Transgender issues and the end of Empire.

a reply to: deuceawesome


I get you dude, but your examples aren't gender specific. No woman would let her family go cold if it meant she had to go out and cut some wood and I would also suggest you would be worse off if you became between my missus and our family than me - do not poke the honey badger!!

Why should such a small percentage of the population either dictate it's laws/rules/norms OR herald it's downfall? I agree with the poster above who suggested something about opulence, though I might not use that word exactly. The fact that people have the luxury to pursue and discuss this issue might say something about the achievement level of our society. We have some spare time. Maybe once that happens, it's all down hill because we are just resting on our laurels?

a reply to: kosmicjack

It's not that they do. It's that the rest of us let them impose their wishes like they do.

Imagine if the people who have dwarfism suddenly went on a similar accommodation crusade to have most of the public world built to physically accommodate them.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: Freija

The gross part is that they are men not what they look like.

I agree, it grosses me out as well.

originally posted by: Middleoftheroad

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: Freija

The gross part is that they are men not what they look like.

I agree, it grosses me out as well.

I don't even like fake breasts so you can imagine how I feel about fake women.

originally posted by: Dem0nc1eaner
I don't think I will ever understand transgenders, it just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm a man. I don't feel like a man though, I just feel like me. What does it even mean to feel like a particular gender. I may do things which are masculine, I may have masculine tendancies, but aren't those just social constructs based on what people with penises "tend" to be like?

So how can someone be born a man, but "feel" like they are a woman. There's no set of feelings that equates to being a woman. Femininity is just the social construct of all of the collective activites of the vagina people. If suddenly, overnight, all women decided that actually they all loved, I don't know, mechanics, mechanics would become something that defined femininity.

But, anyway. I would never want to impose anything on others. Just because I don't, won't or can't understand, doesn't mean anyone else shouldn't do what makes them happy.

More power to yas.

a very very basic analogy i use sometimes is to imagine your body is an engine, and the hormones in your body are like a sort of oil in that engine.
most people naturally produce the oil appropriate to their body, everything runs smoothly, and they never really even think about it, much in the same way you don't generally think about the pumping of your blood until something goes wrong.
for some of us though... well, have you ever driven a car running on bad oil? i could battle my way through life, but it was unpleasant. nothing felt right, everything was really rattly... sometimes my engine would stall?
yeah okay it's a pretty imperfect analogy, but do you see where i'm going with it? i got my body running on estrogen, and everything just clicked. i went from driving a rundown old volvo to a highly tuned sportscar in a matter of weeks. everything in me just makes,,, sense as a woman. and i mean this both physically and more metaphorically - like socially, the way i move through the world.

i know it's strange, i don't expect others to feel it or understand it in any profound way.

all i ask is the basic human respect to acknowledge that just maybe i know what i'm doing - that this is not a whim or a fad, but rather something i've put literal decades of constant thought into, and that i know my own body and i know what is right for it.

a reply to: continuousThunder

Good lord, I think you just came up with an analogy even the most stubborn on ATS can relate to. Great post.

originally posted by: Freija

originally posted by: Metallicus
Transgenders aren't going to hurt anyone other than the gross out factor.

I should be in bed but I can't resist...

Yeah, totally gross!

When you shove it in our face like some religious zealot it is offensive!
Yet you continue to do it in every thread like this.
You are not actually helping your cause.
You can't force acceptance like this you can only hope for people to just leave you alone. But with all the noise being made by this tiny minority people feel the need to challenge you all.
Kinda like how I was compelled to respond to you for trying to force people to look at something that may make them uncomfortable.

Funny how someone can point out a correlation in the rise of transgenderism and decadence to the fall of a culture a few hundred years ago and people go ape ****. Like somehow historical statistics and facts are trans-phobic.

a reply to: Freija


When you see the world going to hell in a handbasket, at my age you think where did we go wrong, so don't get me started .

originally posted by: Dem0nc1eaner
I don't think I will ever understand transgenders, it just doesn't make sense to me.

If it makes any difference, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

I'm a man.

Let's pause right there for a moment to break this down a little. First of all and what many fail to recognize it that by saying "I'm a man", it clearly indicates your identity as a person has a gender. Whether it is consciously recognized or not, everyone has an internalized sense of their own gender. In the study of childhood development we learn that awareness of gender differences usually happens around two years of age and as personality and sense of self develops, a child's awareness of their own gender and where they fit into the world is usually well established by age four. This gender identity is at the foundational core or one's personality. For 99.4% of all people, this all seems to work our pretty well. For others, not so much.

I don't feel like a man though, I just feel like me. What does it even mean to feel like a particular gender.

You've hit the nail directly on the head about how difficult it is to communicate this innate, in-born sense of what you are. You know what you are because you just do. You can't really explain it and you don't really know what it feels like because it comes from some place very deep within and is just inherent in who you are. Lucky for most people is that this sense of awareness and conviction of what you are happens to align with the physical self. For those with gender dysphoria, these things are misaligned or incongruent.

Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose you go to a Hollywood special effects/make-up artist and get convincingly done over as a female. Aren't you still going to know you are and feel like a man? Why is that and how do you know? In another scenario, let's say you lost your male genitalia to disease or injury. Aren't you still going to know and proclaim you are a man? This is your internalized gender identity at work and likely nothing or no one is ever going to change that.

Taking the concept of your Hollywood makeover a step further, how would you feel if you had to live your life this way every day? How would you feel out in the world interacting with others who saw you as something you knew in your heart, spirit and soul that you were not? Would you feel like an imposter, a fake and a fraud? Do you think it would be damaging to your psyche, your emotional health and be painfully difficult and depressing if you were forced to live that way for the rest of your life? This is kind of what trans people feel and what drives them to transition.

I may do things which are masculine, I may have masculine tendancies, but aren't those just social constructs based on what people with penises "tend" to be like?

No, measured as a whole, males and females are born with certain predispositions and aptitudes toward behaviors far more fundamental than social constructs. Even without the social conditioning, we can clearly observe these sexually dimorphic differences in both children and adults. Even the physical structures of the brain exhibit differences between the sexes. These innate behavioral and psychological characteristics are what form the basis of these so called social constructs, not the other way around.

"Sugar and spice and everything nice; that's what little girls are made of. Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails; That's what little boys are made of." These are your social constructs and stereotypes. Where did they come from if not from the collective observations of penis and vagina people?

So how can someone be born a man, but "feel" like they are a woman. There's no set of feelings that equates to being a woman. Femininity is just the social construct of all of the collective activites of the vagina people. If suddenly, overnight, all women decided that actually they all loved, I don't know, mechanics, mechanics would become something that defined femininity.

Do not make the mistake of conflating masculinity and femininity, the affectations and expressions of gender, with gender identity. There are plenty of feminine males and masculine females that are completely confident and comfortable with themselves as men and women. Incidentally, children are born as babies, not men or women.

To address your question though, my best answer is to say I don't have any idea. My perceptions as a child with early onset gender dysphoria and my ability to verbalize why I knew myself to be a girl might be different from someone dealing with this at a later age? I can't tell you why other than I just did. Kind of like how you know you are a man, just because reasons. I can't really even say it's because I think and feel like "a woman" because no two women think and feel the same way and I'm not a mind reader. Like you, I just feel like me and that I know that I'm a woman not simply because I have a vagina but because that's what I know myself to be, what I experience the world as and how the world sees me. It is something that is more on a spiritual or psychic level that defies explanation, at least using the words in my repertoire.

But, anyway. I would never want to impose anything on others. Just because I don't, won't or can't understand, doesn't mean anyone else shouldn't do what makes them happy.

Your posts have been empathetic, considerate and thoughtful. I admire someone that says they don't understand being trans in the way you have because even I don't have the words that can bring explanation to it and I don't really think people can understand unless they've lived it and felt it firsthand. It's just one of those things, you know. I might also like to add that at least as far as my experience goes, changing sex was far more about basic survival than simple happiness. It is that way for many.

originally posted by: JAY1980

When you shove it in our face like some religious zealot it is offensive!

But yet you clicked on this thread and even quoted my pictures. Then you have the audacity to dis me and say that my attempts to bring awareness of transgender issues is offensive and "shoved in your face". Jesus, man. You are offensive.

Yet you continue to do it in every thread like this.
You are not actually helping your cause.

So, I take it you'd prefer people like me would just keep our mouths shut and stay hidden so that you didn't have to deal with us because it's not your problem or makes you uncomfortable? I'll tell you what pal, you can only suppress and oppress people for so long until things boil over and people demand to stand in the daylight and be heard. You sound like a white supremacist in the civil rights era. Gotta keep those darkies in their place, right? Wish those goddamn trannies would just stay in the closet and stop shoving who they are down your throat, right? I'm sorry but I'm afraid those days are over.

You can't force acceptance like this you can only hope for people to just leave you alone. But with all the noise being made by this tiny minority people feel the need to challenge you all.

People like you maybe? I'm not forcing anything on anyone. I know that there will always be people too wrapped up in their dogma and rhetoric and willfully ignorant to have any compassion or understanding for people that aren't like them but I do try to present information and perspectives from a personal point of view so that those that are capable of having a more informed opinion on this subject have the opportunity to do so. If you don't like what I have to say or the knowledge that I try to share on this topic, then stay the hell out of transgender threads. It's that simple. No one is holding a gun to your head. You might also note that the vast majority of these threads are not started by transgender people.

Kinda like how I was compelled to respond to you for trying to force people to look at something that may make them uncomfortable.

