On being transgender

5 Jan




A while ago, I appeared on an episode of the Drunken Peasants at the request of the Amazing Atheist, and had a good chat with a young feminist who goes by the moniker Awesome Rants. One of the things we discussed was the idea that there are more than two genders, an idea I dismiss as not only ridiculous, but as actively harmful against people born with gender specific congenital abnormalities.



The recent suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn has ignited the debate about these medical conditions, with far too many people, in my opinion, characterizing transgender as simply another gender that we cannot accept. Leelah’s suicide is a tragedy, and the contribution her parents made to her despair evokes simultaneous pity and fury in me. I pity them because they have lost a child, and that is always a terrible thing for any parent to endure, but I am also furious at how they refused treatment to a medically ill child while claiming to love that child, unconditionally.


But I don’t really want to talk about Leelah, specifically. I want to discuss how the existence of transgender people undermines one of the most basic premises of feminism, and how feminists would rather throw transgender people under the bus than accept a basic human reality: gender is not a choice. It is not the product of social conditioning. It is not a performance. It is a biological reality that you do not choose.



Let me tell you my personal history, and how I have come to develop my ideas about what it means to be transgender. My husband’s mother has a cousin, and that cousin has two children. Her eldest daughter Sarah was born with Turner Syndrome. This means she has no ovaries. Turner Syndrome is a devastating chromosomal abnormality, and women who are born with this condition tend to be very low in stature, have atypically broad chests and low hairlines, low-set ears and webbed necks. These women are sterile and do not experience menstrual periods. The lack of estrogen can lead to heart disease, diabetes, vision and hearing problems and a host of auto-immune diseases. Turner Syndrome cannot be cured, but it can be treated and options for treatment are determined by the woman who has the syndrome and her medical team.


No one in their right mind would ever claim that a woman with Turner Syndrome is simply another gender, making a quirky lifestyle choice. No one would blame a woman for being born with this defect, or claim that she is simply confused and imagining her lack of ovaries. Turner Syndrome is a devastating medical illness and is treated as such, and rightly so.


Let’s go back to the cousin. So the first daughter is born with Turner Syndrome, and is met with compassion and provided with treatment options, to be determined at her discretion, based on her life goals.


The second daughter is transgender. She was born with the brain chemistry of a female, and the external genitalia of a male. Serendipity came down in favor of this daughter, and her name is Alex, and it is one small grace that she does not have to alter her birth name as she confronts her own medical illness. Alex is extremely fortunate to be living in a family that understands she has a chromosomal abnormality not materially different from the older sister. At some point in neonatal development, something went wrong with both girls. One was born without ovaries and the other was born with incorrect genitalia.


The huge difference between them is that while Sarah is treated as a person crafting a life around a terrible illness, Alex is not. Alex is alternately treated as mentally ill, confused or attention-seeking. Alex does not have access to insurance-provided treatment options that address her condition, although her sister does. Sarah’s condition is treated as life-threatening, because it can be, under adverse conditions. Alex’s condition is not seen as life-threatening, although as Leelah Alcorn demonstrates, it most certainly can be, under adverse conditions.




When feminists and social justice warriors treat Sarah as a bona fide medically compromised person, but treat Alex as simply an “alternate gender” – a person selecting their gender from a wide range of possibilities, they are, in a very real sense, foreclosing the possibility of treatment for Alex in a way that would never happen for Sarah.


This is disgustingly cruel. The only reason feminists insist that gender exists on a spectrum is to flog their tired ideology about gender as a social construct. Feminists don’t give a single fuck about the people who actually have to live with these conditions. All that matters is the ideology. Women like Sarah and Alex prove beyond all reasonable doubt that gender is not a choice. You are born male or female and your brain will tell you who you are. Insisting that women like Alex are just a different sort of person is like insisting someone who has cancer is just experiencing a different sort of cell division.


Yeah, it’s different all right. And lethal.




In many ways, the conversation about transgender people and treatment options mirrors the conversation in the deaf community: should deaf children be raised as Deaf, or should they be given cochlear implants as children? Do parents have a right, even an obligation, to address a birth defect like deafness to provide their children with a fully human experience? If all deaf children were given implants at birth, an entire culture and language could die in a generation. Is that acceptable? Who decides?


For me, this would not be a complicated choice: if one of my children were deaf, I would do everything in my power to give them hearing. Deafness is a defect I would correct. Similarly, if one of my children were born transgender, I would do everything in my power to make sure they lived life as the gender they know themselves to be.


But I understand the argument against either of these things. It’s a complicated conversation that hits on issues of autonomy and health and well-being, but at no point will you find any advocates on either side suggesting that the Deaf be given no choices and no treatment options at all. The debate in the Deaf community is the same as the debate in the transgender community: is it a disability or a culture?


And I come down in both cases on the side of disability. This does not mean there is not a culture, but it does mean that our primary orientation towards both conditions should be on treatment options. There is no “right age” for treatment to begin. Leelah Alcorn spoke of knowing herself to be transgender from early adolescence. A woman like Sarah, who has Turner Syndrome, began treatments almost from infancy to address the various ways her illness manifested.


Casting any of these issues as lifestyle choices for the sole purposes of supporting a broken ideology is despicable, in my opinion. I used the word “sick” in my conversation with Awesome Rants, and I regret using that particular word, because too many people took it to mean “mentally twisted”, the way torturing animals is sick.


I meant sick as in “not medically well”. It’s not sick like having a cold or sick like having cancer. Being transgender is a congenital abnormality that results in a person having medical issues that must be addressed to allow for optimal health, both physical and mental.




Sarah, by the way, is a nurse. She works in the endocrinology unit of her local hospital, caring for people who have chromosomal abnormalities like herself. She is treated with respect, compassion, kindness and can openly discuss her condition and issues.





Alex is agoraphobic and has not left her home for over two years. She is treated with contempt, ridicule, regularly threatened with violence and lives in an online world where she is told her condition is just a different gender by those who pretend to be her allies.


Our whole family is in crisis mode trying to save Alex’s life. My husband and I are seriously considering legally adopting Alex, who is now 19, so she can move to Canada where she will be given a variety of treatment options to address a very serious medical condition.


There are two genders. Male and female. They exist in our brains and when our biological sex does not match the gender we know we are, the consequences are shattering. To treat transgender people as just one shade in a rainbow of colors is cruel. It’s demeaning. It’s dehumanizing. It’s a lie.


It’s sick.


Just one more example of how feminism itself is mental illness.


And it’s high time for a cure.


Lots of love,



81 Responses to “On being transgender”

  1. mistuhgee January 5, 2015 at 15:33 #

    On top of all that, if gender were a social construct and a choice, wouldn’t that at least imply that sexual orientation is also a choice. Wouldn’t that further imply that it can be altered by choice or by social deconstruction? This why feminism hurts people; their logic leads back to what they are trying to deny. I have no answers on this, but their confidence on things is stunning in its ability to be obviousness dangerous..


  2. Jason Wexler January 5, 2015 at 15:42 #

    Although practice often deviates significantly from theory, the official stance of the field of psychology is that disease is defined not by differences but by maladaptiveness, does it hurt or cause problems or are those problems unmanageable. The question arises however when is the problem with the individual and when is it with the culture. I know you are no homophobe, but applying your reasoning to homosexuality we ought to treat it like it’s still a mental illness, rather than treating homophobia as the mental illness. While there is something to the idea that Alex is need of direct treatment, there is also a point to be made that the broader society also needs treatment, so it doesn’t harass people into intimidated agoraphobia.


  3. judgybitch January 5, 2015 at 15:46 #

    I agree, Jason, and I think emphasizing the correlations between things like Turner Syndrome and transgender is the way to go. Get people to understand this is a medical condition – we used to treat cancer victims with suspicion – as if they brought it on themselves (and sometimes they DO, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a terrible illness). I think we can transform the narrative here and make it about health and treatment. IMO, that is the way to move forward.


  4. insanitybytes22 January 5, 2015 at 15:52 #

    Lovely post, I so agree with you. I just see horrific cruelty behind the idea that gender is a social construct and that ideology actually hurts real people who are already hurting. That’s just cruel and pointlessly evil.

    The other side of that transgender issue is people who are having some sort of identity crisis, not unlike those who get horns surgically implanted in their head, or people like Michael Jackson who avail themselves of excessive plastic surgery. What are we saying when we validate and encourage those kinds of self harm?

    Feminists are not known for their logic and reason and neither are many in the LGBT community, but something that always disturbs me is the fact that the nation that performs the second most sex change operations in the world is actually Iran. It’s a bit creepy to follow the progression of an ideology that suggests gender is nothing more than a social construct easily corrected with a few shots and surgery. In the end we arrive at a place none of us really want to go.


  5. dolf January 5, 2015 at 16:54 #

    In sweden 2 feminists wrote a book called “A small handbook in the art of becoming a lesbian”. So, well, the official dogma is that homosexuals are born that way and it’s set once and for all. But heterosexuals can become homos by choice. True story.


  6. Jason Wexler January 5, 2015 at 16:57 #

    For what it’s worth, this homo, has been excommunicated for denying the biological innateness hypothesis, and calling it an example of the naturalistic fallacy.


  7. Jason Wexler January 5, 2015 at 17:00 #

    Are you saying that you believe that transgender may be a form of intersex condition? I can’t remember, and I’ll just look up after I post this, but isn’t Turner’s an intersex condition?


  8. judgybitch January 5, 2015 at 17:07 #

    I could be wrong here, but my understanding of intersex is ambiguous gender or some variation of both female and male characteristics. Like that woman runner, Caster Semenya who has embedded testes providing her with testosterone, allowing to her to achieve muscle mass no woman without that level of testosterone could achieve.

    She’s an interesting case, because she is doping with male hormones, but they are not artificial in her case. They are the result of her unique biology. That is intersex, as far as I know, but I am fully prepared to stand corrected.


