CDZ Do we really need laws about what restroom transgender people use?

[320 Years of History]

in my first post, I was implying that a mentally ill grown man has the ability to violate her. I'm not saying transsexuals are violent towards other people, I'm just saying dude is ill..
I don't want my seven year old son to piss beside an ill female.

I understand what you are saying. You have assumed that a person who elects to undergo sex reassignment surgery/therapy (SRST) (the medical profession's term for the procedure) is mentally ill, presumably suffering from gender dysphoria (GD). Whether after the treatment regimen the individual is cured or continues to suffer from GD is open to debate, so I won't here take up the case of whether s/he does or does not remain ill after treatment. Regardless of whether SRST works or doesn't, has it occurred to you that your son might find himself urinating next to a mentally ill male who suffers from some non-GD mental illness? The fact is that if you don't want your child sharing a public restroom with a mentally ill person, you may want to keep your child from using public restrooms at all.

For my part and as mental illnesses go, GD is low on my list of ones to be concerned about with regard to encountering a person suffering from any of the mental illnesses with which individuals I can randomly encounter may suffer.

• How is one going to know the person in the men's restroom was once a woman? Do you actually look that closely at the other folks in the restroom? I don't. Maybe women do. I don't know.
• The person isn't likely to volunteer that information.
• There are only ~700K transgender people in the U.S. That's 2/10ths of 1% of the population of the U.S. That means there are more people, far more than twice as many, who commit violent crimes than there are transexuals, to say nothing of how many of those transexuals with whom it might be harmful to share a restroom.
• Have you honestly never gone into a restroom and found a woman there? I sure have and it didn't freak me out. I did my business and left just like I always do.
• Have you never been "pressed" and found the ladies room to be "free" and the men's room not? (admittedly a rare occurrence in my experience) I have and I damn sure wasn't going to go in my pants. I walked into the ladies room and did my business and left. No woman freaked out. (That didn't happen in NC. Perhaps that's why nobody flipped out?)

It just isn't that big a deal who is or is not in the restroom. When one "has to go," one does, and sooner or later, and on a routine basis, and sometimes unexpectedly, everyone does.

There are plenty of truly mentally ill persons who are and have remained men who will use the men's room. If I were of a mind to be concerned about anyone, the ones who have an illness that moves them to molest others are far higher on my list of folks about whom I'd be concerned than is a person who once or currently suffers from GD.

It seems to me that the law NC passed has more to do with there presumably being some obtuse means for identifying people who are and are not transgender and pandering to perceptions rather than dealing with reality. Frankly, it'd make more sense to prohibit would be violent victimizers from using public restrooms at all than it does to force transgender individuals to use the restroom they would have prior to undergoing SRST.

People that deny reality are ill. Some people might want artificial/loss of limbs just to do something different with their life. I never hear of it, but I don't doubt it happens. Its when people say stuff like "biology got it wrong" or something like that.
My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why. Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help. Not being lied to or religious people screaming at them that God hates fags or some crap.
I get what you are saying, but we cant walk around with id badges that have our health history on it all the time. You know which ones are trans..lol
I wont really disagree with you about the law. I haven't read it.. I just think you should use the bathroom according to your sex. Or at least have proper genitalia. People shouldn't be inconvenienced like that. Either that, or mandate all one stall unisex bathrooms. Which is insane, too..

Your opinion doesnt define reality though. I learned this lesson late (18) in life but it would serve you well to learn it now. its never too late. By what authority do you have to label it a mental illness? If that authority is granted by another human then you know youre just guessing. At all times in the history of the planet there have been anatomically male or female people that felt they were really the opposite sex due to chemical secretions in the brain. Their suicide rate is for the most part a direct reflection of the abuse handed out by ignorant people over their life time.

Whoa. Let's be fair. He's not making up in his own mind or declaring unilaterally that transsexuals are, or at least were prior to sex change surgery, ill, at least in the context of current medical thought on the matter.

People who undergo and complete the process of sex reassignment surgery suffer from what is recognized as a legitimate mental illness and there is not consensus among psychiatrists over whether the "ultimate" treatment, sex change surgery, actually cures the folks who suffer from that illness, which is called gender dysphoria.

 

[80zephyr]

My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why.

I have only read the papers that I linked in my prior message. I don't understand GD in any sense beyond the intellectual one that I gained from reading those papers. Thing is that I don't really care to understand GD beyond that. It's a mental illness that some people have. I hope they get treated for it, and I hope the treatment works for if it works for them, that's good enough for me.

Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help.

Okay, but it seems to me that SRST is part of the help that is available to get. Far be it from me to take issue with their getting it, and then having a conniption over their, after getting treated surgically, behaving in accordance with the sex the surgery assigned to them.

You know which ones are trans..lol

You might know. I damn sure don't. Were I to meet Caitlyn Jenner, assuming she didn't tell me her name, I'd never know she was once a man. Of late, I've seen some transgender folks on the news and there's nothing about them that I'd notice in restroom environment or passing them in an airport, say, that'd suggest to me that they once were members of the opposite what they are when I encounter them.

