Damn, I accidentally navigated away from the comment I typed, and now it is gone. Now I have to try to reconstruct it.
Let me start by saying that I appreciate that you don't require people to pay to comment. Although I do pay two people on Substack, if I paid everyone I would be significantly poorer. Paying you money is still a possibility if I continue to come here.
Second, I appreciate your full-throated defense of homosexuality as a normal human state. Much of the world still hates us (because of the Bible and the Koran), even more-so than they seem to hate trans people. Ironically, in some homophobic countries, they believe that medical transition is real, and they want their gay citizens to transition as a way to become "normal". They apparently don't realize that physical transitioning is entirely cosmetic.
You make a very clear case for homosexuality being a simple matter of attraction, while transgenderism is much more complex. However, as a gay person, I still have curiosity as to why I am gay. I chalk it up to spiritual and/or karmic choices, meaning that I had more to learn in this life from being gay than from being straight. Also, it allowed me to avoid having children without guilt, as I don't think I would have been the best father. However, when I was young, I was once in bed with an attractive young woman. I was highly aroused physically but felt little to no mental/sexual attraction. I concluded from that experience that the natural male response was there within me, but that I was blocking it at a mental level. I'm still not sure what to make of that.
I have nothing critical to say about your article. It is very thorough. You cover all the bases very well.
I am fascinated by your coinage of two words: "itsself" and "onesself". Interesting.
Thanks, Perry. I've done the navigating away thing too - so annoying.
I appreciate that your Substack is free as well. Since I don't do this professionally, and I only post sporadically, I could not justify making it paid - plus I want as many people as possible to think about these issues. I'm paying for a few at this point. One could go bankrupt paying for everything here - but I have to support Eliza!
Your self-awareness and open-mindedness about what it means to be gay is very interesting. I think most gay people would not want to consider for one second that they may be, even subconsciously, "choosing" to be gay. I tend t think you have no choice in these matters at all, and agree that it may be your spiritual calling to face the challenges of being gay. To me, choice or not, being gay harms no one, and love and sexual attraction are wonderful, whether or not they can lead to biological children. On that point, I have sometimes thought - and this may be offensive to some, but I don't mean it to be - that we evolved a portion of the population as gay so that there are a good number of extra adults around who can be more focused on things like making great art, and amazing scientific discoveries, and also taking care of children whose parents cannot (adoption), and helping to raise other people's children (the good uncle, etc.). It's just a silly idea, being made sillier by the fact that many gay people today have biological children.
I don't know you, but I can't imagine why you would not make a good father. All that requires is love and a grounded way of thinking. You certainly have the latter and I hope you have the former in you!
Anyway, I will also read more of your articles. That first one (the letter your wrote) was a very well put argument against gender nonsense.
Hippie, thank you for all the nice things you said about me. I was mostly a self-involved person during my life. I came out of my childhood feeling unworthy of anything. I was a love-starved person who alienated people because of my neediness. In my old age, I've calmed down a bit and become more loving. (Among other things, I learned that love ISN'T like an empty gas tank. You don't need to be loved by others first, before you learn to be loving yourself. It is within each of us, even when we seemingly have nothing, to make love out of that nothingness.) Consequently, in my old age I am a better friend to people, and more generous than I was when I was younger.
Insofar as the right of gay people to exist, being about 8% of the population (my estimate) is what gives us our rights. Also, we get all our rights from God. Everyone has a right to exist.
I agree that I ultimately had no choice to be gay. The point I was making is simply that, at an unconscious level, there may be a choice I wasn't aware of, a necessary choice that I wasn't aware I was making.
I agree with your hypothesis (not silly at all!) about gay people. In an over-populated world, we need people who don't reproduce. Many gay people begin their lives attracted to the opposite sex, and then grow into their homosexuality. So yes, many gay people do reproduce. However, if society hated us a little less, we might become aware of our true natures a little earlier, and then adopt instead of having children.
Talking about theories about humanity, I see evidence of spiritual choices absolutely everywhere. I can't remember the name of the poet who lamented that excretion and reproduction are so closely intertwined in the human body, but that is the kind of thing that provides people with a choice. Do we see sex as dirty? Do we decide to own our excretions as a natural part of ourselves? Indeed, do we come to see humans as being unclean altogether? The closeness of excretion to reproduction provides us with a spiritual test. I see the same thing in the way the Bible and the Koran are written -- you can choose to believe the good things in those books, or believe the bad things. If you choose the bad things, you fail an important test. If you choose the good things, you pass the test. How you see those books tells you what kind of person you are. My best childhood friend was a devout Christian even as a child, and he grew up to be a rigid, judgemental minister, believing that the Bible should be interpreted literally, that gay people are lost souls, and even that his own parents are probably in hell because they weren't devout enough.)
1. Just because you don't have a clear definition of "gender identity" or believe it doesn't exist, or that there is an overlap of gender characteristics among people, doesn't mean the concept doesn't exist or is meaningless. Psychology has studied the different ways of thinking that exist between women and men. We know that dimorphism exists, even though there is also an overlap. Sexual stereotypes are largely biologically shaped. The existence of effeminate men and masculine women is part of the existing overlap, but the existence of an overlap doesn't negate the existence of more masculine and more feminine behaviors.
2. People called transsexuals have psychologies consistent with the opposite sex; they feel uncomfortable with being the sex they are and desire to be the other sex.
3. The explanation for why such people exist is—in many cases—probably the same as that for homosexuality: the brains of “transgender” or gender-nonconforming people were configured during pregnancy, through atypical hormonal pathways.
