liminal_luke

A professor of mine in college taught me that sex was something you did with another person and gender referred to maleness or femaleness. But that was a long time ago.

@Salvijus Eh....I think it was courageous of Maddie to start this thread, and I´m glad it gave us the chance to ask questions and voice opinions about this sometimes divisive topic. It´s gone better than I would of predicted. I think it´s one thing to comment on the science, politics, or societal implications of transgenderism; and another thing entirely to weigh in on somebody else´s personal choices. Maddie says she´s happier now that she has transitioned and I see no reason not to believe her. The way I see it, personal experience always trumps (pun very much not intended) abstract spiritual theory about chi or ghosts or Buddhist doctrine. Maddie is happy, or at least happier, and I am happy for her. What more is there to say?

I always know my various spiritual practices are working when my voice goes down in pitch, though perhaps that´s just me. My baseline level of anxiety keeps it in a higher register and qigong and meditation tend to bring it back to what I consider my natural, lower voice.

Billy Joel - She's Always A Woman (from Old Grey Whistle Test) (youtube.com)

Like many people, I´m not at all bothered by trans people. It makes no difference to me how someone else dresses, how someone prefers to be addressed, or what medical procedures they do or do not get. Why should it? I figure we´re all just trying to be happy, and if transgender people take steps to transition and that makes them happy -- more power to them. Things get a little more triggery, however, when advocacy on behalf of trans folk starts to upend my understanding of my own gender and how I see the world. Gender is at the very heart of what it means to be a human being. I think trans issues bring up strong reactions for some cis people for the same reasons that misgendering often brings up strong reactions in trans people: we care about how others see us. I recently read about an orientation at a college (Harvard, I think). Freshman students were asked to go around a circle introducing themselves and sharing their preferred pronouns. Thankfully, I won´t be enrolling in Harvard anytime soon so I probably shouldn´t waste too much cognitive space thinking about this. Still -- oh my God! I don´t want to have to give my preferred pronouns. I want for people to look at me and tell that I am a male. All my life people have looked at me and known that I´m a male and now suddenly they can´t? Or are not supposed to? This is profoundly discombobulating. Did you know that on some gay dating/hookup apps it´s no longer possible to filter people by trans/cis status? Let´s say I only want to meet hairy, fat guys like me. I can set up the app so that I only see profiles of "bears." I can even set up the app so that I can only see profiles of guys of a certain age or even guys of a certain ethnicity. What I can´t do is set up the app so that I see only profiles of guys that were born with penises. Does this strike anybody as odd? I assume the reason for this policy is that I´m not supposed to limit my dating/hooking up activity to guys born with penises. To do so would be wrong. To do so would make me guilty of the sin of transphobia. The world has gone nuts! And then there´s the whole "pregnant people" thing. In my mind, women get pregnant and give birth. I´m told there are lots of disadvantages to being a woman. They´re often paid less than guys for the same work. They are often expected to do more than their share of cooking and cleaning and childcare. There are entire countires where it´s arguably not safe for them to travel alone. But one thing women do have going for them is the pregnancy and giving birth thing. That is theirs. I don´t think it´s right to take that away from women and give it to people in general. None of these things are that big a deal in my actual life, granted. But trans issues are changing the culture in huge ways and not just for trans people. We´re all being asked to change. At the very least, that takes some getting used to.

I know the "some" part from my own experience. How do you know the "not all"? Seems to me that would be a difficult thing to know with confidence because how would we know what would happen if we just kept going.

I can confirm that meditation can indeed bring up deeply buried impulses and feelings. It´s terrible that way.

I wonder if he returns to his parent´s home for Thanksgiving? I grew up in California but it was a different California than the one you live in now. A guy looking like that would not have done well.

Were transgender people in traditional cultures happier than their counterparts today? If so, it would certainly be interesting to find out why. Best case scenario, we could try to emulate some of the conditions that led to better outcomes. What strikes me is the way transgenderism was given meaning; transgender people, at least in some cases, had a special place in the culture of the tribe as shamans. Maddie can correct me if I´m wrong, but I don´t imagine that most young transgendered people feel respected and honored. Seems to me it's possible that this lack of respect and honor might have something to do with the depression many feel. This is not to say that there's anything wrong with modern medical transitioning. It might well be the best course in many cases. I just think there´s something to be learned from traditional cultures. Something worth looking into.

Nobody wants to be labeled "disordered" in our society because there´s so much shame around not being perfect. To me, this is the root of this controversy. I´m living in a body with several diagnosed disorders, and, well, I´m not exactly OK with that, but at some point most of us just get on with the living. Bottomline: it´s OK to have a disorder or two. We won´t be thrown off the island. If someone feels good about their sexuality and gender, all that good stuff, then I figure there´s no reason to say they have a disorder. On the other hand, those who are ready to jump off a bridge probably do have a disorder, just a bit. Several of my gay friends attempted suicide in their youth because they were upset about being gay. I figure they had a disorder. Which is not to say that being gay, ipso facto, is a problem. It´s not. Neither, I figure, is being trans. But, for gosh sake, put away the razor blades. We´re all just trying to get along in this life and, contrary to appearances, nobody is doing it perfectly. Let´s forgive ourselves our disorders. They are marks of our humanity.

Yes, I can see how families with transgender kids in Texas and elsewhere would move in order to be able to get their kids the care they need. It´s a complicated situation and I don´t pretend to know what´s best.

Thanks for your reply, Taomeow. There´s recently been a lot of laws, or attempts at making laws, to limit gender-affirming care for minors. Interestingly, these laws are portrayed in popular media as anti-LGBT. I don´t think that´s necessarily the case. I think many people are just genuinely concerned for kids and worry that a politically/ideologically biased medical establishment is not doing right by their young patients. Of course it´s also possible that in states with these laws some kids who really need gender-affirming care wouldn´t get it. I´d generally favor leaving everything up to parents and doctors but maybe this isn´t always for the best.