  9. AmicusC January 5, 2015 at 17:15 #

    typically love what you have to write but cant see where you are coming from on this one. specifically:

    what makes this a birth with incorrect genitalia rather than being a mental illness. the physical body of alex is fine the problem literally is in the head? and if you are going to use another illness to compare to trans why not BDD? that is much more comparable than turners. we treat BDD as a mental illness because people think, and obsess, about something being wrong with their body when they don’t have anything wrong with the body. and they also desire surgery to “correct” the issue as they see it. how is trans not just a subset of this particular mental illness?

    as for your statement that the parents refused treatment and still claim to love the child I can only assume you mean that they should have let the kid mutilate his/hers/it? genitals. that’s not something that has proven to actually be effective. there’s a reason we don’t give diet plans to anorexics, stomach pumps to bulimics, and surgery to BDD sufferers.


  10. dolf January 5, 2015 at 17:17 #

    I do empathize with those in the dire circumstances that they have gotten the wrong kind of body. However, I do not consider that as being a medical condition. Now, if the person is born with xx chromosomes and a penis, then it truly is a medical condition. But being transgender as of itself: no.
    If it is considered a medical condition, then it is implied that the cure will correct what is wrong from the beginning. E.g. in the case of wrong hormonal levels, the problem would not be addressed with surgery to change the genitalia into that of the opposite sex, it would be addressed with a treatment to correct the hormonal deficiency or imbalance.
    If it is considered a psychological condition (NB. “condition”, not disease) then the options are open: the person can chose from the full register with trying to adopt fully to the physical gender he/she was born with to sex change surgery at the other end of the spectrum. And (sidestepping the issue of resources, who is to pay etc) the choice in the final end belongs to the transgender person him/her-self, and no-one else.
    Put metaphorically, if you wanted a sports car and got a pick-up, you can adjust to the pick-up and take advantage of the positive sides of a pick-up, or you can change the pick-up to the sports car. The wrongness is neither in the car nor the driver, but in how they have been matched.
    I think one is doing transgenders a disservice by regarding their plight as a medical condition. It rather limits their options. The crux with regarding it as a psychological matter is that one has to realize that psychological problems can be just as devastating as physical.


  11. judgybitch January 5, 2015 at 17:43 #

    In my opinion, the best brain science strongly suggests there are significant differences between male and female brains – I don’t think it’s a mental illness at all. My best guess would be that the brain develops as one gender and then something happens and physical development proceeds along another line. http://www.brainfacts.org/brain-basics/neuroanatomy/articles/2014/his-and-hers-sex-differences-in-the-brain/


  12. Jason Wexler January 5, 2015 at 17:48 #

    Alright, I just looked it up to be sure, intersex is defined as any variation in the norm in any of five characteristics: genetics, hormones, genitals, gonads or other internal reproductive systems; as such Turner’s is classified as intersex. Officially Transgender is defined on the feminist terms you are objecting to, it can overlap with intersex but they are considered separate phenomena. I would argue that what you are describing as trans is always a hormonal form of intersex, but that is just me proposing a quick hypothesis.


  13. judgybitch January 5, 2015 at 17:52 #

    I realize this in anecdata, but the fact that both sisters have a gender related chromosomal abnormality always struck me as not coincidental. They have different fathers so clearly if this a heritable genetic legacy, it is from their mother. Again, I’m not a scientist by any means, but for Sarah to be treated with absolute compassion and Alex to be treated with outright cruelty just seems so unfair. Neither of them chose to be born the way they are.


  14. that1susan January 5, 2015 at 18:07 #

    Last summer, I was visiting with another mom at church whom I didn’t know very well and hadn’t seen for a while, when a young boy of about nine came up and spoke with her a moment and surprised me by calling her “Mom.”

    As he walked away, I said, “Oh, I thought you just had two daughters” and she smiled and said, “This is my daughter my son,” and went on to explain a very unique situation. It was kind of noisy around us and I didn’t catch every word she said, but I’m pretty sure that she was explaining that her child was born intersex (what used to be called hermaphrodite) and that sometimes her child felt more female and said, “I’m a girl today” and sometimes felt more male and said, “I’m a boy today.”

    It used to be that when a baby was born with both sets of sex organs, the parents and doctors were put under pressure to determine which set of chromosomes was predominant — xx or xy — and to immediately give the child reconstructive surgery without allowing him or her to mature to the point of being able to have any say in the matter. This was seen as so essential because it was believed that society just couldn’t be expected to make room for such a unique individual, and that the child would end up being the object of ridicule if the parents didn’t man up and slap a sexual label on their child.

    But more recently, intersex children have grown up and started speaking up about their experiences, and it’s becoming pretty clear that most of them would have preferred surgery being delayed until such time as they wanted it — IF they ever wanted it.

    But back to my friend’s (or friendly acquaintance’s) situation — when her child reached school-age and was still a girl on some days and a boy on others, she knew she was gong to have to explain the situation to the teachers, and of course the children would have to know, too. And she’s been very pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive and accepting responses they’ve received by everyone.

    I do agree with you that there are two genders, but I also think that for some people born intersex, they may find themselves to be some sort of a mixture of the two. Some may want to choose one camp and eradicate all the “stuff” pertaining to the other camp, while some may choose to keep every part of themselves intact. I support allowing intersex children the freedom to get to know themselves and sort through their own unique situations, with lots of love and understanding from others but no pressure to conform to anyone else’s “take” on the situation.

    And I also stand amazed at the wondrous realization that — when we do away with the expectation that children, and people in general, have some sort of an innate mandate to ridicule and bully everyone who doesn’t fit the mold — children and people in general end up displaying boundless capacities for expanding their worldviews, and accepting and appreciating EVERY SINGLE PERSON they come into contact with, no matter how different.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. judgybitch January 5, 2015 at 18:19 #

    Susan, I love hearing stories like this. I absolutely agree that the person affected is the only person who should be making choices about how to live, and if they can do so in a happy, healthy way that is meaningful to them, that is wonderful. I suppose this is what Jack was talking about when he spoke of changing the culture. If we could all be accepting, it would make life so much easier for transgendered people. But we also need to respect those who feel very strongly they are one particular gender and help them achieve that, if it is their wish.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. AmicusC January 5, 2015 at 19:45 #

    I wholly agree male and female brains are different. But have not seen any evidence that this is a situation in which the individual actually has a brain that functions or is the opposite of their genitalia. I’m not a doctor but don’t see how this is any different from bdd. Add to that that even the ones that mutilate themselves the success isn’t anything to be lauded. There are still numerous that mutilate themselves and have no benefit


  17. dolf January 5, 2015 at 19:59 #

    I don’t have any knowledge of the specific case of the transgender sister you are referring to, so I’m not going to be arrogant and say that there is no medical condition in her case. And, that should be realized, psychological problems can have physical causes. For example, a minor low-level, hardly noticeable pain that the person isn’t even consciously aware of can be very tiresome and lead to a condition of depression. The point is that in that case the correct treatment isn’t to start medicating against depression, but actually get to the root cause of the thing, which is the energy-draining pain. And the correct handling of the problem might be something as utterly simple and stupid as adjusting the height of the chair so you sit correctly. On the other hand, the cause of the depression might be the death of a dear, or it might be malnutrition or it might be cancer or it might be …
    Psychological conditions can have physical or non-physical causes, the point is, it need to be established on a case-by-case basis what is the correct cause of action, and what should be done about it.
    Same thing with trans-gender. I would rather see trans-gender as a symptom than a condition in itself.
    And I have to say, I personally don’t buy that hormone level determine personality. I believe it goes both ways: hormone levels affect personality, personality affect hormone levels. I wouldn’t regard hormone levels that fall outside of the normal a medical condition unless it actually can be shown to be a result of malfunctioning glands or the levels are so abnormal that they result in a dysfunctional body or deformity of some kind.
    That said, I don’t exclude that there is a physical cause of your relative being transgender. And regardless of whether it’s physical or not, she/he deserves to be taken seriously and being respected as a human being.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. slacker January 5, 2015 at 20:33 #

    I have never understood the compulsion some feel to assign a third gender to anyone that’s transgender. I have had the good fortune to be born with a brain and genitals that are in sync but I’m willing to bet that if you asked most transgender people what would make them happy they would answer either being firmly one gender in both mind and body, NOT being labeled some made up gender identity so some SJW or feminist on Tumblr can feel good about themselves for being so inclusive.


  19. that1susan January 5, 2015 at 21:22 #


    This is why it’s not a condition to be diagnosed by anyone other than the person experiencing it. Also, there are women who identify very strongly as female while possessing many masculine characteristics and interests, and vice-versa, and these people don’t need anyone telling them, “You should have been born the opposite sex.”

    As an added thought, my teen daughter identifies as a lesbian and equally strongly as a female, so gay people are not just people who should have been born the opposite sex, either.

    That said, when a child is born transgender, it seems that one of the commonest ways they express this is by identifying more with the clothes, hairstyles, toys, and activities of the opposite sex (in the same way that many cisgneder children also express their gender identity by behaving the way they see the other people of their gender behaving). I think our preferences are partly inborn and partly developed by our interactions with our environment.

    So the key here, for any parents who see their children behaving in ways that don’t seem gender- normative, is to just embrace their child’s uniqueness without taking it upon themselves to slap any label on it. Allow children the room to explore who they are in their own ways, and attach their own meanings or labels at whatever point (if ever) that they feel a need to.


    Only the individuals themselves can determine whether a particular treatment or procedure is “mutilation.” That’s why, for example, any parents who have an intersex baby should listen carefully to what the intersex community is now saying about allowing intersex children to decide for themselves how to deal with their unique conditions.