4. I don't think it's a coincidence that “transsexual” or gender-nonconforming people aren't heterosexual. This could indicate that the part of the brain's wiring corresponding to sexual orientation is formed at the same time as the part corresponding to sexual identity (the so-called “gender identity”).
5. So-called “gender dysphoria” is not a mental illness; it is the condition suffered by “transsexual” or, more accurately, gender-nonconforming people.
6. Rather than being a cause of "transgenderism," I believe social contagion is a factor that empowers fantasies of being the other sex, although I do believe it also causes people who are not strongly gender-nonconforming to embark on this path (we could say, they are not "genuinely transsexual," or whose nonconformity is not as pronounced).
7. To your question, "Should we systematically address gender dysphoria by removing healthy body parts and prescribing synthetic hormones with all sorts of negative side effects instead of trying to help these people accept their own bodies, especially before they reach full maturity?", in my opinion, no. So-called "socially affirming therapies," puberty blockers, cross-hormonal therapy, and surgeries to remove functional parts should not be considered "therapies"; they should be considered unhealthy practices.
8. People should be encouraged to live as they please, as long as it doesn't affect others, and they should be fully respected. Of course, this means allowing them to dress in ways that ignore gender norms and pursue whatever activities they prefer and can, wearing their hair as they wish, and wearing or not wearing makeup as they wish.
9. Therapy for gender non-conforming people should not be considered "conversion therapies," just as we no longer accept such therapies for homosexuals. It's not about trying to make them feel differently, but rather about helping them understand, accept, and live according to their condition.
10. In conclusion: homosexuality and transgenderism do have a lot in common. The problems that can arise for the latter are the serious medical problems they face when undergoing so-called "affirmation therapies" and everything that follows.
So much to unpack in your comment, but I will only respond to part of it. The rest I largely or entirely agree with and don't think require further elaboration.
1) I agree that we can use the word "gender identity" to describe the inherent character traits of people that relate to "gender," which, in this context, would mean feminine or masculine type characteristics (although those terms are specific to a given culture at a given time, e.g. wearing dresses is considered feminine in most, but not all, cultures today, but was not always so in most cultures). Most people would have complex "gender identities," consisting of a mix of feminine and masculine characteristics that would vary over time. You might want to read Steersman's comments on this point. Some people's "gender identities" in this context would be rather non-conforming to societal standards.
I can also say that "gender identity," as originally conceived, appears to have referred to one's awareness of one's sex, which usually happens from 2 to 4 years old and is solidified by about age 6 or 7, once children realize that their bodies alone, and not clothing, hairstyles and behaviors, determine their sex.
The "Gender Identity" I refer to herein is a belief that one is "male" or "female" or something else (e.g. "non-binary"), separate and apart from both the physical body and stereotypes (or masculine versus feminine characteristics and preferences). Such a belief, in and of itself, is nonsensical since nobody can say what a "male" is if that is divorced from the male body or stereotypes of male behavior (same for "female").
2 & 3) Transexuals are those who choose to live "as if" they are the opposite sex, for various reasons. Not all people who make that decision are non-conforming. To the extent that people who make that choice are particularly non-conforming, they may have more stereotypically masculine or feminine behaviors and preferences, and some of those behaviors and preferences are arguably related to their brain structures, which may then resemble, in those ways, the brain structures of the opposite sex people who tend to have those characteristics. However, that doesn't make them "male" or "female." Further, we have no ability at this time to see such complex and specific behaviors and preferences in our brains, although I know studies have been conducted to show that gay/lesbian brains tend to, in some very specific ways, resemble that of the opposite sex, but that is usually related to structures that show sexual attraction, not just "masculine" or "feminine" behaviors, which are much more complex and subtle than what stimuli get someone aroused.
4) I don't think it's a coincidence that transsexuals are often homosexual, because one of the main reasons (at least until recent times) for someone to transition was because they were non-conforming and often homosexual, which made living in narrow-minded societies difficult. That is one of the main points here. It is often homosexuals who are convinced they cannot live happily in their bodies because they don't fit in!
That having been said, there are others who transition for other reasons, one of which is autogynephilia, and another of which is more complex and often involves wanting to escape what one sees as the problems with one's own sex. You should be aware of the trend for pretty feminine young girls (pre-teens and teens) to want to be "gay boys," as one example, and there is a smaller trend for young men (teens mostly) to transition even though they have never been non-conforming, and they may not have autogynephilia but they feel uncomfortable as men. There are many reasons to become uncomfortable in one's body, and not all of them have to do with non-conformity or homosexuality.
5) What should be called sex dysphoria is an extreme discomfort with one's body leading to inability to live peacefully in that body. It is a mental illness - which is not an insult, any more than the fact that depression (on-going sadness unrelated to life situations that causes one to be unable to live peacefully at all, to enjoy or participate in life) is a mental illness, but not an insult.
I agree that, if gender dysphoria was defined simply as an acknowledgement that one is atypical and that this makes life a bit more difficult because of societal norms and judgmental responses to one's behavior and preferences, it would not be a mental illness.
I hope that clarified in some of my own thinking on these issues - and I appreciate your comment and the thoughtfulness behind it.
Regarding the so-called "gender identity," I think we agree that it would have two components: cultural components, which we might assume are arbitrary, and those of genetic origin, which include psychology with its dimorphic sexual poles, and this is where "one's awareness of one's own sex" comes in.
This part is probably a "blind spot" for most of us, and awareness would only become apparent when there is a discrepancy. This would occur between the ages of 2 and 4, once children realize that their bodies have sexes. It could then be that some boys and girls perceive some degree of contradiction between their bodies and their brains—wired according to the alternative model (the other sex).
