAR IN MIND, please, that I've drawn no conclusions about transgendered-people. I've strongly-felt suspicions based on speculations and hunches - but I don't use those suspicions, speculations, and hunches to look down on transgendered people. (If you realize this, then you'll understand the bleak-irony pervading this entire thread.)

Thank you :thanks:

Yes, behavior can change the brain so I don't think differences in brains is conclusive proof that it exists but it is then evidence of similar behavior between them. Could it not then be used to differentiate between those trying to fake it and those who aren't? However, if you are trying to get hormones, they aren't there to diagnose you, they are there to meet your needs through voluntary interaction. I don't see that as a problem at all. If you wanted to go take the test, and can pay for it, then that could be provided also.

I don't think being "culturally trained" has much to do with it. Whether or not a doctor believes that from birth a person can have a condition that causes a feeling of in-congruence which prompts them to seek hormones, it's still a voluntary interaction.

What do you mean by, "ONLY investigating transgender people?" they did compare them to non-trans people. And how else do you study trans people? By not studying them at all? I don't think they were bound to find something with the brain, though I've heard if you try to find a similar gene in a group of people (who could be arbitrarily selected), there's so many genes that you are bound to find one (though I don't know if this claim is true... it was said by my former sociology professor - and that class was full of marxism and propaganda).

I wouldn't disagree at all.

But at what point does irony set in?

If "the physical body (independent of the brain) doesn't have an identity because identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influence by the physical body" is TRUE,

then "the brain (independent of the physical body) doesn't have an identity because identity is a psychological/neurological phenomenon that can be influenced by the brain" is ALSO TRUE.

Which means, the statement "being transgender is an identity that originates in the brain" is FALSE. (Identity doesn't arise in the brain; it doesn't arise in the body either; it arises in both.)

Not necessarily. Just because the body and brain are connected and influence each other does not mean that something can't originate in one without originating in the other. If for example I was born with 6 fingers, I wouldn't say that originated in both the brain and the body. And if I'm mistaken and it were, I'm not sure what that would really imply or change other than theories of possible causes.

My guess?

The more a trans-person believes that his/her life-misery is due to "discrimination against trans people", the less-capable the trans-person is of achieving success pre-transition.

Unlike feminists though, trans people are discriminated against, so the belief in this case is justified. Which is definitely a factor, but also a factor is the fact that pre-transition, trans people don't feel like they are who they should be, or their body is the opposite of what they want, which can have a negative impact.

I'm not sure whether the cause will be known, since there are so many factors as there are with a lot of things. As far as I know there's no known cause for being gay.Those studies which I've now read through the abstracts, at least, definitely show brain differences in transsexuals even before any hormone treatment in some of the studies. And regardless of its cause, it's still all voluntary so there's no moral issue at least. Though I don't always feel this way, whether or not being gay or being trans is a choice I feel is almost irrelevant since there's nothing wrong with it anyway. It's almost as if having a biological cause justifies it to others, when it shouldn't need justification because there's no real problem (morally, anyway...I suppose "problem" is subjective otherwise though).

On a side note I wish the gender stereotypes would go away altogether. Gender shouldn't even exist as far as I know, since it's based on cultural definitions and stereotypes. People should be able to act however they want. I know I said that before but I just wanted to reiterate since it's been a while.

Tundra · August 2, 2014

My guess?

The more a trans-person believes that his/her life-misery is due to "discrimination against trans people", the less-capable the trans-person is of achieving success pre-transition.

Um... except if they're in the closet, likely nobody is discriminating against them. during and after the transition is when they are likely to face discrimination.

BEAR IN MIND, please, that I've drawn no conclusions about transgendered-people. I've strongly-felt suspicions based on speculations and hunches - but I don't use those suspicions, speculations, and hunches to look down on transgendered people. (If you realize this, then you'll understand the bleak-irony pervading this entire thread.)

So, to me, being transgender is being delusional

The more "mythical" society's conception of gender is, the less sense it makes to say, "I am gender-confused, so I must mutilate my body to conform to my society's definitions of gender."

you're calling transitioning mutilation here

(3) It assumes that my opinion of sex/gender (which is derived from reading a fair amount of scientific books on sex/gender) is equally valid as a transgendered-person's opinion of sex/gender (which is NOT derived from reading any scientific books on sex/gender). (I disagree, and think my opinion should be weighed more heavily, because it's more scientifically-derived.)

here and many other places you assume that trans people don't have any knowledge about sex/gender. You seem to confuse SJWs/feminists with transgender people. You have made repeated claims that we are trans only because we don't understand biological sex from a scientific standpoint.

and lastly, here you are comparing being trans with being racist, being a theist, being a sexist and being a sports fanatic. which seems to be echoing to a degree your above statement that trans people are delusional. So don't claim you haven't made any judgement of transpeople.

