(11-04-2014, 01:40 AM)AnnabelP Wrote: Add in in cultural and timeline variables and things start to get out of hand
Indeed. The perception depends on the cultural framework in which one resides.
In the culture of my raising -- Western Judeo-Christianity -- there isn't even a word, let alone a category, for a two-spirit. There's Adam & Eve... there's a talking snake and seas parting and Balaam's ass and a reincarnated prophet... but no gender nonconformity, no sirree. It would be bad enough just like that, but the rabbis of old apparently saw fit to place some specific prohibitions on crossdressing just to nail that coffin shut, I reckon.
The gender dysphoria in this cultural framework, in my opinion, isn't so much that as it is cognitive dissonance. That is to say, the person finds himself at odds with that which he is presumed to believe. "God made me, but doesn't want me to be this way." Believing two opposite things at once is a sure path to mental anguish or illness -- and indeed disease can arise from this stress.
Then, somewhere in the middle, we could mention the
"hijra" of India. While the word may not be perfectly synonymous with "third gender", we could think of it as such. They are a caste that is looked down upon by most, to be sure, but they at least do have a name and a place in the society -- and the modicum of respect one may enjoy without the Judeo-Christian imputation of "sin". Perhaps most importantly, the
hijra have not been infected by Western psychiatry. Gender identity disorder? Nah, they just is what they is, man.
And at the other end, we find among yet other cultural frameworks, such as some American Indian tribes, that the two-spirit is a well-respected member of the group. He or she or both or... whatever... will also not infrequently be a holy person, a shaman, a medicine man/woman, a mediator, a spirit-caller. Man-woman and woman-man are special people with special skills. There's simply no call for psychiatry here -- who's going to send the medicine man to a shrink? Gender dysphoria? I can hear the laughter of the Lakota from here.
To come to a point -- each of these three examples could be the same person -- the same boy who is half girl, or whatever the case may be. In one framework, he is bad; a sinner, mentally ill, in need of treatment. In the second, he is accepted as different -- not bad -- and given a place. In the third, he grows up to heal the sick, guide the tribe, and become a respected elder.
I'm not going to come right out and say that psychiatry and its DSM are bullshit... though I could, it is my belief that cultural framework is the more important factor. It is clear to me that the guilt and shame I experienced as a youngster were a result of the of the conflict between me and the cultural framework I grew up in, not because of something intrinsically wrong with my persona. When you teach kids that being unlike the others is wrong, is it any surprise that we get mental problems? What if you had grown up with a different framework, one that celebrates life in all its variety?
We are slowly changing that framework. When the last psychiatrist is hanged, strung up with the guts of the last preacher, that's when, in the immortal words of Garth Brooks, "We Shall Be Free".
And that, Flamesabers... is when your scale will be meaningless.