I believe that the reasons why people dislike their sex, especially when this doesn't occur from early childhood, can be diverse, but I believe that if there really is something that deserves the name "trans," it should be something like what I'm trying to describe above, and whose genesis would be very similar to that which explains non-heterosexuality; that is, the formation of different parts of the brain, under the influence of hormones, in a way that doesn't match the genital structure, given that they form at different times during pregnancy.
To try to understand this whole "trans" issue, I start from the premise that two sexual forms emerged evolutionarily, from which what we call "sexual attraction" or "sexual identity" would be derived. It is evident that just as we can affirm that there are two and only two sexes, we cannot say exactly the same about each individual regarding their personality, psychology, orientation, and identity.
Speculatively, I would say that the more complex the species, the more likely it is that these characteristics may diverge from the individual's gametal sex. Even so, in our complex species, all these aspects coincide quite well in more than 95% of individuals, and if we refer specifically to trans people, in more than 99%.
Regarding whether or not "gender dysphoria" is considered a mental illness, I'm not entirely clear. For example, is autism a mental illness or a condition? Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that "gender incongruence" is not an illness, but dysphoria is, and I completely agree with you on that point.
I understand what you're trying to get at, but I think you're looking for something that isn't there. There are no brains discrepant with the bodies of which they are attached in this way. Someone could have malfunctioning kidneys or lungs or a messed up heart. Someone could have problems with their brain's ability to fully function as well. However, there are no "male" kidneys" that need to be attached to a hairier body with something that looks like a penis and a deeper voice in order to properly filter out impurities and, similarly, there are no "male" brains that need to see a hairier body with something that looks like a penis and a deeper voice in order to properly function to make someone [relatively] happy or functional in society.
What I see are males who exhibit some more typically female characteristics or females who exhibit some more typically male characteristics (female and male characteristics being the more organic versions of what we deem feminine or masculine, as opposed to the arbitrary societal versions of those things).
For those people, they will recognize that they are quite atypical for their bodies, in the same way a very tall woman or very short man see that they are atypical for their sex, height-wise.
They are nonetheless still male or female, even with those atypical qualities.
This group of people, by the way, is not the only group that seeks to transition or wholeheartedly believes they are "trans." There are, as I noted, many people who seek to transition and believe they are truly the opposite sex who are not particularly "atypical" from a gender standpoint. The detransitioners can tell you that.
But even if you thought only the truly gender atypical people who hate their bodies and the fact of their male or female existence are "trans," what does that mean? Such people are still the sex they are and there is nothing wrong with them other than being unusual - and what's wrong with that? They don't have defective brains that require them to chemically or surgically alter their bodies to appear the opposite sex, and they don't have to be treated or referred to as the opposite sex either. They are simply atypical and unhappy about it.
I would say the best thing we can do for such people is accept them as they are and assure them that their atypical gendered characteristics don't make them any less worthy of respect and love. Hopefully then they can be [relatively] happy. Instead telling them they are in a special class of people who must lie about their sex and alter their bodies to be less healthy to ever be happy is just cruel. Right?
Hay algunos estudios que apuntan que existen diferencias entre hombres y mujeres a todo nivel, no solo a nivel cerebral, tengo varios guardados por si quieres echarles un vistazo.
Por todo lo demás estamos de acuerdo, lo mejor que podemos hacer por estas personas es aceptarlas como son y asegurarles que sus características de género atípicas (o su “identidad de género” atípica) no las hacen menos dignas de respeto y amor.
Y no, de ninguna manera estoy de acuerdo en mentirles sobre su sexo y menos aún decirles que pueden modificar sus cuerpos alegremente y sin temor.
Hippiesq: “This will be a lengthy article. You are forewarned.”
“Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night” – as Bette Davis once put it. 😉🙂
Fairly thorough analysis even if a bit long-winded. However, it is a complex and convoluted topic that hardly calls for less.
Hippiesq: “... don’t fit a narrow stereotype for what a male or female is supposed to be like ...”
Think that’s largely the crux of the matter. Maybe moot where those stereotypes come from – nature?, nurture?, some combination? – but some reason to argue that they tend to be self-or-other imposed standards of behaviour that can be unreasonable or unjustifiable. Paraphrasing your later comment somewhat, “The worst of this is when someone thinks there is something wrong with them because they don’t measure up”.
Hippiesq: “.... ‘Sex’ and ‘gender’ are now often conflated and the confusion in the language is part of why these issues are so fraught with misunderstanding - but that’s a topic for another essay.)
Indeed. A major part of the whole problem is that many on both sides of the issue are talking past each other, are talking different languages. And are generally too pigheaded to even recognize that, much less consider any sort of common ground. Which I and many others have tried to draw attention to; for example, see my recent comment on the Broadview Substack of @Lisa Selin Davis:
Hippiesq: “... appear as the opposite sex and continue to get whatever perceived benefits come from living as the opposite sex.”
Think that is part of the problem. Don’t think it helps the transgendered at all to pander to a delusion that they actually ARE members of the opposite sex. Kind of a case of false pretenses, of sailing under a false flag. Something of a cogent insight on that score from an old Slate article by Michele Goldberg:
Goldberg: "Though ‘trans women are women’ has become a trans rights rallying cry, [transwoman Helen] Highwater writes, it primes trans women for failure, disappointment, and cognitive dissonance. She calls it a ‘vicious lie.’ ....”
Though part of the problem there is a question of exactly what we should mean by “woman”: “adult human female (sex)”? Or anyone who LOOKS like a typical “adult human female”? (gender).