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals. Read the bill. It applies to government facilities. Who the heck strolls into government facilities or goes to school, in the case of kids, in costume, other than perhaps on some special day like Halloween or around Christmas time? I suppose adults could go to a government office wearing a costume, but nobody's taking issue with folks in costume using the restroom. But whether folks are in costume or not isn't even the point.

The issue is that folks who've undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRST) do have the "equipment" corresponding to their new sex/gender, but their birth certificates may indicate a different sex/gender. The law requires that such folks who are now women, but who were born boys, to use the men's room. And it requires folks who are today men but who were born as girls to use the ladies room.

Now it is so that a transsexual can have their birth certificate altered to reflect their new sex and doing so will solve their problem, at least in North Carolina. I don't know enough about transsexual folks' "issues" to have a sense of whether there's any legit reason why they would not move to revise their birth certificate, nor can I attest to whether it's customary that transsexuals do have their birth certificates adjusted. So I cannot address whether they should or should not have their birth certificates adjusted following their surgery. I do know the law re: NC birth certificates requires they have the surgery before moving to modify their birth certificates. That may present some temporally driven inconvenience, but unless the birth certificate modification process takes a very long time, I suspect that can be endured without great concern.

What I can say is that for many folks, because the price of SRST is quite high and not covered by many health insurance policies, I suspect that many folks who undergo the procedure do so in stages rather than as we watched Bruce nee Caitlyn Jenner do whereby s/he one day was a dude and "overnight" was a woman.

In light of that, it occurs to me that requiring a mid-process transsexual to use the restroom of his/her birth may force them to publicly, and to all manners of random strangers, disclose by their actions that they suffer from a mental illness. I don't know of many other folks or class thereof who have mental illnesses that aren't readily apparent and who are also obliged to disclose that they suffer from that illness. Indeed people aren't generally forced to disclose anything about their health status and why transsexuals should be forced to do so is beyond me.

To my mind, and in light of the areas of uncertainty I have, I just don't see a need for a law dealing with transsexual folks because they can alter their birth certificates. I don't see a need for a law to deal with people in costume because, well, they are in costume. And I don't see a need for a law that singles out folks who are at some intermediate point in the process of receiving treatment for their gender dysphoria and forces them to disclose their illness to everyone who observes them going to or leaving the restroom.

The first line of your post:

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals

Ok, let say it is. Now, how do you regulate that just trannies can use the restroom of their choice? I mean, if a pervert wanted an easy in, all he has to do is dress like a woman, correct?

What these permissive laws presume is that only people that these laws are passed to protect will use them, and nothing could be further from the truth.

So, its why we "keep it simple" because if we don't, how do you separate a trans from a pervert legally?

Mark

 

[320 Years of History]

My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why.

I have only read the papers that I linked in my prior message. I don't understand GD in any sense beyond the intellectual one that I gained from reading those papers. Thing is that I don't really care to understand GD beyond that. It's a mental illness that some people have. I hope they get treated for it, and I hope the treatment works for if it works for them, that's good enough for me.

Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help.

Okay, but it seems to me that SRST is part of the help that is available to get. Far be it from me to take issue with their getting it, and then having a conniption over their, after getting treated surgically, behaving in accordance with the sex the surgery assigned to them.

You know which ones are trans..lol

You might know. I damn sure don't. Were I to meet Caitlyn Jenner, assuming she didn't tell me her name, I'd never know she was once a man. Of late, I've seen some transgender folks on the news and there's nothing about them that I'd notice in restroom environment or passing them in an airport, say, that'd suggest to me that they once were members of the opposite what they are when I encounter them.

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals. Read the bill. It applies to government facilities. Who the heck strolls into government facilities or goes to school, in the case of kids, in costume, other than perhaps on some special day like Halloween or around Christmas time? I suppose adults could go to a government office wearing a costume, but nobody's taking issue with folks in costume using the restroom. But whether folks are in costume or not isn't even the point.

The issue is that folks who've undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRST) do have the "equipment" corresponding to their new sex/gender, but their birth certificates may indicate a different sex/gender. The law requires that such folks who are now women, but who were born boys, to use the men's room. And it requires folks who are today men but who were born as girls to use the ladies room.

Now it is so that a transsexual can have their birth certificate altered to reflect their new sex and doing so will solve their problem, at least in North Carolina. I don't know enough about transsexual folks' "issues" to have a sense of whether there's any legit reason why they would not move to revise their birth certificate, nor can I attest to whether it's customary that transsexuals do have their birth certificates adjusted. So I cannot address whether they should or should not have their birth certificates adjusted following their surgery. I do know the law re: NC birth certificates requires they have the surgery before moving to modify their birth certificates. That may present some temporally driven inconvenience, but unless the birth certificate modification process takes a very long time, I suspect that can be endured without great concern.