    With transgender people, some are happy simply dressing and presenting themselves as the person they are inside, without feeling any need for surgery, while others feel a need for the outer body to match the person inside. It’s only mutilation if someone else is making the choice for them to have surgery rather than allowing them the space to decide what they really want.


  20. Spaniard January 5, 2015 at 22:02 #

    In Spain, transexuals (known as well as “travestis”, “travelos” or “travoltas”) are the national perversion. Like in Thailand, Brazil, Argentina and Italy.
    They are so popular.


  21. Jason Wexler January 5, 2015 at 22:53 #

    I have a little more time to express my thoughts right now, and I guess what I’m after is clarification. Trans is currently understood by a philosophy, which to my mind makes transsexual a form of intersex condition sort of like Alex’s condition, but transgender exists on the spectrum of feminist gender ideology; which in my opinion means only men in our culture can be transgender, as feminism has eliminated female gender expression expectations. Understand that the following examples aren’t meant to be judgmental, is a man who likes wearing a particular kind of clothing usually believed to be feminine or meant for women trans or do they just have a particular fashion interest, how about someone who likes wearing makeup, or just one kind of makeup, what about somebody submissive or someone who takes up the privileges normally afforded to women?

    Within the gay male community there is a type of man, who apparently identifies comfortably as biologically male, but takes on a clearly female role in his interactions and relationships… at risk of getting flamed for invoking Anita Sarkesian (sp?), they damsel. I can’t help but wonder if these men may in fact be trans or intersex. On the other end of the spectrum is a type of uber butch masculine guy, who I sometimes suspect may be an early adopter of an extreme form of MGTOW, in essence I wonder if they may actually be physiologically “straight”. To be clear let me reiterate I’m not being judgmental, and I know gay men who present as hyper masculine, who don’t come off as straight.

    Anyway, regardless if these people are trans or just kinky or something else, they probably get categorized as trans under the current system, many of them aren’t “pathological” or “maladaptive” in need of medical treatment, but aren’t worthy of the hate and disparagement they may receive, which is part of what I mean by transphobia or homophobia being the real sickness. Would you classify these types of people as trans, or some sort of kink or personality quirk, or victims of feminist gender ideology which rejects biological gender?


  22. Noor January 5, 2015 at 22:54 #

    Personally I don’t really mind the small minority of people (off Tumblr) who consider themselves non-binary or androgynous and prefer neutral “they” pronouns, as long as they aren’t complaining oppression such as that there isn’t a unisex clothing section (seriously, just look in both men’s and women’s clothing and pick what you want) or calling themselves trans when they have no gender dysphoria. You’re certainly cisgender if your brain matches your genitals, but my impression is that they aren’t denying that, they’d just not like to carry on a lot of the baggage and assumptions that come with “man” or “woman” and prefer a more gender-neutral language. Both transtrenders and TERFs can fuck off though. And yeah, the overwhelming majority of trans people do indeed identify in the man/woman binary and not a “third gender”.

    On “deaf culture”, it’s certainly a disability, not just a “difference in experience” and it absolutely needs to be fixed and corrected. Sign language can be useful for some, but I’d rather it only as a supplement with a primary focus on speech. I have a hearing loss well into the profound range, in both ears, and I was fitted with aids at six months, specifically kept the hell away from sign language and instead taught to communicate by listening and speaking, and you have no idea how glad I am for all that.

    And no, “deaf culture” doesn’t need to be preserved. Languages and cultures aren’t some kind of inherently sacrosanct entity that must be preserved no matter what (except for archival and studies of the structure), and I think “deaf culture” takes advantage of modern PC attitudes to claim such a protected status and shield itself of outside criticism. To say it’s a ‘culture’ that inherently deserves to be preserved is dangerous, and I’ve seen these attitudes isolate people from the rest of the ‘normal-hearing’ world to an extreme. It’s just like allowing children to go blind instead of treating them, in order to keep braille around.


  23. Goober January 5, 2015 at 23:19 #

    So you argue that homosexuality is a choice, because arguing that it is innate somehow places a moral judgement on the decision (if it’s natural, it’s amoral)?

    That it being innate makes it amoral because it is outside the choice of the person, therefore excusing their “immorality” (something they would be guilty of if their homosexuality were actually a choice?)

    You, therefore, want to argue that it is a choice, to, what?

    Force people to accept that it is both a choice, and an amoral choice at that?

    I don’t understand your line of logic.

    Did you choose at some point to be a homosexual? Could you choose not to be if you so desired?

    Doesn’t that pretty much end the discussion right there, because I already know the answers to both those questions (no, and no)? (as an aside, I did not “choose” to be heterosexual and could no sooner “choose” to be homosexual than I could “choose” to become an elephant).

    (For reference to those confused, amoral and immoral are not the same thing. Immoral means “wrong”. Amoral means “neither moral nor immoral, but rather outside the discussion of morality.” For example, defecating is amoral, since you kind of have to do it and it really isn’t “right” or “wrong”. Defecating on someone’s car dashboard is IMmoral, because that’s just wrong, dude).


  24. Goober January 5, 2015 at 23:26 #

    I would argue that transgender is a type of intersex condition. We too often separate the psychological and the physical with far too much delineation, as if they are two different things coming from two different beings.

    They are not. For example, my psoriasis was much worse than my uncle’s psoriasis, not because I had more of it than he did, but because mine caused me far more suffering than his. For whatever reason, it just didn’t bother him as much as mine bothered me. Medically, mine should have been classified as “worse” than his, but they were classified as identical, because the mental/psychological part of our condition was not considered. At all.

    Never mind that my condition was very nearly fatal, because after being covered in what felt like 3 day old burns over 92% of my body for two years, I was considering eating a gun…

    So I’d argue that there may be more to the equation than just “look at the genitals, if they’re normal, the kid is normal, if they’re not, then the kid is intersex.”

    What is amazing to me is that even when the kid’s genitals are totally ambiguous, and no one can tell whether the child is a he or she based on physical observation, that kid ends up “knowing” whether he’s a he or a she pretty damn early on, without any of the ambiguity of the genitals they ended up with.

    So, yeah, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to think that maybe trangender folks are simply a type of intersex that just managed to get a full set of the wrong genitals.


  25. Goober January 5, 2015 at 23:33 #

    Well stated, but as in most cases with these SJWs, what the actual aggrieved class wants is not important to them – they just want a battle to fight. They aren’t fighting it FOR anyone (except themselves and their own ego).

    I’m reminded of the high school sports team in South Dakota, if I recall correctly, that were called the “Fighting Souix” or something similar.

    SJWs attacked them for being racist and derogatory. After a period of time, it became clear that the local Lakota (souix) tribes didn’t mind the name at all and actually thought of it as a badge of honor, but the SJWs didn’t care.

    Being the most arrogant and self-sure sonsofbotches on the planet, they patiently explained how years of racism and subjugation made the tribe completely incapable of seeing racism, and therefore completely incapable of deciding for themselves whether the name was offensive or not.

    I cannot imagine anything more insulting or racist ever being spoken, and it was spoken by SJWs who were, in their minds at least, putatively DEFENDING these people that they were insulting.

    It’s like a 20th century version of “the white man’s burden.” These “brown people” (or other aggreived classes) are too stupid to take care of themselves, so it is up to us wealthy white folk to swoop in to their rescue.

    There is nothing new under the sun.


  26. Goober January 5, 2015 at 23:35 #

    I hope like hell your English to Spanish translator is broken, because it sounds a lot to me like you just called being transgender a “perversion.”

    Explain yourself.


  27. Goober January 5, 2015 at 23:43 #

    Sometimes I think SJWs are more interested in preserving a human zoo than they are actually seeking social justice.

    “And over here in this exhibit, right next to the transgenders, are the deaf people, who have their own unique language and culture! Let’s observe them in their natural habitat, and understand their experience of living with a debilitating disability for our own enjoyment!”

    Most of this “preserve the culture” stuff is just anti-western reactionary bullshit. You take a guy that lived his entire life in the amazon, fighting for every meal he’s ever eaten, making his own clothing at huge expense of labor, and living every day with the fear of that next cut becoming septic and killing him, or that next sniffle being the cold that brings him down, or the next monsoon not being monsooney enough and his family starving to death, and give him a pair of levi jeans, some tennis shoes, a first world education, and modern medicine, and HE WILL CUT YOUR FUCKING THROAT before he will let you stick him back in that jungle.

    But SJWs want to keep him there, unmolested by western “cultural pollution” like modern medicine and central air conditioning, in order to “preserve his culture”, without giving him an educated say in the decision at all. More of that SJW superiority.

    This idea of “allowing the brown people too stay in their place” smacks an awful, awful lot like “keeping the brown people in their place.”

    We all know how un-racist and inclusive keeping the nig— I mean, the BROWN PEO– or rather, those “delightfully ethnic” people in their place is, don’t we?


  28. Flint Westwood January 5, 2015 at 23:57 #

    Feminism for sure harms the trans community. Thanks for this post judgybitch. I’ve just started my blog on the issues of gender and transsexuality. It’s nice to see others like yourself posting about it.


  29. Jason Wexler January 6, 2015 at 00:06 #

    I believe it is biologically innate for some people to have a given sexual orrientation, but we have clear examples of people who do chose to behave in ways contrary to their apparent inclinations, notably ex-gays and gay-for-pay people. I reject the popular notion in the LGBT community, that orientation and behavior are meaningfully different, since that inherently contradicts the other popular premise which I do accept, that orrientation doesn’t specifically imply other characteristics, what does it mean to be a gay person in a faithful heterosexual relationship? Therefore if I can accept that there are obvious populations who chose their orrientation, how many hidden populations are there? To be clear I don’t say all people chose just some people, and that’s o.k., my position is that consensual sexual behavior is always amoral so it ought not matter if it’s a choice or an innate characteristic, further what makes the innateness hypothesis a naturalistic fallacy is that it supposes that innateness is identical to good or beneficial, which I suppose means cancer, aids and “psychopathy” are all good; and medicine, electricity and literature are all bad. The innateness of homosexuality wouldn’t be very comforting if it was still going to mess up my life, while conversely positive bennefits of homosexuality would still accrue to me if I chose it. Finally you may not be able to chose to be gay, but when being honest most gay people can tell you they’ve been able to chose straight at least for a period, and most evolutionary hypotheses to explain innate homosexuality require that the default sexual orrientation for the species to be solidly bisexual a Kinsey 3, if you will; which if true means yes you are chosing to be straight, which would be as much an abnormality as homosexuality, if those hypothoses are correct. Lets not forget that poliginy appears to be the natural innate relationship standard for humans, and yet most of us in the west expect to be monogamously pair bonded or serially pair bonded, so can we be sure we don’t chose, especially when/if it’s socially/culturally expedient to deny that we do?