Hippiesq: “... possibility of transition was not presented as an option to children or young teens.”
An actual transition to an “adult human female (sex)”? Or to someone who LOOKS like one? (gender).
A profound and far reaching difference there between substance and appearance, between “being X” and “identifying-as X”, between reality and illusion:
Hippiesq: “The notion of a 'Gender Identity' is pure fiction, since there is no meaning to being male or being female, apart from biology and/or stereotypes.”
Kinda think you’re going off the rails and into the weeds there, although many people do likewise. And it’s more or less understandable since, as Matt Walsh emphasized in a recent tweet, Merriam-Webster endorses the use of “male” and “female” as homonyms. That is, as “words that have the same spelling and usually sound alike but have different meanings (e.g. ‘bark’: dog bark, tree bark)”:
1 a: of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs;
1 b: having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”
Offhand, it seems that just because various transactivists use “male” and “female” as genders and gender identities does not necessarily mean that they all think or are claiming that they mean the words as sexes, as denotations of those possessing functional gonads of either of two types – which is what they mean according to standard biological definitions. See my “Binarists vs. Spectrumists” post for some details:
But entirely different meanings there. As a sex (1a) there are objective criteria – actually producing gametes – that have to be met to qualify individuals as members of the categories “male” and “female”. However, as a gender or gender identity (1b) the criteria are largely if not entirely subjective – not to mention being circular (male as a gender identity is defined as, “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female” – absolute idiots there at Merriam-Webster).
That at least some of the transgendered use the words as genders/gender-identities to suggest some affinity for some of those stereotypes – which you more or less concede is the case – does not, or should not obviate their use as sexes. Why I often argue – particularly given the tendency of many transactivists to bait-and-switch, to engage in fraudulent equivocation -- that we should be qualifying each and every use of those words: e.g., “female (sex)”, “female (gender/gender-identity)”.
Hippiesq: “... overlapping bell curves of male and female degrees of any quality do not define what it means to be male or female.”
Exactly right; for example, see this pair of bell curves for "agreeableness" -- one of the "Big Five" personality traits -- for males and females:
Although “masculine and feminine degrees of quality” might be more accurate. And which might help to obviate the potential for equivocation that those Merriam-Webster definitions for the sexes endorse or open the door to. You might consider a fairly cogent analogy by the late Justice Scalia that underlines that dichotomy, and goes some distance in rectifying the conflation between sex and gender:
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
You might also take a gander at an article at Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the dichotomy between accidental and essential properties, even if those tend to be relative and anything but absolutes:
Basically, having a sex is more or less an “essential property” – though not entirely by those standard biological definitions – whereas those other “qualities” you mention are more or less “accidental properties”. That is, even those properties that are typical of one sex or the other can be found among those of the other sex. For examples and as you put it, “a focused woman or multi-tasking man, an aggressive woman, a docile man, a tall girl or a short boy”.
Hippiesq: “... because this is such a complicated psychological phenomenon that we don’t yet have a reliable therapeutic method for bringing someone into alignment with their body. .... ‘transgenderism’ involves an extremely complicated set of thoughts, feelings, and conclusions, with numerous contributing social factors ...”
Indeed. But that is largely why I argue that we simply have to be clear about how definitions for words work, and how misunderstanding the philosophical and epistemological and linguistic underpinnings of them contribute substantially to the problem. Apropos of which, you might have some interest in something of a quite readable "primer" on the topic:
As usual, Steersman, your thoughts are appreciated and insightful. I’m still trying to avoid the whole long-winded thing, but I haven’t figured out how yet!!
Remember reading about it in a Reader's Digest some 50 years ago -- shocking, I know 🤯🙂. But I found it incredibly useful when I went to fill out an application form to go back to college; there was an essay question where that method helped a great deal.
But re the topic in question, you might have some interest in a post by Sarah Phillimore and my comment thereon:
I've been insisting since trans got to be a thing: gay is not trans; trans is not gay. Unfortunately, I doubt more than two out of ten people asked at random could give a reasonably correct explanation of the difference. Instead, a sizable fraction of people, who have no reason to think carefully about the question, probably intuitively think of trans as some sort of "super gay". The mistake might be traced to the fact that there's three sorts of gays: those anybody can spot, those only other gays can spot, and those nobody is likely to spot. Most straight people are probably only aware of the first group and base their speculation from that limited experience.
What really irks me is how the trans activists have taken advantage of the popular confusion to attach their movement as a parasite on the success of the movement for gay equality. Just as bad are the formerly gay advocacy organizations such as HRC, GLSEN, etc. have cooperated with the false alliance. The growing awareness of gay people of the way the preposterous demands of the trans ideologues are catching gay people in the backlash, putting us all in danger. I've attended too many rallies, walked too many marches, snd invested too much emotional energy in speaking to not necessarily friendly audiences to watch our hard-won progress slip away because of the foolish proposals falsely claimed to be on our behalf.
Damn, I accidentally navigated away from the comment I typed, and now it is gone. Now I have to try to reconstruct it.
Let me start by saying that I appreciate that you don't require people to pay to comment. Although I do pay two people on Substack, if I paid everyone I would be significantly poorer. Paying you money is still a possibility if I continue to come here.
Second, I appreciate your full-throated defense of homosexuality as a normal human state. Much of the world still hates us (because of the Bible and the Koran), even more-so than they seem to hate trans people. Ironically, in some homophobic countries, they believe that medical transition is real, and they want their gay citizens to transition as a way to become "normal". They apparently don't realize that physical transitioning is entirely cosmetic.
