Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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Stu
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by Stu »

pelmut wrote: It is not a disorder, it is a natural variation, like being left-handed or having green eyes.  It only looks like a disorder if society uses it as an excuse to cause problems.
Becoming severely distressed, depressed or traumatised because you have a body that does not align with your brain and to the extent that you have to try to live as a member of the opposite biological sex is a disorder even if some people don't like that term. The very fact that children with this condition undergo psychiatric or psychological assessment, counselling and, eventually, may be given powerful medication to stop the natural onset of puberty shows it is a disorder and not just a natural variation.
We have already agreed that for most purposes and to most people the child's sex is irrelevant, so why would anyone need to know it?  The child's gender is far more important in daily life and it is far better for the child, and everyone with whom he/she comes into contact, if the correct gender is used.  There does not need to be any deception because gender does not indicate sex.
I most cases they don't. In a school situation, it may, however, be necessary that the head teachers know it as it could have implications if a child is changing or undressing, or swimming, or needs medical attention and so forth. Also, if other children discover the truth by some means, they could potentially be worse for the individual. I am just saying these things need thinking through on a case-by-case basis.
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Stu
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by Stu »

Michael Karson Ph.D., J.D. wrote:Everybody is Gender Fluid
If it’s true that language governs concepts, then clarifying our language around gender and sex could improve our understanding. Sex should refer to whether you are a male or female, whether you have an x- and a y-chromosome or two x-chromosomes. Gender should refer to whether you act masculine or feminine. It doesn’t have to be these particular words of course, but we really need two different words for these two things.
Masculinity and femininity are adult attributes which emerge at puberty; a seven-year-old child does not exhibit these. I'm not sure Dr Karson actually understands how language works. I also think it is nonsense to claim everybody is "gender fluid" - indeed, the whole notion of gender fluidity is unscientific nonsense. In the case of children, they are in the stage of life when they are wanting to experience as many new things as possible and that includes trying out stuff which may more usually be associated with the opposite sex. They might also be at a stage of trying to work out who and what they are, trying out different personalities and identities to see which best fits, and their exposure to fiction and media influence this. That's why they love dressing up, role play and the like.
pelmut
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by pelmut »

Jim wrote:
Michael Karson Ph.D., J.D. wrote:Everybody is Gender Fluid
... Gender should refer to whether you act masculine or feminine.
That is gender expression, not gender.  Another ignorant pop-sci article, confused and confusing.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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crfriend wrote:
pelmut wrote:Gender is something fixed and deep down, which only the individual can know; it is the thing from which interaction with society comes, not a response to that interaction. 
The problem there is that proper interaction is a two-way thing. When we interact with the world, we change it in some small way, and it changes us.
It changes what we do, it doesn't change what we are.  Gender expression is what we do and gender is what we are.
I happen to find machismo repellent (as, likely, many, if not most, men do which is why we're now misclassified as trans-*).

Who is doing the misclassification?  It can't be anyone with any experience or knowledge of transgender.  It is worrying to be called something you know you aren't by someone who doesn't even know what they are talking about - but as an adult you can dismiss them and their misguided opinions.  If you are a transgender child you may well experience the same misclassification in reverse, but you are entirely in the power of the adults who do it - an unhappy situation indeed.

A friend of mine is 'bi-gender': fully feminine for a couple of weeks, then fully masculine for a similar period.  On occasions she has to go to formal functions as 'he' and it stresses her badly. One morning 'she' went out and the change occurred rapidly and unexpectedly, he couldn't get back home to change his clothes until much later that day and was in a state of shock for some time afterwards.
That sounds like something entirely bad, likely bordering on multiple personalities. I hope that individual is under proper care.
Nope, he/she is fine.  The neighbours, the local shopkeepers and a major institution where he/she holds an important office all know about him/her and don't have any problems adjusting to whichever he/she presents as on any particular day.  As long as they are happy, he/she is happy.  The only time stress occurs is when he/she is obliged to pretend to be something he/she isn't at that moment and those occasions are becoming fewer as he/she realises that most people are far more tolerant and easy-going than he/she initially thought they would be.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by pelmut »

