What is the place in our society that Cathlyn Jenner or Bruce Jenner deserve to have?

a reply to: arpgme

"God is love"?

Have you read the Bible lately?

Incest, murder, revenge, and on and on. The Bible is the most loveless book out there.

a reply to: arpgme

What sunk the Titanic in its inaugural trip was not God, was the arrogance of its builder, that guaranteed something that was beyond his limitations to assure, and moreover of its impresario that wanted to force the pace of the ship until the limit, pushing the Captain to navigate at incredible fast speed in waters infested of icebergs.

www.vision.org...

www.blogos.org...

Arrogance is a very bad adviser, and that is what I am here trying to prevent, The LGBT community has gained alot of space in the western civilization along the last 25 years, but it was precisely due to the honest, responsible and disciplined work of many of their members and moreover the sympathy of the people that hate discrimination.

Irresponsible actions right now can jeopardize what was gained along decades of hard work.

Do your really think it is fair or even convenient to award a person that just in February killed with his car an extremely charitable woman? apparently from what the media is reporting he would have made orphans two youngsters that are still mourning their step mother, plus according with a legal suit he also might be trying to avoid to indemnify them of such a loss?

Of course there are many things still on investigation and will only emerge on the trial, but Kim Howe was a very admired lady , well known for her high humanitarian profile.

www.nydailynews.com...

www.tmz.com...

perezhilton.com...-AU

www.ibtimes.com...

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

Sorry you are the one that shows to be unable to separate your admiration for Jenner of an objective evaluation of what he or she is doing right now.

I think maybe you just don't like Cathlyn :-)

That's OK - no particular reason why you should. I know you feel pretty strongly about this based on your OP and other posts. You are being judgmental - no matter how many times you try to defer to God. But, hey - we all are sometimes

I don't know Caitlyn Jenner personally. I've also not watched any of the Kardashian spectacle or kept up with it by reading about it in the media. It's obviously become a sport for some - pro or con. Everyone knows this family and either loves them or hates them. Or loves hating them or hates loving them

Anyhow...two things stand out to me:

Jenner said he first started becoming aware of the female soul inside his body when he was 8-years-old, though he didn't understand what it meant when he was trying on his mother and sister's dresses. "It just made me feel good."

She knew. Before any of this celebrity hullabaloo. So, just another 8 year old kid born into a world that hasn't yet found a way to understand this or allow for her to be herself. The rest of her life, until now - no matter about the fame, the Kardashians, the money or any of the rest of it - has been one more example of somebody trying to be something they're not

He talked about coming out to the Kardashian-Jenner children. The four eldest Jenners appeared in support of their dad. "It finally makes sense," Brody Jenner said he thought when his father came out to him.

Also, her kids knew. They knew something anyway. They accept this

"I'm not a spokesperson for this community." Given our insistence on making all LGBT celebrities spokespeople, whether they're willing or want to, I wonder if this will stand.

It won't stand. America loves it's celebrities. It also loves to hate them. It doesn't matter what Ms. Jenner wants - it is what it is now. She's a symbol - an icon. I understand that many in the LGBT community are not on board with this - but society is changing and here is your proof. You can be mad at Diane Sawyer, or Vanity Fair, or ESPN - or Caitlyn. This is a huge story - it's got legs - and it is going to do the world so much more good than it does harm

Though that last bit is obviously going to be up for debate :-)

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

After reading your post and the insight it contained, I have come to agree that Cathlyn Jenner does indeed deserve the Arthur Ashe award after all. Thank you for taking the time to share that eye opening information.

I just discovered that there was a time Bruce Jenner was an up and coming college football star who suffered a severe injury ending his football dreams. What did he do? He discovered a new self and pursued track and field instead. He did not give up on his dream of being an athlete and the rest is history...he succeeded in ways that football would of never served him.

Patterns repeat and this is why I admire the SPIRIT that fuels this individual.

SHE is an inspiration for all to live their lives the way they choose. To be the captain of your own destiny is all that truly matters in this life.

Living a fulfilled life is what we all desire. Therefore, I will not deny another from doing so.

Side note: Something very calming about the way you express your views. I admire that.

How can you ever take this world seriously?

Without reading beyond the OP, my opinion is this:

The place Jenner deserves in society is exactly the same as you or me. One in that any and all past & future endeavors of merit are recognized and applauded as they would be for anyone else. One in that they're judged & valued as a member of society & a human first, not via their junk or lack thereof.