You make a very clear case for homosexuality being a simple matter of attraction, while transgenderism is much more complex. However, as a gay person, I still have curiosity as to why I am gay. I chalk it up to spiritual and/or karmic choices, meaning that I had more to learn in this life from being gay than from being straight. Also, it allowed me to avoid having children without guilt, as I don't think I would have been the best father. However, when I was young, I was once in bed with an attractive young woman. I was highly aroused physically but felt little to no mental/sexual attraction. I concluded from that experience that the natural male response was there within me, but that I was blocking it at a mental level. I'm still not sure what to make of that.
I have nothing critical to say about your article. It is very thorough. You cover all the bases very well.
I am fascinated by your coinage of two words: "itsself" and "onesself". Interesting.
I'll be back to read more!
Thanks, Perry. I've done the navigating away thing too - so annoying.
I appreciate that your Substack is free as well. Since I don't do this professionally, and I only post sporadically, I could not justify making it paid - plus I want as many people as possible to think about these issues. I'm paying for a few at this point. One could go bankrupt paying for everything here - but I have to support Eliza!
Your self-awareness and open-mindedness about what it means to be gay is very interesting. I think most gay people would not want to consider for one second that they may be, even subconsciously, "choosing" to be gay. I tend t think you have no choice in these matters at all, and agree that it may be your spiritual calling to face the challenges of being gay. To me, choice or not, being gay harms no one, and love and sexual attraction are wonderful, whether or not they can lead to biological children. On that point, I have sometimes thought - and this may be offensive to some, but I don't mean it to be - that we evolved a portion of the population as gay so that there are a good number of extra adults around who can be more focused on things like making great art, and amazing scientific discoveries, and also taking care of children whose parents cannot (adoption), and helping to raise other people's children (the good uncle, etc.). It's just a silly idea, being made sillier by the fact that many gay people today have biological children.
I don't know you, but I can't imagine why you would not make a good father. All that requires is love and a grounded way of thinking. You certainly have the latter and I hope you have the former in you!
Anyway, I will also read more of your articles. That first one (the letter your wrote) was a very well put argument against gender nonsense.
Hippie, thank you for all the nice things you said about me. I was mostly a self-involved person during my life. I came out of my childhood feeling unworthy of anything. I was a love-starved person who alienated people because of my neediness. In my old age, I've calmed down a bit and become more loving. (Among other things, I learned that love ISN'T like an empty gas tank. You don't need to be loved by others first, before you learn to be loving yourself. It is within each of us, even when we seemingly have nothing, to make love out of that nothingness.) Consequently, in my old age I am a better friend to people, and more generous than I was when I was younger.
Insofar as the right of gay people to exist, being about 8% of the population (my estimate) is what gives us our rights. Also, we get all our rights from God. Everyone has a right to exist.
I agree that I ultimately had no choice to be gay. The point I was making is simply that, at an unconscious level, there may be a choice I wasn't aware of, a necessary choice that I wasn't aware I was making.
I agree with your hypothesis (not silly at all!) about gay people. In an over-populated world, we need people who don't reproduce. Many gay people begin their lives attracted to the opposite sex, and then grow into their homosexuality. So yes, many gay people do reproduce. However, if society hated us a little less, we might become aware of our true natures a little earlier, and then adopt instead of having children.
Talking about theories about humanity, I see evidence of spiritual choices absolutely everywhere. I can't remember the name of the poet who lamented that excretion and reproduction are so closely intertwined in the human body, but that is the kind of thing that provides people with a choice. Do we see sex as dirty? Do we decide to own our excretions as a natural part of ourselves? Indeed, do we come to see humans as being unclean altogether? The closeness of excretion to reproduction provides us with a spiritual test. I see the same thing in the way the Bible and the Koran are written -- you can choose to believe the good things in those books, or believe the bad things. If you choose the bad things, you fail an important test. If you choose the good things, you pass the test. How you see those books tells you what kind of person you are. My best childhood friend was a devout Christian even as a child, and he grew up to be a rigid, judgemental minister, believing that the Bible should be interpreted literally, that gay people are lost souls, and even that his own parents are probably in hell because they weren't devout enough.)
Take care. We'll be chatting again.
1. Just because you don't have a clear definition of "gender identity" or believe it doesn't exist, or that there is an overlap of gender characteristics among people, doesn't mean the concept doesn't exist or is meaningless. Psychology has studied the different ways of thinking that exist between women and men. We know that dimorphism exists, even though there is also an overlap. Sexual stereotypes are largely biologically shaped. The existence of effeminate men and masculine women is part of the existing overlap, but the existence of an overlap doesn't negate the existence of more masculine and more feminine behaviors.
2. People called transsexuals have psychologies consistent with the opposite sex; they feel uncomfortable with being the sex they are and desire to be the other sex.
3. The explanation for why such people exist is—in many cases—probably the same as that for homosexuality: the brains of “transgender” or gender-nonconforming people were configured during pregnancy, through atypical hormonal pathways.
4. I don't think it's a coincidence that “transsexual” or gender-nonconforming people aren't heterosexual. This could indicate that the part of the brain's wiring corresponding to sexual orientation is formed at the same time as the part corresponding to sexual identity (the so-called “gender identity”).
5. So-called “gender dysphoria” is not a mental illness; it is the condition suffered by “transsexual” or, more accurately, gender-nonconforming people.
6. Rather than being a cause of "transgenderism," I believe social contagion is a factor that empowers fantasies of being the other sex, although I do believe it also causes people who are not strongly gender-nonconforming to embark on this path (we could say, they are not "genuinely transsexual," or whose nonconformity is not as pronounced).
