Transculture
I don’t really care about Bruce Jenner and his sudden excessive photo shop job. It doesn’t affect me in anyway and he can do whatever he wants.
But I find the cultural implications interesting. Way back in nineteen aught eleventy three, I was in a college course called Advanced Psychology. In that class, we learned that the DSM-x was replaced with the DSM-(x+1). A major change, as was told to us in class, was that the DSM-x classified homosexuality as a mental disease. And the DSM-(x+1) said it was only a mental disorder if the person who was a homosexual was weirded out about it. That’s not the technical term but you get my drift. Since then, society is pretty open to gay people. And most people don’t care. And, though I’ve not kept up with the DSM, my guess is that being gay is perfectly OK now. As it should be.
I wonder how this transgender thing will, ultimately, pan out in terms of society. If you listen to the left, you’re a bigot if you look and this situation with any judgement at all. The right seems mostly silent. And people like me think that, well, even if you undergo whatever medical procedures, you still have the same chromosomes. And today’s psychology recognizes gender identity disorder. More here. If I were to guess, based on societal trends, I’m guessing in the future that guy will be viewed as wrong in my lifetime.
But this might finally be the point where people draw the line.
June 3rd, 2015 at 8:36 pm
On the one hand, I am totally sympathetic to there folks, and I have no more interest in policing their gender than I do their sexual orientation or their preference in craft beer.
On the other hand, I do think some of these people are straight up crazy. Many are not, but some are, but of course that’s just my opinion.
On the third hand, if I was a 16 year old girl in the local room of the local fitness center, I’d have more than a passing interest in who, exactly, was allowed inside. This is a very complex and very difficult set of problems, and I fear that too many people simply dismiss them as unimportant. Sure, we already allow lesbians into public locker rooms, so it’s not different, right? Well, it is different, and that difference will matter once the first lawsuit is filed. I have no idea how to sort that stuff out.
But for now, your gender is whatever you say it is, and I’m fine with that. Just be polite with me if I use the wrong pronoun for a while.
June 3rd, 2015 at 8:39 pm
“Locker room”, not “local room”.
June 3rd, 2015 at 8:48 pm
I was listening to one of the Squirrel Report podcasts just yesterday, and Breda brought up an interesting point: There are people out there who believe that there is something wrong with their bodies – to the point they try to get surgeons to amputate perfectly functional limbs, or they do it themselves.
We call these people “insane.”
Or, if you like, they have “a mental disorder.”
If someone who is skeletally thin looks in a mirror and sees a fat person staring back at them, then either throws up or eats and then vomits up the food, these people too have “a mental disorder.”
So if you look in a mirror and see someone of the opposite sex staring back at you – especially to the point where you want your genitals surgically modified to look like the other side’s, do you not also have “a mental disorder”?
Instapundit expands on this.
June 3rd, 2015 at 9:12 pm
I just found out Jenner is part of the Kardashian circus and is going to have a reality show called “I am Caitlyn” or some such stupidity.
That means we’re being trolled.
I hate these feeding frenzies over idiocies, I keep having to avoid all media for as long as it lasts.
June 3rd, 2015 at 10:39 pm
I hear a lot about the suicide rate of Trans people, and it always gets blamed on anti-Trans bullying and bigotry.
But when you look at suicide rates among different groups, people with depression, bi-polar disorder, and schizophrenia are at the top of the suicide rate list.
So I am curious why that correlation never gets made by the left: mental disorders are associated with high suicide rates, Trans people have a high suicide rate, perhaps Trans she be treated more as a mental disorder than a lifestyle choice.
June 3rd, 2015 at 11:15 pm
Or perhaps “the left”, aka progressives, liberals, etc. should themselves be termed insane. How else to explain contorting oneself to whatever extent necessary in order to accept and promote all manner of other insanity as normal, understandable, and laudable?
