Wachowski Brothers, Nope, Sisters

[Fed_Up]

If a young lad says to his parents that he feels like a dinosaur inside, should they tell them to stop being silly or give him pills that will make him more like a dinosaur, even though he'll never really be one?

[dgul]

If a young lad says to his parents that he feels like a dinosaur inside, should they tell them to stop being silly or give him pills that will make him more like a dinosaur, even though he'll never really be one?

I suppose the theory is that we all have a part of our brains wired as defined by our gender genetics* - but in some people this is disturbed and those individuals report feeling more comfortable living the lifestyle of the opposite gender. There isn't a proposed mechanism for the dinosaur (or pony or cat, etc) identification, and psychologists would be much less likely to look for make-me-a-dinosaur pills.

*This isn't necessarily true. Just a theory.

[Hail the Tripod]

I approach this as someone who believes that gender dysphoria is a real condition, partly because the science AFAIK shows that transgender people do have demonstrably different brains to 'cis' people,

I think this is still a subject under investigation. If brain scan (at a young age) testing holds up to rigorous scientific scrutiny then I would change my position on encouraging kids to transition. Until such a time I'll continue to view it with concern.

[Rave]

I think that is reasonable, but:

My point about the suicide rates is exactly what you were saying - so is it ethical to proceed with a gender swap if there is an increased risk of suicide post transition? This isn't as simple as 'it is their choice' and is something I find troubling about the whole gender swap process.

The point about children is similar - does a child of 7-10 truly understand about their 'internal' gender? What is the psychological consequence of allowing a child to live as the other gender for 5 years (say), and then change their mind? Is this (in the long term) more psychologically damaging than not allowing them to transition (but also not suggesting it is an option) up to a given age? These are deeply complex questions - while they might be well understood by the specialist child gender psychs I can't see this information to help me make an informed judgement.

I'm a Libertarian and I want everyone to live their their lives to their own satisfaction. I considered myself a free thinking adult from the age of 11. Turns out that a life of intellectual enquiry has flipped my political ideas 180 degrees from where I was aged 11 (and 18 for that my matter), but I don't berate myself for entertaining silly ideas when I was younger, I don't think I was stupid, just ill informed.

If you take a gender dysphooric child to the age of 16 having given them hormone blocking therapy, and then ask them to make a decision about which way they want to go, I think 99% of them will have have sorted it in their own mind,

I think this is still a subject under investigation. If brain scan (at a young age) testing holds up to rigorous scientific scrutiny then I would change my position on encouraging kids to transition. Until such a time I'll continue to view it with concern.

The point I'm trying to make is that nobody with actual skin in the game wants to 'encourage kids to transition'. I'm unlikely to have kids but on the off chance that I do manage to knock up my 41 year old wife I'd strongly prefer it, for the sake of an easy life, that the kid(s) just grew up nice and 'normal'. I'd take having a trans kid over having no kids of course; if I do have a kid I'll love it more or less unconditionally.

Edit- aaaand you're back in the room.

[Hail the Tripod]

The point I'm trying to make is that nobody with actual skin in the game wants to 'encourage kids to transition'. I'm unlikely to have kids but on the off chance that I do manage to knock up my 41 year old wife I'd strongly prefer it, for the sake of an easy life, that the kid(s) just grew up nice and 'normal'. I'd take having a trans kid over having no kids of course; if I do have a kid I'll love it more or less unconditionally.

I'd like to be confident that's true. I do have kids, and I see a lot of stuff that concerns me.

1. There is definitely growing social pressure to "break down gender barriers" for children. As with most ideas there is some merit at it its core, but people approach it with all the subtlety of a religious zealot, and I'm quite sure it sometimes happens that they are simply promoting gender confusion.

2. There is a move, literally unbelievable in scope, to medicalise any behaviour in children that falls outside of a rapidly shrinking set of expected patterns.

