Excellent summary view of the bad actors. Lot of work.
I have maintained for decades that the concept of transgender was basically invented and propagated exclusively by psychiatrists and psychologists, and rests on a basis of guesswork backed by zero empirical data, since gender has no diagnostic meaning. You discerned the pattern which is utterly clear with this statement:
“In 2013, the DSM-5 was published. It contained no diagnoses related to sexual orientation.”
Trans has subsumed any “gender discordant” traits into transgender, including same-sex attraction, which shocked me when I realized the implications.
Until the psychiatric establishment is realigned to reality, hopefully by powerful legal and cultural forces, it will persist in punishing same-sex attracted people.
It used to be that only men could be castrated, chemically; but now both men and woman could have their genitalia destroyed, discreetly, chemically, at the earliest ages possible as the price for not playing the role of sex kitten or pro-linebacker sufficiently, a process Sotomayor compares to taking an aspirin.
No, birthmarks and handedness are observable measurable facts.
“Genderness” is a way to obscure sex traits which are common or uncommon, and pretend that men don’t sometimes have sex traits common to women and women sometimes have sexual traits common to men in the course of ordinary development.
“Gender discordant” is a way of masking the behavior of compulsive sex mimicry by deflecting the behavior to the ill-defined category of “gender”.
Birthmark: real, measurable
Sex: real, measurable
Handedness: real, measurable
Gender: fictional, used to mask sex
Gender Concordance: fictional used to misclassify sex traits as either/or instead of probability distributions
Gender identify: fictional, used to mask sex by compulsive sex mimics
I love you use “science” to justify your position without addressing any of your inherent presuppositions. But then again it’s just a “blunt weapon” for you, right? Who cares?
Your first premise is based upon our acceptance of the fact that “it’s turtles all the way down.” Because that’s all you have, bigger and bigger turtles, all the way down.
It constantly amazes me, there are approximately 9 billion people on this planet, each unique right down to our fingerprints, hair color, skin color, complexion, size, perspective, and internal functionings. The idea that some people who exist who experience gender definitely than “the norm” don’t exist is completely asinine and disregards the very notion that nature is dynamic.
All that diversity and yet you expect us to believe that we all just fit in either one of two boxes?
I don't experience 'gender' but I experience sex, like any animal, humans being a kind of animal. No animal experiences 'gender', since gender is a property of language, not animals.
I have uncommon sex traits for a male human (man), for instance I like sucking cock. I have my doubts that even a minority of female humans (women) enjoy sucking cock like men who share this uncommon trait with me. I would say on the whole enjoyment of sucking cock is more prevalent with men than women, but I haven't sampled women's opinions, but I have sampled men's opinions. Some women may disagree.
Of the 4.4 billion men on the planet, around 150 million like to suck cock.
When I was younger, I was bullied by other males who claimed that my looking forward to sucking cock 'made me a girly'. I was supposed to believe that having uncommon male sex traits made me not masculine, possibly not male. Ironically, men sucking cock isn't that uncommon, after all 150 million men enjoy it.
All humans are either male or female, determined at conception by the genetic makeup of sperm from their father. The genesis of the human body and mind through gestation, birth, education, and circumstance generate a variety of behaviors. Males have a spectrum of behaviors as do women. Some are statistically unusual for males or unusual for females.
Having a statistically unusual behavior for a male doesn't change sex, much as emotion doesn't change fact. My behavior of sucking cock doesn't make me female, and it's statistically not that unusual for men anyway.
Some males, usually nearing puberty, become afraid of being an adult (all adolescents have some anxiety about change), and develop anxiety about being male for a variety of reasons - they fear competition, they recognize they lack attraction to females, they can't find an acceptable model of behavior to take on as their body and feelings changes drastically. This anxiety can be amplified by other children and adults identifying uncommon sex behaviors and attempting the impossible, to reshape natural variation through punishment or reinforcement training, bullying.
Most of the time, but not aways, the cognitive changes at the end of puberty erase the anxiety. But sometimes, males develop a compulsion to deny their male sex, and to imitate what they believe are behaviors of the female sex.
In males, sex mimicry is an unusual, but natural adaptation to cope with the realities of male competition socially and sexually. It occurs in every major category of complex life - from squids to birds, reptiles to mammals, even insects. In highly sex-competitive species, it is a way to bypass or 'cheat' the system for access to females to reproduce.
In humans, this sex mimicry takes the form of a compulsion, which tends to create to the person the perception of being the opposite sex, much as the compulsion to wash is enforced by the perception of uncleanliness, the compulsion to starve is enforced by the perception of obesity, or the compulsion to steal is enforced by the perception of unjust possession.
The compulsion creates a wide variety of auxiliary behaviors, in order to mask the sex mimicry as long as possible. Use of the term "gender" to mask sex is an example behavior, reiteration of possession of "gender", "gender identity", "gender conforming". Another auxiliary behavior involves insisting on 'gender neutral' pronouns (the only true use of the word gender) to mask actual sex. Then comes insistence on the possibility of male gestation of children, lactation of infants, menstruation, menopause. Another set of behaviors to mask the mimicry involves fraud - legal misstatement, professional, sports, coercive sex, political and trespass.