What I can say is that for many folks, because the price of SRST is quite high and not covered by many health insurance policies, I suspect that many folks who undergo the procedure do so in stages rather than as we watched Bruce nee Caitlyn Jenner do whereby s/he one day was a dude and "overnight" was a woman.

In light of that, it occurs to me that requiring a mid-process transsexual to use the restroom of his/her birth may force them to publicly, and to all manners of random strangers, disclose by their actions that they suffer from a mental illness. I don't know of many other folks or class thereof who have mental illnesses that aren't readily apparent and who are also obliged to disclose that they suffer from that illness. Indeed people aren't generally forced to disclose anything about their health status and why transsexuals should be forced to do so is beyond me.

To my mind, and in light of the areas of uncertainty I have, I just don't see a need for a law dealing with transsexual folks because they can alter their birth certificates. I don't see a need for a law to deal with people in costume because, well, they are in costume. And I don't see a need for a law that singles out folks who are at some intermediate point in the process of receiving treatment for their gender dysphoria and forces them to disclose their illness to everyone who observes them going to or leaving the restroom.

The first line of your post:

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals

Ok, let say it is. Now, how do you regulate that just trannies can use the restroom of their choice? I mean, if a pervert wanted an easy in, all he has to do is dress like a woman, correct?

What these permissive laws presume is that only people that these laws are passed to protect will use them, and nothing could be further from the truth.

So, its why we "keep it simple" because if we don't, how do you separate a trans from a pervert legally?

Mark

Red:

• How do you separate a pervert from a non-pervert at all?
• Do you actually think that a pervert in costume is any less a pervert out of costume?

Other:
Frankly, I think it easier to distinguish poor thinkers from average and rigorous ones than it is to separate perverts from non-perverts.

 

[Asclepias]

in my first post, I was implying that a mentally ill grown man has the ability to violate her. I'm not saying transsexuals are violent towards other people, I'm just saying dude is ill..
I don't want my seven year old son to piss beside an ill female.

I understand what you are saying. You have assumed that a person who elects to undergo sex reassignment surgery/therapy (SRST) (the medical profession's term for the procedure) is mentally ill, presumably suffering from gender dysphoria (GD). Whether after the treatment regimen the individual is cured or continues to suffer from GD is open to debate, so I won't here take up the case of whether s/he does or does not remain ill after treatment. Regardless of whether SRST works or doesn't, has it occurred to you that your son might find himself urinating next to a mentally ill male who suffers from some non-GD mental illness? The fact is that if you don't want your child sharing a public restroom with a mentally ill person, you may want to keep your child from using public restrooms at all.

For my part and as mental illnesses go, GD is low on my list of ones to be concerned about with regard to encountering a person suffering from any of the mental illnesses with which individuals I can randomly encounter may suffer.

• How is one going to know the person in the men's restroom was once a woman? Do you actually look that closely at the other folks in the restroom? I don't. Maybe women do. I don't know.
• The person isn't likely to volunteer that information.
• There are only ~700K transgender people in the U.S. That's 2/10ths of 1% of the population of the U.S. That means there are more people, far more than twice as many, who commit violent crimes than there are transexuals, to say nothing of how many of those transexuals with whom it might be harmful to share a restroom.
• Have you honestly never gone into a restroom and found a woman there? I sure have and it didn't freak me out. I did my business and left just like I always do.
• Have you never been "pressed" and found the ladies room to be "free" and the men's room not? (admittedly a rare occurrence in my experience) I have and I damn sure wasn't going to go in my pants. I walked into the ladies room and did my business and left. No woman freaked out. (That didn't happen in NC. Perhaps that's why nobody flipped out?)

It just isn't that big a deal who is or is not in the restroom. When one "has to go," one does, and sooner or later, and on a routine basis, and sometimes unexpectedly, everyone does.

There are plenty of truly mentally ill persons who are and have remained men who will use the men's room. If I were of a mind to be concerned about anyone, the ones who have an illness that moves them to molest others are far higher on my list of folks about whom I'd be concerned than is a person who once or currently suffers from GD.

It seems to me that the law NC passed has more to do with there presumably being some obtuse means for identifying people who are and are not transgender and pandering to perceptions rather than dealing with reality. Frankly, it'd make more sense to prohibit would be violent victimizers from using public restrooms at all than it does to force transgender individuals to use the restroom they would have prior to undergoing SRST.

People that deny reality are ill. Some people might want artificial/loss of limbs just to do something different with their life. I never hear of it, but I don't doubt it happens. Its when people say stuff like "biology got it wrong" or something like that.
My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why. Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help. Not being lied to or religious people screaming at them that God hates fags or some crap.
I get what you are saying, but we cant walk around with id badges that have our health history on it all the time. You know which ones are trans..lol
I wont really disagree with you about the law. I haven't read it.. I just think you should use the bathroom according to your sex. Or at least have proper genitalia. People shouldn't be inconvenienced like that. Either that, or mandate all one stall unisex bathrooms. Which is insane, too..