What the hell is wrong with people who cannot give that basic worth & respect to others? And they call the trans folks messed up? Look who's talking, dammit.

a reply to: Nyiah

Dear Nviah,

A personal merit of any human being must be recognized in its appropriate space and time frame, otherwise it does not have any positive effect and it can cause terrible dissatisfaction, that can be really devastating if this a trend of life.

If an entrepreneur is unable to recognize the merits of his workers , when they occur the most likely result is that they soon or later will abandon him and move away to other jobs in which they at least receive credit for their effort.

If a teacher is unable to recognize the merits of his students in a particular course, but just 10 years later it is clear that he is a way to lose his own job, since in education that is a fatal mistake.

Nothing is more devastating in life that to feel disappointed , not appreciated and not cared at all for the ones are in relationship with you.

If a father instead to recognize the merits of a child is just all the time demanding and demanding his effort , pressing him constantly and complaining about his errors or failures, even as part of the correction that all education process require what he is going to get is not a healthy boy or girl, but an unbalanced person with terrible emotional gaps.

There are many parents that think that to provide for a family is just only to bring to home the material support, when a child is all time time needing attention and love, without even thinking that if in the equation of life you don't put the needed variables you never will get the desirable result.

This is a way to create a situation very looklike the one we are seeing in this case, it may be just a boy that possibly never developed the natural and needed identification with his paternal image, a boy that even was not aware that he was a boy, a child that was trying to identify himself with whoever was close to him, like his mother and daughters in his disparate to try to grow psychologically sane.

A boy in such situation can walked an entire life to discover that he never was able to fill out the gap of paternal love and identification that remained empty during his childhood , even more than 50 years later. Somebody in such a case become extremely confused, can enter in personal crisis and under the pressure of the social stress caused by demagogic politicians, irresponsible media and opportunistic medical treatments together with his natural andropausia pushing him can become a public pathetic show.

I pray that Jenner does not end as Vaslav Nijinsky, a so famous homosexual or bisexual artist, the best male ballet dancer of all times, and an extremely creative choreographer, that at some point of his life collapsed dramatically under a lot of pressures over him, to enter in a night of 20 years of mental illness in a psychiatric asylum with his mind encapsulated in the obsession that he was the Clown of God. The medical diagnostics was schizophrenia.

“People like eccentrics. Therefore they will leave me alone, saying that I am a mad clown.”
― Vaslav Nijinsky, The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky

At the end of the story Nijinsky discovered that among all the people that loved him only his own daughter and the woman that had the courage to try to love him were able to rescue him of such a nightmare.

A Strange coincidence in between the two cases is that both Jenner and Nijinsky had a younger brother that died in their childhood in tragic circumstances.

en.wikipedia.org...

Of course my comment is not a psychoanalysis of Jenner life, is just a hypothesis that deserve to be mentioned, and why no explored or at least balanced in the middle of the possibilities.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

Gee, what a polite attempt at invalidating someone's core self/soul. The same argument can be used -- extensively, I might add -- to invalidate the religious as empty people in empty lives trying to fill the void with false ego-fluffing twaddle.

If you put as much thought & effort in to trying to understand where people different than thou come from as you do in drafting walls of text, you might be better for it.

a reply to: The angel of light

pushing him to become a public pathetic show.

I don't think she's pathetic. She seems pretty happy and self-satisfied to me.

a reply to: Involutionist

Thank you Involutionist - that was so nice of you to say

Patterns repeat and this is why I admire the SPIRIT that fuels this individual.

SHE is an inspiration for all to live their lives the way they choose. To be the captain of your own destiny is all that truly matters in this life.

Living a fulfilled life is what we all desire. Therefore, I will not deny another from doing so.

That was very well said - your own self :-)

a reply to: Nyiah

Dear Nyiah,

There are things that you can't learn in entire books, but only through the experience of a long life, observing the process running along years, the unfolding of personalities of individuals that are growing in front of you.

It is so easy to create the path in which complex situations can be developed, as well as so simple the way to cure or stop them on time , in dealing with the positive or negative effects of education, that many times the people does not recognize them, because we are so pressed by the idea that everything that is valuable is material and correspond to the adult life.

The human beings are complex,but moreover since they are processes, they are in dynamic flow of exchange of information along all life, that is another reason for which we can't label persons like the bottles of a supermarket.