Some masking behaviors in male are self-destructive, including iatrogenic (medically-induced harm) such as chemical sterilization, cross-sex hormones, or in extreme examples genital mutilation and harm to internal organs including the bladder, rectum, pelvic floor muscles, urethra, prostate, reiterated through persistent wound destabilization. Also, breast implants damaging the pectorals, as well as larynx remodeling causing intense vocal damage. Cross-sex hormones also tend to cause early cardiovascular problems such as thrombosis.
Except for iatrogenic damage, the outcomes of some of the behaviors are positive. Male sex mimics die of violent assault by men at half the rate of other men since by mimicking women they trigger the male taboo against female violence. Men generally die of violent assault by men at twice the rate of women due in part to this taboo.
That make sense? My delight in sucking cock is an unusual male trait, but not rare. It was used to claim I was actually female, and is categorized as "gender nonconforming" typically by those involved in masking sex mimicry.
“I don't experience 'gender' but I experience sex, like any animal, humans being a kind of animal. No animal experiences 'gender', since gender is a property of language, not animals.”
I’ll take your word for the animals. I don’t speak their language in order to ask them.
As for you, either you’re being facetious, or you have a very limited definition of what being human involves. I am far more than just my quote unquote, animal instincts, I would suggest you are too.
I ask, are you as amoral about your love making as an animal? When you chose to make it, that is.
“I have uncommon sex traits for a male human (man), for instance I like sucking cock. I have my doubts that even a minority of female humans (women) enjoy sucking cock like men who share this uncommon trait with me. I would say on the whole enjoyment of sucking cock is more prevalent with men than women, but I haven't sampled women's opinions, but I have sampled men's opinions. Some women may disagree.”
I do disagree. Both in my experience with women and with men. I could make a fallacious argument here and make reference to your possible lack of experience but I don’t think I need to. You admit it outright.
Nonetheless, you still opine.
Your lived experience vs. mine - I’ll call that a push
“Of the 4.4 billion men on the planet, around 150 million like to suck cock.”
I concede that, it’s statistical and tactical and makes no point.
“When I was younger, I was bullied by other males who claimed that my looking forward to sucking cock 'made me a girly'. I was supposed to believe that having uncommon male sex traits made me not masculine, possibly not male. Ironically, men sucking cock isn't that uncommon, after all 150 million men enjoy it.”
I’m sorry you were bullied for being you as a child. So was I. Though differently than you. Though still for who I am. I was pushed into your lived “experience” by my bullies because the concept to being trans was not generally know to 5th or 6th graders in 1978.
“All humans are either male or female, determined at conception by the genetic makeup of sperm from their father.”
A distinction with no meaning given the actual science.
“The genesis of the human body and mind through gestation, birth, education, and circumstance generate a variety of behaviors. Males have a spectrum of behaviors as do women. Some are statistically unusual for males or unusual for females.”
Do tell. ☺️
“Having a statistically unusual behavior for a male doesn't change sex, much as emotion doesn't change fact. My behavior of sucking cock doesn't make me female, and it's statistically not that unusual for men anyway.”
Again, a distinction without meaning. And it’s a fallacy. Bonus points!! I quote Wikipedia’s definition cause you’re not worth me typing it out myself.
A fallacy of illicit transference is an informal fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.
There are two variations of this fallacy:[1]
* Fallacy of composition – assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole. This fallacy is also known as "arguing from the specific to the general."
* Fallacy of division – assumes what is true of the whole is true of its parts (or some subset of parts). In statistics, forms of it are usually referred to as the ecological fallacy.
You managed to do both in one paragraph. 👏👏👏
“Some males, usually nearing puberty, become afraid of being an adult (all adolescents have some anxiety about change), and develop anxiety about being male for a variety of reasons - they fear competition, they recognize they lack attraction to females, they can't find an acceptable model of behavior to take on as their body and feelings changes drastically. This anxiety can be amplified by other children and adults identifying uncommon sex behaviors and attempting the impossible, to reshape natural variation through punishment or reinforcement training, bullying.”
Your pathology makes no rational sense. I assume you know that. I mean it’s pretty obvious 💅
“Most of the time, but not aways, the cognitive changes at the end of puberty erase the anxiety. But sometimes, males develop a compulsion to deny their male sex, and to imitate what they believe are behaviors of the female sex.”
Same response. You’re really good at telling me my lived experience from the outside. I mean, you don’t know me at all. But hey, you are arguing for boxes, so put me in yours, for the reductio.
“In males, sex mimicry is an unusual, but natural adaptation to cope with the realities of male competition socially and sexually. It occurs in every major category of complex life - from squids to birds, reptiles to mammals, even insects. In highly sex-competitive species, it is a way to bypass or 'cheat' the system for access to females to reproduce.”
Absolute bull shit. 🤣🤣🤣
You didn’t get laid a lot as a young man did you?
Maybe this form of “competitive” or “high status men” BS works for the boys, but there are many forms of coupling and relationship formation “strategies” not found in your narrow masculine view.
“In humans, this sex mimicry takes the form of a compulsion, which tends to create to the person the perception of being the opposite sex, much as the compulsion to wash is enforced by the perception of uncleanliness, the compulsion to starve is enforced by the perception of obesity, or the compulsion to steal is enforced by the perception of unjust possession.”
You know, your ability to describe my individual lived experience is only exceeded by your ability to appeal to authority in a intellectually dishonest fashion
The appeal to authority fallacy occurs when an argument is deemed true based solely on the authority of the person making the claim, rather than on evidence or logical reasoning.
I didn’t read the rest, it reminded me of proofreading a high school logic paper that failed to grasp basic logic nor reason.
