Trans* theory (at least as described many places) is built on the idea that somehow a trans* person is born “in the wrong body.” At some point, a person born with a perfectly normal penis and XY chromosomes decides that hey, he has a “female brain” inside. Because hormones are a physical thing, trans theory decides that will provide a plausible “physical and scientific” explanation for how that might happen (because we all know that “born in the wrong race body” would be nonsense, right? But sex, well, maybe it can happen! Because hormones!)

The $64,000 question is of course, if you weren’t born with biologically female genitalia, and weren’t raised by others assuming that you possess biologically female genitalia, then you have objectively NO EXPERIENCE as to what it might feel like to have those genitalia, or how a brain attached to such a person “should be.” Meaning, how in the hell would you KNOW what it “feels like” to be someone born with female genitalia, enough to say that you identify that feeling in yourself and therefore your own perfectly functional body is somehow “wrong?” You might as well say you “feel like a Black person, inside.” It’s the same level of “how on earth would you even know?”

But in order to claim you know, you must have some IDEA, some stereotype, of what that feeling is, how a “female brain” should be.

And the moment you go there, you’re telling ME a REAL WOMAN, someone who WAS in fact born with biologically female genitalia, how I MUST surely think, how my brain is, how I should feel (and if I don’t feel that way, if I think the stereotypes given are all a bunch of bullshit, well, then I have to be trans*). You’re putting ME in a stereotyped box, and appropriating my experience.

That’s offensive.

If you read any of the “born in the wrong body” accounts, or worse yet accounts by parents diagnosing their kids as trans*, it’s all a bunch of stereotypes all lined up. Oh, their kid didn’t like sports, he wanted to wear dresses all the time, didn’t like math, liked to talk forever, liked princess stuff, preferred to play with girls, asked mom when God would take away his penis.

Well, newsflash, plenty of born girls don’t like pink, don’t like princess, prefer "BOY" subjects, wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress, like sports, and prefer to play with boys. And they’re NOT TRANS*. Meanwhile you can be a boy and wear a dress, if you want – well, it would be easier if SOCIETY wasn’t so effed.

Its better to smash gender entirely. Why should there be any requirement at all for your “brain” to “match” your genitalia? Any type of brain, any type of genitalia, it’s a legitimate pairing and valid. However you think, can go on the “this is how people born with penises think” side of the ledger, until people see just how fluid it all is.

I get that society is rigid in some ways and that for many people, their lives are easier if they “transition” and manage to pass well enough on the street so that people treat them as if they are “the other side.” I get that there’s dysphoria.

But when it turns into “I’m really a woman inside” – that’s a line crossed.

As a real woman, I never wake up “feeling like a woman” or “having an innate sense of womanhood” or any of that stuff. People TOLD me I’m a woman (because of obvious biological reality) and oppress me for it.

I’m a “person” born in a woman’s body, I guess.

Read through transgender tropes #1 - 10 to learn how transsexualism reinforces sexist patriarchal gender stereotypes.
http://transgendertropes.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/trope1-you-should-educate-yourself-on-the-subject/

For further reading here is some articles on detransitioning and those who regret their sex changes

http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/ftm-detransitioning-experience-quitting-t-and-getting-back-to-life-as-a-woman/

http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/uks-youngest-transgender-patient-seeks-to-reverse-sex-change/


Someone not willing to believe cutting off your penis or growing "boobs" is what makes you a woman, is not transphobic. Its easy to hide being that excuse, but I suggest you take the time to read the opposing view and educate yourselves on how transgenderism is not only sexist but homophobic. Not to mention damaging to yourselves, to our children and to society.

perplexed rant snipped to save space.

Hello Zipporah,

I cannot speak for people who grow up as small children believing that they should be playing with girls and dressed like them, but I think it has something to do with imprinting. Your question has some parallels with why a chicken knows it's a chicken.

Gender dysphoria takes many forms. All I can tell you is that I _believe_ that an ordinary plain looking male would long to look like a male movie star, not a female supermodel; yet I yearn to have been born someone like Kate Upton or Lyndsy Fonseca. I ogle beautiful girls by imagining myself in their bodies and feeling really down because I know it cannot happen.

I know that there are a lot of vocal TS activists who make the kind of claims that you give as examples, and I find them somewhat irritating too.

I would suggest that if you want intelligent debate about this, though, you come on a little less strong than a bull in a china shop.