I never expected to get your approval to my comment, it was just a remark about your difficulty to understand why not everybody is satisfied with the way cases like the Jenner's one are being handling. As a matter of fact I was trying to make you feel better, proposing a hypothesis that is being used by psychologists on this case scenario, sorry if the effect was the opposite.

By the way I'm not going to respond your comments about the emptiness of the religious experience, it is clear for me that it would be to lose our time.

I just found curious and interesting the way in which a person that enters with such a glamour to dictate rules of etiquette is shocked with the diversity of points of view on the topic and instead to give us an example of the tolerance she is asking for , responds with a claustrophobic overreaction toward others expressions.

I was not intended to attack your point, the thread was never created to demonize Jenner, but to try to understand this situation, so you don't need to act in so defensive way.

Thanks any way for your participation in the thread.

Have a nice weekend,

The Angel of Lightness

Oops, first had the wrong thread on Caitlin Jenner.
However, I don't see how her 1976 medal had anything to with her choices now.
She won it fair and square.
Gender testing for women in sport is more controversial, as there is no fixed yardstick, and women with inter-sex attributes might have unfair advantages.
But there's no proviso of what you do after you won a medal if you didn't cheat (usually with steroids).
She was a man when she won it.
Otherwise religious groups should hardly speak about choices and insanity, because I see their scandals on the "cult news" webpage on a daily basis, and they don't seem to be doing children any favors.
I wouldn't usually generalize, but hey sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.

a reply to: halfoldman

Your post sums up the matter clearly and concisely. (I think -- best response yet.)

a reply to: halfoldman

Dear Halfoldman,

I can say that there is no half man or half woman, that thing never existed, there are women, there are men and there other beings that have their own vocation in life, their own expression of sexuality, they represent a diversity, and their own role to perform with respect to a society and the life in general.

The problem that I perceive here is that as a western person you easily confuse gender with sex, and those are not really the same thing. Any Easter Master and in particular whoever is familiar with Taoism, that is not a religion, as many use to think in the west, but a Philosophy would tell you that gender is something immaterial, is something that exist even before to anything that is material.

Taoism see the universe as the constant combination of two principles one Call Yin and the other Yang, and they correspond to nothing else than the femenine and the Masculine principles that give form to the Cosmos, the metaphysical concepts of genders. You don't need to be even Chinese to Understand this, it is written about more than 3500 years ago in the Kybalion, the source of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt.

So if all the beings are mere combinations of Yin and Yang of course everybody has inside a femenine side ,as well as a masculine one, and that does not mean that a person has born in the wrong body. Your opinions reveal also what The Indian Physician Dr. Deepak Chopra has named the materialist superstition of the western civilization. We live in bodies but we are not bodies, nor our thoughts neither our feelings or emotions are material, no surgeon at all in all History of the Medicine has ever found the material support of a particular thought or feeling.

Now, coming back again with Taoist view of the Universe all people has inside YIn and Yang and the sex of a person is only a material manifestation of a kind of balance in between the two genders, that correspond to the role that the person is called to perform as a member of their group. The point is that everybody is born with a trend to go in to balance through the shortest path, and when you are physical a male from birth, like the case of Bruce Jenner, the shortest path to go in to that balance is toward masculine expression of itself.

When this person is forcing his entire biology to try to attain balance as a woman he is going not through the shortest path to balance but through the longest one and of course since no medical treatment whatsoever will convert him in a 100% woman what is going to occur is that is never reach balance at all.

That is the price that this individual will pay in the long run for this caprice to taste waters that were not even offered to him by nature. The Goal that really can make a person feel complete and realized is to achieve Balance.

By the way you don't need to dig in religious institutions to look for perversity in this world, today perversity is running like rivers around the world using all the technological progress we have in communications. Pornography is even in the less expected places and is Pornography who is perverting the minds of millions. Now pornography is just one of multiple expressions of the mother of all perversities that is materialism, any form of cult to body is another form of it.

I'm sure the great Philosophers Lao Tse and Hermes Trismegistus, or who ever wrote the I ching under the Zhou dynasty , would laugh for hours if somebody might tell him that presence of Yin justify in a biological male any change of physical sex.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

I'm not sure why you mention half-men and half-women, since I never mentioned anything like that.
Perhaps it refers to my username, but the "half" refers to "old", since I'd admit that I'm not young, but will also never like to see myself as old.
I'm bisexual, but all "man", and wouldn't change it for the world.
However, it's not up to me to decide for another person how they view their gender identity, or what they do to their physiology.