But, to be fair, there are also parallels between "feeling that you're not your gender", and between "feeling that your race is superior", "feeling that your gender is superior", "feeling that a specific God is real", and even "feeling that a particular sports team deserves loyalty.

Also sorry for the double post but it wouldn't let me post this all as one post.

Tundra · August 2, 2014

Homosexual - "to feel strong physical / sexual attraction to members of the same sex." How can a definition which requires the presence of other people, be deemed to "not involve other people"?

This is what you said

""MMX2010 is a homosexual." involves observing his actions with other people. Because I'm not a homosexual, it's impossible for me to pretend to be homosexual for an extended period of time. "

you said it involved observing his ACTIONS with other people, and I said that you can be homosexual without engaging in homosexual acts. It IS possible to pretend to be homosexual, just as it is possible to pretend to be heterosexual and many people do that it's called being in the closet. It's not impossible to pretend to be homosexual.

I didn't. I concluded that it's much more difficult to extensively and convincingly pretend to be gay than it is to extensively and convincingly pretend to be transgender.

Based on what.

Right, but I never said that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" disproves that being trans is primarily-biological.

Instead, I've implied that "being able to convincingly fake being trans" in an environment where people are attacked for being trans-phobic whenever they disagree with trans-people would provide strong evidence that being trans is such a highly-cultural phenomenon that its biological-origins and aspects should be viewed as "limited, but not zero".

(Not to mention that, in your post so far, you've: (1) mis-represented two of my more important points, and (2) attacked me by saying, ", it seems like you have some serious beef with trans people, thats just what I got from reading all the posts in this thread by you and the thread you made on the subject. If I may ask, why is this subject important to you? And furthermore, (3) Lucas has ignored my questions, and frozen me out of the discussion. And (4) Liberalismus has publically-accused me of being abusive, and has refused to provide evidence of my so-called abusiveness.)

(Alice Amell has remained wonderfully polite, curious, and open-minded.)

Saying how I've read your posts in this and the other thread isn't an attack on you, and asking you why you care about the subject isn't an attack either when I read your posts thats what came to my mind. Secondly I'm not lucas or liberalismus and I don't believe I misrepresented your points. You said you can tell if someone is homosexual by their actions with other people and I said that being homosexual doesn't have to do with actions involving other people, it's a sexuality. you can be homosexual without having sex. Just like being a virgin doesnt make straight people not straight.

Yes, yes you have.

But I've offered two counter-points earlier in this thread.

(1) A study of religious/spiritual people has concluded that their brains differ significantly from those of non-religious people. A scientist within that study speculated that repeated exposures to religious services, religious meditation, and religious thoughts permanently alters the brains of religious people. It is also true that practically all religions/forms-of-spirituality describe certain "core elements" of God/spirit using overlapping/downright-identical definitions. Finally, it is also true that those descriptions match feelings which can be induced in anyone by electrical stimulation to certain areas of the brain.

The overall conclusion is that religions/spirituality are almost entirely socially-constructed, with a very small amount of biological-origins. (Basically, you first get "religious / spiritual feelings" because one out of a possible million stimuli triggers that feeling. And then society explains that feeling using a religious / spiritual myth.)

Okay but heres the difference between the religious people and the trans people brains. Trans people's brains fall in line with expected norms of their identified gender. So do you really believe that just by wishing you were another sex and this changes multiple areas of oyur brain to fall exactly inline with that of the other sex?

(2) "The phrenology debacle" occurred in science less than 150 years ago. Back then, society wrongly believed two things: that larger brains equaled more intelligence, and that the natural intelligence of men was far superior to women's. In this social environment, a bunch of scientists used a "grain-filling" method to determine the volume of empty skulls.

