Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Earthborn]

The mysterious power of an international transgender declaration that no one has ever heard of

People who keep up with LGBTQI[A-Z] issues and haven't been living under a rock have heard of the Yogyakarta Principles. Its (limited) power is not at all mysterious.

(so where is this pervasive influence we’re supposed to be shocked by?)

Courts and politicians -- at least in countries that still pretend to care about international law -- have referenced them. The Yogyakarta Principles are an attempt to clarify (but not change) existing international human rights laws on LGBTQI[A-Z,0-9] issues. This pervasive influence is nothing more than clarification, and they have been referenced when the issues would otherwise not have been clear.

When I just got told in here that it’s trans doctrine that gender is immutable so if a kid puts on a princess dress when he’s three, he gets railroaded into a female gender by doctrinaire therapists.

That does not actually happen.

 

[Earthborn]

Pure speculation, and also pretty wild speculation that having some 46XX cells in the brain would affect the feelz at all.

Yeah, seems pretty unlikely to me too that it would have major influence on transgender identity.

 

[Rolfe]

It would be pretty earth-shattering if it turned out that all these men prancing around in high heels, miniskirts and painted fingernails actually had a mixed-sex chimerism of the brain, but I don't really postulate this as a plausible hypothesis.

 

[Paul2]

I get what you're saying... but I still end up back at wondering how any person can intuitively, automatically, and subconsciously feel like something that they have never been, never experienced, and cannot explain?

I said I'd get back to you about this.

Start with the experience of body dysphoria. Boudicca09's experience was not with genitalia, but with the secondary sex characteristics. The experience of something being off with those parts of the body is primary. Then comes the problem of how to describe what's going on. That's where how society genders sex comes into play, because it's a filter that everyone deals with, one way or the other. So descriptions of the fundamental experience get filtered through gender. And that's one reason why this thread is so long.

I'm not defending or attacking how this works, I'm merely trying to describe it.

 

[TomB]

autogynaephilia

Some suggest that, since correlations do not establish causality, Blanchard may be mistaking a symptom of gender dysphoria for its primary cause.

http://https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Autogynephilia

The autogynephilia thing is not that great a theory. The above is simply the obvious flaw that jumped out at me the first time you presented it here. There are many others.

I’m a biologist, not a psychologist so I’m not going to get too deep into the critique, but I think any of my undergrad psychology classes would have torn this hypothesis to shreds.

 

[Lithrael]

Yeah, it seems to me like proposing that because it’s not exactly unheard of for performers to enjoy getting it on with groupies, the real reason most people ever have the ambition to perform is to get it on with groupies.

 

[LondonJohn]

http://https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Autogynephilia

The autogynephilia thing is not that great a theory. The above is simply the obvious flaw that jumped out at me the first time you presented it here. There are many others.

I’m a biologist, not a psychologist so I’m not going to get too deep into the critique, but I think any of my undergrad psychology classes would have torn this hypothesis to shreds.

Yes. Oh, and there's also this *point of interest*:

Also, because Blanchard's clinic at the Clarke Institute turned down about 98% of all gender variant* applicants during the time they controlled government funding, many have asked whether that led to approval for more applicants who fit his model. Similar criticisms have been leveled against gatekeepers using other models.

ETA: * i.e. trans women applicants who are not solely sexually attracted to cis men

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh..... the jaw-dropping revelations about this crackpot theory and its practitioners continue:

The (autogynephilia) model has also been questioned on the grounds that it does not properly account for the behavior and self-identification of a great many transsexual and transgender women. Proponents of the concept have asserted that "autogynephiles," persons who are assumed to fit this model, are willfully deceiving others in claiming to exhibit behaviour that does not fit within it. J. Michael Bailey, a notable proponent, quotes Clarke Institute employee Maxine Petersen as saying "most gender patients lie" and he himself claims that "the most common way that autogynephiles mislead others is by denying the erotic components of their gender bending".

 

[LondonJohn]

(Of course, I'm probably reckoning without the second-order shenanigans which would claim that this Psychology Wiki discussion is itself the product of biased/flawed thinking.... )

 

[Elaedith]

http://https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Autogynephilia

The autogynephilia thing is not that great a theory. The above is simply the obvious flaw that jumped out at me the first time you presented it here. There are many others.