Academically speaking there is a difference between sex and gender.
Sex is the biological body (usually male or female), while gender refers to sensibilities like femininity and masculinity, which are often viewed as constructed performances that can change over time.
A while back that distinction was still clear, but nowadays the two are often conflated under the term "gender". I guess because science has failed to find foolproof methods to physically divide the female sex from the male sex in all individuals, sexual differentiation is seen more as a continuum, and a gender construct in itself.
(See for example the debates on sex or gender verification in sport: www.nature.com...)
Perhaps the focus has also shifted towards social science and the study of gender identities.

I'd say religion has a lot to answer for when it comes to sexual abuse, especially since they market themselves as a social good, point damning fingers at sexual minorities in public, win people's trust, and yet the pattern of mind-control and abuse behind the goody-two-shoes illusion happens again and again through the ages.
This often has to do with with the power structures in religion, and blind obedience to psychopathic leaders.
These groups often become laws unto themselves, where the members stay silent about abuse to avoid scandal and scrutiny.
In some groups elders and gurus have total control over members, especially women and children, while in others young men are manipulated into swearing vows of celibacy for life in their 20s, and combined with other processes they may very well go insane.
Others neglect their children and leave them in the hands of sexually frustrated adults, and women are subservient to men and forced into arranged marriages, and pedophiles may deliberately take advantage of this and join such groups.
Then there's also the beating of children, which already makes them physically subservient.
No, I feel pornography (at least the legal adult industry) is simply a convenient scapegoat used by systems designed for abuse behind closed doors.
Sometimes the religious philosophy is quite open about such practices, but often the philosophy is good, but doesn't coincide with what happens at an organizational level.
Looking at what happened in the ISKCON boarding schools in India in the 1970s and 1980, for example, the unspeakable abuse can in no way be blamed on pornography.
Especially groups that strictly preach no sex outside of one partner, or total celibacy, often cannot distinguish between a "sexual sin" and rape and molestation - to them it's all the same, so they don't see abuse as a crime.
Of course that's just one kind of abuse in religions, and there are many others, like financial abuse and labor exploitation, and ultimately violence and terrorism.
Certainly not all religious people are bad, but the unproven psychobabble doesn't impress me in the least.
But hey, I also feel the same way about Marxism, and people can find a sense of spirituality outside religious structures.

As far as your particular religious view go you're most welcome to them, as long as they don't impede on the rights of other adults to make their own medical and mental choices within the law.
While I respect the rights of transgender people, I also think gay and bisexual people who don't want to change their gender should also be respected, and there's too little focus on forced gender reassignment surgeries, which once happened in the old South African army in an attempt to "cure" homosexuality, and currently especially in Iran.
Human rights should cut both ways regarding gender.

As far as Caitlyn herself goes, there's already been a debate about class-based privilege in the lgbt community.
She'll be a trans-woman, with unique issues that are slightly different to biological women.
She's part of the Kardashian industry, and it's probably only a matter of time before the media seeks less flattering images, and paints her as a freak.
They are after all entertainment, and I personally feel there are worse things about the family than having a transgender member (which isn't that unusual).
The way the youngest sisters were sexualized as models from a young age is disturbing (and yes, perhaps it's more pernicious than adult porn, because the show doesn't have an age restriction and presents itself as family entertainment, and the sexuality occurs between acceptable family themes). The mother has gotten unacceptably touchy with her younger stepsons, and the show has long been criticized by some feminists as "raunch" culture. The poor brother seems to show the real damage. All their TV careers were launched by Kim's "leaked" sex tape, so that says it all. Arguably there could have been better ways to transition for Caitlyn than being just another raunchy model, but I guess it's a family tradition for the females.

a reply to: The angel of light
I forgot to click the specific reply button, but the above post was also to you, dear Angel of Light.
I just saw a German talk-show on cult survivors, from groups in isolated compounds (where the child abuse is horrendous) to a model whose entire bank account was gradually cleared out by a "reiki master" who lived next door.
Of course one cannot generalize, but people should be cautious.

