Ignoring gender?

[Snapdragon]

We see you trollin.

He be hatin'.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

It's love to let a person express their true self on their own terms.

You equated it.........

 

[JollyMon]

You equated it.........

Does that love cause any harm to anyone else..... no

 

[CathyInBlue]

It's not hypocrisy to say that a young male participating in Girl Scouts equally to any other biological girl of the same age is expressing his true self, while a pedophile molesting young girls is not actually expressing his true self, but rather is committing a heinous crime. If you can't see the daylight between those two scenarioes, you're either a liar or so blinded by your need for other people to behave according to your gender-based strictures that can't smell your own hypocrisy.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Ummm, as has been pointed out before in this thread, CathyInBlue and Snapdragon are not the same person.

But with proper masks, we could make an excellent luchadore tag-team.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Does that love cause any harm to anyone else..... no

Remember, to some people, merely transgressing rigid gender stereotypes is harm equivalent to a violent rape.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

a pedophile molesting young girls is not actually expressing his true self, but rather is committing a heinous crime.

What gives you the authority to say it's a heinous crime?

 

[ArcadiaGP]

I just clicked through a few more pages of this thread.... was there never a story to base this on? Just hearsay in the OP?

Two observations. A lot of us are arguing about completely separate things here.

Some are making the argument that girl scouts are letting in "transgender" people. Depending on your definition of the word... I don't think kids undergoing re-assignment procedures are joining the girl scouts in this case.

The other side is the "gender identity", which I was mostly arguing. This seems to be what the OP sounded most like... even though it was pretty bare on information.

So here we are, fighting over semantics and issues that weren't even part of the original (non-existent) story? A lot of what we're saying is being attributed to the wrong topics. I didn't come here discussing transgender people... but some of you are strongly focusing on that.

TL;DR - It's perfectly acceptable to pick apart the amalgamation of letters in whatever abbreviation people are using these days. Not every single one of them should be considered equally in discussion. Each is worthy of being it's own discussion topic. Just the L, or the B, or the T, etc.

 

[CathyInBlue]

What gives you the authority to say it's a heinous crime?

Two things: 1) The General Assembly and 2) the tears of pedophilia's victims.

What gives you the authority to claim that transsexuals, especially transkids, have no right to live their lives as they see fit?

 

[jsharmon7]

All I know is that I'm okay, and you're okay, and everyone is okay. And we shouldn't express negative opinions or call girls who like sports "tomboys," and that everyone should get a trophy. And if Tommy wants to wear snow boots to the beach he's just expressing himself and being an individual.

In all seriousness though, I always ask myself "how does this affect me?" If the answer is "it doesn't," then why should I care? Put on those high heels, shave your goatee, and have a good time!

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Two things: 1) The General Assembly and 2) the tears of pedophilia's victims.

What gives you the authority to claim that transsexuals, especially transkids, have no right to live their lives as they see fit?

General assemblies and victims are extremely subjective. Try again. And before you freak out obviously the tears of a pedophiles victim is something that makes me sick and it's a disgusting act. I'm not downplaying victims.

 

[Dead Duck]

All I know is that I'm okay, and you're okay, and everyone is okay. And we shouldn't express negative opinions or call girls who like sports "tomboys," and that everyone should get a trophy. And if Tommy wants to wear snow boots to the beach he's just expressing himself and being an individual.

In all seriousness though, I always ask myself "how does this affect me?" If the answer is "it doesn't," then why should I care? Put on those high heels, shave your goatee, and have a good time!

Um - Which Goatee?

It itches when I shave down there...

 

[steveh_131]

I can understand where ChristianPatriot is coming from on this issue. He and I probably both acknowledge that our higher authority thinks that a man or a woman ought to dress and behave as his or her gender dictates.

However, I would again ask how exactly he or she should determine this gender. Chromosomes? What if they don't match the genitals? What if the external genitals don't match the internal genitals? What if the hormones don't match the chromosomes? What if the brain activity doesn't match any of it? How would you decide which gender this person is supposed to behave as?

 

[Bill of Rights]

[/COLOR]
Now after a quick googlefu that's not what I found.
It seems the " safe zone is a place where one can feel free to talk about being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, allied, asexual or intersex without fear of criticism or hatred. It is a place where one can feel not only supported, but affirmed and valued.

Strait heterosexual seems to be missing from the college sites I looked at.

I'm reminded of this:

When "everyone" accepts you and you don't feel marginalized or abnormal, you probably don't seek help like that. OTOH, just because you don't go looking for it doesn't mean it's not available.

Nope ..nada..... And you have no definitive FACTS to prove you're point..
Period. Stop..End of sentence.