But when the scientists knew the gender of the empty skulls, they measured skull-volume in self-serving ways. (If the skull was male, they sub-consciously really "packed the grain in" to produce higher-volume measurements. If the skull was female, they sub-consciously put less grain in.) Meanwhile, when the scientists didn't know the gender of any skulls, they sub-consciously used an equal-grain-filling method. (Not surprisingly, this second measurement-method was more accurate, and it concluded that women and men have roughly equal skull volumes.)

Okay but the studies I linked to you had control groups and have been repeated by multiple people, you are suggesting that they fudged the number of neurons in a section of the brain or the density of neurons in that section of the brain. This just seems like grasping at straws to me. Which again makes me wonder why this subject is so important to you.

The first study, with the religious people, suggests that "strongly believing you're a transgendered person from a young age" can produce permanent physical alterations to your brain.

But can strongly believing you're a trans person from a young age change multiple areas of your brain to fall exactly in typical ranges of the other sex? (I had never even knew trans people existed until I was 14 and I certainly didn't accept that I was trans then and yet.... Also again transgendered isn't even a word, it's like saying blacked person when talking about black people...)

The second study, with the brain volume, suggests that "if you begin investigating transgendered people BY ONLY investigating transgendered people, scientists will eventually discover brain-differences because they know they're supposed to discover something".

except they also had multiple different controls, cismen and women, gay cismen and women, people with hormone disorders, people who for whatever reason were exposed to cross sex hormones but were not trans. So the claim that they ONLY looked at trans people is blatantly false and you would know that if you actually read even the abstracts of the studies I linked.

Because of the two studies I mentioned in my counter-argument, I think a "let's see if non-transgendered people can trick clinicians into prescribing hormone therapy" is highly useful. It can determine, with reasonable accuracy, the degree to which scientists' understanding of transgendered-brains is accurate AND the degree to which clinicians just "go along with" the testimonies of transgendered-people because they're culturally trained to do so.

You honestly think that people are 'culturally trained' to just 'go along with' trans people? then you are delusional, I hate to say it but you are fundamentally delusional if you think our culture is one of acceptance of trans people. Also I've explained why I don't think that 'study' is useful, just because you can FAKE an illness or disorder doesn't mean it's not real. It's absurd to say otherwise. If I get some actors to fake a disease and then get prescribed treatment does that mean the disease isn't real?

MMX2010 · August 2, 2014

Um... except if they're in the closet, then likely nobody is discriminating against them. during and after the transition is when they are likely to face discrimination.

If a trans-person is "in the closet", then they're declaring to themselves and others that "being transgendered" isn't really that important to them. Nor is acquiring any validation or respect-from-others based on being transgendered.

Instead, they're declaring that "being transgendered" is much less important on their hierarchy of needs than, say, getting a good job, going to college, making their friends and family feel comfortable, and fitting in to normal society.

here and many other places you assume that trans people don't have any knowledge about sex/gender.

You're making two strawmen, here. (1) That I'm assuming rather than observing. (2) That I see knowledge deficiencies in sex/gender, rather than sex only.

People who have studied sex use the following terms: "natural selection", "sexual selection", "runaway sexual selection", "r-selection", "K-selection", "r-selective environment", and "K-selective environment". No transgendered person in this thread has used any of those terms in this thread.

------------------------------

Furthermore, I can also easily and safely assume that neither you, Alice Amell, Lucas, nor Liberalismus have read "Crazy Like Us" - which details the spreading of Western-defined psychological diseases into non-Western countries and cultures.

That book is crucial because it describes the following:

(1) In a biological disease, (caused by a bacteria, fungus, or virus), the sequence is always the same: diseased-individuals present themselves to their doctors. Blood and tissue sample are collected. A virus, bacteria, or fungus is discovered to cause the disease. A specific drug is invented. The drug proliferates and the disease is cured. (This sequence is called "Disease precedes cure.")

(2) In some psychologically-caused diseases, the sequence is backwards. (In other words, "Cure precedes disease.")

How? The easiest example is "erectile dysfunction". But other examples include eating disorders, PTSD, and depression.

The first thing to remember is that ALL psychologically-cause disease claim to follow the "Disease precedes cure." sequence. But this is not always the case.

Viagra was developed by accident. An older man taking an experimental blood pressure treatment complained of constant erections. His doctor passed this information along to the drug company, when then marketed the drug as a cure for "erectile dysfunction", a disease which DID NOT EXIST at the time; it was simply invented. Then, the drug company advertised the existence of "erectile dysfunction". And because enough men accepted the premise that they were suffering from "erectile dysfunction", enough men tried Viagra and experienced a "cure". From then onwards, both "erectile dysfunction" and its cure, Viagra, became commonly accepted definitions within our culture.