June 4th, 2015 at 1:00 am
It is in the DSM-V. And this is why I ignore shaving and grooming standards at work. Im a Jedi. Part of following the ways of the Force is having long hair and a beard. I dare you to judge me based on my religious and secular beliefs while the guy next to me has foot long dreds and the girl next to me is a girl but feels she is a boy.
June 4th, 2015 at 3:04 am
As one example, in the ’80s, to highlight their varied model lineup with 4-cycle and 2-cycle engines, Yamaha motorcycle ads used the tag line “Different strokes for different folks” founded on the principle that exercising rational choice is not a Bad Thing.
I’m not sure of the exact point on the “choice continuum” where body modification does become a non-rational Bad Choice and indicative of mental disorder needing intervention; breast augmentation, botox, liposuction et al are obviously the extension of psychological dissatisfaction with body image, but that’s kind of just tinkering around the edges, not major structural modifications, and largely reversible with minimal consequences. In the 1940s it was used for restructuring after medical procedures such as cancer surgery, or reconstruction after accidental disfigurement. By the early oughts things like boob jobs and face lifts had become a growth industry, and in 2015 highly functional prosthetic limbs, some of them fairly advanced, are not regarded as unique.
Sex change operations and “transabled” both require amputation of nominally functioning components, which is an entirely different thing. There was a time when this was easily labeled “self mutilation” and there was no question about it being a severe mental disorder requiring substantial treatment.
Psychology and psychiatry are anything but exact sciences, and given our current understanding of how the human mind works, and the broad range of frequently conflicting official opinion on the part of practitioners, in many cases not substantially greater than extremely advanced witch doctory, albeit with better results documentation and a wider range of chemical options.
What disturbs me, though, is the suggestion that personal or medically-assisted mutilation should be regarded as an acceptable mainstream activity without any reference to the aberrant psychological foundations of such desires. That strikes me as an untreated illness that has metastacized beyond the individual into our society.
June 4th, 2015 at 8:27 am
But now, it has become that not only must you be tolerant, but approving. And if not approving, then the old psych definition is applied to you and that by government and corporate imposition. The political definition is fascism.
June 4th, 2015 at 10:03 am
I know a few people who are going through the change, and one that has gone through. The one who did, went froma guy to a girl. Now much a tomboy, but it works for her.
The others? Batshit insane. Want to be women, but dont like guys. All have a screwed up family life. And, to top it off, will make ugly, ugly women.
June 4th, 2015 at 10:36 am
Just to bring some perspective to the discussion:
Continued inclusion of Gender Dysphoria in the DSM-V (the current version, revised in 2013) was somewhat controversial. One significant factor was that the diagnosis is used as a precondition for hormone therapy and surgery, and no (reputable) endocrinologist or surgeon will initiate those therapies without someone first receiving that diagnosis from a psychologist. Eliminating it from the DSM would have caused significant complications.
Psychological therapies directed at trying to “cure” transgenderism by shifting the patient’s gender identity to reflect birth characteristics or at trying to make someone accept their physiological gender – what it seems many commenters here think should be done – have been found to simply not work, and often even increase the chances of suicide.
There is, in fact, evidence of a physiological basis. Specifically (among other things) several studies have shown evidence that certain brain structures in those who are transgendered more closely match the identified gender rather than the physiological gender. These results seem to hold up even in those who have never undergone hormone therapy. There are similar findings relating to homosexuality, though apparently to a significantly lesser extent. One issue here is that there is very little research done on the topic, and funding (from any source, not just .gov) is hard to find. Another is that many of the relevant structures can only be measured post-mortem.
Gender is usually binary, and usually matches one’s chromosomes, but not always. Besides the obvious intersex conditions and their causes, and things like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), there are people who have been found to have fully and naturally developed into a gender that does not match their chromosomes for no discernible reason. Gender is not always as simple as most would like to believe.
June 4th, 2015 at 10:41 am
Okay, either I messed something up, or the ordered list tags aren’t working right. Each paragraph of my previous comment is supposed to be a separate item.
