Being transgender is hard

[sarge]

Only Dessi said you were correct. She's not transgendered, AFAIK.

I assumed she is. Perhaps I owe her an appology for the assumption.

 

[Dessi]

No worries, sarge *huggles*

 

[sarge]

This is the only time homosexuality winds up crossing paths with Gender issues. If a man is in a woman's body and he sexually attracted to men, he is a heterosexual woman in a man's body. He will present to the world as a gay man because his body looks like a man's body. But his Gender is female.

This must be backwards.

If a man (in a man or womans body, makes no difference) is sexually attracted to men, then he is a homosexual, no? Otherwise the whole discussion makes no sense.

 

[sarge]

No worries, sarge *huggles*

Assumptions are lazy. You merit better effort.

 

[Alt+F4]

We don't even have answers on what gender really is. What does it mean to be female or male?

Good points. I know some lesbians who are considered very butch but identify as women. As for what it means to be female or male....good question, I don't know. If someone asked me, how do you know that you're a woman I wouldn't know how to answer that, unless I'm PMSing, having sex or having my period I just feel like.....me!

 

[Alt+F4]

Unfortunately many of the causations are similar and medical science has not yet found a way to distinguish (physically) why these different choices arise. However, this brain study does yield some potential. But the experiment it self was poorly controlled and had a very small population. The test was biased at best. There needs to be a diverse range of comparisons, and science needs to unlock what the “white stuff” is. And if the “white stuff” is seen in any other populations. Does any of these patterns match self-image, identity, or addiction disorders? Before we can totally accept any of the evidence you have provided, there needs to be a plethora of studies to disprove the other ideas about the subject. There also needs to be a wider test population than was given in the previous studies I've seen.

I agree it's a good place to start from but as I mentioned in another post I think medical technology needs to catch up a bit.

 

[Arcade22]

I don't know how big the movement is..

Were you talking about this one: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/27/501364/main20074594.shtml ?

If so, it's the only one of its kind AFAIK and let us hope its the last.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I agree it's a good place to start from but as I mentioned in another post I think medical technology needs to catch up a bit.

Agreed. Neuroscience has some catching up to do it self.

 

[JWideman]

This must be backwards.

If a man (in a man or womans body, makes no difference) is sexually attracted to men, then he is a homosexual, no? Otherwise the whole discussion makes no sense.

I agree. If you identify as a woman and are into chicks, you're a lesbian. Even if you still have a penis.

 

[quadraginta]

This must be backwards.

If a man (in a man or womans body, makes no difference) is sexually attracted to men, then he is a homosexual, no? Otherwise the whole discussion makes no sense.

I agree. If you identify as a woman and are into chicks, you're a lesbian. Even if you still have a penis.

This sort of thing goes a long way toward explaining why we have a long way to go learning about the subject.

We don't even have a useful common terminology. The terms that are in common parlance lead us into dichotomies and binary thinking. These may be helpful, but they may not.

I'm not criticizing or making fun of either statement. Sometimes the language we have at hand guides our perspective, and in our major modern cultures there aren't many well accepted alternatives. Yet. I hope.

 

[Toke]

Were you talking about this one: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/27/501364/main20074594.shtml ?

If so, it's the only one of its kind AFAIK and let us hope its the last.

It have been a while, I recall it as an article on several different Swedish pedagogical experiments, some of them sounded far out.
(One set of parents had a kid named Storm and kept the gender a secret from it's fellow kindergardeners.)

 

[Merko]

Chaz says he was confused because he thought he was a lesbian, he didn't understand that he was a transgender.

Ok, so transsexuality has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality, yet a person can for several years be 'confused' as to which of the two he belongs to?

I think you are... confused.

 

[Toke]

Ok, so transsexuality has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality, yet a person can for several years be 'confused' as to which of the two he belongs to?

I think you are... confused.

Yes, two different things can be mistaken for another.

I think you are.....wilfully ignorant.

 

[Merko]

Previous posters have pointed out to you that studies of animal behavior have gone a long way to support the idea that homosexuality is, in fact, normal and common.

I think this is falling into the trap of religious bigots. They claim that homosexuality is wrong 'because it does not occur in nature'. But that is a doubly wrong argument. You are right that it is wrong on the second part: homosexuality frequently does occur in 'nature' (eg non-human nature). But the first part of the argument is also wrong. It's the naturalistic fallacy, to assume that what occurs 'in nature' must therefore be right. But that does not follow at all.

Suppose that we study animals and we conclude that no animals are transgender. Does that mean that transsexuality in humans is abnormal or wrong? No it does not.

We can absolutely learn things from studying animals, but we can not learn what is right and wrong, or what is normal and abnormal.

 

[Merko]

Yes, two different things can be mistaken for another.

No one has claimed in this thread that homosexuality and transsexuality would be the same thing. What has been claimed, and what should be patently obvious, is that they are related.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Ok, so transsexuality has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality, yet a person can for several years be 'confused' as to which of the two he belongs to?

I think you are... confused.

No, truethat is correct.

Transsexuality is about gender identity.

Homosexuality is about sexual identity.

A transgender can be attracted sexually to either their own psychological gender, thus making them homosexual, or those of their physical sex, making them hetrosexual.

The confusion is only caused by your refusal to see and accept that gender is not the physical. Heck even if we quote Stereolab's dictionary it is the Behaviorial, Cultural, or Psychological Traits of a given sex. Note well that it doesn't say that gender is based on the physical or genetic traits of a sex.

Once you understand this then further understand that homosexuality is the sexual attraction to one's own gender, and hetrosexuallity is the sexual attraction to the opposite gender the confussion will lift from you.

The confussion happens when people don't accept that a person's gender can be different to their physical sex. As such if a TG man finds himself attracted to women, these people declare him a lesbian because he has a female body. This is wrong however. This is what truethat is trying to express and clarify.

So while outwardly TG and Homosexuality often look alike (they don't have to though, there are lesbian TG women and gay TG men who to the outside world appear straight,) this it is only because the external "symptoms" often appear to be the same, not because the actual underlying cause is the same.

 

[PhantomWolf]

No one has claimed in this thread that homosexuality and transsexuality would be the same thing. What has been claimed, and what should be patently obvious, is that they are related.

No they aren't. Just because they can look similar from the outside doesn't make them related. For evolutional examples, compare long tailed and short tailed bats, or aligators and crocodiles, or turtles and tortises, toads and frogs. Each pair looks similar to the other, but they aren't actually related.

 

[Toke]

Ok, give Merco a break here.
Transsexuality and homosexuality have something in common, like, both appearing in humans.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I’ve seen plenty of programs and documentaries about elephant sexuality. And Elephants are prone to role changes and homosexuality. Not only that but males will often mount one another and engage in sexual intercourse. The evidence we have supporting homosexual behavior, role reversals, and other similar topics is tremendous. However, there is almost no occurrence of desiring to switch genders in nature.

Exactly how would one be able to tell if an animal was a different gender from its physical sex? What behaviours or actions would differenciate it and define that issue?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Ok, give Merco a break here.
Transsexuality and homosexuality have something in common, like, both appearing in humans.

Thanks for the largest laugh I have had in this entire thread.