3. People relentlessly push their own brand of crazy onto their kids. I find it considerably less surprising that the kid in the article wants to transition given the rather fluid gender roles of the (de-facto) parents. If it weren't tied causally the odds would make such a thing vanishingly unlikely, no?

[Bloo Loo]

Question.

If the parents and some authorities are keen to stamp out gender differences as they believe gender is a social construct, how is it also true that a person can find themselves in the wrong body?

Is it nature or nuture. At its base, it cannot be both.

But some kids today are at the mercy of both thoughts in some places.

That worries me. These zealots have two bites at this particular cherry.

[Hail the Tripod]

Question.

If the parents and some authorities are keen to stamp out gender differences as they believe gender is a social construct, how is it also true that a person can find themselves in the wrong body?

Is it nature or nuture. At its base, it cannot be both.

But some kids today are at the mercy of both thoughts in some places.

That worries me. These zealots have two bites at this particular cherry.

Why wouldn't it be both?

All human languages are composed of the same component elements, nouns verbs etc. because that is hardwired in our brains by genetics, the form is entirely environmental. Nature or nurture is usually a false dichotomy, particularly in mental health. This book is very interesting and spends some considerable time demonstrating scientifically that it is the interaction of genetic predispositions and environmental influences that produce given outcomes.

[Bloo Loo]

If it was nurture, then a sex change operation MUST be the wrong treatment...Mental health treatment would be the most appropriate treatment to get their learned mindset back on track.

If it is nature, then a sex change operation might be appropriate.

question is, how do we know when kid is actually in the wrong body, this would require a genetic test, and I gather the odds of a brain in the wrong body is very rare indeed.

Other conditions featuring mixed up and extra chromosomes that are outside the normal range, thats a different matter.

[ccc]

2. There is a move, literally unbelievable in scope, to medicalise any behaviour in children that falls outside of a rapidly shrinking set of expected patterns.

This is scary ^

Your teenage daughter is happy one day then down the next ? Well shes clearly bi polar !! We have some therapy and pills that can help her !!

Err - maybe she's just a teenager ?

Your teenage son causes a bit of hilarity in some of his classes at school and finds it hard to concentrate on certain types of schoolwork ? Well he is clearly ADHD !! We have some therapy and pills that can help him !!

Err - maybe he's just a teenager ?

Its endemic.

[Hail the Tripod]

Your teenage son causes a bit of hilarity in some of his classes at school and finds it hard to concentrate on certain types of schoolwork ? Well he is clearly ADHD !! We have some therapy and pills that can help him !!

Err - maybe he's just a teenager ?

Its endemic.

Like they'd last that long! Some start on the Ritalin at just age 6. In my elder son's school at least 10% of boys in year 5 (aged 9-10), and i'll bet a lot of schools are a lot worse than that.

[Bloo Loo]

Like they'd last that long! Some start on the Ritalin at just age 6. In my elder son's school at least 10% of boys in year 5 (aged 9-10), and i'll bet a lot of schools are a lot worse than that.

Never thought that the lessons were too feminised and boring for the boys? cant be because maleness is a construct.

Fact is, I was bored at school and found looking out the window more interesting as my ears still caught the lessons. But, we had a sports twice week, along with PE and swimming, so 4 days out of 5 we were active.

Thats what boys bodies are for. Activity and problem solving.

Today, there are no losers, because feelings. competition is bad for kids because feelings.

No wonder boys are fracked up. Their natural feelings are being bottled up by lefty ideals of conformity.

[richc]

I'm a Libertarian and I want everyone to live their their lives to their own satisfaction. I considered myself a free thinking adult from the age of 11. Turns out that a life of intellectual enquiry has flipped my political ideas 180 degrees from where I was aged 11 (and 18 for that my matter), but I don't berate myself for entertaining silly ideas when I was younger, I don't think I was stupid, just ill informed.