I do get rather tired about the word "offensive", and xxx-phobic. To my mind free speech is all about the right to be offensive. The Western world seems to be moving free speech out of the open and into the living room, and I'm guessing that will go once Big Brother has the mikes and cameras installed.

Have an intelligent debate by all means but please leave out all the feminist bullcrap.

Best regards,

Bryony

All I can say is wow.
If you really want to rant please make your own group to do it in. This group was created for us to communicate our inner most feelings not to be judged by others who feel the need to rant.

I would suggest that if you want intelligent debate about this, though, you come on a little less strong than a bull in a china shop.

I agree.

Zipporah, I think your post really came out of left field. How does this have anything to do with NBE for biological males? Not all males who pursue NBE intend to transition, quite the opposite actually.

Perhaps you had different intentions, but to me you come off as being a frustrated and spiteful person. You rant against sexist stereotypes, but in the same post you make stereotypes about transsexuals and transgender individuals. A bit hypocritical?

There's something in Zipporah's post that I can't quite articulate but it's really is destructive. When we start tearing apart definitions and to some extent, stereotypes, things get real fuzzy real fast and pretty soon no one knows what anyone is talking about because everyone's definition has been personalized and is a little different. Girls are girls and generally speaking, they like to be attractive, are more in touch with their emotions, are better nurturers etc., etc., etc. If you strip everything away from the traditional definition of "Girl" what do you have left? Bland ambiguity in my opinion. And now, instead of saying one word that is compact yet packed full of meaning, I have to use hundreds of words to define EVERYTHING. I'm sorry if this offends you progressives but words mean things and it's important that we all agree on the same definitions for the effectiveness of human language. Maybe Zipporah doesn't fit the standard definition of a girl but that doesn't mean we should change the definition to fit Zipporah.

It seems to me that "Zipporah" is simply a troll who joined today, posted the same "rant" in three separate forums, and did so with the specific intention of propagating a very specific socio-political message. I'm sure the intention is to push buttons and ruffle feathers.

IMHO, we should simply ignore the posts.

Misty

Zipporah appears to be . . . hmmm, troubled?

Forgive me, but it is the way my mind works. Moses' (yes, from the Bible)
wife was named Zipporah. This is one of the comments made about her.
Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast [it] at his [Moses] feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband [art] thou to me.
I always felt that Moses, who is credited with being extremely meek [not weak], may have had a wife with some . . . .issues. After all he did send her back to her father Jethro.

Is it a simply a consequence that deliberately or ignorantly this guest should have identified with this particular troubled woman?

Again it's probably nothing, just the way my mind works.

[quote='bryony' pid='70612' dateline='1363219693']
I would suggest that if you want intelligent debate about this, though, you come on a little less strong than a bull in a china shop.

I agree.

Zipporah, I think your post really came out of left field. How does this have anything to do with NBE for biological males? Not all males who pursue NBE intend to transition, quite the opposite actually.

Perhaps you had different intentions, but to me you come off as being a frustrated and spiteful person. You rant against sexist stereotypes, but in the same post you make stereotypes about transsexuals and transgender individuals. A bit hypocritical?
[/quote





I see both sides here. I am quite spiritual and truly believe in the actual phenomenon of being born in the wrong body. Reincarnation can have you be a male in one's current life while they may have been a female in a previous life. Not saying this is every mtf or bi gender's case.

Also. This strange phenomena does seem to exist with those who believe they were born the wrong race. Some truly identify with a culture completely different from their own and even convert to culture's religion. Some hate ;their skin color to the point of shame. Again, this isn't every person's case.

But what these two different types of people have in common is identifying with what's familiar within them rather than "what's wrong" (which is how someone on the outside may see it). This identifying factor may indeed be more of a spiritual explanation than a physiological, syndrome, disorder, or disease to explain why one would feel they should have born the other gender, meanwhile their brain and body function biologically just fine as it should. I feel they are dismissing the possibility of a spiritual explanation. "Why is what they identify with so familiar and comfortable? Yet they have never known what its like to actually function as a biological female, being raised as one? Again, not every case and def my opinion...


Now my question has always been, why does it seem to be alot more mtfs than ftms? I think i have found my answer from another recent thread here so i wont get into that.

So what is it to be female? Are we talking lady parts here? Or is it beyond that? Familiarity of an unexplainable, once had female experience? (As in been before, some other lifetime).

Despite this being obvious trolling, I'll bite, and I'll do it here because this copy has replies. I've also reported all three copies as abusive spam. We'll see how long this stays up, I guess.