When a person is trying to deal with the feelings involved with being Transgender, many do seek the aid of a professional. This might be a Mental Health Therapist, a Counselor, or maybe even a Psychiatrist. Why do they go to a professional? To get help with the conflicting feelings of the mind and body. To learn how to live with the conflict between mind and body. To determine if they are a possible candidate for Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS). To help them take that ginormous step from living as a male to learning to live as a female, whether they have had the Surgery or not. Not every Transgender person goes thru the Surgery. Why? Lack of money. Not willing to go thru that door. Not a surgery candidate due to other health reasons. Or, they are just happy living their life as a woman.

I have a close friend who is Transgender, and some of the stories she has told me about her life and what she has gone thru to get where she is today, would curl your hair. She is lucky she is still alive. She has been verbally abused, physically beaten, lost jobs, lost friends and shunned by her family. She sees her therapist every two weeks. She religiously takes the meds prescribed for her. On the board here, we talk about "self-awareness". She isn't a gun owner, but she definitely knows all about being aware of where she is and what is going on around her.

Until you have lived someone else's life, until you have walked in their shoes and taken the same path they have been on, until you have experienced SOME of the things they have been through, you have reason to talk against them, put them down, condemn them for what/who they are, or the way they live their life. They are trying to do the same thing you are doing and that is to get thru Life with as few 'bumps in the roads as possible'.

I think there's a difference between putting someone down and recognizing that someone isn't really "in the wrong body." People have a host of mental issues, some due to chemicals (natural or otherwise), or mental trauma, or who knows what. I always think of the lady who believed demon snakes invaded her house. I felt terribly sorry for her, because her quality of life was terrible. She was constantly afraid. That does not mean I have to pretend to see the snakes or that demons are real.

My cat comment earlier was tongue in cheek, but there are legitimately people who believe they are the wrong species.
Lycanthropy ? psychopathological and psychodynamical aspects - Garlipp - 2003 - Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica - Wiley Online Library

So, if someone really and truly believes they are a horse trapped in a human's body, is the rational and humane thing to do to let them sleep in the barn? Is it "torture" to make them wear clothing in public?

I don't know what the answers are. It's well and truly way above my level of understanding. I just find it interesting that gender dysphoria is treated so differently than other body image mental disorders.

SO much win in the above two posts. Rep inbound.

There is concrete, medical evidence of brains in male bodies operating at the deepest levels like brains typical of female bodies, and vice versa, and this evidence is independent of sexual orientation. Men who like men and who like being men test identicly to men who like women and who like being men, but differently from men who like men and who want to be women, who actually test the same as women who like being women, regardless of whether those women like women or like men.

tl;dr: SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS DIFFERENT FROM GENDER IDENTITY and GENDER IDENTITY HAS CONCRETE PROOF OF ITS EXISTENCE SEPARATE FROM SEX ORGANS.

When someone can show me a medical scan of an otherkin showing their brains operating more typicly like the brains of horses or birds and not like the brains of humans, I'll entertain the idea that otherkin may be legitimate. When someone can show me a medical scan of a poor person showing their brains operating more typicly like the brains of rich people (specificly), then I'll entertain the idea that people who make the claim that they are a rich person in a poor person's body are not just being anti-LGBT *******s.

Absolute science. I like it. You're saying, "Show me empirical evidence of something and we'll look at it. Give me knee-jerk reactionism, and we've nothing to discuss.
Unintended, I'm sure, but this is actually evidence for the psych concept of "feelings are never wrong". I had a co-worker claim that once, when she was POd at another. The response no one was able to give her at the time was, "No, but the basis of those feelings can be complete hogwash, absolute truth, or most likely, somewhere in the middle." Hers at the time was closer to "complete hogwash", BTW.

One last truth and then I'll be on my way. There's nothing enlightened or morally superior about telling someone they're ok when they're not. Even biological discrepencies don't justify behavior. You're not doing them any favors by protecting them. You're not loving them. You're crippling them. See ya around.

Imposing your morals on someone else to tell them they're wrong doesn't make you morally superior, either. Why do they have to be told that they're wrong so you can be the superior one who thinks they're right?

What cripples people is having their deep-seated sense of self belittled by lesser minds. And it's not love to force a person to pretend to be something they're not to make other people feel better about that person. It's love to let a person express their true self on their own terms.

I have posted before about someone I know who happened to have been born with all the parts of a young girl. Growing up, she was told "you can be anything you want to be when you grow up", and believed it. This was the girliest girl you can imagine. Everything was fine, until Mother Nature started saying, "Hey, guess what? You're going to start having some changes going on here!" and at puberty, all of a sudden, the parents began having problems, problems of the sort that you might expect when a child discovers he or she has been told something that is not true by his or her parents. With counseling, the truth came out and he was able to begin the process of transition. At that point, this included counseling and manner of dress. I don't know if hormones were involved then. When he got older, his mother took him for a mastectomy (He was 18 before that could happen) I don't know if he ever had what's euphamistically called "bottom surgery", and I'm not asking. This young man is a successful nurse and lives very happily, without psych issues now. The problems came from being told he could be anything, and his body, nature, disagreeing and telling him he could not be a man. Admittedly, I don't think that "a man" was quite what his parents meant when they gave that empowering reassurance, but to their credit, they backed it up and helped him to be exactly that.

