Leelah Alcorn, transgender teen, commited suicide

[ponderingturtle]

If you're saying that evolutionary pressure to reproduce is what makes men horrified at the thought of having sex with or marrying an infertile female transexual, then what about young, attractive women who have had hysterectomies? I don't think the average man would be horrified at the thought of having sex with such a woman, even if he wanted children in the future and therefore didn't want to marry her.

So then the question comes: What about a female transexual who doesn't appear infertile? Why would a man's reaction to her be different from his reaction to a woman who's had a hysterectomy?

It is clear infertility is totally a great reason for divorce by any means. They would expect to be divorced and be undatable to most women if they were infertile too I am sure.

 

[Donn]

Help me understand then. Is gender entirely separate from sex?

As I am learning, it is. They are gradients on their own lines. See this neat diagram:
http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1600-Genderbread-Person.jpg

So, do you use male/female to designate one's sex, and man/woman to designate one's gender?

I still don't know the answer to what words to use. I've seen new words like "xe" and "xer".

The issue is that society is slowly breaking out of a category trap. It's messy, but the facts are clearly shown by the actual existence of humans who do not accept those categories.

If having a penis or not having one has nothing whatsoever to do with being a man, in your view, then how does one's gender get determined?

By the genderbread person, penis is not on the same line as gender. You're still in a strict male/female category. When you abandon that, I think, these new ideas will start to make sense.

Is it something anyone can change at any time on a whim?

I'd say no because, by all accounts, the category trap holds us all and it's hard to break it when you are a victim of it. Homosexuals have to "come out" and that's a gruelling life-changing experience. A lot of these "whims" force people into harm's way. Derision, suffering, sadness and death are the rewards for many who push at the categories.

This is not a whim.

(Another angle on this category trap is that even people who fit can't speak out against it for fear of being thought deviant or dirty (etc.) by their peers.)

What you seem to be advocating for (correct me if I'm wrong) is a paradigm where "you are what you say and feel you are, irrespective of what your biology is" - is that fair?

Expand your idea of biology. Is the mind not biological? Can one's inner feeling of gender not be said to be biological? I say yes. A transexual, cis or homosexual human is powerless but to be who their bodies make them be. Our minds are body, don't forget.

Indeed, the very words transexual and homosexual and all the rest are foolish. We have such a need to categorize; it's a red-tape of the mind that strangles reality.

To add, I'd say this sex/gender reality is the same as skin colour. We are in a category trap there too.



That's my rather ignorant and limited take on the matter.

 

[Pup]

Better that she not have done it at all.

But the, "Oh, poor, poor, depressed person, nevermind that she might have killed other people" apology is pretty lame.

Other peoples' lives matter, too. If someone is so depressed that self harm is a possibility, I wish they would get help. Failing that, however, I would ask that they please not kill themselves in such a way as to harm others on their way out. I don't think that's asking too much.

It seems that no matter how a person commits suicide, there will be a pack of people ready to criticize him or her for being selfish and hurting others. If the suicidal person did it so no one else was involved but family members might find the body, they were selfish for traumatizing family members. If they did it so only police or firemen were apt to find the body, they were selfish for upsetting loved ones.

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't some psychological satisfaction for some people in critizing those who commit suicide, and they just adapt the criticism to the circumstances.

 

[Pup]

Okay... but can you name any other examples of situations where someone's beliefs about what they are trump what others can observe scientifically?

You're assuming that what we can observe scientifically now is all we'll ever be able to observe scientifically. Personally, I don't think that's true because 1) science continually is able to come up with new methods and 2) there's an anomalie that many people are reporting so consistently that I don't think we can dismiss it as nonexistent without further study.

But as for an example, here's another one where science hasn't found a way to measure the answer, so people's own subjective feelings are accepted as accurate unless there's clear evidence they're lying: pain. And as far as that goes, many psychiatric conditions like depression.

The parallel would be if science can't figure out how to measure and predict who is a transexual and who isn't by objective tests. The only solution is to ask, assess behavior to see if it's consistent just like a claim of pain or depression, and accept the person's word. The alternative is to believe that transexualism (or gender dysphoria) simply doesn't exist and therefore there's no need to try to identify individuals who have it--which seems to be the viewpoint that some have taken.