I’m a biologist, not a psychologist so I’m not going to get too deep into the critique, but I think any of my undergrad psychology classes would have torn this hypothesis to shreds.

Since Bailey published a book based on Blanchard's theory in 2003, trans activists went after him with a sustained campaign of harassment including trumped up charges of ethics violations and sexual misconduct, and even posting pictures of his children in pornographic images. Since then, very few researchers have wanted to touch this area.

Cantor referred to some brain research which he interprets as supporting Blanchard's model, while Moser published an analysis concluding that autogynephilia does exist but Blanchard's model is flawed. Lawrence published a general review of controversies in the area recently.

In the current climate there isn't much chance of anyone being willing to do new research which might carry a risk of finding the wrong thing.

 

[caveman1917]

(Of course, I'm probably reckoning without the second-order shenanigans which would claim that this Psychology Wiki discussion is itself the product of biased/flawed thinking.... )

I noticed you missed this question:

Remember, we were discussing why I find the definitions of gender used by the UK government don't help me to find out what "gender" means.

As I said, in order to understand my point you have to give me an answer to this question, or else explain why you can't. Here it is again:

Are you a type A person or a type B person, or are you somewhere in between? Or, perhaps are you neither a type A person nor a type B person?

Remember my clear definitions:

A type A person is someone with type A attributes and behaviours.

A type B person is someone with type B attributes and behaviours.

So can you answer the question?

If so, can you give reasons for your answer?

If not then, given my clear definitions, why not?

People want to know, are you a type A or a type B person?

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh, I thought I'd already made my position very clear.

(Not with specific regard to that question, though )

 

[TomB]

Since Bailey published a book based on Blanchard's theory in 2003, trans activists went after him with a sustained campaign of harassment including trumped up charges of ethics violations and sexual misconduct, and even posting pictures of his children in pornographic images. Since then, very few researchers have wanted to touch this area.

Cantor referred to some brain research which he interprets as supporting Blanchard's model, while Moser published an analysis concluding that autogynephilia does exist but Blanchard's model is flawed. Lawrence published a general review of controversies in the area recently.

In the current climate there isn't much chance of anyone being willing to do new research which might carry a risk of finding the wrong thing.

To be clear, I don't doubt that autogynophilia exists or that it is present in high proportion of trans-women. It's the correlation vs causation part that I find problematic. After reading the Moser review, I tend to agree with its criticisms.

 

[TomB]

Since Bailey published a book based on Blanchard's theory in 2003, trans activists went after him with a sustained campaign of harassment including trumped up charges of ethics violations and sexual misconduct, and even posting pictures of his children in pornographic images. Since then, very few researchers have wanted to touch this area.

Cantor referred to some brain research which he interprets as supporting Blanchard's model, while Moser published an analysis concluding that autogynephilia does exist but Blanchard's model is flawed. Lawrence published a general review of controversies in the area recently.

In the current climate there isn't much chance of anyone being willing to do new research which might carry a risk of finding the wrong thing.

Sorry to reply a second time to the same post.

I just read the article by Cantor. In it they found that androphilic mtf transgenders had brains that more resembled heterosexual females while gynophilic MTF transgender people had MRI patterns that more resembled heterosexual males.

This is interesting, but I note that the controls were heterosexual males and heterosexual females. There were no homosexual non-trans controls.

This leaves open the question as to how gynophilic mtf mris compare to homosexual (gynophilic) female mris. Also mising is how androphilic mtf mris compare to those of homosexual males.

To summarize, unless there is additional data from previous studies which the article did not cite, I cannot be confident that the results are not actually measuring differences in sexual orientation rather than differences in gender/sex. Especially in light of assertions in this thread that there had been no conclusive evidence that male and female brains were different.

I also don't know the methodology. When my daughter was a young, she participated in a multi year study involving development and MRIs. Essentially, MRIs of her brain were taken while playing some sort of video game or other stimulus. It stands to reason that people with different preferences would react differently to the same stimulus based on their likes and dislikes. So I have to ask what stimuli were provided to obtain the differentiation between male and female brains in the control groups?