One loaded term they specifically refer to is groups who speak about "the light".
In order to have light one also needs the darkness, and the outside world and those who disagree are immediately othered as being of the darkness.
I must immediately be Western and materialistic (as if all non-Western people agree with your viewpoint), when I actually come from a highly multi-cultural society where the majority are not Western at all.
First these groups switch off the light of the world and then try to sell themselves as a candle.
But, just like Caitlyn adults should be free to make their choices, whatever they lead to eventually.
As long as nobody is forced to partake or fund them.
At least nowadays there's the Internet and people can make informed decisions, and investigate the pros and cons of various groups, and what goes on inside them, assuming their minds are still free enough not to assume critics are immediately from the devil, or some kind of materialistic darkness.
The most astounding and hypocritical greed often comes from gurus and preachers, and those who begin the indoctrination process by slamming "Western materialism" (everyone from Christian fundamentalists, gurus and ISIS).
Yes, Western culture has many problems, but I'd prefer it any day to the alternative horror stories or being in a cult.
In that sense I'd rather have the freedom to watch the Kardashians if I wish, the freedom of Caitlyn Jenner to present herself as she wishes, and the Olympics (a Western founded event focused on the material body in the first place).

a reply to: halfoldman
Dear halfoldman,

I am right now in a peak of work in my job, but I appreciate your replies. For now only can say that the materialism that we are seeing in the western civilization is really worrying, the people is not realizing that beyond what is merely biological or even beyond that point, what is merely an hedonist satisfaction there are other so important values and experiences that make the life more rich and avoid the sensation of emptiness that evidently is in behind decisions like the one it is the matter of discussion here.

I am absolutely convinced that indeed when even the religion fall in the game of to be just one more business, when the motivations are completely material, to get money from the people, it is not better than nothing else we are seeing. The great problem right now in the western world is the obsession for consumption , we think all is in sale , all what is really valuable, that is a horrendous mistake, it is an insane perspective of life. That is what boost religious mercantilism, but also narcotraffic, pornography, arms marketing, prostitution, slavery in the modern world etc.

Now, It is proven many studies that the people that live more , that is able to preserve better their vitality along years and years are not the ones that live extremely comfortable lives, but peasants living in communities in which they have fresh food to consume, they practice physical work, they never retire, they follow simple lives, but moreover people that live with spiritual values, some are by the way pretty religious.

Spiritual values teach something essential to the person, that we are not here to be served, but to serve, that we are part of something bigger than us, so we can focus your attention in to help others, and not just in to get more pleasure of selfish decisions.

Do you think it makes real sense the perspective to have at future Frankestein societies, communities where great part of the individuals are really artificially modified, where we are not sure if what we are seeing is really what appears to be?

there is a lot of more essential needs in the world than to waste economic resources into please sophisticate caprices of people that suddenly claim that they want to experience other possibilities of to acquire a physical appearance different than the one nature has decided to give them.

There is no limit for such egotistic fantasies, if the society decided to work now to satisfy all those caprices later we are going to see people consuming health sector resources in to changing race, changing height, changing eye color, changing tone of voice, etc. That would the paradise of the plastic surgeons, but how about the rest of the society? are we going to slave ourselves to sustain a Frankestein world?


There is people around the world that require those same health care resources for much vital needs that this one, people dying daily because they don't have a good surgeon.

Now how about the side effects of all this so aggressive treatments to "transform" a person? we are essentially talking about mutilations and also being treated with some of the most risky natural substances that exist like hormones. We are just seeing the consequences of the abuse of the Hormone of human growth that was promoted years a go as a miraculously panacea in a so irresponsible way by pharmaceutical laboratories and now it is proven is causing a lot of cancer cases.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Why Jenner needs so much the change of gender? is he unable perhaps to assume his own homosexuality? or bisexuality? because it is absurd to think that he needs a woman body to continue being the great Macho guy.

Mr or Mrs Jenner is not a Physician , so is perfectly unable to dictate norms or suggest treatments to other people on health issues. Now , when he is promoting the style of life that has decided to follow, this person is assuming responsibility to what later could be another terrible health issue at future, what is he going to all the young people that is taking this example? willing to follow those steps, if something go really wrong?

Look what this is causing in the world, adolescents willing to change gender, a pretty weird reality, so the Frankestein society is not just an utopia, is right now taking form.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

That he was not forcing anybody to follow his decisions? Come on, is this a person that deserves to be elevated with awards to be an example of courage? a person that even does not find the reason to continue living the life that nature clearly called him to face? There is no too much difference in between to demand change of gender than to demand the right euthanasia or suicide by the way.

thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light
Thanks for another interesting reply.
I really find our discussions fascinating.