Your opinion doesnt define reality though. I learned this lesson late (18) in life but it would serve you well to learn it now. its never too late. By what authority do you have to label it a mental illness? If that authority is granted by another human then you know youre just guessing. At all times in the history of the planet there have been anatomically male or female people that felt they were really the opposite sex due to chemical secretions in the brain. Their suicide rate is for the most part a direct reflection of the abuse handed out by ignorant people over their life time.

Whoa. Let's be fair. He's not making up in his own mind or declaring unilaterally that transsexuals are, or at least were prior to sex change surgery, ill, at least in the context of current medical thought on the matter.

People who undergo and complete the process of sex reassignment surgery suffer from what is recognized as a legitimate mental illness and there is not consensus among psychiatrists over whether the "ultimate" treatment, sex change surgery, actually cures the folks who suffer from that illness, which is called gender dysphoria.

I disagree. There is nothing legitimate about someone else deciding if you are crazy simply because your body produces the hormones that make a man feel like a woman. Who has the authority to say its not a natural condition that effects a percentage of the population at anytime? I dont subscribe to negative labels that assume authority to define something they dont understand.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why.

I have only read the papers that I linked in my prior message. I don't understand GD in any sense beyond the intellectual one that I gained from reading those papers. Thing is that I don't really care to understand GD beyond that. It's a mental illness that some people have. I hope they get treated for it, and I hope the treatment works for if it works for them, that's good enough for me.

Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help.

Okay, but it seems to me that SRST is part of the help that is available to get. Far be it from me to take issue with their getting it, and then having a conniption over their, after getting treated surgically, behaving in accordance with the sex the surgery assigned to them.

You know which ones are trans..lol

You might know. I damn sure don't. Were I to meet Caitlyn Jenner, assuming she didn't tell me her name, I'd never know she was once a man. Of late, I've seen some transgender folks on the news and there's nothing about them that I'd notice in restroom environment or passing them in an airport, say, that'd suggest to me that they once were members of the opposite what they are when I encounter them.

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals.

They are every bit as much in costume. If I have horns surgically installed, it doesn't make me the devil.

Well, perhaps having brain reassignment surgery will allow you to present to me a legitimate analogy of verisimilitude...or maybe it won't.

"Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition."

 

[Ravi]

Just let people pee.

 

[Ravi]

I hope transgender people band together and sue for single serve toilets in publicly funded venues, including venues that get tax breaks. I will so donate to that cause.

 

[320 Years of History]

in my first post, I was implying that a mentally ill grown man has the ability to violate her. I'm not saying transsexuals are violent towards other people, I'm just saying dude is ill..
I don't want my seven year old son to piss beside an ill female.

I understand what you are saying. You have assumed that a person who elects to undergo sex reassignment surgery/therapy (SRST) (the medical profession's term for the procedure) is mentally ill, presumably suffering from gender dysphoria (GD). Whether after the treatment regimen the individual is cured or continues to suffer from GD is open to debate, so I won't here take up the case of whether s/he does or does not remain ill after treatment. Regardless of whether SRST works or doesn't, has it occurred to you that your son might find himself urinating next to a mentally ill male who suffers from some non-GD mental illness? The fact is that if you don't want your child sharing a public restroom with a mentally ill person, you may want to keep your child from using public restrooms at all.

For my part and as mental illnesses go, GD is low on my list of ones to be concerned about with regard to encountering a person suffering from any of the mental illnesses with which individuals I can randomly encounter may suffer.

• How is one going to know the person in the men's restroom was once a woman? Do you actually look that closely at the other folks in the restroom? I don't. Maybe women do. I don't know.
• The person isn't likely to volunteer that information.
• There are only ~700K transgender people in the U.S. That's 2/10ths of 1% of the population of the U.S. That means there are more people, far more than twice as many, who commit violent crimes than there are transexuals, to say nothing of how many of those transexuals with whom it might be harmful to share a restroom.
• Have you honestly never gone into a restroom and found a woman there? I sure have and it didn't freak me out. I did my business and left just like I always do.
• Have you never been "pressed" and found the ladies room to be "free" and the men's room not? (admittedly a rare occurrence in my experience) I have and I damn sure wasn't going to go in my pants. I walked into the ladies room and did my business and left. No woman freaked out. (That didn't happen in NC. Perhaps that's why nobody flipped out?)

It just isn't that big a deal who is or is not in the restroom. When one "has to go," one does, and sooner or later, and on a routine basis, and sometimes unexpectedly, everyone does.

There are plenty of truly mentally ill persons who are and have remained men who will use the men's room. If I were of a mind to be concerned about anyone, the ones who have an illness that moves them to molest others are far higher on my list of folks about whom I'd be concerned than is a person who once or currently suffers from GD.

It seems to me that the law NC passed has more to do with there presumably being some obtuse means for identifying people who are and are not transgender and pandering to perceptions rather than dealing with reality. Frankly, it'd make more sense to prohibit would be violent victimizers from using public restrooms at all than it does to force transgender individuals to use the restroom they would have prior to undergoing SRST.