If you take a gender dysphooric child to the age of 16 having given them hormone blocking therapy, and then ask them to make a decision about which way they want to go, I think 99% of them will have have sorted it in their own mind,

The point I'm trying to make is that nobody with actual skin in the game wants to 'encourage kids to transition'. I'm unlikely to have kids but on the off chance that I do manage to knock up my 41 year old wife I'd strongly prefer it, for the sake of an easy life, that the kid(s) just grew up nice and 'normal'. I'd take having a trans kid over having no kids of course; if I do have a kid I'll love it more or less unconditionally.

Edit- aaaand you're back in the room.

I'm not so sure that's true.

I probably shouldn't say anything about this topic, but, oh well. I know a couple who are family friends who are raising their son as a girl. They are a gay white couple who live in LA and adopted this boy out of the foster care system in LA when he was 6 months old. He was born addicted to crack to an African-American woman who was a crack addict and a prostitute, so the kid had some major issues to start with. When he was about 3 or 4 years old, around the same time that the couple adopted another child who was born from the same woman (they now have adopted 4 kids from this same woman), he started having serious behaviour issues, and they took him to see several therapists. The came away with a diagnoses of gender dysphoria, at which point they changed his name and started raising him as a girl. I think that they are trying to do what is best for the child given the advice they have received from professionals, though, honestly, I have some doubts about the situation. It appears that one half of the couple is more convinced of the transgender diagnosis than the other (there was a bit eye-rolling as we discussed the situation and I'm not really sure what was going on there.) The other thing is that they said they received advice early on from Chaz Bono, who wouldn't seem exactly like a disinterested figure in the outcome. When I've been around the kid (which was a few years ago now), they just seemed like a little kid. Rather than say anything about being a girl the first time we saw him after the transition when he was five, he spent the whole time pretending to be a dog. On later visits, he was dressed as a girl but spent the whole time playing and fighting with his little brother like a little boy.

I have mixed feelings about the issue. In the environment they live in, I'm not sure it's really a huge issue whether he's raised as a boy or a girl (it's west LA, they work in the entertainment business -- no one really cares). It's a very loving family and the kids get a lot of time and attention, which is probably much more important to their well-being. Clearly, something was going on with the child, and I'm not sure that pretending everything was normal would be the correct response either (even though that's probably what I would have done). At the same time, I'm uncomfortable with involving people from an activist background into the situation because some people clearly are trying to push a political agenda here.

[Butthead]

Like they'd last that long! Some start on the Ritalin at just age 6. In my elder son's school at least 10% of boys in year 5 (aged 9-10), and i'll bet a lot of schools are a lot worse than that.

That's dreadful!

I think the modern propensity to sheild people from responsibility comes into play here too, at the parents' level. Kids need to be shown love, support, appropriate structure and discipline, and it is a parents responsibility to do this. However some parents are crap at some or all of the above, and rather than tackle that problem it is easier for all concerned to label and perhaps medicate the child.

Education and healthcare professionals don't have to have difficult conversations with parents. "Your child is fine, you just need to love/support/discipline them more".

Parents don't have to take responsibility.

And of course the medical and support service professions stand by to hoover up the money that government throws at the problem.

[Hail the Tripod]

I this really gender neutral parenting?

It seems to me the mother is driving this behaviour, the kids phrase it very passively, "Mummy did my nails". The kids don't seem to mind too much as long as they don't have to expose themselves to the outside world. I suppose you can read whatever you expect to into a snapshot like this.

Anecdotally, my elder son, when he was that young, quite often came home dressed in pink fairy costumes or similar after playing with his girl cousins, but that's a far cry from actively promoting a gender blurring alter-ego that you keep secret from your peers, which seems altogether unhealthy. My younger son didn't as he took his cues from his older brother who had by that point developed a stronger awareness of the gender significance of such costumes.

[Bloo Loo]

I'm not so sure that's true.