7. To your question, "Should we systematically address gender dysphoria by removing healthy body parts and prescribing synthetic hormones with all sorts of negative side effects instead of trying to help these people accept their own bodies, especially before they reach full maturity?", in my opinion, no. So-called "socially affirming therapies," puberty blockers, cross-hormonal therapy, and surgeries to remove functional parts should not be considered "therapies"; they should be considered unhealthy practices.
8. People should be encouraged to live as they please, as long as it doesn't affect others, and they should be fully respected. Of course, this means allowing them to dress in ways that ignore gender norms and pursue whatever activities they prefer and can, wearing their hair as they wish, and wearing or not wearing makeup as they wish.
9. Therapy for gender non-conforming people should not be considered "conversion therapies," just as we no longer accept such therapies for homosexuals. It's not about trying to make them feel differently, but rather about helping them understand, accept, and live according to their condition.
10. In conclusion: homosexuality and transgenderism do have a lot in common. The problems that can arise for the latter are the serious medical problems they face when undergoing so-called "affirmation therapies" and everything that follows.
So much to unpack in your comment, but I will only respond to part of it. The rest I largely or entirely agree with and don't think require further elaboration.
1) I agree that we can use the word "gender identity" to describe the inherent character traits of people that relate to "gender," which, in this context, would mean feminine or masculine type characteristics (although those terms are specific to a given culture at a given time, e.g. wearing dresses is considered feminine in most, but not all, cultures today, but was not always so in most cultures). Most people would have complex "gender identities," consisting of a mix of feminine and masculine characteristics that would vary over time. You might want to read Steersman's comments on this point. Some people's "gender identities" in this context would be rather non-conforming to societal standards.
I can also say that "gender identity," as originally conceived, appears to have referred to one's awareness of one's sex, which usually happens from 2 to 4 years old and is solidified by about age 6 or 7, once children realize that their bodies alone, and not clothing, hairstyles and behaviors, determine their sex.
The "Gender Identity" I refer to herein is a belief that one is "male" or "female" or something else (e.g. "non-binary"), separate and apart from both the physical body and stereotypes (or masculine versus feminine characteristics and preferences). Such a belief, in and of itself, is nonsensical since nobody can say what a "male" is if that is divorced from the male body or stereotypes of male behavior (same for "female").
2 & 3) Transexuals are those who choose to live "as if" they are the opposite sex, for various reasons. Not all people who make that decision are non-conforming. To the extent that people who make that choice are particularly non-conforming, they may have more stereotypically masculine or feminine behaviors and preferences, and some of those behaviors and preferences are arguably related to their brain structures, which may then resemble, in those ways, the brain structures of the opposite sex people who tend to have those characteristics. However, that doesn't make them "male" or "female." Further, we have no ability at this time to see such complex and specific behaviors and preferences in our brains, although I know studies have been conducted to show that gay/lesbian brains tend to, in some very specific ways, resemble that of the opposite sex, but that is usually related to structures that show sexual attraction, not just "masculine" or "feminine" behaviors, which are much more complex and subtle than what stimuli get someone aroused.
4) I don't think it's a coincidence that transsexuals are often homosexual, because one of the main reasons (at least until recent times) for someone to transition was because they were non-conforming and often homosexual, which made living in narrow-minded societies difficult. That is one of the main points here. It is often homosexuals who are convinced they cannot live happily in their bodies because they don't fit in!
That having been said, there are others who transition for other reasons, one of which is autogynephilia, and another of which is more complex and often involves wanting to escape what one sees as the problems with one's own sex. You should be aware of the trend for pretty feminine young girls (pre-teens and teens) to want to be "gay boys," as one example, and there is a smaller trend for young men (teens mostly) to transition even though they have never been non-conforming, and they may not have autogynephilia but they feel uncomfortable as men. There are many reasons to become uncomfortable in one's body, and not all of them have to do with non-conformity or homosexuality.
5) What should be called sex dysphoria is an extreme discomfort with one's body leading to inability to live peacefully in that body. It is a mental illness - which is not an insult, any more than the fact that depression (on-going sadness unrelated to life situations that causes one to be unable to live peacefully at all, to enjoy or participate in life) is a mental illness, but not an insult.
I agree that, if gender dysphoria was defined simply as an acknowledgement that one is atypical and that this makes life a bit more difficult because of societal norms and judgmental responses to one's behavior and preferences, it would not be a mental illness.
I hope that clarified in some of my own thinking on these issues - and I appreciate your comment and the thoughtfulness behind it.
Regarding the so-called "gender identity," I think we agree that it would have two components: cultural components, which we might assume are arbitrary, and those of genetic origin, which include psychology with its dimorphic sexual poles, and this is where "one's awareness of one's own sex" comes in.
This part is probably a "blind spot" for most of us, and awareness would only become apparent when there is a discrepancy. This would occur between the ages of 2 and 4, once children realize that their bodies have sexes. It could then be that some boys and girls perceive some degree of contradiction between their bodies and their brains—wired according to the alternative model (the other sex).
I believe that the reasons why people dislike their sex, especially when this doesn't occur from early childhood, can be diverse, but I believe that if there really is something that deserves the name "trans," it should be something like what I'm trying to describe above, and whose genesis would be very similar to that which explains non-heterosexuality; that is, the formation of different parts of the brain, under the influence of hormones, in a way that doesn't match the genital structure, given that they form at different times during pregnancy.