------------------

This is CRUCIAL because personal testimonials saying, "At first, I felt diseased/deficient, but then I took this drug and my disease/deficiency vanished! Yay!", are consistent with BOTH sequences - "Disease precedes cure." OR "Cure precedes disease."

The second-most important question that arises is, "In Cure-precedes-disease enterprises is it IMMORAL to convince people that they had a disease that they wouldn't independently conceive as a disease, just so you can sell them the cure? (I'm not saying the answer is Yes, in all cases. But I'm sure the answer must be Yes, in some cases.)

But the absolutely-most important question which arises in this thread is, "Which of the two sequences - Disease-precedes-cure OR Cure-precedes-disease - does transgender follow?" Was transgender independently and without-agenda discovered OR was it marketed as a viable condition once hormone treatment was discovered? (And how do you know?)

Saying how I've read your posts in this and the other thread isn't an attack on you, and asking you why you care about the subject isn't an attack either when I read your posts thats what came to my mind.

Tundra, I'm going to model TWO identical ways of asking you about your avatar photo. Ready?

Model Number One: Hey, Tundra. I'm curious about your avatar photo. Why did you choose it?

Model Number Two: Hey, Tundra. I'm curious about your avatar photo. When I look at it, I get the sense that you chose it because you have a beef with non transgendered people. So, why did you choose it?

-----------------------------

Tundra, only the FIRST model of asking you about your avatar is actually curious, because it presents no "poison the well" assumptions to the group. And, because it presents no "poison the well" assumptions, it allows you to freely answer the question.

HOWEVER, the SECOND model of asking you about your avatar contains the "poison the well" assumption that you chose your avatar BECAUSE you have beef with non transgendered people.

If you answer the question WITHOUT addressing the poison-the-well assumption, you're tacitly admitting that you chose your avatar BECAUSE you have a beef with non transgendered people.

But if you CHALLENGE the assertion that you have a beef with non-transgendered people, guess what? You can't disprove my FEELING that you have a beef with non transgendered people. No one can disprove other peoples' feeling about anything!

Therefore, your question WAS an attack on me - whether you "believe" it or not.

-------------------------------------------

Edited to add: Experience has taught me that waiting for apologies in this thread isn't very fruitful, so I'll just pretend that your question was non-attacking by answering it.

I was born in 1976 and graduated high school in 1994. I was third in my class of over 600 people, and attended public school in a middle-class, highly-liberal state.

In my lifetime, FOUR major social movements have ascended, all of which followed the following structure: "We are an oppressed minority. Society-as-a-whole, (not just-us), would be better if we weren't oppressed. Be careful, though, because our oppressors profit greatly from our oppression - so you shouldn't expect them to just agree with us. After they resist our pleas over a sufficient period of time, you can just ignore and dismiss them."

Those four social movements are, IN ORDER: (1) pro-Black, anti-racism, (2) pro-women, non-misogynistic, (3) pro-gay/lesbian, anti-homophobic, (4) pro-transgender, anti-transphobic.

Each of these movements can be evaluated (on a 1=bad, 10=good scale) with regard to two aspects: Philosophical Integrity and Solutions Integrity.

-----------------------

(1) The pro-Black, anti-racism movement scores 8 on the Philosophical Integrity scale, and a 6 on the Solutions Integrity scale. Their complaints are reasonable and scientifically-supported, but their solutions have been hit-or-miss. (One wonders whether the government-backed nature of their solutions causes the problems.)

(2) The pro-women, anti-misogyny scale scores 2 on the Philosophical Integrity scale, and a 1 on the Solutions Integrity scale. Feminism as a philosophy is almost completely wrong, to the point where you can replace "women" with "men" and achieve a much more accurate assessment. (Thus, when feminists say "Women's bodies are collectivized!", you should assume that "Men's bodies are collectivized.") And its solutions are, not-surprisingly, damaging to everyone.

(3) The pro-gay/lesbian movement scores a 6 on the Philosophical Integrity scale, and a 5 on the Solutions Integrity scale. Their complaints are mostly reasonable, and mostly scientifically-supported. I, personally, have zero problems with gay marriage - but I'm absolutely not sold on gay parenting. I would much prefer a "trial experimental period" of fifty years, wherein the US is divided into "states that allow gay parenting" and "states that don't". But I'm only being offered, "If you don't accept gay parenting, everywhere, you're a homophobe!"

