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Eric Ladd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 4505
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 7:32am | IP Logged | 1
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I think some of you are trying oversimplifying this. Sexual orientation might not boil down into a single answer. I have met people for which their sexual orientation seemed genetic (the ambiguity is mine since I am not a doctor). I have known people that made a choice to be gay due to their repeated attempts at heterosexual behavior ending unsuccessfully. For some it may be choice and others might have genetic or hormonal compositions steering them.
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Anthony J Lombardi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 9410
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:01am | IP Logged | 2
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As I think I have made clear many times, my whole "philosophy" comes down to Consenting Adults. Let people be and do whatever they want, as long as nobody gets hurt. But the sideshow surrounding Jenner, and some of the choices he seems to be making -- this is bread and circuses.~~~~~~~~~~ My child and I have had different opinions on the matter. She thinks this is a great thing that Jenner has done. I'm not so sure of it.
While I think it could be a good thing if a public figure came out about this. People would listen and it could be helpful to others. But the show that Caitlyn Jenner is putting on is creating a circus. Which I think ultimately is going to do more harm.
When I first heard that Bruce Jenner was transgender. I thought okay here is Mr Wheaties himself a clean cut guy. If anyone was going to be the face of this issue. You can't go wrong with an olympic gold winner. I didn't expect that he would go about things the way he has been doing them .
For the record I think Caitlyn has good intentions with what she is doing. I just feel she is going about it the wrong way.
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Lance Hill
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2005
Posts: 991
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:04am | IP Logged | 3
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As it currrently stands, we don't have enough scientific knowledge to truly understand what causes people to be transgender or how it works.
What we do know is that it's a very difficult experience for those people, there's a lot of social stigma around it and many resort to suicide. So it's best to be respectful - live and let live.
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Steve De Young
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 3517
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 4
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Traditionally, women are imagined to "think differently" because they are seen as being more at the mercy of their hormones than are men. But that cannot be the case in a "transgender," can it? Not before treatment, anyway.
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This is exactly my issue with the transgender narrative. It seems to require acceptance of stereotypical gender identities that I thought we had moved past as a culture. When I was a kid, if a girl liked wearing pants more than dresses, playing sports, and action figures more than dolls, she was a 'Tomboy', and that was perfectly fine. Nobody thought she was a man trapped in a woman's body. Femininity was broad enough to include being a tomboy. And I believe the reverse should also be true. If a little boy wants to play with dolls, help mom around the house, and dance around in a tutu, more power to him, it doesn't mean he's got a female brain.
That Vanity Fair photo shoot, and all the other photos, reminded me of Drag Queens. It isn't a man trying to appear as a woman, its a man trying to appear like a stereotypical fantasy version of a woman. Its completely glamourized and fetishized. If that's what you want to do, hey, go ahead and do it. But the narrative that underlies it, that certain feelings are 'man feelings' and certain feelings are 'woman feelings' and that a given person can identify what the other gender's feelings are is regressive.
Let me give a couple examples. If a young overweight girl comes to me and says she hates her body and doesn't feel at home in it and she wants to be skinny, I don't conclude that she's a skinny person trapped in a fat body and encourage her to go get drastic surgeries, take medications, or starve herself to get skinny. I tell her that we're all different and can all be beautiful if we love and accept ourselves including our bodies.
Or as another example, a lot of teenage white males identify strongly with (a stereotyped) version of Black culture. They have no more idea what its like to actually be Black in this country than Jenner does what its like to be a woman in this country. But they identify more with their perception of Black culture than with the culture of their parents. Should they be encouraged to go and have their skin chemically darkened and have plastic surgery to become the Black person they feel they are? Of course not. They need to be taught to love and be who they are, and then engage with culture from that basis.
(Note: I am aware of the relatively rare circumstance of people being born intersexed, etc. that's another issue and what I'm saying doesn't apply in those cases.)
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6508
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:32am | IP Logged | 5
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JB: Traditionally, women are imagined to "think differently" because they are seen as being more at the mercy of their hormones than are men. But that cannot be the case in a "transgender," can it? Not before treatment, anyway.
**
There is lots of data, but not a scientific consensus about the real or imagined ways women and men have different brains and different thinking. Those who say there is a difference see it as something set in place before birth and not something that's changeable.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 31283
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:44am | IP Logged | 6
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Let people be and do whatever they want, as long as nobody gets hurt. But the sideshow surrounding Jenner, and some of the choices he seems to be making -- this is bread and circuses. ************ Exactly. IMO, this is all nothing but publicity-seeking from Jenner. I may have misunderstood, but isn't he still attracted to women? If so, then he gets to have his cake and eat it, too. "Hey, I'm a woman trapped in a man's body. Hey, I still love the ladies, tho. And I'm not going to have the surgery to become a woman, after all." He's, admittedly, always done whatever he can to stay in the spotlight and I don't see this as being any different. Now, if I'm misremembering, then, of course, my theory goes to pot.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6508
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:46am | IP Logged | 7
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Steve: (Note: I am aware of the relatively rare circumstance of people being born intersexed, etc. that's another issue and what I'm saying doesn't apply in those cases.)