To try to understand this whole "trans" issue, I start from the premise that two sexual forms emerged evolutionarily, from which what we call "sexual attraction" or "sexual identity" would be derived. It is evident that just as we can affirm that there are two and only two sexes, we cannot say exactly the same about each individual regarding their personality, psychology, orientation, and identity.
Speculatively, I would say that the more complex the species, the more likely it is that these characteristics may diverge from the individual's gametal sex. Even so, in our complex species, all these aspects coincide quite well in more than 95% of individuals, and if we refer specifically to trans people, in more than 99%.
Regarding whether or not "gender dysphoria" is considered a mental illness, I'm not entirely clear. For example, is autism a mental illness or a condition? Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that "gender incongruence" is not an illness, but dysphoria is, and I completely agree with you on that point.
I understand what you're trying to get at, but I think you're looking for something that isn't there. There are no brains discrepant with the bodies of which they are attached in this way. Someone could have malfunctioning kidneys or lungs or a messed up heart. Someone could have problems with their brain's ability to fully function as well. However, there are no "male" kidneys" that need to be attached to a hairier body with something that looks like a penis and a deeper voice in order to properly filter out impurities and, similarly, there are no "male" brains that need to see a hairier body with something that looks like a penis and a deeper voice in order to properly function to make someone [relatively] happy or functional in society.
What I see are males who exhibit some more typically female characteristics or females who exhibit some more typically male characteristics (female and male characteristics being the more organic versions of what we deem feminine or masculine, as opposed to the arbitrary societal versions of those things).
For those people, they will recognize that they are quite atypical for their bodies, in the same way a very tall woman or very short man see that they are atypical for their sex, height-wise.
They are nonetheless still male or female, even with those atypical qualities.
This group of people, by the way, is not the only group that seeks to transition or wholeheartedly believes they are "trans." There are, as I noted, many people who seek to transition and believe they are truly the opposite sex who are not particularly "atypical" from a gender standpoint. The detransitioners can tell you that.
But even if you thought only the truly gender atypical people who hate their bodies and the fact of their male or female existence are "trans," what does that mean? Such people are still the sex they are and there is nothing wrong with them other than being unusual - and what's wrong with that? They don't have defective brains that require them to chemically or surgically alter their bodies to appear the opposite sex, and they don't have to be treated or referred to as the opposite sex either. They are simply atypical and unhappy about it.
I would say the best thing we can do for such people is accept them as they are and assure them that their atypical gendered characteristics don't make them any less worthy of respect and love. Hopefully then they can be [relatively] happy. Instead telling them they are in a special class of people who must lie about their sex and alter their bodies to be less healthy to ever be happy is just cruel. Right?
Agreed on the mental health stuff.
Hay algunos estudios que apuntan que existen diferencias entre hombres y mujeres a todo nivel, no solo a nivel cerebral, tengo varios guardados por si quieres echarles un vistazo.
Por todo lo demás estamos de acuerdo, lo mejor que podemos hacer por estas personas es aceptarlas como son y asegurarles que sus características de género atípicas (o su “identidad de género” atípica) no las hacen menos dignas de respeto y amor.
Y no, de ninguna manera estoy de acuerdo en mentirles sobre su sexo y menos aún decirles que pueden modificar sus cuerpos alegremente y sin temor.
Hippiesq: “This will be a lengthy article. You are forewarned.”
“Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night” – as Bette Davis once put it. 😉🙂
Fairly thorough analysis even if a bit long-winded. However, it is a complex and convoluted topic that hardly calls for less.
Hippiesq: “... don’t fit a narrow stereotype for what a male or female is supposed to be like ...”
Think that’s largely the crux of the matter. Maybe moot where those stereotypes come from – nature?, nurture?, some combination? – but some reason to argue that they tend to be self-or-other imposed standards of behaviour that can be unreasonable or unjustifiable. Paraphrasing your later comment somewhat, “The worst of this is when someone thinks there is something wrong with them because they don’t measure up”.
Hippiesq: “.... ‘Sex’ and ‘gender’ are now often conflated and the confusion in the language is part of why these issues are so fraught with misunderstanding - but that’s a topic for another essay.)
Indeed. A major part of the whole problem is that many on both sides of the issue are talking past each other, are talking different languages. And are generally too pigheaded to even recognize that, much less consider any sort of common ground. Which I and many others have tried to draw attention to; for example, see my recent comment on the Broadview Substack of @Lisa Selin Davis:
https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-volunteer/comment/16496419
Hippiesq: “... appear as the opposite sex and continue to get whatever perceived benefits come from living as the opposite sex.”
Think that is part of the problem. Don’t think it helps the transgendered at all to pander to a delusion that they actually ARE members of the opposite sex. Kind of a case of false pretenses, of sailing under a false flag. Something of a cogent insight on that score from an old Slate article by Michele Goldberg:
Goldberg: "Though ‘trans women are women’ has become a trans rights rallying cry, [transwoman Helen] Highwater writes, it primes trans women for failure, disappointment, and cognitive dissonance. She calls it a ‘vicious lie.’ ....”
https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/12/gender-critical-trans-women-the-apostates-of-the-trans-rights-movement.html
Though part of the problem there is a question of exactly what we should mean by “woman”: “adult human female (sex)”? Or anyone who LOOKS like a typical “adult human female”? (gender).
Hippiesq: “... possibility of transition was not presented as an option to children or young teens.”
An actual transition to an “adult human female (sex)”? Or to someone who LOOKS like one? (gender).