@Taomeow I sense you have some opinions about this topic. If you´d care to share (and I know there are plenty of good reasons why you might not care to) I´d be interested to know... what do you think is responsible for the apparently recent steep rise in transgenderism? how do you think helping professionals should try to assist people presenting with gender dysphoria? There are times when wise cats stay silent, so no pressure if you´d rather not opine on this topic.

So your former psychologists didn´t think you were very ladylike?

In the case of children, I think there should be some sort of in-person psychological evaluation before someone is given puberty blockers or cross-gender hormones. Do you disagree?

What I think therapy can do is help people accept their nonconforming gender behaviors as OK. Genuine transgenderism, as I understand it, is a deep rooted feeling of identity. But I suspect that there are some people, especially children, who do not have a deep rooted sense that they are another gender but display lots of nonconforming gender behaviors, queeny boys and tomgirls. These kids might mistakenly latch on to the transgender bandwagon rather that simply saying "I´m a boy that likes things that are generally thought of as girly" or vice versa. Hopefully there is a lot of psychological evaluation before kids are started on the path to medical transitioning in order to weed out this possibility.

Is the situation analogous or different from what´s called "reparative therapy," psychological interventions designed with an aim to turn gay people straight? I think reparative therapy still exists though it´s looked down upon in mainstream therapeutic circles and is illegal in some jurisdictions.

Thank you so much, Maddie.

I find this topic difficult on several levels. On the one hand, it´s clear to most everyone that the vast majority of people are born into either male or female bodies. How people relate to their femaleness or maleness is another matter. Some people comfortably fit into stereotypical gender roles; others, not so much. For instance, I´m a guy who has never willingly watched the Superbowl and I love to get together with friends and process my feelings. But none of this, in my view, makes me a woman. Anyway, I think that the basic dichotomy between male and female anatomy is fundamental to the human experience. We need words to describe the basic anatomical difference between the sexes and, up until very recently, those words have been "men" and "women." I would prefer to continue using these words this way. I don´t believe, for instance, that men can get pregnant. To say otherwise feels crazy-making to me, feels like gaslighting. I´m being told not to believe the evidence of my eyes. None of this is to say, Maddie, that I think you are "really" a man. I consider transwomen to be, well, transwomen. Not exactly women in the sense that people born with female anatomy are, but not exactly men either. I don´t know anything about "souls" but if there´s such a thing, it seems possible to me that transwomen have womanly souls. I also think it´s possible that transwoman have anatomical markers of femininity on a neurochemical or neuroanatomical basis. What´s hard for me, is that I´m aware that some people will find my take on this subject offensive. It´s hard to talk about because if I say what I really think I´m likely to offend -- and I don´t want to offend. I don´t think there´s anything wrong with being trans, not at all. In fact, I suspect there´s a higher spiritual purpose to the whole trans phenomena. I suspect that transgenderism is "a feature, not a bug." Like all people, I want to be accepted as I am -- unpopular opinions and all. That might not be possible, but I figured I should tell the truth anyway, come what may.

I think sometimes trans stuff gets thrown in, wrongly, with the over-the-top craziness of drag queens. I gather there´s some overlap between the drag and trans communities but they´re fundamentally different.

Welcome! We´ll gladly accept you as one of the bench dudes. As a former mechanic, I figure you´re more man than I´ll ever be.

I so rarely find myself vibing with any of your opinions on social issues, but reading the post above I feel like sitting next to you on a park bench and being old foggies together. Lets get Apech. I´ll buy birdseed to feed the pigeons. (To be honest, I enjoy sexually themed shows. I liked Transparent. Back in the day, my best friend used to throw weekly Queer as Folk parties; we´d all huddle around the TV, eager to watch a sexy soap featuring gays like us. That was fun. But I do wonder if as a culture we´re overdoing the identity thing; are we a bit too quick to put ourselves and others into various ideologically bogged-down boxes? Let´s have (consensual, ethical) sex with who we want to have sex with. Let´s dress up in gowns or jeans or leather panties. Whatever. But do we have to make such a big deal about the name we give ourselves? Maybe our labels aren´t so important.)

That sounds great. I think pretty much everyone has plenty of abdominal tension (and those who think they don´t have more than most -- they´re just less aware). In case it resonates, I´ll share another move from my chi nei tsang days. In a workshop Gilles Marin taught a technique to "unwind" the small intestine. You simply place your hands on either side of the navel, your own or someone else´s, and tune into subtle movement. Allow your hands to simply follow the movement, back and forth, up and down, wherever it leads. In my imagination, the movement is a little like playing with a ouija board, just a passive following. You´ve inspired me to play around with a little abdominal self-massage. I could sure use it.

Throughout my childhood, my best friends were girls. I liked reading and disliked cars and sports. I was bullied a lot, mostly because my peers knew that I wouldn´t fight back. And yet I always felt OK with my basic anatomy and felt like a "boy." Back then, in the 80s, people weren´t talking about transgenderism so much and it never entered my head that I might be transgender. I wonder what it´s like for less masculine boys today. Does our new openness about gender lead some boys to wonder if they´re really girls when they´re actually just queeny gays (or effeminate straights)?

I´m so sorry to hear this. My mom´s partner Skip has a child (well, an adult now) who is a transwoman. Initially Skip had a very difficult time accepting his daughter Emily but my mom wasn´t having it. She said that if he didn´t come around and accept his daughter that he wasn´t the man she thought he was and she would leave him. He came round.