Scientific theory rests upon the ability to witness and observe phenomena, and then described it and document it occurring naturally and consistently, given the fact that there will be outliers. The general consensus of the “consistently observable,” then becomes anointed as “fact.”
However, epistemologically it lacks any real value. There is no necessity in an “if / then” statement as Hobbs noted like 500 years ago. “The sun doesn’t “have” to come up tomorrow.” Nothing has to happen as an “if / then” hence the outliers.
In addition, the cool thing about science is that what was once thought to be “true” is often discovered to be something else with further study and observation.
It’s the ultimate fallacy and a failure of your reasoning, and your individual ability to reason in general (I hope
You don’t get paid for this stuff) to have concluded as such when “the jury still out.”Never mind the epistemological “mind body problem” you conveniently ignore.
Given the unprovable nature of your claim, despite how well it may seem to rest on your quicksand, makes this a “moral question.”
And your moral ontological Ought is to punish people who “may” just be a little different than you. Just to clarify your boxes.
The victim becomes the bully!! Congratulations you’ve come full circle, just to clarify you.
[Edited to add: it’s David Hume and not Hobbes - which I also misspelled as Hobbs - finally though Hobbes was 500 years ago, Hume was about 250 years ago.]
I make no effort to describe you, you're not that interesting since I have no idea who you are. Clearly however, my statements resonated since you claim that I actually described your experience. Telling.
Unfortunately like many people, you don't understand relatively simple biology of mimicry (widespread in animals) and sexual mimicry (a subset) it's not always easy to absorb unless you observe it.
Should you be interested to inform yourself I recommend tarting with wikipedia - it has handy reasonably accurate entries on mimicry, sexual mimicry, and these behaviors, you'll perhaps have a better understanding than attempting refute simple factual statements and my conjectures, which is supported by other biological behaviorists, though I am not one. I'm just well-read. Seeing a male cuttlefish imitate a female on one side (to a male) and remain male on the opposite side is fascinating.
If you claim you are other than your actual sex, then you will block processing of any information contradicting that state, which is a property of compulsion - compulsive starvers claim they are obese, compulsive washers claim their are dirty, compulsive liars claim they speak the truth.
Unfortunately, here's the process: you will then claim I'm full of bullshit, and become flushed and slightly enraged, and try to belittle me since I've exposed your beliefs to a simple alternative explanation, but you don't really grasp that I have no reaction to belittlement since I've been inured to it for many, many decades. I may in fact be an AI, which scans substack for entries relating to male sexual mimicry, and puts out essentially the same response each time, continuing engagement.
I've spoken to many male sexual mimics casually and professionally, from Lynn Conway to street hookers in Malaysia, the behaviors are consistent, compulsive, stereotyped, and unfortunate.
A left-hand person has a different experience with the world than a right hand dominant individual. You cut off a left-handed person‘s hand they’re still left-handed.
I experience reality and my gender in a different way than you, presuming you’re not a trans person.
A left handed person experience reality and their functioning in the world differently than you, presuming you’re not left handed.
Why do you trust a left handed person’s expression how they function in our shared reality more than the transgender person’s expression of the same thing?
As I said, I’m observable.
Just like a left-handed person.
So why the presumed “realness” of one over the other?
That’s a whole lot of research you’ve done! Impressive. I’d go back even earlier, to the psychiatric tradition of Freud and his cohort and followers. (Or, heck, even Havelock Ellis and the turn of the century ‘sexologists’ theorizing sexual ‘inversion’ and pathology). Even Simone Beauvoir was queasy about lesbianism in the Second Sex (in later life she was more open to it being OK). Well, sex, in general, has been almost a taboo topic (being ‘dirty’ & all). So it’s no wonder young tomboy type girls recoil at being tagged as a lesbian (when they probably don’t even know what sex is, just that being a ‘lesbian’ means being unattractive, sick, & disgusting). If I were a therapist for girls wanting to trans (for gawd knows what reason - who’d want to be a man?! /jk) I’d try and convince them it’s OK to dress however and have short hair, etc. Same with sissy-type boys. Most importantly, seems like family therapy would be extremely important since parents not accepting their gender non-conforming kids is probably a big part of the problem.
“Imagine if [refusing to allow people to use their left hand] were disproportionately inflicted on [left handled] people – [people] would rightly throw a fit. Today I'm going to bring that same sense of urgency to the question of why therapists [cut off left-handed people’s left hand] rather than accept people with different experiences with [“left-handed dominant dysphoria”].
I think the explanation popularized for ROGD — that girls entering adulthood want to escape sexual attention — is correct.
I think what is still in need of explaining is why boys transition. For that, I use the economic lens of supply and demand.
I think young gay boys are envious of the male sexual attention that young girls are trying to escape. They want that attention. And they see transition as a way to get it. In other words, they believe transition will increase their supply of male sexual partners.
This theme of attracting male sexual attention by becoming “feminized” is laced through all of the so-called “sissy” pornography that these young gay boys start consuming before their voices have even deepend.
Very interesting article, it’s great to see the history going back to the 60s. I can see back in the 60s and 70s and also 80s there was a lot more homophobia around in the general population so more incentive to be trans instead. It does still seem that a lot of this epidemic of transness is still fuelled by homophobia, even now. Having said that I read a study that showed for at least some young girls it was not that they wanted to be men, they just did not want to be female with all the struggles and societal expectations that are put upon girls as they go through puberty, some of it driven by the proliferation of online porn.