 

[Arcade22]

From that link:

(highlighting mine).
I'm confused now. Shouldn't the highlighted word "sex" be "gender"? Or is a straight man dating a trans-woman suddenly gay?

Did you continue to read after that statement?

While these categories continue to be widely used, research has suggested that sexual orientation does not always appear in such definable categories and instead occurs on a continuum

The thing is that "straight", "gay" and "bisexual" are simple, broad and easy terms to apply and even identify with but are on the whole often vague, ambiguous and lack depth.

A great example is with transsexuals and "gender deviants" in general. Is someone who is normally just attracted to women but has not problem getting aroused by a very feminine cross-dressing male who could easily pass as a woman except when naked, or even a really feminine male in general (i.e. wide hips, hairless, pretty face, young, soft voice and not being to tall and muscular) still "straight" or are they "bisexual"? Many people who have such attractions often self-identify with being "straight", "bisexual" or even prefer to not identify with any "sexual orientation" at all.

This ambiguity is a reason why i generally avoid talking of any broad categories and instead prefer to be both more specific and less general.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You're assuming that what we can observe scientifically now is all we'll ever be able to observe scientifically. Personally, I don't think that's true because 1) science continually is able to come up with new methods and 2) there's an anomalie that many people are reporting so consistently that I don't think we can dismiss it as nonexistent without further study.

But as for an example, here's another one where science hasn't found a way to measure the answer, so people's own subjective feelings are accepted as accurate unless there's clear evidence they're lying: pain. And as far as that goes, many psychiatric conditions like depression.

The parallel would be if science can't figure out how to measure and predict who is a transexual and who isn't by objective tests. The only solution is to ask, assess behavior to see if it's consistent just like a claim of pain or depression, and accept the person's word. The alternative is to believe that transexualism (or gender dysphoria) simply doesn't exist and therefore there's no need to try to identify individuals who have it--which seems to be the viewpoint that some have taken.

But biology is the all, so like you wouldn't call a post menopausal person a woman, or a man who suffered traumatic injury to his genitals a man this is the same. Full detailed medical testing must be done before anyone can ever be figured to be male or female.

So clearly to start with, we need a bathroom for all those people who are not biologically capable of fulfilling their reproductive roll, like post menopausal women and men who had vasectomies.

 

[Aepervius]

(the word "transgender" of course not having been invented yet).

back in the end of the 70ies start of 80ies when we spoke of that issue, it was indeed called trans-sexualism.

 

[Aepervius]

I used to think as you do and believed that, in order to change your gender, you had to have an operation. I thought that having genitals conferred gender. Vagina = woman and penis = man. However, I realized that there are several problems with this. For example: What happens if you lose your genitals somehow? Are you no longer a man or a woman? What if a man woke up one morning with a vagina instead of a penis, and nothing else had changed? Would "he" suddenly become a "she"? If a man is attracted to a trans woman, does that make him gay?

A loss or a dysfunctional organ is not the same things as a total organ replacement with another.

 

[Aepervius]

It is clear infertility is totally a great reason for divorce by any means. They would expect to be divorced and be undatable to most women if they were infertile too I am sure.

No.

the 900 pound gorilla is that many male, and I count myself in it, will maybe politely call MtF or FtM as the gender they wish in social situations, but will consider those persons to be the sex they were born with for sexual (mating) situation.

A lot of people try to mix the two situation in this thread, like MtF are called She socially, so you should accept those as female for mating too, and they are as female as infertile or having had an accident /surgery/ Cancer.

But it is not the case. I contend that what people view socially acceptable and what people view sexually *personally* acceptable are different beast. I contend that for many of us, probably the crushing majority, you stay the *sex* you are born with , even if you operated it away and even if you feel you are a different *gender*.

 

[angrysoba]

A few thoughts on suicide which I will put in spoilers because they address various thoughts in the thread rather than the case itself.

Two things often said about suicide which I think are not always true and not never true:

It's selfish.
and
It's cowardly.