(4) The pro-transgender, anti-transphobia movement gets a ??? on the Philosophical Integrity scale, and a ??? on the Solutions Integrity scale. You're simply too new to the party to determine your grade.

NOW, the absolute most important thing to realize is that the "social movement" structures I described can produce the mostly-good movement called "pro-Black / anti-racism" OR the utterly destructive, philosophically-bankrupt movement called "pro-women / anti-misogyny". Consequently, I'm not impressed with complaints of discrimination and oppression, but instead with scientific-evidence acquired under maximum skepticism. (Scientific-evidence acquired under minimum skepticism is practically useless.)

You honestly think that people are 'culturally trained' to just 'go along with' trans people? then you are delusional, I hate to say it but you are fundamentally delusional if you think our culture is one of acceptance of trans people.

Nope. I think the transgendered-community, exactly like the Blacks, women, gays, and lesbians before them, are providing social-pressure on everyone. They're using the exact same model of assuming, "If you dislike us, you're transphobic!".

When they apply that pressure onto scientists, those scientists respond by finding ways that transgendered-brains differ from non-transgendered-brains.

BUT a maximally-skeptical person would test the reliability of those findings, rather than just accepting them. I've designed some easy-to-follow experiments that no one in this thread either acknowledges or says we should follow.

I've even improved my experiments: (1) Create twelve different groups of 30 people: (A) 9 actors pretending to be transgender, 21 transgender; (B) 15 actors pretending to be transgender, 15 transgender; © 21 actors pretending to be transgender, 9 transgender. (2) Move those twelve groups to twelve different transgender clinics but tell the scientists that, in all groups, there are 15 pretenders, 15 real-transgenders. (3) Challenge the clinicians to, in all groups, separate the 15 phonies from the 15 reals.

Those experiments are brilliant because the clinicians will either: (1) not-at-all be tricked by the "15 pretenders" cue, which will confirm that scientists have, indeed, discovered reliable methods of measuring differences in transgendered-brains OR (2) be completely tricked.

Such an experiment would, with 100% reliability, determine the reliability of the scientific-findings on transgender. But, ironically, I think that's precisely why you don't think such experiments should be conducted.

Lucas · August 3, 2014

(3) The pro-gay/lesbian movement scores a 6 on the Philosophical Integrity scale, and a 5 on the Solutions Integrity scale. Their complaints are mostly reasonable, and mostly scientifically-supported. I, personally, have zero problems with gay marriage - but I'm absolutely not sold on gay parenting. I would much prefer a "trial experimental period" of fifty years, wherein the US is divided into "states that allow gay parenting" and "states that don't". But I'm only being offered, "If you don't accept gay parenting, everywhere, you're a homophobe!"

Emphasis added.

I accidentally up-voted the above post rather than of down-voting it (for an endorsement of a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle via a preference for state enforced laws that would prohibit raising children on some caretakers, but not on others based upon their geographical location), among numerous other reasons.

Edit: I notice my post has two down-votes. Please correct me if I am wrong and the statement I quoted is not a preference for a violation of the NAP. If it is not, I will apologize for making a false accusation.

GrungeGuy · August 5, 2014

I find this whole topic quite confusing. What does it mean to have an identity that involves your physical body and is incongruous with the reality of your body? Are the brain, the body, and identity not intimately linked together? My brain is in constant communication with my body and they develop together, so my identity is related to both. As far as I understand, the degree to which my body is incongruous with my identity is the degree to which I have had to cut myself off from my more spontaneous and integrated identity to gain the approval and avoid the abandonment of my parents. Are we saying that there is an identity that involves the body (hence the decision to have one's body physically altered), and exists in the brain, but isn't actually in relationship to the body (other than the brain alone) and that is gender identity?

I'm thinking of this analogy and I would love for somebody to show me where it falls, because perhaps it will demonstrate my confusion on this issue quite clearly for people who are more knowledgeable here.

I have two eyes, objectively. That was determined by my biology. Do I also have an eye identity that could be one eye, or three eyes, etc., but for me happens to be two, just like the reality of my body?

MMX2010 · August 6, 2014

Please correct me if I am wrong and the statement I quoted is not a preference for a violation of the NAP. If it is not, I will apologize for making a false accusation.