I probably shouldn't say anything about this topic, but, oh well. I know a couple who are family friends who are raising their son as a girl. They are a gay white couple who live in LA and adopted this boy out of the foster care system in LA when he was 6 months old. He was born addicted to crack to an African-American woman who was a crack addict and a prostitute, so the kid had some major issues to start with. When he was about 3 or 4 years old, around the same time that the couple adopted another child who was born from the same woman (they now have adopted 4 kids from this same woman), he started having serious behaviour issues, and they took him to see several therapists. The came away with a diagnoses of gender dysphoria, at which point they changed his name and started raising him as a girl. I think that they are trying to do what is best for the child given the advice they have received from professionals, though, honestly, I have some doubts about the situation. It appears that one half of the couple is more convinced of the transgender diagnosis than the other (there was a bit eye-rolling as we discussed the situation and I'm not really sure what was going on there.) The other thing is that they said they received advice early on from Chaz Bono, who wouldn't seem exactly like a disinterested figure in the outcome. When I've been around the kid (which was a few years ago now), they just seemed like a little kid. Rather than say anything about being a girl the first time we saw him after the transition when he was five, he spent the whole time pretending to be a dog. On later visits, he was dressed as a girl but spent the whole time playing and fighting with his little brother like a little boy.

I have mixed feelings about the issue. In the environment they live in, I'm not sure it's really a huge issue whether he's raised as a boy or a girl (it's west LA, they work in the entertainment business -- no one really cares). It's a very loving family and the kids get a lot of time and attention, which is probably much more important to their well-being. Clearly, something was going on with the child, and I'm not sure that pretending everything was normal would be the correct response either (even though that's probably what I would have done). At the same time, I'm uncomfortable with involving people from an activist background into the situation because some people clearly are trying to push a political agenda here.

you say, "clearly something was going on with the child"

What do you mean exactly?

[LC1]

The understatement of the millennium! Look at the pictures...

I don't think it's about being convincing. Eddie Izzard is hardly convincing as a woman either. There's no harm in it, each to their own.

[Bloo Loo]

I this really gender neutral parenting?

It seems to me the mother is driving this behaviour, the kids phrase it very passively, "Mummy did my nails". The kids don't seem to mind too much as long as they don't have to expose themselves to the outside world. I suppose you can read whatever you expect to into a snapshot like this.

Anecdotally, my elder son, when he was that young, quite often came home dressed in pink fairy costumes or similar after playing with his girl cousins, but that's a far cry from actively promoting a gender blurring alter-ego that you keep secret from your peers, which seems altogether unhealthy. My younger son didn't as he took his cues from his older brother who had by that point developed a stronger awareness of the gender significance of such costumes.

the cloths you wear are a social construct...it has nothing to do with your gender actual or your gender in your head.

Its clothing.

[Hail the Tripod]

the cloths you wear are a social construct...it has nothing to do with your gender actual or your gender in your head.

Its clothing.

The clothes you wear are physical objects, not social constructs, but I don't think the mother is getting them to wear princess dresses because they are so terribly warm, and hard wearing. Do you?

Money is an even more abstract social construct, but stressing about (lack of) it still causes tens of thousands of mental breakdowns. The form of the clothes may be just an arbitrary social convention, but they are still fairly central to the developing sense of self and the representation of identity that you present to the world.

[LC1]

the cloths you wear are a social construct...it has nothing to do with your gender actual or your gender in your head.

Its clothing.

You contradict yourself - it is a social construct and so is imbued with cultural significance, so it has everything to do with your gender in your head, surely? Gender actual, what is that? All gender is socially constructed.

[Hail the Tripod]

All gender is socially constructed.

As evidenced by the 50% of historical cultures where the women routinely battled the neighbouring tribes while the men looked after the children? You know there is no evidence of that as a societal paradigm anywhere, at any time in the history of the world. Nor in any ape societies. If it was just an arbitrary social construction, would there not have been at least one culture to try it out for a time?

It's certainly true that some aspects of gender identity are rooted in culture, but there are also a whole host of broadly universal gendered behaviours, aptitudes and cultural conventions that indicate that at the core men and women have some degree of differentiated biological gender roles.