Impressive overview. The first question that comes to mind is: if GD is not an illness then why treat it , and specifically why treat it with drugs and surgery?
The most obvious answer seems to be: because it pays.
That may be true, but I don't think therapists saw them as abuse victims (except maybe Lothstein- I haven't read this book). I don't think they'd feel comfortable seeing transition as a way to cope with abuse, the same way they let it be a cope for lesbianism.
No, certainly! To the gender doctors they were all the same - the "easy" cases, perhaps until rogd came along and they started noticing something was off... There's even a Swedish dissertation complaining of how "unfair" it is that males get all these combinations of sex, gender and sexuality to choose from (the false trichotomy, pretty much) while for females gender and sexuality are seen as essentially the same thing by mostly male doctors. But it's still fascinating to how openly the trauma and abuse was talked about among ftm activists once...
I agree that a lot of FTM transitioners variously identified as "lesbians" were not in fact lesbians. Like Pat Califia, who was obsessed with BDSM and how calls herself a bisexual transman. Remember, gender clinics were reluctant to transition straight women, which provided an incentive for female gender reassignment candidates to pretend to be as lesbian as they could.
(Jeffreys is right to draw attention to the link between BDSM and trans, but wrong about conflating butches with BDSM stuff. But that's another story).
That's a really good point too! In the old gatekeeping model the AGPs all had to pretend to be gay too. It's almost like clinicians specifically WANTED to "trans away the gay"... 🙄 The women didn't have to fight off the spectre of "fetishistic transvestism" so were probably all waved through as long as they presented masculine and said they preferred sleeping with women. Buck is an interesting case too.
And yeah, Jeffreys is always a mixed bag with her very rigid ideas of what a proper lesbian and woman ought to be like... I guess it takes someone that headstrong to openly and consistently critique transgender and queer.
The gatekeeping around sexuality is gone now of course - now straights can be castrated too without lying about their sexual preferences, yay! It's ironic how the trans activists accomplished this by twisting it into "queer/gay trans people are discriminated against and must pretend to be straight to get the treatments the need". And now of course if you try to to bring up the "transing away the gay" they just go "but look at all these lgbtqia+++ trans people!"
I think Pat is a lesbian actually. But she’s gone down such a sick porn rabbit hole that she isn’t even a sexual person anymore. It’s a sickness. Think how the ago dudes will have sex with men to satisfy their fetish.
I'm only familiar with one definition of "primary transsexual" that is not, in fact, homosexual, and that is Person & Ovesey's primary transsexuals. Blanchard plausibly identified P&O's primary transsexuals as a subtype of AGP that were misleadingly labeled as "asexual" because they weren't interested in sexual partners, but instead were aroused by fantasizing of themselves as women (classic AGP behavior). Anyway, P&O utilized some Freudian claptrap to explain why homosexual trans (and transvestites, distinguished from the "asexual" primary trans) generally, tho not always, can overcome their transsexual impulses:
"Thus, primary transsexuals resort to symbiotic fusion to allay separation anxiety, whereas effeminate homosexuals and transvestites resort to part objects and transitional objects. In the effeminate homosexual, the boy fears engulfment and annihilation by the mother. He, therefore, transfers his dependency and sexual needs to a male object. His partner’s penis is equated with the mother’s breast and incorporated orally or anally as a part-object. In transvestism, the female clothes represent the mother as a transitional object and hence confer maternal protection. They are also used sexually as fetishistic defenses against incestual anxiety.
"In most effeminate homosexuals and transvestites, these defenses function reasonably well. They contain the separation anxiety and permit the patient a semblance of emotional balance. In some, however, at times of stress, the defenses may fail and precipitate an acute dependency crisis. Under such circumstances, the patient may regressively fall back on the more primitive fantasy of symbiotic fusion with the mother. It is at this point that he be gins to experience transsexual impulses. We will discuss later the life situa tions in effeminate homosexuals and transvestites most likely to evoke such regressions, as well as the factors that determine their clinical course."
Thorough and unflinching. Thank you. That interview with Scarlet in Gender, a Wider Lens should be required viewing for anyone (kudos to Sasha and Stella for taking the step to record their interviews on video) . Such a vulnerable true story.
Excellent summary view of the bad actors. Lot of work.
I have maintained for decades that the concept of transgender was basically invented and propagated exclusively by psychiatrists and psychologists, and rests on a basis of guesswork backed by zero empirical data, since gender has no diagnostic meaning. You discerned the pattern which is utterly clear with this statement:
“In 2013, the DSM-5 was published. It contained no diagnoses related to sexual orientation.”
Trans has subsumed any “gender discordant” traits into transgender, including same-sex attraction, which shocked me when I realized the implications.
Until the psychiatric establishment is realigned to reality, hopefully by powerful legal and cultural forces, it will persist in punishing same-sex attracted people.
It used to be that only men could be castrated, chemically; but now both men and woman could have their genitalia destroyed, discreetly, chemically, at the earliest ages possible as the price for not playing the role of sex kitten or pro-linebacker sufficiently, a process Sotomayor compares to taking an aspirin.
The “concept of transgender” 🙄
Is that similar to the concept of having a birthmark or being left-handed?
No, birthmarks and handedness are observable measurable facts.
“Genderness” is a way to obscure sex traits which are common or uncommon, and pretend that men don’t sometimes have sex traits common to women and women sometimes have sexual traits common to men in the course of ordinary development.