I agree with this story whole heartedly, but I have to wonder, what does it have to do with Girl Scouts who happen to have penises?

Something else I've noticed, why does it seem to be largely the wiminfolk who have no problem with penis-havers behaving like females, while it's other penis-havers who have the biggest problems with that concept? It's not your penises that are at controversy in these personal stories.

That's kind of the point I asked about a few pages ago, and got crickets chirping as a response.

I'm a man, and happy with that fact. That doesn't mean I have to try to force everyone else who has a penis to not show any signs of being less than happy being physically male. To the contrary, I think doing so only shows that someone is not comfortable in their own sense of self. (That also doesn't mean anything about homosexuality, as you and Snap pointed out. Feel free to be gay and like who you want.... from over there.)

Snap - I don't have any right. I'm just relaying the message from...umm...someone with higher authority....

Cathy - I hope you remember the last line of that post the next time you see a headline about a pedophile on the news.

This is actually the only part that does concern me. Cathy had said, "It's love to let a person express their true self on their own terms." I know that pedo is wrong because the child cannot give consent, any more than the man I mentioned above could give consent for surgery at puberty, but you're not talking about pedophilia, but molestation. In short, as long as the pedo confines his/her attraction to his/her own mind, meaning no acting on it, no porn of it, and no even looking sideways at an underage person (Don't take that clause literally) I don't see the harm. Of course, a person who does that will not be on the news, either.

Perhaps the differentiation is that the transgendered person is not forcing anything on anyone else. It does you no harm to call the person you previously knew as "Susan", "George". Sharing bathrooms? So what? Are you sharing the stall? Is "George" going to be standing at the same urinal you are at the same time, using a funnel or asking you to hold it for him? Dressing rooms in a clothing store? So what? You can't see in the other rooms. Locker rooms at a public gym or swimming pool? Now we're getting a little less clear. I'm not sure on that one. I do think that it's erroneous to worry about the TG person in that setting; they're not there as a predator, but more likely worried that they'll be "prey" to closed-minded people who feel threatened because someone who has a penis doesn't want it.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[CathyInBlue]

General assemblies and victims are extremely subjective. Try again. And before you freak out obviously the tears of a pedophiles victim is something that makes me sick and it's a disgusting act. I'm not downplaying victims.

Of course you are! You're equating their pain and the very real, objectively documented, medicly treated harm done to them with the false pain and imagined harm of people who are merely exposed to transsexuals, young or old, behaving as regular human beings. It's the same argument used by proponents of anti-trans, so-called "bathroom bills". "Oh, I don't want my wife or daughter to see a MAN in the lady's room peeing!" And by MAN, they mean a male-to-female transsexual who is easily identifiable as such. The better ones are, "I don't want to have to explain that kind of— thing— to my impressionable little girl. She's too young to have to confront such— topics." As if that's harm on par with a pedophilic child rape.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Bill of Rights - I never claimed they were my morals. You say molestation is wrong. Based. On. What.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Real. Objective. Harm.

Please cite any real, objective harm done to anyone by allowing a child born male to behave as a girl throughout her formative years, complete with full and equal participation in the GSUSA.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Of course you are! You're equating their pain and the very real, objectively documented, medicly treated harm done to them with the false pain and imagined harm of people who are merely exposed to transsexuals, young or old, behaving as regular human beings. It's the same argument used by proponents of anti-trans, so-called "bathroom bills". "Oh, I don't want my wife or daughter to see a MAN in the lady's room peeing!" And by MAN, they mean a male-to-female transsexual who is easily identifiable as such. The better ones are, "I don't want to have to explain that kind of— thing— to my impressionable little girl. She's too young to have to confront such— topics." As if that's harm on par with a pedophilic child rape.

You're not answering the question. Right and wrong cannot be based on humans. Humans are subjective. What about the very real psychological and physical pain experienced by a pedophile when he doesn't get his disgusting fix?

 

[JollyMon]

Bill of Rights - I never claimed they were my morals. You say molestation is wrong. Based. On. What.

Yet you have a problem with who they want to be..... if you don't have a moral issue with it and its not affecting you.... whats the problem

 

[Bill of Rights]

Bill of Rights - I never claimed they were my morals. You say molestation is wrong. Based. On. What.

When it's done to an adult, we call it "rape".

Gonna claim that's not wrong?