  30. Tyler January 6, 2015 at 01:07 #

    We DO treat homosexuality, and very effectively. Our society (in the vast majority of cases) allows gays to interact with each other, partner with each other, and generally lead lives together. It allows bath houses and hookup apps. There’s a growing trend of gays adopting, and there are surrogate markets. In other words, there’s a myriad of mechanisms, which evolved mostly organically, to allow gays to live just about as full a life as they can. Many won’t have the experience of raising their own offspring, because of the difficulties inherent to not being attracted to the opposite gender. But most or all ways they want to live are facilitated (varying by jurisdiction).

    It’s a fallacy to think the only ‘treatment’ for the unique problems gays come to the table with, is to make them straight. The analogy would be to force a transgender person to live as the gender their body is. Not the optimal solution, in most cases.


  31. Mark January 6, 2015 at 01:09 #

    “This is why it’s not a condition to be diagnosed by anyone other than the person experiencing it.”

    Though it is worth noting that one can, in theory (perhaps in some measure in practice) determine that a person appears to have more of a ‘female brain’ or ‘male brain.’ There are some subtle biological differences that result mostly from presence of androgen or estrogen in utero and then throughout development. So it has been argued that you can look at, say, a transgender male (‘male-bodied’ that is) and would likely find their brain to have more characteristics of a female brain than would a male who is not transgender. Of course, this is a very fuzzy area and one may see no differences at all, as the differences between male and female brains, though real, may be subtle; and of course environmental factors play a non-negligible role. There’s just supposedly some tendency of transgender people to be more likely to have neurological features belonging to the gender they identify as than other people of their physical sex who are not transgender.


  32. slacker January 6, 2015 at 01:16 #

    “They aren’t fighting it FOR anyone (except themselves and their own ego).”

    I completely agree with that. I hate to talk shit on my own generation but a lot people my age seem to practice what I call narcissistic activism. They could care less about improving the world or helping any marginalized groups, they just want to feel good about themselves and make other people think they’re some paragon of virtue.


  33. Mark January 6, 2015 at 01:23 #

    I’d say a defining feature of ‘SJWism’ is that they refuse to think in terms of individuals, but rather think compulsively in terms of classes (be they economic, ethnic, gender, etc.), systems, and social structures. These ubiquitous constructs are all determining to them. Individuals are essentially just extensions of the class(es) they belong to.

    At risk of affirming Godwin’s law, I would say there is a parallel between them in Fascist ideology in this way: fascists espoused the idea of ‘national freedom’ as taking precedent over individual freedom. The ultimate goal is not individual freedom, but the nation’s or race’s freedom and empowerment (at the expense of everyone else usually), and the righting of wrongs supposedly done to that nation, so the individual must submit to the collective will toward that end.

    Nowhere in modern America have will one likely find more similar reasoning than that of Catherine MacKinnon, who argues that, even if a woman might choose to consent to sex, due to women’s ‘collective oppression’ in society, women are ‘collectively unable to consent’ ergo all heterosexual sex is rape. Ideas like ‘collective consent’, ‘collective freedom’ and so seem eerily similar to fascism to me. Even the idea of ‘the persona is the political’ is almost exactly like claims made by Nazi intellectual Carl Schmitt in his works on fascism. The resemblance between his reasoning and the reasoning of SJWs today is often uncanny.


  34. slacker January 6, 2015 at 01:24 #

    So I watched some of the video and rather than coming away with a relevant question I have to ask whats up with Canadians putting Elizabeth II on some of their money? I realize that I’m looking at this with an American perspective but I seriously cannot comprehend putting another nations monarch on your currency.


  35. judgybitch January 6, 2015 at 01:31 #

    If we didn’t have a constitutional monarchy, we would need a President, which over time leads to a competition between dynasties *cough* Jeb Bush Hilary Clinton * cough*

    Our Prime Minister can be taken down with a vote of non-confidence. Not possible with a Republic. You are stuck with your leader for the term.

    We are not.


  36. Noor January 6, 2015 at 01:33 #

    Elizabeth II IS the monarch of Canada, as well as of a few other commonwealth countries.


  37. Jason Wexler January 6, 2015 at 02:42 #

    Given the popular tendency to associate fascism with the political right, it is interesting perhaps even amusing, to see a left leaning group clearly behaving in a fascist manner.


  38. Ashwin January 6, 2015 at 03:15 #


    I’m curious as to what your opinion is on this article and the psychiatrist it profiles. Dr. Paul R. McHugh advocates psychiatric treatment of transgendered individuals so that they can come to terms with their “anatomical reality”. He claims that gender reassignment treatment (including hormone replacement therapy and reassignment surgery) is ill advised and that it should not be the recommended course of treatment. He implemented his views as policy at Johns Hopkins:

    ” ‘And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs,’ said Dr. McHugh.”

    I’m not sure what to make of this myself but to play devil’s advocate here-and to take a rather extreme analogy-suppose an individual was afflicted with body dysmorphia and sought to amputate an unwanted limb. It would be inappropriate to surgically alter such a person to match their mental self image instead of providing psychiatric treatment.

    Transgenderism is the only time we seek to alter a person’s anatomy to match their self image rather than vice versa.


  39. slacker January 6, 2015 at 04:07 #

    Eh, I would argue that the two party system is the problem with America, not wealthy families. Pretty much everyone of the founding fathers was loaded.

    I wasn’t bitching about Canada, just saying I don’t get why there are non Canadians on Canadian Money. It just seems odd to me.


  40. malcolmthecynic January 6, 2015 at 04:35 #

    …but applying your reasoning to homosexuality we ought to treat it like it’s still a mental illness…

    And we have reached the correct conclusion, but the only acceptable option is to say it’s really “homophobia’s” fault.


  41. pukeko60 January 6, 2015 at 06:36 #

    OK: I will start with a disclosure. I’m a psychiatrist. I’m on the panel writing guidelines for anxiety disorders for the Australian and NZ College of Psychiatrists. This post reminds me of being on a TV programme in OZ (link is http://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/tvepisode/obsessed, you can guess which one I am) and getting ferally angry because a couple of the panelists with severe OCD were unable to get help.

    The idea that you have to adopt your cousin to get help from the Canadian MH services makes me furious. I accept the USA medical system is broken, but this is beyond a joke.

    On Transgender: it’s an issue, there are no good answers, gender assignment surgery does not always work, and accepting them as a “Third Sex” does not stop the stigma or exploitation.


  42. pukeko60 January 6, 2015 at 06:43 #

    Which is why Australia, NZ, and Canada will never become a republic. We can roll the PM at any time: if he loses the confidence of Parliament he MUST call an election.

    In the Parliamentary system, Obama would have gone with the last election.


  43. Noor January 6, 2015 at 07:24 #

    There’s a subreddit titled “Stormfront or SJW?”.

    SJW ideas aren’t new though at all. European multiculturalism (to be distinguished from lived diversity) goes back a long way, and this kind of leftist poly-tribalism just takes them around to the far-right every single time. Especially as they take the most hardline, reactionary and offended members of a community or culture as the most authentic representatives. (Feminism follows this pretty well too.)

    I also remember reading something about a Zionist group back in the 40s or so talking to Nazis about cooperating somewhat since their goals were, well, kind of similar, to get the Jews out of Germany and stop intermarriage.


  44. superslaviswife January 6, 2015 at 08:40 #

    Feminism conflates preferences and genders, too. Regardless of whether you believe someone was born with a brain that is actually not in-sync with their genitals or was born with a sort of dysmorphia that makes them crave a different body (personally, I think both probably exist, hence why some people after surgery are happy and some want their old genitals back and even kill themselves) and regardless of whether you think the body or the brain should be treated, it’s easy to see there is something fundamentally, medically wrong with transgender people.

    On the other hand, we have crossdressers and “gender fluid” people. Considering how mobile culture is (all children used to wear dresses until they were around 6 years old. blue used to be for girls and pink for boys, in some societies boys play with dolls and in other girls learn to hunt) and that people constantly rebel against their set culture, it’s not all that shocking that some men like dresses and pink and flower arrangement and some women like football and hunting and building sheds. Modern feminism calls these people “gender fluid”, because they are comfortable with the stereotypical hobbies of both genders. Even moreso if they are bisexual, because that’s seen as some sort of evidence. It’s all part of the gender-is-culture narrative. If liking skirts makes you a girl and liking football makes you a boy and it’s possible to like both, then clearly there are many genders based on what percentage of your likes are male what are female. Which makes gender entirely cultural. Which means that girls liking Barbie is a cultural imposition. Because something. This is where my head starts to hurt and I call it out.