People that deny reality are ill. Some people might want artificial/loss of limbs just to do something different with their life. I never hear of it, but I don't doubt it happens. Its when people say stuff like "biology got it wrong" or something like that.
My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why. Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help. Not being lied to or religious people screaming at them that God hates fags or some crap.
I get what you are saying, but we cant walk around with id badges that have our health history on it all the time. You know which ones are trans..lol
I wont really disagree with you about the law. I haven't read it.. I just think you should use the bathroom according to your sex. Or at least have proper genitalia. People shouldn't be inconvenienced like that. Either that, or mandate all one stall unisex bathrooms. Which is insane, too..

Your opinion doesnt define reality though. I learned this lesson late (18) in life but it would serve you well to learn it now. its never too late. By what authority do you have to label it a mental illness? If that authority is granted by another human then you know youre just guessing. At all times in the history of the planet there have been anatomically male or female people that felt they were really the opposite sex due to chemical secretions in the brain. Their suicide rate is for the most part a direct reflection of the abuse handed out by ignorant people over their life time.

Whoa. Let's be fair. He's not making up in his own mind or declaring unilaterally that transsexuals are, or at least were prior to sex change surgery, ill, at least in the context of current medical thought on the matter.

People who undergo and complete the process of sex reassignment surgery suffer from what is recognized as a legitimate mental illness and there is not consensus among psychiatrists over whether the "ultimate" treatment, sex change surgery, actually cures the folks who suffer from that illness, which is called gender dysphoria.

I disagree. There is nothing legitimate about someone else deciding if you are crazy simply because your body produces the hormones that make a man feel like a woman. Who has the authority to say its not a natural condition that effects a percentage of the population at anytime? I dont subscribe to negative labels that assume authority to define something they dont understand.

Red:
You are the one who introduced the term "crazy." TNHarley and I have kept our language on a clinical level, which minimally accords a degree of respect for both our own uncertainty of the matter as well as for the folks who suffer from gender dysphoria.

I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but "crazy" and "illin' " carry a negative connotation for they are subjective classifications, whereas "mentally ill" (or just "ill") s a clinical status.

Since when does one's accepting the analysis and conclusions of medical professionals, in this case that transsexuals suffer from gender dysphoria and that that is a mental illness, constitute negative labeling of people who self-identify as transsexuals?

• If I say, "You have Down's Syndrome," and you in fact do, that's not negative labeling.
• If I say, "You are mentally ill," in response to your having told me that you have ADHD, that's also not negative labeling.
• If I say, "You are crazy," in response to learning that you've been diagnosed as being insane, that's also not negative labeling.
  -- Being Crazy vs Mental Illness - HealthyPlace
  -- What is "mental illness" and how does it compare to "insanity"? - Avvo.com
  -- Mental Illness vs. Insanity - Depression, Generalized Anxiety, Panic & Bipolar Disorder

There are more than a handful of mental illnesses from which one may suffer. Regrettably, willful ignorance isn't among them.

I disagree. There is nothing legitimate about someone else deciding if you are crazy simply because your body produces the hormones that make a man feel like a woman. Who has the authority to say its not a natural condition that effects a percentage of the population at anytime?

Are you a psychiatrist/psychologist, either clinical or researching? I'm not, and neither have I studied the matter to the extent that Dr. Byne et al did in developing the content they provided in the "Report of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Treatment of Gender Identity Disorder" (GID) that I provided a link for several posts back (and which you included in your quotations above). For those two reasons, I am not going to disagree with their profession's general conclusion that GID/gender dysphoria is indeed a mental illness.

I see your ID and I'm aware that Asclepias was an Ancient Roman god of healing, so it's not beyond me to anticipate that you may answer my question above by saying "yes." So, if "yes" be your answer, I ask you to point me to similar scholarly research and discussion that refutes the conclusion that transsxuals suffer from gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder. (For my purposes in this thread, the two may as well be the same, and I've here discussed them as such.)

I'm aware there's uncertainty of varying extents pertaining to elements of transsexualism and GID. I'm willing to read some of the scholarly material on it that disagrees with the consensus of the APA as articulated in the above document I linked (for the second time now...It's not long; have you read it? I have.) to this discussion. What I'm unwilling to do is accept unsubstantiated assertions about what is or is not legitimately a mental illness.

I dont subscribe to negative labels that assume authority to define something they dont understand.

As well you should not. But to do that effectively, you must understand the differences and similarities pertaining to the terms and concepts you elect to discuss. You must also understand in what context those terms are negative, neutral and/or positive. Your likening "mental illness" to "insanity" (being crazy) indicates at least to some extent you don't understand those things or perhaps that you've willfully chosen to ignore them if you do understand them.

 

[320 Years of History]

I have only read the papers that I linked in my prior message. I don't understand GD in any sense beyond the intellectual one that I gained from reading those papers. Thing is that I don't really care to understand GD beyond that. It's a mental illness that some people have. I hope they get treated for it, and I hope the treatment works for if it works for them, that's good enough for me.