In fact, I think most of the time it must take a lot of guts or some mind alteration to commit suicide. And I think there are many ways in which people commit suicide which are expressly altruistic rather than selfish.

Beyond that, it is often obviously meant as an insult to say someone was selfish to commit suicide.

That said, I think that there are plenty of examples of very bad suicides such as the ones where a person actually tries to take others with them. And there is a point where someone is so negligent of others in their suicide that condemnation is acceptable.

Not saying this case is an example.

 

[Giordano]

Coming into this late, I apologize if I am re-stating other posts:

1. People have "corrective" surgery for things about their bodies that they disagree with all the time: nose jobs, etc. At a less invasive level, many people use botox to get rid of wrinkles, skin cream to improve the look of their face, even gym machines to improve the the appearance of their bodies. If someone feels that their body doesn't look the way they think it should, they have every right to make use of the available techniques to change it. Unless some czar wishes to mandate that none of the above can be applied to anyone, that they should just "lump it."

2. How one views one's gender is not simply based on the genitalia one is born with. If one truly believes that one is a specific gender, one has a right to be that, whether this disagrees with ones genitalia or not. In fact, genitalia vary quite a bit naturally and are an imperfect way to determine gender in the first place. Does having larger of the relevant parts make you more of a man or a women? Conversely, there are more people than you might suspect whose "parts" are somewhat ambiguous. Doesn't one's viewpoint count as a very, very important component of gender in either case? In fact, does one have to be either all one or all the other?

3. There are lots of mental viewpoints that differ from what a simple physical assessment might suggest. I may be a 180 lb 6 foot woman, but wish strongly that I was a classical dancer. That will certainly create problems for me in practice, but who should say that I should not think of myself that way, or do what I can to make that dream as true as possible?

 

[Slowvehicle]

No.

the 900 pound gorilla is that many male, and I count myself in it, will maybe politely call MtF or FtM as the gender they wish in social situations, but will consider those persons to be the sex they were born with for sexual (mating) situation.

A lot of people try to mix the two situation in this thread, like MtF are called She socially, so you should accept those as female for mating too, and they are as female as infertile or having had an accident /surgery/ Cancer.

But it is not the case. I contend that what people view socially acceptable and what people view sexually *personally* acceptable are different beast. I contend that for many of us, probably the crushing majority, you stay the *sex* you are born with , even if you operated it away and even if you feel you are a different *gender*.

Actually, the only "gorilla" at the party is the continued conflation of "mating" sex (for reproduction) with "sexfun" sex (for unbridled gong-bong humma-humma hotsies). (Sorry to use such technical vocabulary.)

Unless one is in the "proceration ONLY" camp...

 

[ponderingturtle]

No.

the 900 pound gorilla is that many male, and I count myself in it, will maybe politely call MtF or FtM as the gender they wish in social situations, but will consider those persons to be the sex they were born with for sexual (mating) situation.

A lot of people try to mix the two situation in this thread, like MtF are called She socially, so you should accept those as female for mating too, and they are as female as infertile or having had an accident /surgery/ Cancer.

But it is not the case. I contend that what people view socially acceptable and what people view sexually *personally* acceptable are different beast. I contend that for many of us, probably the crushing majority, you stay the *sex* you are born with , even if you operated it away and even if you feel you are a different *gender*.

The point that I was making is that the rational given is a total cop out. They don't hold to the standards they are claiming that is what is driving their refusal to date them.

I don't think people are obligated to date other people, and not being into trans, redheads, blacks, tall women, short men or what have you is a mark against them. But they need to admit it about why they are doing it and not coming up with some lame excuse that clearly isn't the motivator behind their behavior as it only applies to trans people.

How much rage would people feel about a spouse who lied to them about being infertile vs being trans? I think that there would be a serious difference there and that says to me it isn't about the fertility of the trans person.

 

[Giordano]

How much rage would people feel about a spouse who lied to them about being infertile vs being trans? I think that there would be a serious difference there and that says to me it isn't about the fertility of the trans person.