  45. Joe January 6, 2015 at 08:57 #


    Sure, deaf is a disability and it is a CULTURE. Why? the deaf community are shaped by abled people. Deaf people develop sign language in order to communicate and increase our learning and understanding. Deaf people are oppressed. Deaf people were not allow to drive. They fought. Today, they can drive. They were deny of life insurance. Deaf people founded life National Fraternal Society for the Deaf life insurance company. Now, it is no longer in operation because Deaf people can now have life insurance at any companies. Recently, federal government changes their ruling on Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). Now, the Deaf people are allowed to have a CDL license. Every day, Deaf people’s life continue to improve. Mandated by the law, television programming are to closed-captioned, Netflix videos are required to have a film captioned before it is released to the public, Deaf people have an access to different type of interpreting services, and Deaf people are protected class in many different capacity such as educational setting and workplace.

    In this article, JudyBitch wrote, “For me, this would not be a complicated choice: if one of my children were deaf, I would do everything in my power to give them hearing. Deafness is a defect I would correct.”

    This is a typical response of a parent. It is understandable. Let’s step back and analyze this reactionary statement. “Deafness is a defect I would correct.” JudyBitch exercised her power as imposing an opinion over her child that he or she is defect. Hence, she forced a medical surgical to correct this “defect” so that he or she may function in our abled-driven society. What JudgyBitch did was defining this child’s perception of how the world functions and influence child’s perspective on life.

    Let’s compare to the parents of Nick Vujicic. Vujicic was born without libms. He have no arms and no legs. What did the parents of Nick Vujici did? DId they coddled? Did they sheltered Vujicic away from the world? The parents didn’t nothing of that. Vujicic would shut down if their son make an excuse that he have no arms to clean up his messy room. The parents didn’t care. This enable Vujici to learn how to find a way to overcome his disability. Today, he is much far more “abled” and functioning than many of his abled-body counterparts.

    We see there are parents of deaf child who share the same philosophy of Vujicic parenting style. Those child are successful and often they live without being cochlear implanted. They thrive on what is their strength such as having access to sign language. It is language that they can acquire quickly and their intellectual level grows at rapid pace than those deaf child who are forced to take speech therapy, isolated away from their friends on a skillset that they have lowest probability of becoming a self-supporting successful adult through hearing and speech training. A culturally deaf person with strong foundation of American Sign Language out stand those sheltered deaf people every time because they were taught and allow to thrive with what are their strength. Often those “crippled” deaf people look up at those strong-centered deaf person as their role model and sometime enraged with angry of how they were raise because they missed out on many opportunities to thrive. Often, they have low reading level and is unhappy. Ultimately, as a deaf community, the deaf people welcome them with open arms because they understood them and will do in their power to “heal” their pains so that they can find their happiness.

    This abled people who tell those deaf people how they are to live their life are oppressed through different vehicle. In response, we organically created a deaf cultural as a mean to survive and to pursue the happiness. No matter how hard the people wants to fix us. We reject them. Observe those children who are implanted with cochlear implant. Those machine is amazing and powerful. But, why does the deaf children stop use them when they become an adult. It is so common that they stopped use cochlear implant and chose to live their life as a deaf adult.

    Your response to “…it absolutely needs to be fixed and corrected.” The deaf history will tell you that how much you try to fix it and you will lose. The deaf history will tell you how brutal they have to endure this “being fixed”. The better question is why it is a uphill battle that deaf community stands so strong reject the idea of being fixed and how they embrace their deaf identity. We need to look at how hard they are fighting to preserve their language, their culture, and their identity. And, by observe the community and we will see that deaf child who comes from deaf family (genetic hereditary) often are the alphas and they are above average of their abled-bodied counterparts. This is frame we need to observe by removing our biases and observe how they evolved and survive.

    Recently, there was a TED Talk by a deaf biologist who studied the genetic. In his study, he found that the deaf gene known as Connexin 26 is the possible mutation in our genetic to prevent against dysentery. This biologist challenged us to look from this view through scientific reserach that suggested the hereditary of deafness was a survival and a positive response to environment. Why are we penalizing the deaf people that we manufactured this as a medical disability.

    You can view this video by Dr. Derek Braun, “Tracing the roots of deafness to a gene that maybe prevented disease” at

    So we must ask ourselves, does the deaf people need to be fixed and corrected? The deaf community will rebel. The deaf community viewed them as a member of minority community and will see this proposal of being fixed as an eugenic solution.


    Sign language is VERY useful! There are plenty of academic research on this subject. The neuroscience confirmed on how profound impact the sign language can have on child’s brain.

    You will want to check this into Harvard trained and well-known neuroscientist at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura-Ann_Petitto. You can access the researches funded by National Science Foundation at http://vl2.gallaudet.edu/


    Me too. I lost my hearing at 17 month old. I went to deaf residential school. I wear hearing aid. I learned sign language. I received speech training. Today, I no longer wear hearing aids nor use my speech. I am happy with my deafness. I am thankful for those deaf community that taught me to embrace my deafness as an identity. This has helped me to use my strength and to live my life to its fullness. I am not shackled to a medical view that I need to be fixed. I reject those thoughts. Why waste my energy in a lose-lose proposition to function of a different life that I will never fulfil as a person with hearing where there are plenty of opportunities that are a better prospect that I can win as a deaf person. By winning, I am happy and a full member of our society as a tax payer and contributing citizen.


    My challenge to you is how many people like you are fortunate to be able to listen and speak to an extent. It is rare. And, why the failure in teaching deaf child to speak and listening is astronomically high. The better question is why was you specifically kept the hell away from sign language. Why the choice of word you used, “hell away from sign language” whereas there are wonderful benefits confirmed by science and researches. My answer to you is to look at work of Alexander Graham Bell and his involvement in eugenic movement. This maybe will help you see a different perspective of your upbringing and how you were conditioned.


    Really? So you decide you are a dictator today to remove this culture that the deaf community organically build where they can call it home. Don’t you think you come off as a bigot? Why does it bother you so much as a deaf person. Left it alone and go your way where you are happy. Let us have our deaf community where we can let our hair down and do what deaf people do.

    Keep in mind, you are always welcome to join us. We get you. There are many people here like you. They can relate to what you went through. You choose what you do. If one day you decide to come “home” and our doors are always open in our deaf community.


    Linguists will disagree with you.
    Neuroscientists will disagree with you.
    Anthropologists will disagree with you
    and vast of deaf people will disagree with you.

    Sign language is an human rights. It is well-researched subject. Sign language is here to stay. Interestingly, Kenya recently added Kenyan Sign Language in their Constitution. It mean everywhere in Kenya, Kenyan Sign Language must be accessible. The better question for you to ask is, “Why?” I prefer you to research this subject instead of me defending. This way you will learn more about yourself as a deaf person or how you identify yourself. Not only that, you will also learn how we pursue our happiness and how this is an human rights.


    Taking advantage of modern PC. Deaf in America started the movement in 1880 after the International Congress on Education conference in Milan, Italy decide to ban sign language in school. To this day, we haven’t look back fighting for our human rights given that eradicating sign language and replace with speech therapy is very ineffective. Recently, the International Congress on Education issue an apology and no longer recognize and will not make this proposal again.

    Deaf people were the movers and shakers. The civil rights movement embraced us for our fighting in human rights. We are allies to each other. We rode the 1964 Civil Rights Act movement just much as they help us with the Deaf President Now at Gallaudet University in 1988 which becomes an instrumental in passing American with Disabilities Act.

    I think you should be thankful for the accessibility and discrimination protection you have today.


    How dangerous is it? Our history and today in deaf community will see those deaf child forced to function in ‘normal-hearing’ world have suffered much more because they were not given an access to the culture and community that are there to help each other thriving in ‘normal-hearing’ world.

    It is apples and oranges when you compare us with other disabilities. In your example, blind people have their cultural, their community, and their positions. Do we share the same outlook. No, we don’t. We as a deaf community will be their ally because we understand how they are discriminated as a person with disability. We work together to advanced the different laws that protected us as a disability person.

    Do the people with disability carry the same perspective we the deaf community positioned ourselves. Keep in mind that the rooted of deaf community are the linguistic minority. It is the linguistic cultural that shaped us differently.

    I am in no position to make statement for those disability community such as blind person reject treatment and to keep braille around. I have no idea of what do they want. What I will do is to meet with the community and to learn about their culture and how they choose to live their lifestyle. From there, I will respect their wishes and support them as an ally whichever that they will want to be treated or not.


  46. Joe January 6, 2015 at 09:02 #

    In addition, to this thoughts, I enjoy a great article written by Chad Taylor on himself as a deaf person navigating in this world. He wrote this article in a response to a deaf person who seems to be unhappy paralleling Chad Taylor’s life coming from similar schools, similar upbringing, and similar occupation.

    This give us 10,000 feet view of this perspectives.



  47. Joe January 6, 2015 at 09:51 #


    Here is my thoughts as a Deaf person:

    Deaf child receive a treatment to restore some of their hearing. Usually at early age when their brain is in critical period of language acquisition. A parent make this decision for the best interest of their child. This is common responses and action I see that happen.

    Now, the deaf community as whole don’t advocate this treatment. The deaf community is built on personal experiences. As collectively, we wish our parents do this differently. Our parents tried hard to have us deaf people live the life of hearing people through speech therapy and listening training. This is bad as force quadriplegic person to stop use wheelchair so that can walk again.

    We as a deaf community want to educate those parents that there are better options that their deaf child can thrive and be happy.

    Often, those better options are rejected and the parents make the decision what is best for their deaf child. Later, their deaf child grow up and start to rebel against their parents because the deaf child don’t want to become a hearing person and want to be identified as a deaf person.

    Now, a child identified themselves to a different gender of their given biological identity. The child is reject of treatment solutions that will help them with their gender identity. The child don’t receive the support they should get due to different society views.

    The deaf child wants to be identified as a deaf person and is not allowed to have this option but will be treated medically. In the end, the deaf child is miserable and rebelling against their parents because they are not happy. The choice parents made on treatments were ineffective.

    The child wants to be identified of a different sex. There are options that parents can pursue to support their child so that they can grow into a healthy person. The parents and refuse to treat. The child ends up very miserable and rebelling against their parents or they may contemplating or committed a suicide.