Okay, but it seems to me that SRST is part of the help that is available to get. Far be it from me to take issue with their getting it, and then having a conniption over their, after getting treated surgically, behaving in accordance with the sex the surgery assigned to them.

You might know. I damn sure don't. Were I to meet Caitlyn Jenner, assuming she didn't tell me her name, I'd never know she was once a man. Of late, I've seen some transgender folks on the news and there's nothing about them that I'd notice in restroom environment or passing them in an airport, say, that'd suggest to me that they once were members of the opposite what they are when I encounter them.

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals.

They are every bit as much in costume. If I have horns surgically installed, it doesn't make me the devil.

Well, perhaps having brain reassignment surgery will allow you to present to me a legitimate analogy of verisimilitude...or maybe it won't.

"Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition."

Is there a reason that's relevant that you resolved to recount V's introduction to Evey from V for Vendetta? (Outstandingly good flick, BTW. I really enjoy it and, uncharacteristically for me re: movies, have no trouble enjoying it over and over.)

For now, I'm assuming my use of "verisimilitude" reminded you of it and that's all there is to it.

 

[koshergrl]

Birth certificates don't contain a "gender", they contain a persons "sex". One is a social concept, the other is biology.
A boy could have an artificial penis and will still be a female. We cant change that, yet.
Let me ask you this : how would you feel if your 5 year old daughter was 2 feet away from a mentally ill grown man taking a piss at the mall?

I just made a hell trip from the coast of Oregon to Spokane Washington and back again, by car, with my 13 y.o. girl and two dogs. We got to stop at rest stops and truck stops that had trans restrooms.

One which couldn't be locked, so you had to take a piss looking right at the door through which a man could walk at any time.

Now instead of just the men's bathrooms smelling like piss and having piss all over the walls, the floors, the toilet seats, ALL the bathrooms do. Isn't that special!

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals.

They are every bit as much in costume. If I have horns surgically installed, it doesn't make me the devil.

Well, perhaps having brain reassignment surgery will allow you to present to me a legitimate analogy of verisimilitude...or maybe it won't.

"Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition."

Is there a reason that's relevant that you resolved to recount V's introduction to Evey from V for Vendetta? (Outstandingly good flick, BTW. I really enjoy it and, uncharacteristically for me re: movies, have no trouble enjoying it over and over.)

For now, I'm assuming my use of "verisimilitude" reminded you of it and that's all there is to it.

Bingo. Careful slinging those six-syllable words around here.

 

[Asclepias]

I understand what you are saying. You have assumed that a person who elects to undergo sex reassignment surgery/therapy (SRST) (the medical profession's term for the procedure) is mentally ill, presumably suffering from gender dysphoria (GD). Whether after the treatment regimen the individual is cured or continues to suffer from GD is open to debate, so I won't here take up the case of whether s/he does or does not remain ill after treatment. Regardless of whether SRST works or doesn't, has it occurred to you that your son might find himself urinating next to a mentally ill male who suffers from some non-GD mental illness? The fact is that if you don't want your child sharing a public restroom with a mentally ill person, you may want to keep your child from using public restrooms at all.

For my part and as mental illnesses go, GD is low on my list of ones to be concerned about with regard to encountering a person suffering from any of the mental illnesses with which individuals I can randomly encounter may suffer.

• How is one going to know the person in the men's restroom was once a woman? Do you actually look that closely at the other folks in the restroom? I don't. Maybe women do. I don't know.
• The person isn't likely to volunteer that information.
• There are only ~700K transgender people in the U.S. That's 2/10ths of 1% of the population of the U.S. That means there are more people, far more than twice as many, who commit violent crimes than there are transexuals, to say nothing of how many of those transexuals with whom it might be harmful to share a restroom.
• Have you honestly never gone into a restroom and found a woman there? I sure have and it didn't freak me out. I did my business and left just like I always do.
• Have you never been "pressed" and found the ladies room to be "free" and the men's room not? (admittedly a rare occurrence in my experience) I have and I damn sure wasn't going to go in my pants. I walked into the ladies room and did my business and left. No woman freaked out. (That didn't happen in NC. Perhaps that's why nobody flipped out?)

It just isn't that big a deal who is or is not in the restroom. When one "has to go," one does, and sooner or later, and on a routine basis, and sometimes unexpectedly, everyone does.

There are plenty of truly mentally ill persons who are and have remained men who will use the men's room. If I were of a mind to be concerned about anyone, the ones who have an illness that moves them to molest others are far higher on my list of folks about whom I'd be concerned than is a person who once or currently suffers from GD.

It seems to me that the law NC passed has more to do with there presumably being some obtuse means for identifying people who are and are not transgender and pandering to perceptions rather than dealing with reality. Frankly, it'd make more sense to prohibit would be violent victimizers from using public restrooms at all than it does to force transgender individuals to use the restroom they would have prior to undergoing SRST.