Trans* theory (at least as described many places) is built on the idea that somehow a trans* person is born “in the wrong body.” At some point, a person born with a perfectly normal penis and XY chromosomes decides that hey, he has a “female brain” inside. Because hormones are a physical thing, trans theory decides that will provide a plausible “physical and scientific” explanation for how that might happen (because we all know that “born in the wrong race body” would be nonsense, right? But sex, well, maybe it can happen! Because hormones!)

Well. Let's look at your "logic" logically shall we? You start out fair enough, that is pretty much how it's described in laymans terms. Your second sentence though conveniently ignores the existence of FTM's. Not to mention the entire rest of your rant, which also proceeds to rave on about ONLY MTF's. You also conveniently exclude two-spirits, genderqueers, and everything else that exists between the poles. And yes, the poles. You see, gender is a spectrum. And not just a "male" or "female", nor is it even linear. Sex isn't actually rightly binary either. Nor even linear. We'll discuss that in a moment.

But first, what do we call it in logical discourse when one conveniently leaves out facts that weakens their argument? Oh. Right. Cherry Picking.

Next you say that someone with a normal penis and normal XY chromosome "decides" they have a female brain. This is what we call an appeal to motive. You call into question WHY we would claim not to be male when by all outward genetic evidence we ought to be.

Next you use an appeal to ridicule AND a false analogy by bringing in the hormones and comparing the whole situation to if someone claimed they were born the wrong race.

The $64,000 question is of course, if you weren’t born with biologically female genitalia, and weren’t raised by others assuming that you possess biologically female genitalia, then you have objectively NO EXPERIENCE as to what it might feel like to have those genitalia, or how a brain attached to such a person “should be.” Meaning, how in the hell would you KNOW what it “feels like” to be someone born with female genitalia, enough to say that you identify that feeling in yourself and therefore your own perfectly functional body is somehow “wrong?” You might as well say you “feel like a Black person, inside.” It’s the same level of “how on earth would you even know?”

So now we're going to claim I can't know what I'm talking about because I don't know what it's like to have the equipment. Apparently the female brain is such because she has a vagina, boobs, a uterus, ovaries, et al? And you call US sexist. And why's it a $64,000 question? You just using the number cuz it sounded heavy? Hyperbole. Misleading vividness. More false analogy. Appeal to Nature. Must I go on?

By the way. You're right. I don't know what it's like to have the right equipment. But you don't know what it's like to have the wrong equipment. Wanna swap?

But in order to claim you know, you must have some IDEA, some stereotype, of what that feeling is, how a “female brain” should be.

This isn't even structured as an argument at all. It looks somewhat like one. But there isn't one there at all. We call this: Begging the question.

And the moment you go there, you’re telling ME a REAL WOMAN, someone who WAS in fact born with biologically female genitalia, how I MUST surely think, how my brain is, how I should feel (and if I don’t feel that way, if I think the stereotypes given are all a bunch of bullshit, well, then I have to be trans*). You’re putting ME in a stereotyped box, and appropriating my experience.

That’s offensive.

No. I'm actually not. And it's really not about how we think but how we feel. I really don't give a crap about gender roles either. I like to read, play video games, write, study things just to study them... Oh. And I happen to be a cosmetologist.

I don't happen to care about or even understand most sports. Heck. Most other girls seem to care more about them than I do! So?

Yes I played with dolls as a kid. I also played with action figures. And with cards. And with... So?

I do prefer the company of other women... But then. So do you, I'll bet.

If you read any of the “born in the wrong body” accounts, or worse yet accounts by parents diagnosing their kids as trans*, it’s all a bunch of stereotypes all lined up. Oh, their kid didn’t like sports, he wanted to wear dresses all the time, didn’t like math, liked to talk forever, liked princess stuff, preferred to play with girls, asked mom when God would take away his penis.

Here's an extract from something from my own account, from a long time ago:

Ok, for the following to make any sense, a little background... I have gynaecomastia, it's not all that severe really, my breasts are only A-cup. I also have a lot of body hair, even for a guy, and my beard grows back in so fast I don't really bother shaving it, just sorta keep it trimmed. I just recently used some hair removal cream on my body hair, so it's still pretty short though...

So I was taking a short break in the shade by the swings on property at the apartment complex I work at when a couple of kids come up to play on the swings. When they get there, the little girl asks "Are you ok ma'am?" Now, I wasn't going to bother correcting her, and just sort of grunt "Yeah" as I'm walking away to get back to work. As I'm walking away, I hear her brother say, "That's not a girl, that's a man."

