[bryony]

Hmm. I have stayed out of this because Byrony has expressed these sentiments before and there is nothing new or very different in this reiteration. The only thing I find offensive is your calling me mentally ill. It is your opinion and I defend your right to it, but don't expect me to agree with it or ignore it. I really didn't want to throw any fuel on this fire. But I find myself in the mood to do so this morning. Maybe it's because I have been off PM for so long now.

I think all this shows is that I am totally incapable of expressing my thoughts in a cogent enough manner to explain what I'm getting at.

I really didn't want there to be a fire to throw fuel over, and I really don't intend to be offensive. Why on earth should I be offended at the idea that there is something wrong with my brain?

Byrony, don't you think the issue is not a question of illness versus health but instead an issue of the normal human tendency to want to belong to a group? Almost every argument you raised is simply a way of saying "I am the same as everyone else, please accept me". You're saying if something different is seen about you that it can be fixed by taking a mood/mind altering substance to allow you to blend in better and cope better with the unalterable fact that genetic mutation is actually the norm, not an exception. That is the slippery slope that leads to the insecure powerful people choosing to decide for you what it is you need to join the group. Don't you realize you aren't in their group because they don't want us? We threaten their self-image. Byrony, you are not mentally ill. You just aren't in charge.

Well, did you read what I wrote in its entirety or just skim it? I think I explained reasonably well how the symptoms of various mental disorders are removed by taking estrogen. How do you explain that?

I think the problem is that the phrase "mental illness" has a lot of emotional baggage. I know that there is a lot of bad history in our respective cultures that can make this problematic. However, the evidence of a congenital brain developmental disorder, at least in my case, is too great to ignore. I even know what is most likely to have caused it, as my family history includes my mother's mental breakdown whilst pregnant with me.

The issue isn't whether boys would look bad in dresses, wigs and makeup. It's very disheartening that it gets confused with the actual issues. The issue is that those who have the means to sway public opinion make their money from creating the completely unreal ideal people images and that most definitely includes the part of the image that has to do with gender, sexuality, and the expression of those things. I am saddened to a level you probably cannot understand that you feel you have to fix yourself because you feel you wouldn't "look good" clothing yourself in a way that would make you happy.

But what is the reason why it should make me happy? And why should estrogen remove the happiness? Obviously because of my brain disorder - there is no other logical reason.

As a "higher order" animal, we use clothing the way other animals use fur and feathers (some creatures, eg hermit crab use a form of clothing). The clothing tends to accentuate the features of our sexual dimorphism, broad shoulders and narrow hips in a tuxedo, breasts and hips in dresses. It is the dimorphism that attracts animals so that they breed. It is simple biology.

I feel the same sadness for all of us. It is a far worse incrimination of our society's general lack of progress that these kinds of issues are out there and as strong as they are. For me, I am unhappy that it would incur so many negative social consequences for people that I care about that I also cannot just go around clothed in a way that would make me happy. I don't believe that means I'm ill. I don't feel a need to fix my brain as if it were broken. I am not broken.

That wasn't really the point I was trying to make. It is the development of our brain that makes us want to present as the opposite gender, and my feeling is that it is better to treat that problem than try to be something we are not.

This really wasn't aimed at you because (a) you can cope, even without the PM and (b) you have no intention of transitioning.

My whole thesis is about the way we are developing a NEW "conformity" where the pressure to conform in traditional gender roles is being replaced with pressure to conform in a new "third / fourth" gender role, even to the detriment of families

I doubt society will change enough in my lifetime to fix what is really broken, namely the concentration of social power in the hands of so few people. If the internet can manage to stay uncontrolled for just another decade or so, then maybe humanity has a chance. But the vested interests are fighting very hard to squash it as the biggest threat to the status quo they have ever faced. I wish them all a short trip on a doomed flight.

Actually I think the biggest immediate threat to humanity is a repressive totalitarian theocracy, but that's a different story!

As for reproduction being a yardstick of mental health, I hope to hell it never becomes one. Serial rapists and sultans would be the pinnacle of mental health in such a world. Monks, nuns, and others like them would be condemned for the wrong reasons.

Well, I have to think you are deliberately misinterpreting me in order to wind me up, or you have seriously misunderstood my point.

Or maybe you are religious and don't believe we are animals?

Can you seriously disagree that, in general, in the animal kingdom a condition that prevents an animal from breeding is abnormal?

Anyhow, I'm sorry to have bored you with my constant repetition of a theme, but I do try to vary it.. Look forward to future iterations!

B.