Stu wrote:
pelmut wrote: It is not a disorder, it is a natural variation, like being left-handed or having green eyes.  It only looks like a disorder if society uses it as an excuse to cause problems.
Becoming severely distressed, depressed or traumatised because you have a body that does not align with your brain and to the extent that you have to try to live as a member of the opposite biological sex is a disorder even if some people don't like that term.
It's not because you have a body that does not align with your brain, it is because people keep treating you wrongly because they have decided what sort of brain a body like yours must indicate and they keep trying to enforce that upon you.  That is a disorder of society, not the individual.

I am left-handed and 100 years ago it would have been classed as a disorder by people who insisted that everyone ought to write right-handed.  Nowadays it isn't classed as a disorder; but today's left-handers are no different from those of 100 years ago: society is the thing that has changed.  The change that is currently taking place in society's attitude towards transgender people will mean that they won't be distressed, depressed or traumatised in future because people will stop distressing, depressing and traumatising them and calling them disordered.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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pelmut wrote:It is not a disorder, it is a natural variation, like being left-handed or having green eyes. It only looks like a disorder if society uses it as an excuse to cause problems.
It really isn't. A trans person seeks to change their sex. That involves initially attempting to convince others that one is a member of the opposite sex to that which they are and to do that requires them to conceal their real sex in various ways, aided by such things as prosthetics, cosmetics, implants, cosmetic surgery, electrolysis hair removal and so on. Then they need hormone treatment both to suppress their natural hormones and to supplement opposite sex hormones. Finally, if they are to be able to function sexually as a member of the opposite sex, they will need radical sex reassignment surgery. It really doesn't begin to compare with left-handedness. Healthy people do not need a lifetime of taking powerful, body-altering drugs which carry side-effects and some risks, plus radical surgery.

Some trans people recognise their condition as a disorder - others do not; objectively, that is precisely what it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DeroJXYjWI

We should not recoil from the word "disorder" either as we will all suffer from several disorders in our lifetimes, and quite likely some of them from birth. We should offer support, sympathy and real help to people who have gender identity disorder and all the help they can get in re-adjusting their lives so they can function and drive in their new sex. But let's not pretend it's not a disorder.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by pelmut »

Stu wrote:
pelmut wrote:It is not a disorder, it is a natural variation, like being left-handed or having green eyes. It only looks like a disorder if society uses it as an excuse to cause problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DeroJXYjWI
The very first statement in that reference is untrue, gender dysphoria is not classified as a mental disorder.  I don't know whether this was due to ignorance or deliberate misinformation by the broadcasters.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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pelmut wrote:
Stu wrote:The very first statement in that reference is untrue, gender dysphoria is not classified as a mental disorder.  I don't know whether this was due to ignorance or deliberate misinformation by the broadcasters.
I agree it should certainly not be compared to mental conditions like schizophrenia. It may have been taken out of the category of mental disorders to spare the feelings of some who suffer from gender dysphoria, but it is unquestionably a disorder as opposed to a natural variation. Modern researchers still refer to it as such, e.g. Coates (2018) "There are inconsistent data and significant controversy about the interpretation of existing research findings on the relationship between childhood Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and later sexual orientation."

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9 ... 29475702-8

The term Gender Identity Disorder is sometimes replaced by gender dysphoria, but what is a dysphoria? It is a psychiatric term describing a state of being unhappy and/or unwell, which does not really accord with something being just a natural variation, especially in a child.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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Stu wrote:...It may have been taken out of the category of mental disorders to spare the feelings of some who suffer from gender dysphoria, but it is unquestionably a disorder as opposed to a natural variation.
Do you realise you are referring to me and other members of this forum as disordered, I find it very offensive and I am asking you politely to stop it.