“Gender discordant” is a way of masking the behavior of compulsive sex mimicry by deflecting the behavior to the ill-defined category of “gender”.
Birthmark: real, measurable
Sex: real, measurable
Handedness: real, measurable
Gender: fictional, used to mask sex
Gender Concordance: fictional used to misclassify sex traits as either/or instead of probability distributions
Gender identify: fictional, used to mask sex by compulsive sex mimics
I love you use “science” to justify your position without addressing any of your inherent presuppositions. But then again it’s just a “blunt weapon” for you, right? Who cares?
Your first premise is based upon our acceptance of the fact that “it’s turtles all the way down.” Because that’s all you have, bigger and bigger turtles, all the way down.
It constantly amazes me, there are approximately 9 billion people on this planet, each unique right down to our fingerprints, hair color, skin color, complexion, size, perspective, and internal functionings. The idea that some people who exist who experience gender definitely than “the norm” don’t exist is completely asinine and disregards the very notion that nature is dynamic.
All that diversity and yet you expect us to believe that we all just fit in either one of two boxes?
Here's how boxes work.
I don't experience 'gender' but I experience sex, like any animal, humans being a kind of animal. No animal experiences 'gender', since gender is a property of language, not animals.
I have uncommon sex traits for a male human (man), for instance I like sucking cock. I have my doubts that even a minority of female humans (women) enjoy sucking cock like men who share this uncommon trait with me. I would say on the whole enjoyment of sucking cock is more prevalent with men than women, but I haven't sampled women's opinions, but I have sampled men's opinions. Some women may disagree.
Of the 4.4 billion men on the planet, around 150 million like to suck cock.
When I was younger, I was bullied by other males who claimed that my looking forward to sucking cock 'made me a girly'. I was supposed to believe that having uncommon male sex traits made me not masculine, possibly not male. Ironically, men sucking cock isn't that uncommon, after all 150 million men enjoy it.
All humans are either male or female, determined at conception by the genetic makeup of sperm from their father. The genesis of the human body and mind through gestation, birth, education, and circumstance generate a variety of behaviors. Males have a spectrum of behaviors as do women. Some are statistically unusual for males or unusual for females.
Having a statistically unusual behavior for a male doesn't change sex, much as emotion doesn't change fact. My behavior of sucking cock doesn't make me female, and it's statistically not that unusual for men anyway.
Some males, usually nearing puberty, become afraid of being an adult (all adolescents have some anxiety about change), and develop anxiety about being male for a variety of reasons - they fear competition, they recognize they lack attraction to females, they can't find an acceptable model of behavior to take on as their body and feelings changes drastically. This anxiety can be amplified by other children and adults identifying uncommon sex behaviors and attempting the impossible, to reshape natural variation through punishment or reinforcement training, bullying.
Most of the time, but not aways, the cognitive changes at the end of puberty erase the anxiety. But sometimes, males develop a compulsion to deny their male sex, and to imitate what they believe are behaviors of the female sex.
In males, sex mimicry is an unusual, but natural adaptation to cope with the realities of male competition socially and sexually. It occurs in every major category of complex life - from squids to birds, reptiles to mammals, even insects. In highly sex-competitive species, it is a way to bypass or 'cheat' the system for access to females to reproduce.
In humans, this sex mimicry takes the form of a compulsion, which tends to create to the person the perception of being the opposite sex, much as the compulsion to wash is enforced by the perception of uncleanliness, the compulsion to starve is enforced by the perception of obesity, or the compulsion to steal is enforced by the perception of unjust possession.
The compulsion creates a wide variety of auxiliary behaviors, in order to mask the sex mimicry as long as possible. Use of the term "gender" to mask sex is an example behavior, reiteration of possession of "gender", "gender identity", "gender conforming". Another auxiliary behavior involves insisting on 'gender neutral' pronouns (the only true use of the word gender) to mask actual sex. Then comes insistence on the possibility of male gestation of children, lactation of infants, menstruation, menopause. Another set of behaviors to mask the mimicry involves fraud - legal misstatement, professional, sports, coercive sex, political and trespass.
Some masking behaviors in male are self-destructive, including iatrogenic (medically-induced harm) such as chemical sterilization, cross-sex hormones, or in extreme examples genital mutilation and harm to internal organs including the bladder, rectum, pelvic floor muscles, urethra, prostate, reiterated through persistent wound destabilization. Also, breast implants damaging the pectorals, as well as larynx remodeling causing intense vocal damage. Cross-sex hormones also tend to cause early cardiovascular problems such as thrombosis.
Except for iatrogenic damage, the outcomes of some of the behaviors are positive. Male sex mimics die of violent assault by men at half the rate of other men since by mimicking women they trigger the male taboo against female violence. Men generally die of violent assault by men at twice the rate of women due in part to this taboo.
That make sense? My delight in sucking cock is an unusual male trait, but not rare. It was used to claim I was actually female, and is categorized as "gender nonconforming" typically by those involved in masking sex mimicry.
Just to clarify boxes, this may help.
Huh. Let’s see…
“I don't experience 'gender' but I experience sex, like any animal, humans being a kind of animal. No animal experiences 'gender', since gender is a property of language, not animals.”
I’ll take your word for the animals. I don’t speak their language in order to ask them.
As for you, either you’re being facetious, or you have a very limited definition of what being human involves. I am far more than just my quote unquote, animal instincts, I would suggest you are too.