Something funny.

Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004.

Therefore, the United States has already been, for the last ten years "divided into "states that allow gay parenting" and "states that don't".

So, by accusing me of "violating the NAP" - (which you did, without providing any evidence/explanation) - you unwittingly accused all gay-marriage proponents of violating the NAP. (Moreover, one of the chief arguments supporting gay marriage is, "Ever since 2004, when gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, none of the apocalyptically negative predictions from anti-gay marriage individuals have come to pass.")

MMX2010 · August 7, 2014

I have two eyes, objectively. That was determined by my biology. Do I also have an eye identity that could be one eye, or three eyes, etc., but for me happens to be two, just like the reality of my body?

Yes, but only if you belong to a religion which tells you, from birth, that this is the case. It's not something you would develop either (1) on your own, on a desert island, or (2) in defiance of a culture which says this is impossible.

The more I read the responses in this thread, the more inclined I am to view transgender as a religious-idea: (something you need to be indoctrinated into, because you would never develop the idea yourself).

---------------------------------

Another confusion: Transgendered people strictly limit their definition of "identity" to "that which is generated by the brain" versus "that which is generated by the body", but Identity (in the psychological sense) is never strictly-limited to those two factors. Your most treasured possessions are part of your identity. So are your religious beliefs - (especially when you're willing to stop being friendly to those who disagree with them). So can your favorite movie - (especially, again, when you're willing to stop being friendly with and/or downvote the posts of anyone who hates your favorite movie).

Your clothes, too, are part of your identity. But if your clothes are part of your identity, then why haven't transgendered individuals proposed, as a form of "transitioning", "the wearing of clothing that's strongly associated with your biological sex, while also being friendly with everyone you meet, until your feelings of possessing a mind-trapped-in-the-wrong-gender disappear after forming many good friendships with people who don't view you as gender-confused because you never presented yourself as gender-confused"?

In other words, I'm biologically-male. And if I ever felt transgendered, I could simply wear stereotypically-male clothing, make a ton of friends, and wait until my transgendered-feelings disappear.

Why is that NOT a valid "solution" to the "problem" of transgender? (Quotes around "solution" and "problem" because those are potentially pejorative words, and I've no intention of being pejorative.)

Lucas · August 7, 2014

I find this whole topic quite confusing. What does it mean to have an identity that involves your physical body and is incongruous with the reality of your body? Are the brain, the body, and identity not intimately linked together? My brain is in constant communication with my body and they develop together, so my identity is related to both. As far as I understand, the degree to which my body is incongruous with my identity is the degree to which I have had to cut myself off from my more spontaneous and integrated identity to gain the approval and avoid the abandonment of my parents. Are we saying that there is an identity that involves the body (hence the decision to have one's body physically altered), and exists in the brain, but isn't actually in relationship to the body (other than the brain alone) and that is gender identity?

I'm thinking of this analogy and I would love for somebody to show me where it falls, because perhaps it will demonstrate my confusion on this issue quite clearly for people who are more knowledgeable here.

I have two eyes, objectively. That was determined by my biology. Do I also have an eye identity that could be one eye, or three eyes, etc., but for me happens to be two, just like the reality of my body?

Hey GrungeGuy,

I haven't met anyone (that I know of) that would claim that the brain and the body are not intimately linked together.

You asked, "what does it mean to have an identity that involves your physical body and is incongruous with the reality of your body?" I'm not completely sure of the answer. The etiology of transgenderism is not that well understood. There is strong evidence that a genetic factor is one component in the development of a transgender identity (see previous posts). There is also no evidence in the literature to suggest that parents can influence the etiology of transgenderism. Most of the current relevant research has been referenced to in this thread. In addition, when you speak of "eye identity," there are other conditions which could fall into that category (e.g., Body integrity identity disorder [see Meyer-Bahlburg H.F. for further discussion as it relates to Gender Dysphoria]). But body integrity identity disorder is much less prevalent, much less research, and much less understood.

I'm not sure what this means: "...the degree to which my body is incongruous with my identity is the degree to which I have had to cut myself off from my more spontaneous and integrated identity to gain the approval and avoid the abandonment of my parents."

I believe I understand your confusion around Gender Identity. Here is another definition of Gender Identity. Let me know if it gives you a better understanding of the term.