    Here is a bird view of this challenges:

    1) one that don’t want to be treated because they want to be identified as a deaf person because there are ample options that are better of what is medically offered. They don’t get to make this choice. The parents ignore the community and experts’s recommendations and sided with doctors who know nothing about deaf community.

    2) A child want to be identified a different sex. There are treatment options. Parents refuse let their child receive those treatment. The child don’t have a choice until they become emancipated. Again, with the recommendation of experts, the treatment option is rejected.

    Do I understand the gender identity those people are experiencing. No, I will never understand them. But, I can related them emphatically of what they are going through being discriminated, being oppressed, and being told to live a different lifestyle.

    My dilemma is that I do relate to this pain and this struggle but I don’t understand it. People would thought that I would response to this notion. I don’t. Much as rational I am and I am irrational as a human being. At knee-jerk reaction, My programming, my upbringing, and my conviction sided with those Christian parents. But, over the time my understanding as a deaf person will allow me to explore this with an open-mind of what it take to raise a healthy child in a loving environment. Is it easy? No. It is hard and this is a journey that I must walk thought his valleys and peaks. Just much as other parents, I wish the best for my child.

    Please take a note that my perspective is me as a whole person not a view coming from deaf community. My people from deaf community does carry a radically different view on this matter. They may opposed the gender identity treatment and they also may support the treatment for gender identity. We are very much alike you, able-bodied people, doing many different things. It is just that we can’t hear.

    In deaf community, we doesn’t offer a singular view on issue. It is multiple views. There are feminists, anti-feminists, lgbt, anti-lgibt, Religious people, atheists, racist, anti-racist, conservatives, and liberals and all of kind.

    My point is that there is a dominant and secondary identity I have.

    As we see, Deafness and Gender dysphoria is a medical condition. We both experience a form of oppression. The different is that one wish to be fixed and one that don’t want to be fixed. We both similarly want the right to make a choice because we know what it make us happy.

    In my situation, my dominant identity as a deaf person should response with supportive of them having right to choice but I let my other identity as a Catholic to oppose this treatment because it is wrong. So this become a personal dilemma. This become a journey for me to explore this issues through different lens.


  48. Noor January 6, 2015 at 10:03 #

    “Culturally deaf” is a crock of shit by itself. This “I love being deaf and my marriage with a hearing person is…” is no different from when feminists act like I must preface everything with “as a woman”.

    “Deaf” or “hearing impaired” doesn’t make you inferior and if you think it does you need to develop a healthier perspective on yourself. I’ve always preferred the term “hearing impaired”, but I don’t think of myself as disabled because I have far more to think of myself first. Is it a negative or positive thing? I don’t know because I don’t have access to a parallel universe where I had normal hearing so I can’t tell if I would be anywhere where I am today.

    Just get hearing aids or cochlear implants, at least when outside, and stop wallowing and constantly convincing yourself you’re special and part of the “deaf community” that’s just too cool to bother with normal hearing.


  49. Noor January 6, 2015 at 10:08 #

    Trans people have actual gender dysphoria, that is, their brain is not aligned with their physical body. Kids that rebel against hearing aids either have unsuitable hearing aids or are just being kids.

    “Deaf identity” isn’t something in the brain the way gender identity is.


  50. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 13:08 #

    I would say that a transvestite is someone who enjoys dressing as the opposite sex (whether frequently or occasionally), or in some cases prefers to present themselves to society as their biological sex but likes secretly wearing some items conventionally identified as belonging to the opposite sex — but who nevertheless doesn’t want to transition into being that other gender.

    A transgender person, in contrast, is not just happy playing dress up. Their mental gender is the opposite of their biological sex, and they are unhappy with the fact that their outward appearance doesn’t match who they are inside.


  51. Spaniard January 6, 2015 at 13:14 #

    It is a perversion to have sex with a trannie.
    But, in any case, I understand it: some of them are beautiful cretaures, they have no pre menstrual syndrome, they cannot get pregnant…


  52. Spaniard January 6, 2015 at 13:22 #

    The political program of the French far right and the political program of the Spanish far left is very similar.
    The French far right is about to win elections in France, and the Spanish far left is about to win elections here. If both finally win they are going to understand each other quite well.
    Personally, I am a moderate leftwinger but I like some things of Marine Le Pen in France: Stop massive inmigration, expulsion of Islamic extremists, protection of the European culture, protection of the Christian heritage…


  53. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 13:29 #

    I would argue that the person we fall in love with is, as you say, “outside the discussion of morality,” provided that both people are of an age and maturity level wherein they’re capable of giving consent, that the relationship isn’t an unequal one wherein one person’s ability to give consent is compromised (i.e. therapists have a responsibility to recognize the vulnerability of their patients and to keep the relationship professional), that the person isn’t a close relative, and also that the person isn’t already married or committed to someone else.

    This makes me comfortable with allowing for a range of possibilities regarding how a person’s sexual identity develops. I do think there’s a genetic basis for both hetero and homosexuality, and for some people, their preference may be 100% genetic, while for others, there may be some combination of genetic and environmental factors. This is not to say that our preferences are a choice, though.

    There’s lately been a realization that while some people are 100% straight and some are 100% gay, there are others who fall somewhere along a spectrum. For those on the spectrum, there probably is some degree of choice. For example, I had a discussion once with a bisexual woman who decided that she wanted to spend her life with a man, because it was very important to her to give birth to her own biological children, and for the person raising those children with her to be their biological father.

    For people who are capable of being attracted to both genders, their choice will probably be determined by who it is that they ultimately fall the most deeply in love with. Also, people who feel sexually attracted to both genders may realize that get along best with and are happiest with people of the opposite gender, or with people of the same gender, and make a choice to pursue a relationship with someone in that gender.


  54. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 14:01 #

    I agree with you that indigenous people in the Amazon and other places are just as intelligent as we are and are capable of making their own choices, when given access to the full range of information that we have access to. At the same time, I think people going into these places and offering this access to an industrialized lifestyle have a responsibility to help them preserve certain skills.

    To explain, I watched a documentary once where a group of Indians somewhere in South America had lost the know-how to make their own fire. Through trading with other groups, they’d gotten access to lighters, and of course, it’s much easier to start a fire like this and it makes sense to go the convenient route whenever you have that option.

    The problem was that, in a culture where everything is passed down by word of mouth, skills that have been part of a group for generations can be lost practically in the blink of an eye. I was very happy that a “privileged” white man felt like the skill of fire-making was something he could give back to that indigenous tribe, out of appreciation for all the things he’d learned from indigenous people over the years. This way, they could use the lighters when they had them, but they weren’t “up a creek without a paddle” — unable to start a fire when their lighter died.

    Another example is breastfeeding. For generations, the majority of women were able to successfully breastfeed their babies with the advice and support of other women in their families and communities, without having any idea about the science of how it worked. But somewhere around the middle of the 20th century in the U.S., formula feeding became the norm and in subsequent generations, many new mothers who wanted to breastfeed would give it a try and conclude that they didn’t produce enough milk, often because no one realized that it was the baby’s frequent suckling that stimulated milk production, and that following the formula feeding schedule only worked if you were formula feeding.

    On a really tragic side note, when the Nestle company decided they wanted to provide people in third world countries with the option of formula by sending in women dressed as nurses to teach them how to prepare the formula, and to give them some formula to take home as a free gift, this resulted in the death of many babies, because those mothers went back to villages where they had no access to clean water, and also didn’t have money to buy sufficient amounts of formula when their free supply ran out, at which time, since they hadn’t been breastfeeding, their milk had dried up. Additionally, without the protection of the maternal immunities that come through breast milk, their babies were left defenseless when exposed to the horrible diseases that plagued their regions.

    These women were intelligent people — every bit as intelligent as the American women who forgot how to breastfeed. In both cases, the women were given “options,” but without complete information. It was a lot more tragic, though, for the “brown” women because they were in such dire situations already.


  55. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 14:22 #

    Yes, other people may notice that a boy appears to have more of a female brain or that a girl appears to have more of a male brain, but as long as that child is happy identifying as his or her biological sex — i.e. being a girl who likes playing sports and working on cars or a boy who likes playing with dolls and making his living space beautiful — it would be very intrusive for anyone else to “diagnose” that child as transgender.

    Here’s a link to a really good story of a real life family with a transgender child:


  56. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 15:35 #

    Since the video seems to be blocked from playing directly from this site, you can go to YouTube and find it by doing a search for “Ryland’s Story” or “The Whittington Family: Ryland’s Story.


  57. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 16:09 #

    Here is the link to the introduction to another real-life transgender story, shared by a woman who started her marriage as the wife of a conservative Christian minister, became the mother of their four children, and stayed in love with her husband (now wife) as he (really she) came to terms with the fact that she had always been female inside. They have stayed together through all the many changes that transitioning has brought them.



  58. Jason Wexler January 6, 2015 at 19:31 #

    Who decides maturity level? I’ve talked about her before, but I’ve learned my sister who will be 43 next month is pregnant for I believe the ninth time and she’s already a grandmother, I’m loathe to use the term about my sister but, apparently she’s a “MILF/GILF” as the 19 year-old who impregnated her, also had impregnated her 17 year-old daughter two months earlier.

    Which leads to my other concern what about the difference between love and lust? I don’t object to purely lustful relationships, which seems to be the only kind my sister entertains, but her behavior technically doesn’t violate any of the rules you laid forth, but has resulted in a lot of negative consequences (mainly for her children, and the taxpayers of Wisconsin); on the otherhand I know of people who have violated one or more of those rules to no negative consequences.