Technically, the boy is correct, I do have a little something dangling between my legs. I don't really pay all that much attention to gender though... to me, it's unimportant, I really don't give a care if what I do is considered feminine, or masculine. And since I'm asexual...

I find it interesting though, that for the little girl, she noticed my small breasts and immediately assumed I was a woman, but for the little boy, he saw my hair and immediately took me for a man.

So... how does this fit in with your assertions?

Well, newsflash, plenty of born girls don’t like pink, don’t like princess, prefer "BOY" subjects, wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress, like sports, and prefer to play with boys. And they’re NOT TRANS*. Meanwhile you can be a boy and wear a dress, if you want – well, it would be easier if SOCIETY wasn’t so effed.

So? There's another list of fallacies here. But I've gotten bored.

Its better to smash gender entirely. Why should there be any requirement at all for your “brain” to “match” your genitalia? Any type of brain, any type of genitalia, it’s a legitimate pairing and valid. However you think, can go on the “this is how people born with penises think” side of the ledger, until people see just how fluid it all is.

I'll tell you why. Because my genitalia is hurting my quality of life. I should be experiencing things that I can not experience because I am not equipped to experience them.

I'm not discounting the existence of genders other than male or female. But you are. By insisting that the polar opposite cannot exist you are disinheriting everything between.

I get that society is rigid in some ways and that for many people, their lives are easier if they “transition” and manage to pass well enough on the street so that people treat them as if they are “the other side.” I get that there’s dysphoria.

That's actually the wrong reason to transition, and those that do it for those reasons always wind up de-transitioning. The only reason to transition fully is if you genuinely feel you are a woman and can truly live in a woman's world as though that's where you belong. Because it is. I'm not talking about the sexist gender roles here. I'm talking about what it's like to be a woman among women.

But when it turns into “I’m really a woman inside” – that’s a line crossed.

And what line is that? The one where you refuse to accept things outside your realm of experience?

As a real woman, I never wake up “feeling like a woman” or “having an innate sense of womanhood” or any of that stuff. People TOLD me I’m a woman (because of obvious biological reality) and oppress me for it.

I’m a “person” born in a woman’s body, I guess.

Hrm... This sure does make me wonder what you're so angry about... There are GG's who DO talk about that. And TG's who do not.

Read through transgender tropes #1 - 10 to learn how transsexualism reinforces sexist patriarchal gender stereotypes.
http://transgendertropes.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/trope1-you-should-educate-yourself-on-the-subject/

For further reading here is some articles on detransitioning and those who regret their sex changes

http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/ftm-detransitioning-experience-quitting-t-and-getting-back-to-life-as-a-woman/

http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/uks-youngest-transgender-patient-seeks-to-reverse-sex-change/

Oh yes... No.

First you appeal to a blogger who shares the same views or maybe even is you. Then you appeal to a couple of exceptions who I noted above as to who they likely are.

Someone not willing to believe cutting off your penis or growing "boobs" is what makes you a woman, is not transphobic. Its easy to hide being that excuse, but I suggest you take the time to read the opposing view and educate yourselves on how transgenderism is not only sexist but homophobic. Not to mention damaging to yourselves, to our children and to society.

I'm not homophobic. If you must know, I'm bi. And I make no apologies for my attractions to either sex or either gender. And I have read the opposing view. And there's absolutely no logic to any of it. Or what there is that is marginally logical is taken out of context and made INTO something illogical.

You might not be transphobic: which implies an irrational fear. But you are certainly a closed-minded bigot.

I am not sexist. And I am not damaging myself, let alone anyone's children OR society.

I'd quite rather like it if society would just shut up and let me alone.

Now. I do wonder if you've ever seen this: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CC8QFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ucd.ie%2Fartspgs%2Flangimp%2Fgenderbrain.pdf&ei=zDlBUZfSAcXLyQGJ5ICYAQ&usg=AFQjCNFA_lBT3Tt4heTSMN_AsssUaiOXnA&bvm=bv.43287494,d.aWc&cad=rja

Or maybe this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html

I had better sources but have lost them and don't really care at this time to go digging for them since you're going to refuse to believe anything that conflicts with your bigoted assertions anyways.

LOL. And the other two copies have already disappeared. I reported this copy last, and only after finishing my reply.