People that deny reality are ill. Some people might want artificial/loss of limbs just to do something different with their life. I never hear of it, but I don't doubt it happens. Its when people say stuff like "biology got it wrong" or something like that.
My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why. Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help. Not being lied to or religious people screaming at them that God hates fags or some crap.
I get what you are saying, but we cant walk around with id badges that have our health history on it all the time. You know which ones are trans..lol
I wont really disagree with you about the law. I haven't read it.. I just think you should use the bathroom according to your sex. Or at least have proper genitalia. People shouldn't be inconvenienced like that. Either that, or mandate all one stall unisex bathrooms. Which is insane, too..

Your opinion doesnt define reality though. I learned this lesson late (18) in life but it would serve you well to learn it now. its never too late. By what authority do you have to label it a mental illness? If that authority is granted by another human then you know youre just guessing. At all times in the history of the planet there have been anatomically male or female people that felt they were really the opposite sex due to chemical secretions in the brain. Their suicide rate is for the most part a direct reflection of the abuse handed out by ignorant people over their life time.

Whoa. Let's be fair. He's not making up in his own mind or declaring unilaterally that transsexuals are, or at least were prior to sex change surgery, ill, at least in the context of current medical thought on the matter.

People who undergo and complete the process of sex reassignment surgery suffer from what is recognized as a legitimate mental illness and there is not consensus among psychiatrists over whether the "ultimate" treatment, sex change surgery, actually cures the folks who suffer from that illness, which is called gender dysphoria.

I disagree. There is nothing legitimate about someone else deciding if you are crazy simply because your body produces the hormones that make a man feel like a woman. Who has the authority to say its not a natural condition that effects a percentage of the population at anytime? I dont subscribe to negative labels that assume authority to define something they dont understand.

Red:
You are the one who introduced the term "crazy." TNHarley and I have kept our language on a clinical level, which minimally accords a degree of respect for both our own uncertainty of the matter as well as for the folks who suffer from gender dysphoria.

I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but "crazy" and "illin' " carry a negative connotation for they are subjective classifications, whereas "mentally ill" (or just "ill") s a clinical status.

Since when does one's accepting the analysis and conclusions of medical professionals, in this case that transsexuals suffer from gender dysphoria and that that is a mental illness, constitute negative labeling of people who self-identify as transsexuals?

• If I say, "You have Down's Syndrome," and you in fact do, that's not negative labeling.
• If I say, "You are mentally ill," in response to your having told me that you have ADHD, that's also not negative labeling.
• If I say, "You are crazy," in response to learning that you've been diagnosed as being insane, that's also not negative labeling.
  -- Being Crazy vs Mental Illness - HealthyPlace
  -- What is "mental illness" and how does it compare to "insanity"? - Avvo.com
  -- Mental Illness vs. Insanity - Depression, Generalized Anxiety, Panic & Bipolar Disorder

There are more than a handful of mental illnesses from which one may suffer. Regrettably, willful ignorance isn't among them.

I disagree. There is nothing legitimate about someone else deciding if you are crazy simply because your body produces the hormones that make a man feel like a woman. Who has the authority to say its not a natural condition that effects a percentage of the population at anytime?

Are you a psychiatrist/psychologist, either clinical or researching? I'm not, and neither have I studied the matter to the extent that Dr. Byne et al did in developing the content they provided in the "Report of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Treatment of Gender Identity Disorder" (GID) that I provided a link for several posts back (and which you included in your quotations above). For those two reasons, I am not going to disagree with their profession's general conclusion that GID/gender dysphoria is indeed a mental illness.

I see your ID and I'm aware that Asclepias was an Ancient Roman god of healing, so it's not beyond me to anticipate that you may answer my question above by saying "yes." So, if "yes" be your answer, I ask you to point me to similar scholarly research and discussion that refutes the conclusion that transsexuals suffer from gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder. (For my purposes in this thread, the two may as well be the same, and I've here discussed them as such.)

I'm aware there's uncertainty of varying extents pertaining to elements of transsexualism and GID. I'm willing to read some of the scholarly material on it that disagrees with the consensus of the APA as articulated in the above document I linked (for the second time now...It's not long; have you read it? I have.) to this discussion. What I'm unwilling to do is accept unsubstantiated assertions about what is or is not legitimately a mental illness.

I dont subscribe to negative labels that assume authority to define something they dont understand.

As well you should not. But to do that effectively, you must understand the differences and similarities pertaining to the terms and concepts you elect to discuss. You must also understand in what context those terms are negative, neutral and/or positive. Your likening "mental illness" to "insanity" (being crazy) indicates at least to some extent you don't understand those things or perhaps that you've willfully chosen to ignore them if you do understand them.

TN has used the term crazy, insane, and mentally ill interchangeably in other threads. I am positive his attempt is to denote a negative condition. Depending on the context in which one uses the labels there is absolutely zero truth to your claim that its not negative.

No i am not a doctor in any capacity or a mental health worker. Like doctors before him your source has no credibility or authority to label it an illness. I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on that point. Until the doctor can show physical damage to the brain or body of transgenders due to feeling this way it is not an illness. Its just a condition brought on by a combination of hormones and chemical secretions in the brain that has occurred in a percentage of the population since time begin. Show me the damage and then you will have credibility.