Firstly I feel that materialism is also a part of the human condition, and there's a small but growing movement who are against this tendency to blame everything on the West.
Ironically a lot of anti-Western thought (or occidentalism) actually originates in the West.
But since the West has developed democracy and freedom of speech, that critique is welcome.
I wouldn't try such social critique in communist countries, sharia-controlled regions, or African monarchies and dictatorships.
Most of these non-Western systems also don't allow much, or any freedom of religion.
Try spreading Taoism or Krishna Consciousness on the streets of Saudi Arabia, or the Islamic Sate (as you could do in any Western city) and see what happens.
Critique should come from all sides, before we promote something really evil in the name of being "anti-Western".

At least speaking from South Africa, I'm seeing our rhinos stripped for consumption in non-Western countries, like Vietnam, for traditional Eastern medicines.
Same with the pangolin for Asian foods, lion bones for medicine, and live big cats for the exotic pet craze amongst multi-millionaires in the Islamic Gulf States.
Never even mind the fish, the poor sharks (harvested for their fins for Asian cooking), our abalone - all done by non-Western countries.
Meanwhile, in "horrible" old Western Europe, the forests are growing back, and I've seen debates on native species like boars and bears moving back close to towns.
www.washingtonpost.com...

No, the West has got many things right, it's the non-Western world that needs severe criticism.

I've seen Western people standing and dancing in the streets from dawn till dusk to collect money for their non-Western gurus.
Meanwhile many of these gurus are literally sitting on golden thrones, and have collected huge personal wealth.
Then I see African monarchs and dictators ripping-off their countries and people, and in South Africa the corruption of the ruling ANC is legendary, all while they keep up an anti-Western discourse as a smoke-screen.

I see how hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Sunnis and Shiites (non-Western sects).
I see how hundreds of thousands have fled Eritrea, where the population is forced into gulags under the pretense of "national service".
Eritrea is part of the African Union and an observer in the Arab League, but where do people flee to? - that "horrible" old Western Europe (not the closer Arab countries).
And Europe tries to save them and take them in, out of sheer human kindness, while non-Western smugglers traffic them.
Slavery (which the British empire stopped in Africa) is still rife in Islamic parts of the world, and there are millions of slaves, and while the majority of Muslims are not in any in favor of slavery, there are Islamic clerics who support it.
Name me one Western church that endorses slavery today?

The world has gone topsy-turvy, and the biggest polluters and human rights abusers are enabled with anti-Western sentiments that are complete nonsense.
Where do the green movements, modern conservation and pressure groups for indigenous peoples (like Survival International) come from?
That horrible old West off course.
Where do pensioners get begging letters to fight starvation in far off lands, because they are known to be caring and generous?
Definitely in Europe.

Not to generalize about all Chinese people (especially not our local, historic community) but the Chinese are often called the "new colonists" in Africa.
I've seen an influx of Fujien Province Chinese since 2006, and if ever there was a greedy, money-grabbing culture who abuse their workers, sell rubbish goods (at no refund), and corrupt everything it is them.
So don't tell me about "Western materialism", when non-Western greed is destroying us.

As far as hormones are concerned in the environment, yes, that should be a matter of concern.
I'm skeptical whether hormones can cause people to feel transgender or homosexual (as some also allege).
When aversion therapy was still common in the West (as it still is in some non-Western countries today) hormones failed to change sexual orientation or gender identity.
It just messed up people who didn't want to change their bodies.
The famous gay mathematician Alan Turing, for example, was forced into aversion therapy, and he was given hormones that caused him to grow breasts, until he committed suicide.

Apart from that, people who might be considered "transgender" today have been around for a very long time.
The hijras in India, for example, have their own deities, and they traditionally not only dressed like women, but were also castrated.
That's one of many non-Western examples one could mention.
Modern egalitarian homosexual relationships were actually pretty rare, and in many societies the feminine partner was considered "gay", but the masculine partner was regarded as "straight" (no matter what the sexual orientation).
Many studies in African townships here suggest this is still the case.

I believe Caitlyn regards herself as still straight, which means she's a lesbian?
Not for me to say, and we'll see what happens.
She will still have a tension between masculine and feminine qualities as a trans-woman, as we all do anyway.
Being transgender is a huge step, and I doubt that because it's more visible tons of people will be doing it just because of Caitlyn.