I ask, are you as amoral about your love making as an animal? When you chose to make it, that is.
“I have uncommon sex traits for a male human (man), for instance I like sucking cock. I have my doubts that even a minority of female humans (women) enjoy sucking cock like men who share this uncommon trait with me. I would say on the whole enjoyment of sucking cock is more prevalent with men than women, but I haven't sampled women's opinions, but I have sampled men's opinions. Some women may disagree.”
I do disagree. Both in my experience with women and with men. I could make a fallacious argument here and make reference to your possible lack of experience but I don’t think I need to. You admit it outright.
Nonetheless, you still opine.
Your lived experience vs. mine - I’ll call that a push
“Of the 4.4 billion men on the planet, around 150 million like to suck cock.”
I concede that, it’s statistical and tactical and makes no point.
“When I was younger, I was bullied by other males who claimed that my looking forward to sucking cock 'made me a girly'. I was supposed to believe that having uncommon male sex traits made me not masculine, possibly not male. Ironically, men sucking cock isn't that uncommon, after all 150 million men enjoy it.”
I’m sorry you were bullied for being you as a child. So was I. Though differently than you. Though still for who I am. I was pushed into your lived “experience” by my bullies because the concept to being trans was not generally know to 5th or 6th graders in 1978.
“All humans are either male or female, determined at conception by the genetic makeup of sperm from their father.”
A distinction with no meaning given the actual science.
“The genesis of the human body and mind through gestation, birth, education, and circumstance generate a variety of behaviors. Males have a spectrum of behaviors as do women. Some are statistically unusual for males or unusual for females.”
Do tell. ☺️
“Having a statistically unusual behavior for a male doesn't change sex, much as emotion doesn't change fact. My behavior of sucking cock doesn't make me female, and it's statistically not that unusual for men anyway.”
Again, a distinction without meaning. And it’s a fallacy. Bonus points!! I quote Wikipedia’s definition cause you’re not worth me typing it out myself.
A fallacy of illicit transference is an informal fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.
There are two variations of this fallacy:[1]
* Fallacy of composition – assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole. This fallacy is also known as "arguing from the specific to the general."
* Fallacy of division – assumes what is true of the whole is true of its parts (or some subset of parts). In statistics, forms of it are usually referred to as the ecological fallacy.
You managed to do both in one paragraph. 👏👏👏
“Some males, usually nearing puberty, become afraid of being an adult (all adolescents have some anxiety about change), and develop anxiety about being male for a variety of reasons - they fear competition, they recognize they lack attraction to females, they can't find an acceptable model of behavior to take on as their body and feelings changes drastically. This anxiety can be amplified by other children and adults identifying uncommon sex behaviors and attempting the impossible, to reshape natural variation through punishment or reinforcement training, bullying.”
Your pathology makes no rational sense. I assume you know that. I mean it’s pretty obvious 💅
“Most of the time, but not aways, the cognitive changes at the end of puberty erase the anxiety. But sometimes, males develop a compulsion to deny their male sex, and to imitate what they believe are behaviors of the female sex.”
Same response. You’re really good at telling me my lived experience from the outside. I mean, you don’t know me at all. But hey, you are arguing for boxes, so put me in yours, for the reductio.
“In males, sex mimicry is an unusual, but natural adaptation to cope with the realities of male competition socially and sexually. It occurs in every major category of complex life - from squids to birds, reptiles to mammals, even insects. In highly sex-competitive species, it is a way to bypass or 'cheat' the system for access to females to reproduce.”
Absolute bull shit. 🤣🤣🤣
You didn’t get laid a lot as a young man did you?
Maybe this form of “competitive” or “high status men” BS works for the boys, but there are many forms of coupling and relationship formation “strategies” not found in your narrow masculine view.
“In humans, this sex mimicry takes the form of a compulsion, which tends to create to the person the perception of being the opposite sex, much as the compulsion to wash is enforced by the perception of uncleanliness, the compulsion to starve is enforced by the perception of obesity, or the compulsion to steal is enforced by the perception of unjust possession.”
You know, your ability to describe my individual lived experience is only exceeded by your ability to appeal to authority in a intellectually dishonest fashion
The appeal to authority fallacy occurs when an argument is deemed true based solely on the authority of the person making the claim, rather than on evidence or logical reasoning.
I didn’t read the rest, it reminded me of proofreading a high school logic paper that failed to grasp basic logic nor reason.
Scientific theory rests upon the ability to witness and observe phenomena, and then described it and document it occurring naturally and consistently, given the fact that there will be outliers. The general consensus of the “consistently observable,” then becomes anointed as “fact.”
However, epistemologically it lacks any real value. There is no necessity in an “if / then” statement as Hobbs noted like 500 years ago. “The sun doesn’t “have” to come up tomorrow.” Nothing has to happen as an “if / then” hence the outliers.
In addition, the cool thing about science is that what was once thought to be “true” is often discovered to be something else with further study and observation.
It’s the ultimate fallacy and a failure of your reasoning, and your individual ability to reason in general (I hope
You don’t get paid for this stuff) to have concluded as such when “the jury still out.”Never mind the epistemological “mind body problem” you conveniently ignore.
Given the unprovable nature of your claim, despite how well it may seem to rest on your quicksand, makes this a “moral question.”
And your moral ontological Ought is to punish people who “may” just be a little different than you. Just to clarify your boxes.