June 4th, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Feeling like you have to cut off perfectly functioning parts of your body is a mental disorder, and should be treated as such.
The mentally ill shouldn’t be abused or have their rights taken from them. But neither should they be glorified for their mental illness. They should be treated by professionals. Or not, so long as their illness doesn’t make them a danger to other people.
Whittling away working pieces and parts of your body, and taking dump truck loads of unnecessary drugs and hormones for the rest of your life is not going to make you healthy.
June 4th, 2015 at 1:05 pm
Jake, everything I have seen is that suicide rates among transgenders are higher post-op.
It makes perfect sense. You are born with p, and you want q. You get q and realize it didn’t fix how you felt. What now? It is a bit late for therapy at that point.
Also, just because it is naturally occurring and linked to biochemistry DOESN’T MAKE IT NOT CRAZY. All of this shit has a biochemical basis, and some is normal, some not. I am not sure what you were trying to say by linking it to physiology.
June 4th, 2015 at 4:05 pm
“everything I have seen is that suicide rates among transgenders are higher post-op.”
Only when compared to the population in general. When compared to the pre-op TG population, it is an order of magnitude lower (~41% pre-op vs. ~4-5% post-op).
“You are born with p, and you want q. You get q and realize it didn’t fix how you felt. What now? It is a bit late for therapy at that point.”
This is why, as I mentioned, diagnosis by a competent psychiatrist is required before surgery. Clearance almost always also requires a period of at least one year living openly as the preferred gender, as a final test.
“Also, just because it is naturally occurring and linked to biochemistry DOESN’T MAKE IT NOT CRAZY.”
It’s not just biochemical. The evidence is that at least some is physical – as in “a physically female brain in a physically male body”. Maybe you would call the psychological stress resulting from that “crazy”, but sure wouldn’t.
“All of this shit has a biochemical basis, and some is normal, some not. I am not sure what you were trying to say by linking it to physiology.”
Like you said, “some is normal, some not”. I’m trying to say that this may be normal – as in, a normal but low occurrence variation for humans. I’m also trying to say that gender is not, and never has been, as clear cut as “male or female, nothing else”.
June 4th, 2015 at 4:31 pm
Whatever else one may think about it, there’s a clear line here; elective body mutilation is crazy.
June 4th, 2015 at 5:55 pm
This makes me laugh. Remember that slippery slope people were bigots for pointing out??? Well there it is plain as day.
Its Social liberalism coming around to bite itself in the ass.
Some people have to learn the by touching the fire. Some people don’t.
June 4th, 2015 at 9:26 pm
Like I heard today: if the current feminine version of Bruce Jenner is the “new norm”, then what, now, is weird?
Considering less than 2% of the U.S. population is homosexual, and less than than one half of 1% are transgenders, are the other 98% now considered “weird”?
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/how-many-people-are-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender/
June 5th, 2015 at 7:57 am
Crawler, the other 98% is considered not only weird, but bad and if they don’t speak approval, they’re guilty of “hate speech”.
June 5th, 2015 at 10:58 am
also found this article recently. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/11/surgical-sex the source is a catholic magazine, so keep that in mind.
all said, i think the root of the media’s enthusiasm for jenner is equality under the law, similar to how their enthusiasm for gun control is rooted in desire for a more peaceful society. Both are great objectives, but the media is just wrong on how to attain those goals and that they are the arbiter.
June 5th, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Referencing Mike at the top, if someone with a penis tries to enter a women’s locker room or bathroom with my daughters or wife in it, I will not permit it or I will make him a eunuch with my EDC knife in a flash.
Don’t give a rat’s ass about their “identity” as it really matters about their equipment. I’m through with all this silliness. I am intolerant of perverts and people f’ed up in the head. It’s not my problem, it’s their problem and they need to fix themselves.
June 7th, 2015 at 10:00 am
Careful Lyle. You are going to piss off some pro-choice types.