 

[Boudicca90]

To be clear, I don't doubt that autogynophilia exists or that it is present in high proportion of trans-women. It's the correlation vs causation part that I find problematic. After reading the Moser review, I tend to agree with its criticisms.

I do too. After reading much of that, it seems to me true autogynophilia is very rare.

I see some autogynophilia happening as a stage of transitioning that most of us go through, and I think it has more to do with the taboo nature of women's clothing rather than any kind of actual sexual attraction.

When I was a child, I had sexual excitement from cross-dressing even before I had any sexual attraction to any person, and it continued over time. I noticed as I did it more frequently and publicly (like among friends who knew), any kind of excitement I got from it decreased, to the point it went away completely.

I realized that I wasn't getting excited by wearing women's clothing, I was getting excited by the threat of being discovered wearing women's clothing and the transgressive nature of the act. It's true that MTFs that used to feel excitement from cross dressing no longer tend to do so when cross dressing just becomes dressing, that's how it was for me and everyone I've come across. And this is before and regardless of any decrease in our testosterone, and therefore sexual desire in general.

The real problem with the Blanchard and his cohorts is that their biases come through loud and clear against us in the research and come to a completely wrong and dangerous conclusion. Sexual excitement from cross dressing is ultimately the byproduct, not the cause.

 

[caveman1917]

This is interesting, but I note that the controls were heterosexual males and heterosexual females. There were no homosexual non-trans controls.

A lot of studies seem to suffer from lack of homosexual non-trans controls. Even though they seem quite relevant, if not given puberty blockers then the vast majority of gender dysphoric minors grow up to be non-trans homosexuals but when given puberty blockers the vast majority grow up to be trans heterosexuals (well I suppose technically still homosexuals) so there does seem to be confounding issues there.

 

[caveman1917]

I do too. After reading much of that, it seems to me true autogynophilia is very rare.

I see some autogynophilia happening as a stage of transitioning that most of us go through, and I think it has more to do with the taboo nature of women's clothing rather than any kind of actual sexual attraction.

When I was a child, I had sexual excitement from cross-dressing even before I had any sexual attraction to any person, and it continued over time. I noticed as I did it more frequently and publicly (like among friends who knew), any kind of excitement I got from it decreased, to the point it went away completely.

I realized that I wasn't getting excited by wearing women's clothing, I was getting excited by the threat of being discovered wearing women's clothing and the transgressive nature of the act. It's true that MTFs that used to feel excitement from cross dressing no longer tend to do so when cross dressing just becomes dressing, that's how it was for me and everyone I've come across. And this is before and regardless of any decrease in our testosterone, and therefore sexual desire in general.

The real problem with the Blanchard and his cohorts is that their biases come through loud and clear against us in the research and come to a completely wrong and dangerous conclusion. Sexual excitement from cross dressing is ultimately the byproduct, not the cause.

But if it is merely excitement from the trangressive nature of the act then why is the excitement sexual? I can remember moments in my life that were exciting due to their transgessive nature, say throwing stuff at riot police, but that doesn't mean it was sexually exciting - it's not like I was standing there with a hard-on.

 

[Matthew Best]

Since Bailey published a book based on Blanchard's theory in 2003, trans activists went after him with a sustained campaign of harassment including trumped up charges of ethics violations and sexual misconduct, and even posting pictures of his children in pornographic images. Since then, very few researchers have wanted to touch this area.

I had a few hours to spare at work, so I read that whole paper. I just wanted to say thanks for posting it - it was absolutely fascinating.

 

[MisAndreG]

It would be pretty earth-shattering if it turned out that all these men prancing around in high heels, miniskirts and painted fingernails actually had a mixed-sex chimerism of the brain, but I don't really postulate this as a plausible hypothesis.

Ha! Incidentally, we’re assured by TRAs that “trans girls’” experience “period symptoms” and that “Trans women have periods, and science totally supports their own declarations.” https://twitter.com/robin_urlove/status/1304323344762888192?s=21

How dare anyone call these statements delusional!

 

[JoeMorgue]

This discussion is not helped by shifting through Twitter and Tumbler looking for the silliest pro-trans arguments you can find.

Again keeping this discussion:

A) In the real world.

B) More focused on what actual literal actions instead of one step removed from pure semantics.

Would actually help get closer to an understanding instead of further away.