However, as far as minors and adolescents go, I find it immoral to intervene in someone's development like that.
For example, when I was younger I was a lot more feminine, and with the wrong psychiatrist I could have been misdiagnosed as transgender.
There was a time when it was considered better to pressure a gay person to change gender, rather than having a homosexual in society. I'm sure some still hold that bias, for example in Iran, but also probably elsewhere.
Unless it's an inter-sex person who was wrongly categorized as an infant, they should wait for surgery and hormones until at least 18 or 21.
Well, at that age it's their own choice.
There have been cases of people who want their former gender back, and never mind the surgical risks at such a young age.

On the other hand, truly transgender people also face a lot of discrimination, and some claim they only did it later in life because their parents were now dead, their kids were independent, and they were finally free to go ahead with the process.
That also speaks of a lot of sacrifice, consideration and a great soul.

No, I've been so disappointed by anti-Western movements who bear nothing but bad fruit.
I'd rather go back to the gods of my European ancestors (that's Odin on my avatar), which is also a bit romantic and pre-modern, but I'm no longer ashamed to be Western, and nobody can convince me we are worse than any other part of the planet.
That's a joke compared to what is actually happening.

In fact, that's occidentalist cultural chauvinism, and even racism against the indigenous people of Europe.
Sure discuss materialism, but not just "Western materialism".

a reply to: halfoldman

Well Dear halfoldman,

Let me go by parts answering your last post, since it is really dense, there is a lot to think on it.

It is true that the concept of democracy we have has its roots relatively to the west of the world, however, the roots of this system are not in the extreme west of the ancient world, but in countries that have had a cultural bridge role in between east and west.

Some seeds of democracy are in Ancient Greece, a country that we associate with Europe but that in Ancient times was so much related with Egypt and Persia, a country which half of its original geography was also located in todays Turkey.

We have also democratic thinking among the Norse people, among the Vikings, that ironically were treated as Barbarians in the west along centuries.

They were also arranged in clans, tribes and everything was decided in assemblies. Another interesting thing about Vikings is that they were in behind the creation of the three great political powers that have controlled and defined the world along the XX century :

They were the first European Settlers to arrive to America but also the founders of Russia and the organizers of vast regions of Western Europe, were theirs some of the first national states of that part of the world: Normandy-France, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and even the kingdom of the two Sicilias.

There was no democracy or tolerance in other parts of the world? I don't think so.

For instance, the History has found that the Almohades, the moors that ruled Spain and Portugal for eight centuries from the city of Cordoba were extremely liberal and tolerant with all the different religions.

Now, other roots of democracy are in the Tartars, yes the invaders of Europe, India and China following leaders like Genghis Khan or Tamerlane. The tartars were among them organized in tribes and there was great sense of fraternity among their clans.

It is said that Genghis khan tolerated and not only that, he even practiced, three religions in his domains, Christianism, Islam and Buddhism.

In the ancient Americas certainly there were countries that were ruled by empires and strong centralized political regimes like the Aztecs of central Mexico or the Incas of Peru. Nevertheless, the Mayas of south east Mexico and central America were organized in city states like the ancient Greeks and they were never an Empire.

The transition region in between Meso America and Peru was inhabited by nations that were not under tyranny but more look like democratic, societies in which commerce was the principal activity, they have clans, tribes and everything was decided collectively.

The Ancient aborigines of Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia are an example of those kind of societies, as well as some of the Native Americans.

In cultural aspects It is a fact that it was here in North America one of the regions of the world where appeared first time tolerance to sexual diversity, something that also occurred in ancient Greece, and among the Norse people, but also in countries with no tradition of democratic politics like India, Japan and Egypt.

Now, some kind of Tyrannies like the ones you have mentioned with extreme intolerance raised in the west, and not in the East.

Communism was invented in Germany, it started as a reaction against the idealism of Kant and Hegel, it was called the German Ideology by Marx and Engels. It evolved in Western Europe long time before an international intrigue boosted by WWI and sponsored by Kaiser William I made possible to Vladimir Ulianov ( Lenin) a Russian exiled in Switzerland, to make a Revolution in Russia, a country that by the way didn't have any tradition at all of socialist thinking and that is the inheritor of the Byzantine civilization, one that is definitively western one.

Germany, Spain and Italy were the fatherlands of three of the most intolerant regimes of History, terrible dictatorships, the Nazism, Francoism and Fascism. All of them were completely opposed to sexual diversity and even considered it a crime.