Gender Identity: “In essence, the brain and mind work to establish an inner sense of self as male, female, or other, based on body, on thoughts and feelings, and absorption of messages from the external world, a sense of self that may or not match the sex that is found between one’s legs.” (Ehrensaft, D., 2012, p. 339).

The question for those in the helping profession (counselors, therapist, psychology, endocrinologist, surgeons, etc.) is how can we use the knowledge in the current literature to meet the needs of our clients through voluntary interactions?

GrungeGuy · August 7, 2014

Hi Lucas,

Thank you for the response, this gives me some things to think about.

MMX2010 · August 7, 2014

I don't see what that study would imply other than people can be fooled. Doctors trust their patients data in order to make a diagnosis. That's why medical histories are important and so on. A study like the one you purpose WAS conducted (though not about transgender). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

The Rosenhan experiment was extremely important, because it illustrated that clinicians lack an unbiased assessment of schizophrenia. Without this unbiased assessment, ALL of their clinical diagnoses of either schizophrenia or you're-not-schizophrenic are cast into doubt. And once this doubt is established, any individual (even, and especially if they don't have any expertise in psychology) can just "disbelieve" what the psychologists say about any individual WITHOUT being deemed "stupid" or "immoral".

And it's the same with transgendered-individuals. Because clinicians haven't subjected themselves to any form of, "Can you use the brain-scans which you've so ardently promoted as scientifically-relevant to differentiate between real-transgendered and phony-transgendered people?" test, clinicians haven't established to the maximum possible extent the scientific-relevance of their brain-scanning technique. Hence, any individual (even and especially those with no scientific intelligence) can just "disbelieve" what the clinicians say WITHOUT being dubbed "stupid" or "trans-phobic". (In fact, to assume that such a person IS "stupid" or "trans-phobic" is just name-calling to censor that person's opinion, simply because it doesn't provide you with the validation you seek. And this is immoral, according to On Truth.)

-------------------------

Those studies which I've now read through the abstracts, at least, definitely show brain differences in transsexuals even before any hormone treatment in some of the studies. And regardless of its cause, it's still all voluntary so there's no moral issue at least.

I think you're confusing your own "noble" sense of your own transgendered-feelings and transgendered-identity with other people's "not at all noble" sense of their own transgendered-feelings and transgendered-identity.

Identity is composed of "ANYTHING that provides you with validation and self-worth", and most people become angry / violent whenever other people threaten their validation and self-worth.

When a Christian asks you, "What's your favorite Biblical verse?", that's usually an anxiety-provoking question because: (1) Christians garner a lot of validation and self-worth through their Christian beliefs, and (2) you know he's asking you this question to determine the degree to which you'll support his Christian beliefs. But whenever a stranger asks, "What's your favorite movie?", that's usually not-at-all an anxiety-provoking question because most people simply don't garner much validation or self-worth through their favorite movies.

I've never detected any hint of, "You're transphobic if you disagree with me about transgender!" in your posts, so I've concluded that transgender is not-that-important to your identity. (Not saying it's unimportant, but it's not THAT important.) However, when you analyze Lucas's, Liberalismus's, and (to a lesser extent) Tundra's behavior in this thread, you can see that they're using anger, false accusations, and/or downvoting against me in this thread. (Lucas went so far as to accuse me of "violating the Non-Aggression Principle, without explaining why. And Liberalismus accused me of "abusing her" in my posts, without explaining why.)

Even though four is a very small sample size, you're being "out-voted" three-to-one with regard to the question, "Should we use anger, false accusations, and/or downvoting to censor / control those who disagree with transgender?" Which leads me to believe that you're confusing your own "noble attachment" to your own transgendered-feelings and identity with other people's "lack of noble attachment".

It also suggests that transgender is, for the most part, NOT an "a-moral, voluntary interaction between transgendered individual and clinician". It is, instead, "either a highly moral OR highly immoral action which happens when transgendered people FIRST attempt to acquire scientific-legitimacy for their transgendered condition and THEN attempt to control/censor the opinions of everyone, based on their perceived acquisition of scientific legitimacy".

Hi Lucas,

Thank you for the response, this gives me some things to think about.

I dunno if you've read my earlier links to what scientists know about religion, but I posted them to provide a point-of-comparison to transgender.