**
It is exactly these cases that get to the heart of it. When a child is born with both equipment doctors have to choose a gender blindly-- and sometimes they choose right, resulting in children who identify completely with their physical gender. But sometimes they choose wrong, resulting in a person who feels inside they are simply not the gender they've been assigned.
This says absolutely nothing about their "stereotypical gender identity". Such people may still be Tomboys or feminine, or gay in respect to their "inner" gender. But they simply know inside which gender thinks the way they do.
It's one thing to say men and women simply do not think differently. But saying they do is not automatically signing on for all stereotypical gender identities. Tomboys and transgender people are apples and oranges.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 8:48am | IP Logged | 8
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JB: Traditionally, women are imagined to "think differently" because they are seen as being more at the mercy of their hormones than are men. But that cannot be the case in a "transgender," can it? Not before treatment, anyway.** There is lots of data, but not a scientific consensus about the real or imagined ways women and men have different brains and different thinking. Those who say there is a difference see it as something set in place before birth and not something that's changeable. •• No question that men and women have different brains! Physically, a woman has more in common with another woman, and a man with another man, than the sexes do with each other. But we're not talking about men and women, here, really. We're talking about something... else. Something that is both, and neither. And that's where it gets tricky.
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Steve De Young
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 3517
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 9:03am | IP Logged | 9
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It is exactly these cases that get to the heart of it.
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Except that the majority of transgender people were not born intersexed. Hence my differentiation. If Jenner had been born a hermaphrodite and had a gender chosen for him by the doctor or his parents and he identified with the other, that would be one situation.
When someone born in one gender decides that certain feelings they have do not belong to their own gender, but to the other, we have a different issue.
To put a finer point on it, who says that the feelings Jenner has aren't perfectly acceptable feelings for a male? Who says those are 'female feelings'? And vice versa, who decides what feelings are acceptable for males to feel? I believe that those lines are being drawn in a regressive way, according to outmoded ideas of gender roles.
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Bill Pope
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 May 2015
Location: United States
Posts: 21
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 9:16am | IP Logged | 10
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"As I think I have made clear many times, my whole "philosophy" comes down to Consenting Adults. Let people be and do whatever they want, as long as nobody gets hurt. But the sideshow surrounding Jenner, and some of the choices he seems to be making -- this is bread and circuses."
Agreed!
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Brian J Nelson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 August 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 365
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 11:42am | IP Logged | 11
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"This is exactly my issue with the transgender narrative. It seems to require acceptance of stereotypical gender identities that I thought we had moved past as a culture. "
This is a very typical thought process from people who have no real experience or understanding for what it is like to be transgendered. People tend to identify only from their own perspective or thoughts which is overly limiting since it doesn't provide for the capabilities of others that go beyond such factors.
I have several transgendered friends, and I have had many conversations with them. I cannot say I fully "get it". We decided after several attempts that it was very similar to trying to describe "red" to someone born blind. There just isn't a starting point. Luckily, they still love me and we have had many more conversations since and will likely continue to do so. I am not speaking on behalf of those that are transgendered, I am only sharing how I understood the answers when I asked many of the same questions.
"Here's a question: if one is, for instance, a "woman trapped in the body of a man," how would one know? Not having at any time been a woman, what is the frame of reference?"
I asked this, or something similar, several times. Likely I will ask it several more. So what was shared with me was that you don't just flip a switch and figure it out. It starts with the general feeling that something isn't right. It was once described as waking up in a strange place. You are there, everything seems okay, but it isn't "right". The fog hasn't lifted yet, though, and so it doesn't make sense yet. Your mind hasn't processed to put things back into a frame of what should be "right".
Now imagine, if you will, that fog never going away. Nothing seems to be right. You poke and prod at it. You test. You experiment. Sometimes, some things seem more right than other things. So we test more. Eventually, a puzzle piece is found that lifts a bit of that fog. This allows for another and then another until finally things seem like they are where they are supposed to be. It is that "feeling" that lead many to say that they have always been a man or a woman trapped, because the door is finally open and what wasn't right now feels that it is.
It is traditional stereotypes that have kept so many from finding this for so long. We for some time have been taught not to play, or "test", outside of societal norms. But, with the younger generation, there is more acceptance to do so. Children are encouraged to "play" or "test" how they want at an earlier age and those forcing norms on them are the "bullies". As bulliness is now frowned upon in increasing factors, younger people are finding the things that lift that fog earlier.
Edited by Brian J Nelson on 08 June 2015 at 11:45am
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6508
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| Posted: 08 June 2015 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | 12
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JB: No question that men and women have different brains! Physically, a woman has more in common with another woman, and a man with another man, than the sexes do with each other.
But we're not talking about men and women, here, really. We're talking about something... else. Something that is both, and neither. And that's where it gets tricky.
**
Yes, but if one accepts that men and women think differently, it's easy to imagine the process that leads to this mental difference might occasionally do it in a mis-matched way. Science has not (to my knowledge) located a hypothetical "hormonal wash" which sets the mind to one gender bias or the other, but such a thing would fit the puzzle pieces together.
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Topic Closed)
