Roland98

I understood what you were saying; that doesn't mean it's not one of the worst analogies ever. Yet you continue to explain rather than simply provide a better one...

The problem with that is that the USSR is, obviously, not an individual. It was formed and sure, it was, in many ways, bad for the people within. However, the person wanting the operation should be able to take all the facts and decide what is right for him/herself. Sorry, that cup just didn't hold water.

Head amuptations would only make some people more intelligent.

And since I've seen evidence of your psychological guru-ality, please then enlighten all us lowly heathens--what then, pray tell, is the exact problem, and how does one go about curing it? And while you're at it, all those with gender identity problems should just sit around and wait for you to do so? You do realize, of course, that removing a tumor is really often just "curing a symptom"--so if you had cancer, would you wait for medical science to come up with the "root cause" while you sat around and--well--died?

yguy

Reminds me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where the monster, seeking acceptance, reasons that a child will likely not be "prejudiced" against his appearance...but somehow, the child, woefully ignorant of the "enlightenment" we are blessed with today, fails to be "tolerant" of his hideous countenance. I suppose Tim Curry is less repulsive than the fictitious monster, but repulsive he/she most certainly is.

yguy

Then the analogy, imperfect as it was, fulfilled its purpose - and you are merely being gratuitously contentious.

The problem, in my view, is that a opposite sexual/gender identity has been infused into the gender confused person, rather than being endemic to their personhood at birth. What the cure is I can't tell you.

I have no idea what they should do.

I wouldn't wait for science to find the cause, because I don't think science is interested in finding the cause. I should hope I would look within.

Demigawd

Well, given humanity's teaching habits, I imagine the child in question summons up her parents' superstition, and acts upon that compulsion.

And so, hundreds of years' later, a writer recognizes the bullshit of aristocratic claims, and constructs a tale concerning an ailing mythology. Reactionaries concerned with the status-quo write apologetics. Others pear far back into time, and talk openly about humanity's myriad natures.

Jamie_L

It just seems to me that ultimately, if doing X makes someone a happier person, and X doesn't hurt anyone else in any significant way, then there's nothing wrong with the person doing X.

If becoming transgendered makes Tim tremendously happy, and allows him to live a life with much less stress and suffering, how would I be a "good" person by trying to deny him such a life?

No one asks this question of non-transgendered people. That is, no one accuses Susan of being a nut-case because she likes being a woman, likes the idea of being a woman, wants to be a woman from this day forward. Yet, for some reason its a valid question for Bob, even though he wants the same thing.

We don't get to choose our gender at birth. Likewise, we don't get to choose to be smart, funny, attractive, extroverted. Some people end up getting a better deal, and they may be extremely happy with being so attractive or so smart. Yet, someone who gets a worse deal from "genetic roulette" is accused of being a looney for wanting the same things, or for even having the horrid notion that having those things would make them happy.

Sure, most of us have to play the hand we're dealt. But, if there's an option to get a few more cards from the dealer, what's wrong with exercising that option?

Jamie

Roland98

And if you notice, all I said about the original one was that it was quite a stretch--not that I didn't understand it.



Any evidence to back that up? Because the (admittedly one) person I know who's investigating this option (surgery) has described his feelings to me in a similar way as homosexuals do; it's just something he's always felt, even as far back as his earliest memories.


At least you're honest. But I don't understand why you would speak out against the process, if it has been shown to help many, many individuals become physically the person they've always considered themselves psychologically--particularly since at the present, the only other option is to remain unchanged and feel miserable.


You don't think science is interested in finding the cause? Are you talking of cancer here (the analogy I provided) or transgender issues? Because you can be assured they're looking into both--but neither one is an easy search.

yguy

Nothing verifiable by an independent source.

Perhaps feelings are not something one ought to be fixated on, no matter how far back they appear to originate.

As I write, it occurs to me that I never hear heterosexuals talking about knowing from such an early age that they are so disposed. Why?

I don't see how the happiness of such people can fail to be utterly dependent on their acceptance by others, in which case feeling even more miserable than before is only as far away as the next rejection. Of course, they can avoid such rejection by intimidating others, but of course that merely shifts that misery onto those they intimidate.

Some scientists probably are.

They are, but in all the wrong places, as far as I am concerned.

Perhaps you've heard the term, "cancer personality"? Here is an article claiming there is no such thing. Notice that the conclusion depends entirely on the failure to see a correlation between arbitrarily defined personality types and cancer. I say they're looking at it through the lens of empirical myopia. There is a kind of person whose sense of self worth comes from being seen in a good light by others. Human beings aren't meant to be sustained by the emotional energy of others. Infants are necessarily that way, but ideally they grow out of it. If not, they become psychic leeches. If we can accept that there is a connection between emotional health and physical health, it stands to reason that one whose emotional sustenance comes from others can eventually be expected to have health problems. I believe one of these may be cancer.

Calzaer

Roland:
You knew the answer to that question before you asked it.

Xayide

Probably because no one questions the legitimacy of their heterosexuality, and thus the question never comes up in that fashion. I think most heterosexuals would have had childhood crushes and romantic fantasies long before puberty.

Jamie_L

No one ever accuses a woman of being daft for wanting to be a woman. Why does it make so much sense to accuse a man of being looney for wanting to be a woman?

Response: Well, obviously, because he's a man.

But why is that significant? Really? What does our genatalia have to do with our minds? Sure, different sexes produce different hormones that have different effects on the brain. But we alter brain chemistry all the time to help people.

What constitutes a person? A mind? A mind plus a set of genatalia? A mind plus a particular set of hormones?

If medical science progresses to the point where we can save someone who's been decapitated, but only as a disembodied head, would we care whether that head wanted to change it's hair-style and be called a woman instead of a woman? If so, why?

If the procedure were simple and easily reversible and could be done with a pill, would we care if people went back and forth all the time? Woman this month, man in time for the holidays. Why is it so important to hold fast to the physicallity we were born with?

Jamie