Awww, poor precious little snowflake. Did I twist your fingers to click on this thread and/or do you just not like looking at pictures of pretty women? Like I said earlier someone's ick factor is not my problem.

Funny how someone can point out a correlation in the rise of transgenderism and decadence to the fall of a culture a few hundred years ago and people go ape ****. Like somehow historical statistics and facts are trans-phobic.

What's that line... correlation is not causation? I, nor anyone else in this thread has inferred transphobia, just that trying blame the fall of an empire on the acceptance of transsexualism is a bunch or hogwash with questionable motivations. I'm sorry but I also don't equate having a medical condition with decadence either.

Have a nice day.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Freija
When you see the world going to hell in a handbasket, at my age you think where did we go wrong, so don't get me started .

And just how old are we? 90? I think the world is going to hell in a handbasket too but obviously not for the same reasons you do. Likewise, don't get me started.

I think one point that has been grossly overlooked by the OP in this thread is that they really are only referring to White civilization.

Travel around the globe and you will find pockets of indigenous and mostly peaceful societies that have been quite successful with integrating LGBT folk into society. Samoa for instance has the Fa'afine, Maoridom in NZ (a proud warrior race who did war a lot) was open with sexual orientation and has a more loose version of family where children are more of a collective thing before Europeans decided to impose or ideas upon them.

Even Northern Europeans have been relatively okay with it.

If we really sit down and think about it, we can trace l
all this prejudice back to fairly localised source. The middle east. That is where the religious books we follow come from. It is those books that changed opinions and have kept them hardened against us for thousands of years. In the absence of Abrahamic faiths, many (not all though) world cultures thrived and grew with a far more friendly attitude towards LGBT folk.

a reply to: continuousThunder

Yeah, except your body is running just fine on the estrogen and so is the transgenders. It's their mind that creates the problem for them, and there is a question of whether this is a problem with the body or a problem with the mind.

A better analogy would be that my computer runs slow and sometimes glitches or blue screens even. Somewhere, I have a programming issue, but I don't know if it's one I created for myself or if it's a virus or malware.

a reply to: ketsuko

Less than 1% is able to control you?

And what wishes would that be?

a reply to: ketsuko

uhhh.... you didn't actually read my post, did you?
i AM the transgenders
and if you couldn't tell that from my post i don't know how to help you

also, and please, please give this some thought because it's kinda my biggest sticking point in this whole "debate"; can you tell me honestly what makes you think your analogy is better? like, since you're not trans, from what authority is the accuracy of your analogy derived? because you literally just told a trans person that you know more about them than they do themselves, and that's a thing that happens continuously... and i'd kinda like to know where it comes from.

a reply to: continuousThunder

How do you know what the opposite sex feels like? I don't even know what being female feels like.

originally posted by: Deaf Alien
a reply to: ketsuko

Less than 1% is able to control you?

And what wishes would that be?

Go back and read what I said.

What if people with dwarfism decided to demand that public spaces be re-ordered to reflect their physical size as a matte of reasonable accommodation?

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: Deaf Alien
a reply to: ketsuko

Less than 1% is able to control you?

And what wishes would that be?

Go back and read what I said.

What if people with dwarfism decided to demand that public spaces be re-ordered to reflect their physical size as a matte of reasonable accommodation?

we already have that. it's called public accessibility.
or are you implying you're against ramps for wheelchair users?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: continuousThunder

How do you know what the opposite sex feels like? I don't even know what being female feels like.

how many times must we go round this circle, for real

i don't know what the 'opposite sex' feels like.
what i DO know is what my body felt like when it was full of male hormones and how utterly hideously wrong every second of every agonising day was,
and how much better and smoother and more right i feel now that i'm full of lady hormones.
there's nothing for you to argue there, it's literally my life experience.
i don't know where you expect this to go

originally posted by: ketsuko
How do you know what the opposite sex feels like?

Are we talking sex or gender?

If we're talking gender, there's a discussion on Quora with several contributors bouncing this idea around that make a few good points you might try reading: How can a trans woman know what it is like to be a woman? Here's another one that is a bit more technical: What makes a trans person say they are woman or a man?

If we're talking opposite sex, i.e. having a vagina and female secondary sexual characteristics, functioning sexually as a female and being chemically identical, then other than menstruating and giving birth, I know exactly what the "opposite" sex feels like so your argument of not knowing what the opposite sex feels like completely falls apart in my opinion.

In both cases, I know what the "opposite sex feels like" because that is my lived experience.

I don't even know what being female feels like.

You know, this sounds absolutely ridiculous and seems really out of touch. I've heard you say this before, Ketsuko, with the variation of not knowing what being a woman feels like. You're either completely out of touch with your life and your body, agender/asexual or are just in some kind of weird denial? I would be pretty unhappy in your shoes regardless of what sex I was born as or what gender I grew up as.