  59. that1susan January 6, 2015 at 21:54 #

    When I mentioned maturity level, I was thinking more in terms of people who might be physically over 18 but have some developmental disability that renders them unable to give legal consent. Of course, developmentally disabled people shouldn’t be prohibited from having sex if they want to — but I see it kind of like a sexual relationship between two 15-year-olds versus a 15 and 30-year-old. But I suppose even that’s open to discussion, because I have heard of a couple of different marriages where a person of normal intelligence married someone whose IQ was technically in the upper ranges of retarded.

    In your sister’s case, I think I should have added another category about not having sex with anyone who’s had sex with your parent or child. That disrupts families every bit as much as having sex with one of your own close family members.


  60. thedeadflag January 7, 2015 at 09:44 #

    Paul McHugh has been widely discredited for allowing his religious ideology to undermine his academic integrity. Even before he took up his position at Johns Hopkins, he was speaking out against trans people on a religious basis (and asserting homosexuality was a choice), and performed some of the most blatant statistical manipulation to try and justify the argument that genital reconstruction surgery was ‘ill advised’. The nearly the whole of the medical and psychological community (and certainly all the major bodies and leading researchers) recommend this surgery, but recognize it alone does not fully eliminate dysphoria. This guy shut down the program in the late 70’s, the heyday of when anti-trans rhetoric really started taking off, and around when Janice Raymond (famous TERF/ trans exclusionary radical feminist) helped strip trans people of access to healthcare.

    However, combined with hormones, it does alleviate it to a significant degree in those who make claims of requiring it. And when trans individuals have supportive friends and family, their dysphoria is alleviated further. And when they have supportive workplaces, it is alleviated even further. it is clear there is often a social element to dysphoria, which is what needs to be treated in trans people. Thus, a surgery cannot accomplish that alone. It cannot remove centuries of entrenched social stigma against trans people. But transitional treatments CAN significantly reduce dysphoria on their own, and reduce suicidal attempts and ideation to a percentage point or two above the national average (which is amazing, considering a moderate estimate of 41% of the demographic has attempted suicide at least once).

    As for the devil’s advocate stuff you bring up…well, I won’t really address it directly, because for decades, that was the official line of throught when it came to trans people. It’s why trans folk were institutionalized, lobotomized, given electro-shock therapy, sexually abused in an attempt to condition them to the so-called “proper” gender, etc. But none of it worked. For decades, they tried nearly everything, with zero success to show for it. And that’s when they began treating trans people in ways similar to how they’re treated now, and that’s when they finally began making progress. And ever since then, researchers have been testing trans people to figure out just why this treatment worked and the others didn’t…and there’s significant evidence pointing to abnormal development in utero during the development of the brain, where the hormone cocktails utilized to cause the development are atypical, resulting in a brain that is, to a large degree, hardwired in a way that is hormonally incompatible with the rest of the body’s typical development, and more often than not maps the body in a way that conflicts with the physical form that eventually develops (for instance: the tendency of trans men to experience phantom limb syndrome for the external genitalia they feel they should have, and the tendency for trans women to not experience this after surgery as opposed to cis men who have underwent genital reconstructive surgery after damage to it). There’s still no firm consensus on why this happens, but there’s plenty of evidence supporting the theory that this is largely rooted in biology, in the bedrock development of the brain

    The average layman goes about their day unaware of this knowledge, because trans people are already an unknown entity by and large, with most people’s understandings fueled by poor media representation and stigma. It’s no wonder that society isn’t tapped into recent advances in research of trans people. I’d expect more of McHugh, but then I remember he advocates Christian conversion therapy, and lets his ideology get in the way of science, no matter how replicable and sound the findings against his personal beliefs may be.


  61. Noor January 7, 2015 at 15:45 #

    Whether it’s a culture depends on the exact definition of a culture, to be honest, and there is some debate over that. Some might say it’s simply a way of life shared by a group of people, in which case it can qualify as a culture, but what I dislike is the “deaf community” shit. I think it’s a crock of bullshit, and I don’t have much more in common with other hearing impaired people than normal-hearing people. I can maybe relate to some experiences of trouble communicating with the rest of the world, but here’s the thing: *I don’t define myself by those experiences.* If I broke an ankle, I might have experiences similar to others with a broken ankle, but I don’t make those experiences a big deal the way the “deaf community” does, and I’m not going to feel closer to someone just because they might have a similar experience to mine.

    Here’s the thing: I appreciate captions and I’m glad I have access to those things. But it’s just like with feminism – I’m glad for a few legitimate things feminism brought about in the past, but I disagree with the way feminism brought about those, and more importantly I’m not going to pledge eternal loyalty to a sisterhood today because women once faced issues that affected mostly women, and still do today in other places.

    Of course it’s something you correct. It’s a defect. It’s not something exclusive to a parent’s view. It’s not something about the whole damn world being “ableist” either.

    My view on “ableism” is that you’re not being discriminated against if you’re in a wheelchair and a stadium doesn’t have a wheelchair ramp. Yes, having a wheelchair ramp would be better, but ultimately the world cannot change to accomodate you. It’s also not discrimination in an ableist world if you don’t qualify for construction jobs in a wheelchair. You can’t expect someone to build you a special brick-carrying wheelchair (though it would be very nice if they did). What I do consider ableism would be if someone refuses to hire you for an office job because you’re in a wheelchair.

    Like I’ve said, sign language should only be a supplementary if a child really cannot develop language skills in time. Sign language is not something that should be flourishing simply because, and I’m pretty sickened by the deaf community that is willing to put the “preservation” of sign language over their children living a more normal life being able to talk and listen with anyone.

    My guess is that these “crippled” children who could have done better with sign language have been subjected to the shittiness of American education, although in my observations children who were raised more on sign language were far more crippled. Since ASL is structurally more like Chinese, these children have a much harder time grasping the structure of English and do very poorly on grammar. Not just that, but in my school in the US, most of the hearing-impaired children were treated like they were mentally retarded – that is, given extra time on tests and quizzes, taking the easiest classes, and not being treated at all in the way other children were. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that children put into speech therapy didn’t fare so well under the American system either.

    My view on people that stop wearing cochlear implants as an adult is the same as with people that stop wearing glasses as an adult – either the glasses weren’t right for them, or they’re just being silly. Cochlear implants aren’t for everyone – definitely not for me – and they’re far more intrusive than a hearing aid, so that may be why many find them uncomfortable. I also get the impression that they are pushed onto people when hearing aids would be better.

    It’s not something to be “embraced” either. Accepted yes, but not embraced. Just because they’re fighting for their identity doesn’t make it valid by itself, anymore than Tumblrinas fighting for ‘demisexuality’ or ‘skoliosexuality’ makes them worth anything.

    I hope you realize “deafness” is not something solely caused by genes. It was certainly not the case for me. And hearing loss can take a lot of forms from mild to profound. But if inherited deafness was indeed related to adapting against dysentery, that’s irrelevant to any past discrimination if that was found out only recently. Unless you think discrimination against hearing impaired people was because a bunch of cavemen got jealous of their anti-dysentery genes and decided to kick them out.

    Just because sign language has a strong impact on the brain does not make it inherently recommendable. It’s bilinguality that has shown to help in positive ways, but I still would not recommend most children learn sign language lest they become dependent on it and stop working on their speech.

    As for your claim that I’m lucky, that’s bullshit too. The special preschool I went to (http://www.balavidyalayaschool.org/) does that all the time. Children with severe to profound hearing go there, spend a few years with very intensive training, and go straight to normal school and communicate orally without relying on the crutch of sign language. The school’s philosophy is that it is the birth right of every child to learn to speak, and it is that which is true empowerment.

    You know why they’re so successful at teaching children like me to communicate normally? Hard work on both the teachers’ and parents’ part, in my case it was four years there. My years in American schooling have led me to believe they do the exact opposite there, with thoroughly coddling children to the point that one girl I knew there cannot make a sound, was doing single-digit addition at age 20, and is destined to work at her family’s business all her life. (I’m not a fan of the Asian education system, but that preschool had it right – hard work from everyone, combined with developing at your own pace.)

    “Deaf culture” is imaginary bullshit the same way most Tumblr identities are. Just because you’ve decided to call yourself “demiromantic” doesn’t make it worth anything, and hiding in your special-snowflakeness is bullshit. I’d laugh at it all the same way I laugh at people who call themselves “demiromantic” or “pomosexual”, but I can’t laugh when the “deaf community” goes to the point of discouraging children from leading normal lives and cutting them off from a lot of the world.

    The rest of your “you’re always welcome to join us” and “you owe us for your rights” is startlingly like feminism to the point it’s scary.

    Women who are worth talking to, when they deal with sexism, they don’t make it an entire part of their identity and choose to identify with other women solely on the basis of experiencing that specific form of sexism. That is taking victim status as a part of your identity. And of course if you’re anti-feminist like I am, you see how feminists constantly manipulate and guilt women into joining them, with “you owe us for your rights”, “you’re lucky others fought for you”, “we’ll always be open to you”, “we are the only people who experience the same sexism as you do”, “men don’t experience the same things we as women do and are thus not qualified to say anything about feminism or women”. Do you really not see the similarities between that and how you’re sounding?


  62. Noor January 7, 2015 at 16:43 #

    To go right to the fundamentals, the main reason I find the “deaf community” to be meaningless bullshit is that it encourages people to make their hearing loss a big deal about their identity. It’s not just shallow, but it also discourages them from cultivating more things that they can identify as. For example, I feel I have more in common with anti-feminist characters than I do with female or deaf characters. I’m also going to be annoyed as hell if you say that I should identify with a female or deaf character on that basis purely.

    The fact that I feel I have far more in common and prefer to hang out with a normal-hearing white man that shares my views on gender issues or politics or religion, than someone that shares shallow characteristics with me, is *a good thing*, and I’d like to see that encouraged more.