Scientists know that you can electrify specific areas of the brain to produce religious-feelings in NON-religious people. Such religious-feelings include, "a sense of being one with the universe", and "a sense that there's a higher power". (This is the Natural / Biological / Genetic factor associated with religion.) However, because religion offers a myriad of explanations, and because these explanations contradict one another, and because these explanations lack objective scientific-support, religion is almost exclusively social. (If you want to use made-up-numbers, religion is about 3% Natural / Biological / Genetic and about 97% Non-Natural / Non-Biological / Non-Genetic / Social.)

Focusing on transgender, have any scientists been able to electrify a NON-transgendered person's brain to produce an, "OMG, I'm totally a woman trapped in a man's body!" sensation? (To my knowledge, they have not.)

Now, I understand that there are many ways to produce scientific evidence that "There's a strong genetic component to transgender." - but scientists discovered the strong genetic component of religion through producing religious-feelings in non-religious people. And that specific type of strong evidence isn't present with regard to transgender.

Did you also notice that, EVEN THOUGH there's a "strong genetic component" to religious-experience, it's still true that religious-experience is almost exclusively Non-Natural, Non-Biological, Non-Genetic, and Social? If this is true for religious experience, then it's true for all things which have any form of "genetic component", of which transgender is certainly included.

--------------------------------

Secondly, Lucas's definition of Gender Identity reads: "In essence, the brain and mind work to establish an inner sense of self as male, female, or other, based on body, on thoughts and feelings, and absorption of messages from the external world, a sense of self that may or not match the sex that is found between one’s legs.” (Ehrensaft, D., 2012, p. 339)."

That's a great definition, but the inclusion of "absorption of messages from the external world" raises questions.

(1) Does "whether your culture promotes transgender or violently opposes transgender" COUNT as "a message from the external world, which can be absorbed"? (I think it does.)

(2) If it does, have scientists compared the existence of transgender in cultures-that-acknowledge-transgender and cultures-which-violently-oppose transgender? (To my knowledge, scientists have not done this.)

Homosexuality is a highly natural human condition that equally exists in cultures that acknowledge homosexuality (modern America) compared to cultures which violently oppose homosexuality (Islamic cultures). In fact, because homosexuality equally exists in both types of cultures, it is said to be highly natural. (Now, there's an enormous difference between the degree to which homosexuality is openly practiced in both cultures, but that isn't the same thing as the degree to which homosexuality exists in both cultures.)

------------------------------

Overall, when you combine all of this research, transgender appears LESS natural / genetic than both religion and homosexuality.

GrungeGuy · August 7, 2014

One thing that I am thinking about is that a lot of psychotherapy has as a part of both it's understanding of psychopathology and healing the issue of integration. Psychopathology is thought to occur as a result of a splitting-off from our awareness and our self-concept significant parts of our experience (thoughts, feelings, preferences, memories, etc.). This splitting-off occurs as part of a survival strategy - we sense that the expression of this aspect of our experience may threaten the bond with our caregivers, which we as dependent children cannot afford, so we adapt by internalizing the message that expressing it is not OK and we may even push it completely out of our awareness. As a result, many therapeutic modalities attempt to provide curiosity, empathy, compassion, acceptance, etc. in order to create a relationship in which the client can re-connect with split-off parts of their experience so that these experiences can be integrated, so that they can have more information from which to understand themselves and make decisions, and so that they can be relieved of the unpleasant symptoms associated with maintaining this split in their connection with their spontaneous experience (e.g. overwhelming anxiety, tension, depression, dissociation, etc.). One of the many ways that we can split-off from our experience is to become disconnected from our bodies, to one degree or another, and so many therapists will make re-connection with and integration of one's bodily experience a part of the therapy.

What I am wondering about then, if I believe that bodily awareness and integration of the information that one gets from their body is an important part of psychological healing and well being, which I do, how does this come into play in work with a person (whether they be transgender or have BIID) who has a self-concept that is incongruent with their bodily existence? Given that we don't know the etiology of TG and BIID, and gender identity is being understood as somebody's "inner sense of self", and that it is simply asserted that this "inner sense" is innate, this is where my thinking goes. Now, I wouldn't tell a person "You just think you are TG because you are split-off from parts of your experience" but I also wouldn't be able to honestly say that it makes sense to me that they have an innate gender identity (or BIID equivalent) that is incongruent with their body. How would we know that an innate gender identity "that may or may not match the sex that is found between one's legs" exists? and, has this been demonstrated?

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