There is a trend along History: Every civilization that is expanding, that is trying to create an empire or conquer other territories and then need demographic growing and so soldiers in great amount usually is against sexual diversity and promotes a sexuality that is strictly focused in reproduction.

Two classic examples of this were the Romans and the Islam, where sexual diversity was officially banned although it was part of a very profitable industry of prostitution running in the black market underground. The same can be said among religious organizations that are ethnically focused, that are created as the faith of some very specific ethnicity and so are primarily sectarians or racists like the Jews, the Christian evangelicals and the Mormons.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light
I can't really disagree with your points here.
Just as "materialism" isn't a peculiar Western feature, neither are tolerance and democracy.
I guess one could also add the Iroquois Confederacy to historical non-Western democratic examples.
Of course one could debate the details of historical movements (by the documentation we have today) until the cows come home (which is why I've always been in favor of a history forum on ATS), but suffice to say that whether Western or non-Western, just because some cultures had internal democratic structures didn't necessarily make them peaceful or good neighbors.

Indeed, many of the occidentalist streams had their origins in the West.
When they spread elsewhere they were quickly combined with local nationalism, customs and idiosyncratic leaders.
I guess Lenin already appropriated Marxism to his whims, when he argued that the anti-Tsarist revolution should be led by a group of elite party intellectuals (a very non-Marxist idea).
And then there were the National Socialists and various fascist movements, which had their parallels elsewhere, for example in Japan.
There's occidentalism both from the left and right, and astoundingly Nazi literature is quite popular in some non-Western regions of the globe, and in SA some black leftist student leaders have expressed open admiration for Hitler (a trend that concerns me).
The French post-structuralists, following the failed revolution in 1968, also had an uncomfortable tolerance and even support for undemocratic regimes, and that Western democracy simply wasn't in the national character of some nations.

Anti-Western thought is also essentially anti-modernist thought, stemming from the notions that urbanization and modern life made nations weak, robbed men of their virility, eroded the national character with foreign influences, and so forth. There's also something very aggressive about such streams, although there's nothing wrong with keeping a national character in itself.
Because of such ideas, which made some travelers imagine that entering disciplinarian Prussia was leaving the decadent "European" philosopher states behind, democracy did not come easily to Europe either.
I enjoy a lot historical German music, and many of the traditional songs make it clear that up to 1950 a fate as a soldier was virtually guaranteed.
In a historical context the peace in central Europe since then is actually quite remarkable, but they did achieve it, and I'm happy about that.
I'm also happy that South Africa so far made a democratic transition, and despite all our problems and worrying tendencies, we have a Constitution that guarantees equal rights concerning gender, race, religion and sexual orientation, when extreme homophobia is widespread in Africa.

Whether Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity or Mormons are currently racially supremacist is debatable.
There were probably instances in history were they were racist, and they have racist sects within in them. At other times people in Judaism and Christianity also advanced civil rights (although anti-modernist fundamentalism usually does not).
However, locally fundamentalist Christianity has enormous black-led mega-churches, some following US models, and others are combinations with local beliefs.
I don't belong to these groups, so they can speak for themselves.
Some non-Western beliefs also have racially superior aspects, for example, Srila Prabupada made some very racist, misogynist and homophobic comments, and in some temple spaces in India only male devotees with an Indian body may enter.
Racism is also not a uniquely Western attribute.

Although modernism has brought many bad things (facile consumerism, corruption, the erosion of tribal identities, customs and languages), on the other hand I also consider the arguments of Steven Pinker that violence has declined in the modern age, and the statistics look far more positive than what we see on the news.
en.wikipedia.org...
One could also speak in defense of it.
Of course many non-Western thinkers were influential here too (Gandhi comes to mind), and the positive aspects of modernism were not only a Western creation.

We don't have to go back to the Middle Ages, and dividing the world between orientalism and occidentalism, or a decadent West versus romaticized "noble savages".
In the age of the corporation, which thinks globally and acts locally, that is dated.
But we can all ask what values of the past we should keep or rediscover to keep our identities, and what is good, while leaving behind chauvinistic overkill and purist ideologies that harmed others, and eventually also the very people who espoused them. Nazism and communism eventually caused massive destruction - although they had some good music.
But in an age of cultural hybridity, I also enjoy the music of the buddhists, the Native Americans, the aboriginal didgeridoo (I have two), the bag-pipes, and of course the Norse and Germanic music.
That's one variety of the modern age I think is good.