A profound and far reaching difference there between substance and appearance, between “being X” and “identifying-as X”, between reality and illusion:
https://medium.com/@steersmann/reality-and-illusion-being-vs-identifying-as-77f9618b17c7
Hippiesq: “The notion of a 'Gender Identity' is pure fiction, since there is no meaning to being male or being female, apart from biology and/or stereotypes.”
Kinda think you’re going off the rails and into the weeds there, although many people do likewise. And it’s more or less understandable since, as Matt Walsh emphasized in a recent tweet, Merriam-Webster endorses the use of “male” and “female” as homonyms. That is, as “words that have the same spelling and usually sound alike but have different meanings (e.g. ‘bark’: dog bark, tree bark)”:
https://www.toppr.com/guides/english-language/vocabulary/multiple-meaning-words/
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1549382790952656899
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female
Merriam-Webster: “female:
1 a: of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs;
1 b: having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”
Offhand, it seems that just because various transactivists use “male” and “female” as genders and gender identities does not necessarily mean that they all think or are claiming that they mean the words as sexes, as denotations of those possessing functional gonads of either of two types – which is what they mean according to standard biological definitions. See my “Binarists vs. Spectrumists” post for some details:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/binarists-vs-spectrumists
But entirely different meanings there. As a sex (1a) there are objective criteria – actually producing gametes – that have to be met to qualify individuals as members of the categories “male” and “female”. However, as a gender or gender identity (1b) the criteria are largely if not entirely subjective – not to mention being circular (male as a gender identity is defined as, “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female” – absolute idiots there at Merriam-Webster).
That at least some of the transgendered use the words as genders/gender-identities to suggest some affinity for some of those stereotypes – which you more or less concede is the case – does not, or should not obviate their use as sexes. Why I often argue – particularly given the tendency of many transactivists to bait-and-switch, to engage in fraudulent equivocation -- that we should be qualifying each and every use of those words: e.g., “female (sex)”, “female (gender/gender-identity)”.
Hippiesq: “... overlapping bell curves of male and female degrees of any quality do not define what it means to be male or female.”
Exactly right; for example, see this pair of bell curves for "agreeableness" -- one of the "Big Five" personality traits -- for males and females:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joint_probability_distribution_by_sex_and_agreeablenes.jpg
Although “masculine and feminine degrees of quality” might be more accurate. And which might help to obviate the potential for equivocation that those Merriam-Webster definitions for the sexes endorse or open the door to. You might consider a fairly cogent analogy by the late Justice Scalia that underlines that dichotomy, and goes some distance in rectifying the conflation between sex and gender:
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
You might also take a gander at an article at Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the dichotomy between accidental and essential properties, even if those tend to be relative and anything but absolutes:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
Basically, having a sex is more or less an “essential property” – though not entirely by those standard biological definitions – whereas those other “qualities” you mention are more or less “accidental properties”. That is, even those properties that are typical of one sex or the other can be found among those of the other sex. For examples and as you put it, “a focused woman or multi-tasking man, an aggressive woman, a docile man, a tall girl or a short boy”.
Hippiesq: “... because this is such a complicated psychological phenomenon that we don’t yet have a reliable therapeutic method for bringing someone into alignment with their body. .... ‘transgenderism’ involves an extremely complicated set of thoughts, feelings, and conclusions, with numerous contributing social factors ...”
Indeed. But that is largely why I argue that we simply have to be clear about how definitions for words work, and how misunderstanding the philosophical and epistemological and linguistic underpinnings of them contribute substantially to the problem. Apropos of which, you might have some interest in something of a quite readable "primer" on the topic:
https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/definitions.htm#part5
As usual, Steersman, your thoughts are appreciated and insightful. I’m still trying to avoid the whole long-winded thing, but I haven’t figured out how yet!!
Thanks. 🙂 Though the "long-winded thing" really wasn't meant as much of a serious criticism -- a complicated and convoluted topic.
But as a suggestion, you might consider the PRES technique: Point, Reason, Example, Summary:
"Today I’m going to share with you the easiest way to organize a speech that has helped me greatly in my conversations, speeches and writing.
It’s called the PRES formula: Point, Reason, Example, Summary."
https://magicalbali.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/tips-on-organizing-your-speech-the-p-r-e-s-formula/
Remember reading about it in a Reader's Digest some 50 years ago -- shocking, I know 🤯🙂. But I found it incredibly useful when I went to fill out an application form to go back to college; there was an essay question where that method helped a great deal.
But re the topic in question, you might have some interest in a post by Sarah Phillimore and my comment thereon:
https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/rip-it-up-and-start-again-sex-and/comment/16620256
I've been insisting since trans got to be a thing: gay is not trans; trans is not gay. Unfortunately, I doubt more than two out of ten people asked at random could give a reasonably correct explanation of the difference. Instead, a sizable fraction of people, who have no reason to think carefully about the question, probably intuitively think of trans as some sort of "super gay". The mistake might be traced to the fact that there's three sorts of gays: those anybody can spot, those only other gays can spot, and those nobody is likely to spot. Most straight people are probably only aware of the first group and base their speculation from that limited experience.
What really irks me is how the trans activists have taken advantage of the popular confusion to attach their movement as a parasite on the success of the movement for gay equality. Just as bad are the formerly gay advocacy organizations such as HRC, GLSEN, etc. have cooperated with the false alliance. The growing awareness of gay people of the way the preposterous demands of the trans ideologues are catching gay people in the backlash, putting us all in danger. I've attended too many rallies, walked too many marches, snd invested too much emotional energy in speaking to not necessarily friendly audiences to watch our hard-won progress slip away because of the foolish proposals falsely claimed to be on our behalf.