I am not telling you what your opinion should be, but I have provided you with ample evidence that it is wrong and hope that you will eventually change it in the light of the facts.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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pelmut wrote:
Stu wrote:...It may have been taken out of the category of mental disorders to spare the feelings of some who suffer from gender dysphoria, but it is unquestionably a disorder as opposed to a natural variation.
Do you realise you are referring to me and other members of this forum as disordered, I find it very offensive and I am asking you politely to stop it. I am not telling you what your opinion should be, but I have provided you with ample evidence that it is wrong and hope that you will eventually change it in the light of the facts.
Even your own link shows that the reason GID was reclassified was to "reduce the stigma" and I regret that they moved away from being motivated by purely scientific considerations. We shouldn't be too surprised, though, because the WHO is often motivated by other principles, including ideology.

There is nothing offensive about what one sincerely holds to be the truth and there is no reason to be offended by it. There is nothing offensive about having a disorder; we all have them and I have plenty of my own. This is a disagreement about the nature of transsexualism which includes scientific, philosophical and even semantic aspects and I thought we could discuss it in an objective way. I have provided you with evidence in the form of links to substantiate what I say and there are researchers and practitioners who would agree with my view just as I have no doubt there are some who would agree with you.

You are taking this personally and subjectively, and as an attack, which it absolutely is not. If you can't or choose not to discuss this in a way that is detached from your personal circumstances, then let's agree to disagree and move on.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by Stevie D »

pelmut wrote:
Stu wrote:...It may have been taken out of the category of mental disorders to spare the feelings of some who suffer from gender dysphoria, but it is unquestionably a disorder as opposed to a natural variation.
Do you realise you are referring to me and other members of this forum as disordered, I find it very offensive and I am asking you politely to stop it.

I am not telling you what your opinion should be, but I have provided you with ample evidence that it is wrong and hope that you will eventually change it in the light of the facts.
I totally agree with Pelmut here.
Stu wrote: Even your own link shows that the reason GID was reclassified was to "reduce the stigma" and I regret that they moved away from being motivated by purely scientific considerations. We shouldn't be too surprised, though, because the WHO is often motivated by other principles, including ideology.

There is nothing offensive about what one sincerely holds to be the truth and there is no reason to be offended by it. There is nothing offensive about having a disorder; we all have them and I have plenty of my own. This is a disagreement about the nature of transsexualism which includes scientific, philosophical and even semantic aspects and I thought we could discuss it in an objective way. I have provided you with evidence in the form of links to substantiate what I say and there are researchers and practitioners who would agree with my view just as I have no doubt there are some who would agree with you.

You are taking this personally and subjectively, and as an attack, which it absolutely is not. If you can't or choose not to discuss this in a way that is detached from your personal circumstances, then let's agree to disagree and move on.
Stu,
I know you like to be very clear about the use of words and their absolute dictionary definitions, despite the fact that words do have flexible meanings which also change with useage over time.

I also know that you like to be devil's advocate: I remember when this forum was first started in the very beginning, when it was Tom's Cafe, you took it upon yourself to argue time after time about the practicalities and desirabilities of men wearing skirts, and how it wouldn't work or become accepted. But eventually I think you even tried it for yourself and found it OK, even though you insisted on calling them 'sarongs'.

I also remember meeting you and your wife for real, in person, on a couple of occasions and having a great time talking over nice pub lunches. You were a nice chap then.

But what has happened to you? You have changed. Despite your protestations, you are behaving like a prat and being very offensive, not only to Pelmut (who I also know personally) but to myself as well. I have remained largely silent up until now but I'm sick and bloody tired of this transphobia from you and a few others on this forum (I'm sure you know who you are). The excuse of it all being simply semantic arguments just will not wash. You are being offensive and obnoxious and I wish you would just accept that you are doing wrong and just stop it. Please.

People who are gender dysphoric know it in their very core. Even young children. I knew I was different from the age of three. My daughter knew of her dysphoria definitely from the age of 10 and probably earlier. So you, Stu, and others, DON'T presume to tell us that we don't know how we feel in our minds and bodies, because we actually DO know, and furthermore, it is none of yours nor anyone else's business.