The victim becomes the bully!! Congratulations you’ve come full circle, just to clarify you.
[Edited to add: it’s David Hume and not Hobbes - which I also misspelled as Hobbs - finally though Hobbes was 500 years ago, Hume was about 250 years ago.]
I make no effort to describe you, you're not that interesting since I have no idea who you are. Clearly however, my statements resonated since you claim that I actually described your experience. Telling.
Unfortunately like many people, you don't understand relatively simple biology of mimicry (widespread in animals) and sexual mimicry (a subset) it's not always easy to absorb unless you observe it.
Should you be interested to inform yourself I recommend tarting with wikipedia - it has handy reasonably accurate entries on mimicry, sexual mimicry, and these behaviors, you'll perhaps have a better understanding than attempting refute simple factual statements and my conjectures, which is supported by other biological behaviorists, though I am not one. I'm just well-read. Seeing a male cuttlefish imitate a female on one side (to a male) and remain male on the opposite side is fascinating.
If you claim you are other than your actual sex, then you will block processing of any information contradicting that state, which is a property of compulsion - compulsive starvers claim they are obese, compulsive washers claim their are dirty, compulsive liars claim they speak the truth.
Unfortunately, here's the process: you will then claim I'm full of bullshit, and become flushed and slightly enraged, and try to belittle me since I've exposed your beliefs to a simple alternative explanation, but you don't really grasp that I have no reaction to belittlement since I've been inured to it for many, many decades. I may in fact be an AI, which scans substack for entries relating to male sexual mimicry, and puts out essentially the same response each time, continuing engagement.
I've spoken to many male sexual mimics casually and professionally, from Lynn Conway to street hookers in Malaysia, the behaviors are consistent, compulsive, stereotyped, and unfortunate.
A left-hand person has a different experience with the world than a right hand dominant individual. You cut off a left-handed person‘s hand they’re still left-handed.
I experience reality and my gender in a different way than you, presuming you’re not a trans person.
A left handed person experience reality and their functioning in the world differently than you, presuming you’re not left handed.
Why do you trust a left handed person’s expression how they function in our shared reality more than the transgender person’s expression of the same thing?
As I said, I’m observable.
Just like a left-handed person.
So why the presumed “realness” of one over the other?
So you’ve solved the “mind body problem!!” Yay!!
When do you expect your Nobel prize?
I’m observable.
That’s a whole lot of research you’ve done! Impressive. I’d go back even earlier, to the psychiatric tradition of Freud and his cohort and followers. (Or, heck, even Havelock Ellis and the turn of the century ‘sexologists’ theorizing sexual ‘inversion’ and pathology). Even Simone Beauvoir was queasy about lesbianism in the Second Sex (in later life she was more open to it being OK). Well, sex, in general, has been almost a taboo topic (being ‘dirty’ & all). So it’s no wonder young tomboy type girls recoil at being tagged as a lesbian (when they probably don’t even know what sex is, just that being a ‘lesbian’ means being unattractive, sick, & disgusting). If I were a therapist for girls wanting to trans (for gawd knows what reason - who’d want to be a man?! /jk) I’d try and convince them it’s OK to dress however and have short hair, etc. Same with sissy-type boys. Most importantly, seems like family therapy would be extremely important since parents not accepting their gender non-conforming kids is probably a big part of the problem.
Thanks for your scholarship & writing.
“Imagine if [refusing to allow people to use their left hand] were disproportionately inflicted on [left handled] people – [people] would rightly throw a fit. Today I'm going to bring that same sense of urgency to the question of why therapists [cut off left-handed people’s left hand] rather than accept people with different experiences with [“left-handed dominant dysphoria”].
I think the explanation popularized for ROGD — that girls entering adulthood want to escape sexual attention — is correct.
I think what is still in need of explaining is why boys transition. For that, I use the economic lens of supply and demand.
I think young gay boys are envious of the male sexual attention that young girls are trying to escape. They want that attention. And they see transition as a way to get it. In other words, they believe transition will increase their supply of male sexual partners.
This theme of attracting male sexual attention by becoming “feminized” is laced through all of the so-called “sissy” pornography that these young gay boys start consuming before their voices have even deepend.
Very interesting article, it’s great to see the history going back to the 60s. I can see back in the 60s and 70s and also 80s there was a lot more homophobia around in the general population so more incentive to be trans instead. It does still seem that a lot of this epidemic of transness is still fuelled by homophobia, even now. Having said that I read a study that showed for at least some young girls it was not that they wanted to be men, they just did not want to be female with all the struggles and societal expectations that are put upon girls as they go through puberty, some of it driven by the proliferation of online porn.
Impressive overview. The first question that comes to mind is: if GD is not an illness then why treat it , and specifically why treat it with drugs and surgery?
The most obvious answer seems to be: because it pays.
Great stuff, I'm so glad I found your substack! But I wonder if it isn't a little more complicated on the female side too than all or most just being innately gay (or bi, even)? There seems to be a mixture of trauma, sexual assault, disassociation and self-harm that might lead some to take on a more invulnerable masculine persona that might involve a dyke/lesbian identity, seeking out female partners and avoiding male, perhaps preferring other ftms or being involved with male partners after transition, and BDSM. There's Sheila Jeffreys' stuff on trans and BDSM and this old article by a researcher who later transed herself: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/ahdevor/2016/12/07/h-devor-1994-transsexualism-dissociation-and-child-abuse-an-initial-discussion-based-on-nonclinical-data-journal-of-psychology-and-human-sexuality-63-49-72/
That may be true, but I don't think therapists saw them as abuse victims (except maybe Lothstein- I haven't read this book). I don't think they'd feel comfortable seeing transition as a way to cope with abuse, the same way they let it be a cope for lesbianism.