[Bloo Loo]

You contradict yourself - it is a social construct and so is imbued with cultural significance, so it has everything to do with your gender in your head, surely? Gender actual, what is that? All gender is socially constructed.

I think you are referring to the norms of sexual dress codes, verses feeling like a boy or girl...If its simply a matter of dress, then I fail to see how that has anything to do with the need for a sex change. You might like to wear a dress, but nobody else recognises you for what you are, a boy with a dress on. Society just prefers you to dress appropriately for your sex. That has nothing to do with gender as far as I can see.

[LC1]

As evidenced by the 50% of historical cultures where the women routinely battled the neighbouring tribes while the men looked after the children? You know there is no evidence of that as a societal paradigm anywhere, at any time in the history of the world.

You're absolutely right, of course. I guess I was taking that basic biological determinism as read, and referring instead to all the additional cultural constructs that dictate "women are this", "men do that", "big boys don't cry" etc etc.

I think you are referring to the norms of sexual dress codes, verses feeling like a boy or girl...If its simply a matter of dress, then I fail to see how that has anything to do with the need for a sex change. You might like to wear a dress, but nobody else recognises you for what you are, a boy with a dress on. Society just prefers you to dress appropriately for your sex. That has nothing to do with gender as far as I can see.

I think we probably agree. I thought you implied that clothing was "just clothing" and therefore has no gender relevance, so I was pointing out that it has very significant cultural meanings attached to it. Children soon learn what are boy clothes and what are girl clothes. My boy will wear his mum's clothes and jewellery, perfectly natural - he is playing with identity and having fun. He also plays with dolls. It's no problem of course and doesn't signify that he's a potential sex change candidate. He's 2.5 - if he was still doing it at 13 then I might begin to wonder the reasons why!

[The Eagle]

Swedish Girl Shows Idiocy of Trans-Everythingism

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=54738

Once you start denying reality, there's no limit to what level of lunacy people will accept, so long as it's portrayed as "socially acceptable" by the media and those who insist on living in reality are scorned, anything can be made "politically correct" and any reality can be denied.

[Frank Hovis]

Clever girl.

I think we need to cut through all this nonsense and have just three categories:

1. men
2. women
3. a bit weird

[Bloo Loo]

You're absolutely right, of course. I guess I was taking that basic biological determinism as read, and referring instead to all the additional cultural constructs that dictate "women are this", "men do that", "big boys don't cry" etc etc.

I think we probably agree. I thought you implied that clothing was "just clothing" and therefore has no gender relevance, so I was pointing out that it has very significant cultural meanings attached to it. Children soon learn what are boy clothes and what are girl clothes. My boy will wear his mum's clothes and jewellery, perfectly natural - he is playing with identity and having fun. He also plays with dolls. It's no problem of course and doesn't signify that he's a potential sex change candidate. He's 2.5 - if he was still doing it at 13 then I might begin to wonder the reasons why!

Be careful...you are assuming he is playing with identity....which is what the lefty preaches about children.

To me, he is playing with things, toys, having a good time..nothing whatsoever to do with his gender. His brain is learning and growing all the time, reassigning pathways based on new information, what feels good to touch, taste, smell and feel. He is also learning social interactions, at this age, starting to appreciate the otherness of the children he plays with, what they react to, what they dont.

Sure boys and girls norms of cloths are just that...norms, they are not imposed by any "authority" or patriarchy or HATE of transgenders, just social norms...like we see a uniform, the social norm informs us how to react.

If he wants to go against the grain, as it were, and wear skirts to school, he is going to be upsetting a number of social norms, which the others have all learned. Now, the school might wish to accomodate his preference for the skirt, but that means he also is going to have to fight through all the new people he meets as they come to terms with his preferences.

Cutting off his genitals probably in 99% of cases doesnt actually cure anything, other than allowing the person to cross dress and join the social norm for his way.