  63. that1susan January 7, 2015 at 19:48 #

    While I think it’s fine for a deaf person to pass up being involved with the deaf community, I don’t see the need to define it as “meaningless bullshit’ for everyone else. Just as I wouldn’t criticize any transgender person who felt no need to seek out other transgender people for support, but nevertheless would be critical of that person saying, “Because I personally feel no need to associate with the transgender community, this means it must be meaningless bullshit. Period.”

    On a personal note, I have left the fundamentalist Christian religion and am now a member of a Unitarian Universalist church. I know there are plenty of people with similar viewpoints to mine who are perfectly happy staying home on Sundays, and not being a member of any church. That’s fine for them, but my church community is not “meaningless bullshit” for my family and me.

    I know very little about deafness, but one thought I’ve had while reading all this is that the best course of action for parents raising a deaf child is going to vary widely from child to child. It seems possible to me that children with severe hearing loss might be severely limited if they’re not allowed to learn sign language, whereas children with less severe hearing loss might achieve close to normal hearing with implants, and be able to supplement what’s lacking by learning to read lips.

    Even with the latter group, I don’t see how learning ASL would hurt them. I think it would be like learning any other language. My older daughter really enjoyed taking a couple of ASL classes one year — and I think most linguists actually advise giving children the opportunity to learn new languages at an early age, because this is the time when their brains can perform so many connections, which can help with all kinds of learning throughout life.

    At any rate, these issues seem less black and white, and more like something that each individual and family needs to figure out for themselves, with the help of their trusted advisors.


  64. Noor January 7, 2015 at 19:58 #

    In fact I’ve always been fucking creeped out by the “deaf community” for the exact same reason I’m creeped out by feminists. They both claim ownership of me on the basis of a physical trait, and insist that that physical trait of mine should be the major determining factor in my relationships with other people, regardless of how important it actually is to me.

    If you called glasses to be the attempts of an abled world trying to force you into correcting what you don’t consider a defect, and insisting upon getting everything in large-print, I’ll laugh at you. If you specifically refused to get your children glasses and raise them to have a different experience with blurry vision, you’re a moron harming your children.

    (I’m not against large-print products for people whose vision is bad enough with glasses or contacts, but they’re not for dumbasses that refuse to wear glasses because they want to be part of the Myopic community and write blogs about their experiences being married to a normal-vision person.)


  65. Noor January 7, 2015 at 20:30 #

    Sorry, I didn’t see your reply before I posted my latest comment as a follow-up. Though my latest ends up partially addressing a couple things in yours.

    I’m not calling it meaningless bullshit just because I don’t want it for myself. It’s the same way I consider all the identities going around on Tumblr to be that. You’re not part of a special “demisexual” group because you require emotional connections in order to feel attraction to others. I can understand the existence of a trans community better since trans people are actually discriminated against, and dysphoria has far more of an impact on people, plus it’s a lot harder, often just about impossible, to get trans people to get them feeling ‘normal’ again.

    Even where sign language ‘works’, you’ve taken away plenty of valuable time that could be used for speech therapy all for a language that will not help them much in dealing with the actual world. Plenty of people have far better hearing than mine (in fact I’ve never met anyone with worse hearing than mine) and are still relying on sign language that ends up crippling them. Plenty of children with severe to profound hearing can learn to talk and listen quite well with the right support and teaching, as my old preschool has proven, and they had a ban on sign language. Signs seem to be more of an easy way out for most hearing impaired children, and all that time could be used to work on their speech and listening instead.


  66. Noor January 7, 2015 at 21:08 #

    To add to that, if you have cancer or another life-threatening disease, I can understand support groups for people with that, as they actually affect your life in a significant way that most people don’t have to think about. But if you create a support group for people with minor things like bad ankles or Raynaud’s, yes, I’ll think you’re exaggerating things and making it a far bigger part of your life than it should be. Pretty much the same as feminists who get together to support each other over trivial bullshit.

    It’s rather a gradient here, but the vast majority of “hearing impaired experiences” are not at all unique to hearing impaired people, the way that life-threatening diseases, depression, or trans issues are. They really should not be life-defining anymore than having to deal with the occasional sexist jerk is. Having Raynaud’s means I can’t open freezers without oven mitts, but reaching out to other people with Raynaud’s solely over the same trivial experiences, is what I’m calling out to be meaningless bullshit.


  67. farkennel January 9, 2015 at 05:15 #

    Amongst the feminazi community there is no one they hate more than men than “transgender” folk.It confuses the poor dears.


  68. disenchantedscholar January 9, 2015 at 19:40 #

    Reblogged this on Philosophies of a Disenchanted Scholar and commented:
    SJWs get it the wrong way around. The mind can be changed. Genitals cannot. They need experimental pharmaceuticals or brain surgery. Like any other mental disease where reality doesn’t conform to the individual (delusions).


  69. that1susan January 9, 2015 at 19:54 #

    My brain is a more integral part of who I am than my body is. I’m thankful that my brain identifies with my biological sex because that makes at least one aspect of my life simpler than it would be — but if my brain were female and my body were male, I’d see it as less risky to modify my outward appearance to match who I was on the inside than to go on mind altering drugs or have brain surgery.

    It’s funny that many of the people who oppose cosmetic surgery or hormonal treatment for transgender people, will often focus on how it’s “not a perfect fix,” and how some transgender people are still not completely happy even after the surgery. Of course it’s not a perfect fix! It’s an attempt to improve an already difficult situation, but obviously it’s not going to be the same as having been born with the right set of sex chromosomes in the first place! Should type 1 diabetics forego medical treatment because all the treatment in the world won’t make them non-diabetic?

    Mind-altering drugs and brain surgery are not going to be perfect fixes, either. Plus you risk damaging a part of yourself that’s much more important than the shell that your soul is housed in.


  70. disenchantedscholar January 9, 2015 at 19:59 #

    You don’t understand how mental illnesses work. You’re supposed to fix the head if there’s something wrong with the head. It’s rather simple. If a guy wants his leg amputated, you don’t do it. Even if he really, really, really wants it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_identity_disorder
    Look up otherkin. Transracial. Transpecies. http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1435084.ece/alternates/s1023/Dennis%20Avner It’s a mental condition. Two-spirit should have given it away. SJWs are happy to cede anything regarding sex organs. Anything else? They don’t give a shit. Not how medical ethics work, thankfully.


  71. that1susan January 9, 2015 at 21:27 #

    According to this page from the American Psychological Association website, one important role that mental health professionals may play in helping some of their transgender patients is in arranging “medical services to make their bodies more congruent with their gender identities.”



  72. disenchantedscholar January 9, 2015 at 21:35 #

    same APA who never make mistakes?


  73. that1susan January 9, 2015 at 21:50 #

    Of course they make mistakes. So do the ethical people in the medical profession. That’s why I maintain that the transgender people themselves are the ones who know themselves the best and the best-qualified to make the final decision about any treatment options. Medical and psychological experts are just there to support them in their journey.

    Liked by 1 person

  74. judgybitch January 9, 2015 at 21:57 #

    Susan, yes! I agree completely. It is up to the person experiencing the condition to determine their course of treatment with the ADVICE of medical professionals. Not at the direction of them.


  75. disenchantedscholar January 9, 2015 at 22:02 #

    that’s the point, they aren’t qualified.


  76. that1susan January 9, 2015 at 22:04 #

    Right, no one is qualified to tell a transgender person what to do.


  77. that1susan January 9, 2015 at 22:24 #

    To add to my previous comment, no one is qualified to tell a transgender person what to do, but when it comes to giving support and advice, some people are better qualified than others, such as other transgender people, as well as professionals who’ve spend extensive time studying these issues and listening to the people themselves. People still make mistakes, so that’s why it’s good to listen to the different advice, but also listen to yourself and see how the advice lines up with your own experience of your situation.


  78. Emma the Emo January 9, 2015 at 23:33 #

    Exactly. Messing with the brain is not less dangerous than messing with the body (I’d say more dangerous). Frankly, a lot of the chemical treatments we have for other psychiatric diagnoses are far from inoffensive and can lead to major side effects. So far, medicines would be as crude of a solution as surgery.


  79. disenchantedscholar January 9, 2015 at 23:33 #

    “no one is qualified to tell a transgender person what to do” Ah. You’re one of those.


  80. astrogirl7 February 22, 2015 at 05:51 #

    I really hope that your cousin gets the treatment she needs because HRT will align things for her and enable her to fully live. As a transgender woman myself, I have seen firsthand how cultural ignorance that we have a valid medical condition can ruin lives as well as the “gender construction” concept used by certain schools of radical feminism forcing we transgirls to feel like isolated freaks. For decades, only psychologists took us seriously and did studies on us but now there is an increasing body of evidence from genetics and neurology that show a marked genetic/endicronological causation to our condition. It is a tragedy that what is essentially just a medical issue is seen as a moral or psychological one on the right and used as an argument for the social construction of gender on the left when in fact, it is neither of these things and is just a treatable neurological intersex condition that proves that gender is internally wired in the brain. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding and the proof for me that my internal sense of my own womanhood was a real and not “social” phenomenon and was also not a mental illness came through hormone replacement therapy. I saw that it was a valid treatment for a real condition by how it made me feel. My head cleared up, I wasn’t depressed anymore, a nameless nervous frustration I had always felt in my body but could never quite explain (probably from the misalignment of neurology and physiology) disappeared entirely after only a couple of months and everything suddenly just felt right and normal. You don’t even know how being sick defines your life until you are suddenly well and treatment made me able to really live like a person. So for those who think that we trans girls are a “third sex” I would say that no, we know exactly what we are–female and nothing but transitioning to being fully, physically female will cure our condition. Both the prejudice against us and the feminist belief that I am some sort of disproof that gender is fixed are illusory because our very existence and the very real and constant gender identity that we have as women is proof that gender is neurological and not cultural because culture wanted me to be a boy my entire life and that was simply impossible for me as a girl.



  1. On being transgender | Manosphere.com - January 5, 2015

    […] On being transgender […]


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