No, certainly! To the gender doctors they were all the same - the "easy" cases, perhaps until rogd came along and they started noticing something was off... There's even a Swedish dissertation complaining of how "unfair" it is that males get all these combinations of sex, gender and sexuality to choose from (the false trichotomy, pretty much) while for females gender and sexuality are seen as essentially the same thing by mostly male doctors. But it's still fascinating to how openly the trauma and abuse was talked about among ftm activists once...
I just recalled that the dissertation in question is written in English and openly available: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?dswid=8829&faces-redirect=true&language=en&searchType=SIMPLE&query=&af=%5B%5D&aq=%5B%5B%5D%5D&aq2=%5B%5B%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D&pid=diva2%3A169866&noOfRows=50&sortOrder=author_sort_asc&sortOrder2=title_sort_asc&onlyFullText=false&sf=all
I agree that a lot of FTM transitioners variously identified as "lesbians" were not in fact lesbians. Like Pat Califia, who was obsessed with BDSM and how calls herself a bisexual transman. Remember, gender clinics were reluctant to transition straight women, which provided an incentive for female gender reassignment candidates to pretend to be as lesbian as they could.
(Jeffreys is right to draw attention to the link between BDSM and trans, but wrong about conflating butches with BDSM stuff. But that's another story).
That's a really good point too! In the old gatekeeping model the AGPs all had to pretend to be gay too. It's almost like clinicians specifically WANTED to "trans away the gay"... 🙄 The women didn't have to fight off the spectre of "fetishistic transvestism" so were probably all waved through as long as they presented masculine and said they preferred sleeping with women. Buck is an interesting case too.
And yeah, Jeffreys is always a mixed bag with her very rigid ideas of what a proper lesbian and woman ought to be like... I guess it takes someone that headstrong to openly and consistently critique transgender and queer.
The gatekeeping around sexuality is gone now of course - now straights can be castrated too without lying about their sexual preferences, yay! It's ironic how the trans activists accomplished this by twisting it into "queer/gay trans people are discriminated against and must pretend to be straight to get the treatments the need". And now of course if you try to to bring up the "transing away the gay" they just go "but look at all these lgbtqia+++ trans people!"
I think Pat is a lesbian actually. But she’s gone down such a sick porn rabbit hole that she isn’t even a sexual person anymore. It’s a sickness. Think how the ago dudes will have sex with men to satisfy their fetish.
Great article!
I'm only familiar with one definition of "primary transsexual" that is not, in fact, homosexual, and that is Person & Ovesey's primary transsexuals. Blanchard plausibly identified P&O's primary transsexuals as a subtype of AGP that were misleadingly labeled as "asexual" because they weren't interested in sexual partners, but instead were aroused by fantasizing of themselves as women (classic AGP behavior). Anyway, P&O utilized some Freudian claptrap to explain why homosexual trans (and transvestites, distinguished from the "asexual" primary trans) generally, tho not always, can overcome their transsexual impulses:
"Thus, primary transsexuals resort to symbiotic fusion to allay separation anxiety, whereas effeminate homosexuals and transvestites resort to part objects and transitional objects. In the effeminate homosexual, the boy fears engulfment and annihilation by the mother. He, therefore, transfers his dependency and sexual needs to a male object. His partner’s penis is equated with the mother’s breast and incorporated orally or anally as a part-object. In transvestism, the female clothes represent the mother as a transitional object and hence confer maternal protection. They are also used sexually as fetishistic defenses against incestual anxiety.
"In most effeminate homosexuals and transvestites, these defenses function reasonably well. They contain the separation anxiety and permit the patient a semblance of emotional balance. In some, however, at times of stress, the defenses may fail and precipitate an acute dependency crisis. Under such circumstances, the patient may regressively fall back on the more primitive fantasy of symbiotic fusion with the mother. It is at this point that he be gins to experience transsexual impulses. We will discuss later the life situa tions in effeminate homosexuals and transvestites most likely to evoke such regressions, as well as the factors that determine their clinical course."
Yours is such a unique pov. So helpful for parents too. Thank you.
WPATH's SoC7 is actually equivocal about the pubertal dividing line, as this single sentence shows:
"In most children, gender dysphoria will disappear before or early in puberty."
Is "early" Tanner 3? And are there SOME children for whom gender dysphoria disappears later in puberty, or even "early" into adulthood?
The world may never know...
Also, regarding GD vs. GID and the claim that "now people have to literally say they are the opposite sex in order to score a diagnosis."
This is actually not true at all. Remember the gender dysphoria includes not only per se transgender *but also nonbinary identities.* Uh-oh...
You are, of course, right that there are certain “magic words” one needs to say, but they are these:
“I’m not cis.”
***THAT IS ALL ANY CHILD NEEDS TO SAY.***
Thorough and unflinching. Thank you. That interview with Scarlet in Gender, a Wider Lens should be required viewing for anyone (kudos to Sasha and Stella for taking the step to record their interviews on video) . Such a vulnerable true story.
Tranny grooming is a HUGE moneymaker.
This is so, so good.