Agreed. And conversely, think about the relatively small amount of anger that someone is likely to have toward a spouse that lied to them about a treatment that simply enhanced the physical characteristics associated with the spouse's birth gender: breast enlargement, all those pills I learn about in my email that will enhance my male genitalia (surely they must work?), etc. Sure, someone might be a bit disturbed to hear that their wife had breast surgery, but I doubt it will typically be anything like learning that their wife was a trans-sexual. So it is not the idea of an artificial modification of physical gender that most deeply disturbs some, but the idea that their spouse "crossed the line" that most bothers them. But this is imposed largely by society, which falsely states you must be blue or pink, and you can't change color, or be purple, ever.

And fertility can seldom be predicted in advance: lots of people may suspect that they are relatively infertile, yet might still have children, whereas people who think that they are fertile may not ever have children. Unless one is King Henry VIII, fertility usually is a lot less important than the joy of being with one's spouse day to day.

Of course it still would be the best idea to be totally honest with one's spouse before a marriage about all relevant issues: debt, major medical concerns, prior marriages, etc.

 

[shuttlt]

Personally, for me, fertility has nothing to do with it. It might or might no be important in its own right. Potentially it is something that one really ought to tell a partner, but I don't see that the two issues are particularly linked psychologically. I guess one could make a case for the underlying reasons for the psychology, but that's digressing even further from the point.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Agreed. And conversely, think about the relatively small amount of anger that someone is likely to have toward a spouse that lied to them about a treatment that simply enhanced the physical characteristics associated with the spouse's birth gender: breast enlargement, all those pills I learn about in my email that will enhance my male genitalia (surely they must work?), etc. Sure, someone might be a bit disturbed to hear that their wife had breast surgery, but I doubt it will typically be anything like learning that their wife was a trans-sexual. So it is not the idea of an artificial modification of physical gender that most deeply disturbs some, but the idea that their spouse "crossed the line" that most bothers them. But this is imposed largely by society, which falsely states you must be blue or pink, and you can't change color, or be purple, ever.

And fertility can seldom be predicted in advance: lots of people may suspect that they are relatively infertile, yet might still have children, whereas people who think that they are fertile may not ever have children. Unless one is King Henry VIII, fertility usually is a lot less important than the joy of being with one's spouse day to day.

Of course it still would be the best idea to be totally honest with one's spouse before a marriage about all relevant issues: debt, major medical concerns, prior marriages, etc.

I agree. But it is the way that they are not owning their issues by saying "It creeps me out" and instead try to make is that there is something wrong with the other person that is the problem.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Personally, for me, fertility has nothing to do with it. It might or might no be important in its own right. Potentially it is something that one really ought to tell a partner, but I don't see that the two issues are particularly linked psychologically. I guess one could make a case for the underlying reasons for the psychology, but that's digressing even further from the point.

There are a few issues mixed in together here. Why people refuse to date trans people and their rational. What qualifies as male or female, and what about those individuals who fall outside the strict definition of being able to reproduce sexually. And how to feel about being lied to by a partner about various things.

 

[shuttlt]

Why people refuse to date trans people and their rational.

Is there necessarily a rational? Certainly for me, it's not a position that I have taken, it's a position I find I have. I think that it has to do with the categories of male and female that I presumably developed in early childhood and all the various connections to other mental objects that have developed around them over the years. Through an effort of will I could act differently, but feeling differently is harder. Not necessarily impossible, but harder. I imagine it would take time as well.

 

[Giordano]

I agree. But it is the way that they are not owning their issues by saying "It creeps me out" and instead try to make is that there is something wrong with the other person that is the problem.

Agreed. What attracts me in another person has to do with my preferences, and doesn't make it right or wrong from their, or an absolute, viewpoint. For example. if I like or dislike people with tattoos has to do with me, and I don't think that my opinion supersedes their own. Yes, if they wish for me to find them attractive, then my opinion will need to be part of their decision whether to have a tattoo or not. But the vast majority of people would not, and should not, care about my point of view and would make the decision based on their own viewpoint.

 

[xjx388]

I agree. But it is the way that they are not owning their issues by saying "It creeps me out" and instead try to make is that there is something wrong with the other person that is the problem.

I will own it. Having sex with a male repulses me. I don't have a rational explanation for why that is. I contend there are no rational explanations for sexual preference. I like what I like.