Having been here many years, since the beginning of Tom's Cafe in the 1990s, I am now very, very close to packing in my membership here altogether, as I feel more and more that I am in the wrong place. I do not, and will not, belong in a right-wing, anti-trans environment which this place seems to be gravitating towards. But there are nice people here too, so for the moment I will hang on, unless Carl wants to terminate my membership as a result of this post.
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Stu
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by Stu »

Stevie,

You are a man with a scientific training and yet on this you have discarded objectivity and gone straight at the argument from emotion.

First, I have never seen anyone on here post anything that was remotely transphobic. I'm not reaching for the dictionary when I point out that transphobia is a fear or hatred of transsexual people and that has simply not been expressed on this forum by anyone ever so far as I know. If it were expressed, I would be at the front of the queue to point that out and rebuke the bigotry and those advocating it. I have twice in my life put my personal safety in jeopardy to protect a trans person and would do so again, and I totally support trans people having full rights and all the assistance they need to live full and fulfilling lives. However, I am aware that we live in a postmodernist age in which serious discussions of sensitive matters can only take place within the bounds of what is politically correct and doesn't risk offending. As Noam Chomsky rightly says, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” If we can't have an intellectual discussion and debate, and agree to disagree, which I advocated in my last response on here, then we are dumbing down. Accusing people of transphobia merely because they don't follow the fashionable views on the nature of gender dysphoria and how it should be regarded and classified is a cheap shot and grotesquely unfair.

Second, nobody is presuming to tell anybody how they "feel" in their "minds and bodies", but even the word you used, and the word preferred by trans people, dysphoria, literally means a state of feeling very unhappy, uneasy, or dissatisfied - the opposite of euphoria. If gender dysphoria were simply a natural variation, those who had such a dysphoria would not need to consult even their GP, let alone a series of specialists including psychiatric and psychology practitioners, endocrinologists, surgeons etc. There would be no need for them to take powerful hormone blockers, or hormones, to undergo electrolysis, plastic surgery, paring of Adam's apple, breast implantation and radical gender assignment surgery, with all the risks and side-effects these entail. Oh, and the over-stretched NHS that we all have to pay for would save millions by no longer providing such services. In other words, of course it is a disorder and that's fine because we all suffer from disorders in our lives and doctors and other professionals and the NHS are there to help us - as they absolutely should be.

As was clear in my last comment, I hoped we could agree to disagree and move on. Maybe we can this time.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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Gentlemen, Let's take a few moments and a few calm breaths to allow some of the worst of the angst to dissipate. Too many folks are getting agitated, and that's a pointless waste of resources.

From a moderation point of view, the discussion has been a bit heated, but has certainly not headed in any direction that would mandate formal action -- and thus it hasn't. This might just be a point on which we'll have to "agree to disagree" and not let it get under our skins. So long as personal slight isn't intended or offered where's the hurt? I suspect that there are almost as many opinions on the matter here as there are individuals, and that's part of the wonderful tapestry of our world.
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

Post by beachlion »

Am I glad I did mechanical engineering for a living. A nice black/white world. A bridge or crane fails or fails not, no grey area. Even after retirment, I still love my bolts and nuts, even my sliding rule. ;)
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Re: Custody battle in Texas over 7-year-old transgender

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pelmut wrote:
Daryl wrote:Sorry Pdx, but sincerely, you just did the equivalent of "read the right bible".
The article he referred to appears to be based on science, current knowledge and the actual experiences of the people concerned; most of the erroneous beliefs previously expressed in this thread seem to have originated from the uninformed media or those deliberately spreading misinformation.  Are you suggesting that these are equally valid sources?
You thought that weak rhetorical question would do it?

We could spend all year giving each other piles of the correct scriptures to read. I'd rather not be given reading assignments in lieu of discussion. And I'd rather that others could tell me what they think and rise to my challenges with their own reasoning, not by merely saying I'm ignorant, uneducated or morally defective. References to illuminating materials are welcome, but not a substitute for making your own points in a social forum. In a social forum referances can be just an attempt to burden those you disagree with, and that is what is going on there.
Daryl...
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