Asclepius is actually the Roman incarnation of the first documented African multi genius Imhotep. My user name (Asclepias) is the term for the plant commonly used by the Monarch butterfly larvae. I dont have to point to scholarly articles to voice my opinion and point out holes in the claim that someone has the authority and credibility to convince me its a mental illness. As I mentioned above one only needs to show me the scars left to the brain or body simply because a transsexual feels the way they do.

People liken mental illness to insanity all the time. I have no inclination to ignore the commonly used meaning and pretend we are all doctors discussing medical terms.

 

[320 Years of History]

TN has used the term crazy, insane, and mentally ill interchangeably in other threads. I am positive his attempt is to denote a negative condition.

Okay. I can't address the hypocrisy, and/or general lack of integrity that may or may not accompany his quiescence regarding my defense of his lingo in this thread, that exists (or doesn't) in TNHarley's comments. I'm not going to and have not gone looking through his posts to find out.

Depending on the context in which one uses the labels there is absolutely zero truth to your claim that its not negative.

I realize that. I wrote as much.

Like doctors before him your source has no credibility or authority to label it an illness.

Before whom?

Until the doctor can show physical damage to the brain or body of transgenders due to feeling this way it is not an illness.

Be careful what you ask for lest you get it:

• Sexual differentiation in the human brain
  
• Sexual differentiation of the human brain: Relation to gender identity, sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders
  
• Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
  
• A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality
  
• Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism
  
• The (CA)n Polymorphism of ERβ Gene is Associated with FtM Transsexualism -- This is a peer review study that sought to verify the findings of the preceding paper. The study confirms the correlations and findings discovered and documented in the preceding study.
  
• Increased Cortical Thickness in Male-to-Female Transsexualism
  
• Effects of androgenization on the white matter microstructure of female-to-male transsexuals. A diffusion tensor imaging study
  
• Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids
  
• The genetics and epigenetics of sex differences in the brain
  
• Reframing sexual differentiation of the brain -- This document discusses approaches to identifying and evaluating the differences in the brains of males and females.

Are there studies that show results and that fairly conclude there aren't brain differences between folks who do and don't suffer from GID? Yes, there are. As I said, the matter of what constitutes and does not constitute GID is not settled among medical professionals. But as I also noted, being neither a transsexual nor a medical professional, I'm in no position to have an informed opinion on the matter, and as such, I take the conservative stance with regard to the body of knowledge that's in existence and come down on the side of granting the benefit of my doubt by trying to treat with dignity the people who have been diagnosed with GID or gender dysphoria.

Red:
"Damage" in this context isn't really an appropriate term because the term "damage" carries the connotation that for damage to be found, a state of non-damage needs to have existed. You, not I, are the one who has expressed a need for scientific levels of precision and understanding in order to have this conversation, and you did so by asserting that you demand something of science/medicine in order for you to accept the findings of some dozen or more medical professionals, even though you are neither a doctor nor non-medically certified mental health professional.

Other:
I truly am coming to believe that you quite simply have no real idea of just how much rigor and objective analysis/effort going into scholarly research and concluding based on that research, along with that invested in the research documentation that passes the peer review process such that it thereby, without qualification by the editors and publishers of scholarly journals, gets published in those journals. The nature/content and tone of your remarks are incongruous with those of anyone I've ever encountered who understands and has worked with/at the levels of rigor mandated for scientific research and conclusion.

For example, you have no training in medicine or mental health treatment, diagnosis or research, yet you decry and discount the findings of numerous folks who do, and you dare to do so absent providing so much as one shred of comparably credible evidence to support your claims. Moreover, you write things like " until you a doctor can show..." but you clearly didn't even read the documents wherein you'd have found that doctors have shown exactly that which you want to them to show. You have not shown anything, yet you demand scientific levels of certainty even as you don't write with that level of precision and neutrality/objectivity yourself. Lastly you remarked on TNHarley's past, by your observation, instances of hypocrisy as though it (assuming it exists, though whether it does is irrelevant) has some bearing on the insufficiency of your own remarks. What gall.

 

[Dekster]

North Carolina has passed a law that requires transgender people to use the restroom associated with, not the gender they are, but the gender they used to be, the one on their birth certificate. Boy...Have we really descended to that level of puerility on a statewide level? Apparently so, for NC has indeed passed that law.

Personally, I don't see much need for gender assignments on restrooms, although as a man, I'm thrilled that we have them because, IMO, women take too damn long to "do their business." God forbid I were to attend a large event like a football game or concert and have to stand in the women's line or a "any gender" line to go to the loo. I'd surely have not gotten to the urinal in time on at least a few occasions. LOL

More seriously, however, NC's new law strikes me as just silly.

• Who carries birth certificates around all the time?
• Who is going to check whether one has or has not undergone gender reassignment surgery?
• Why would a man want to wait in the women's line to go to the loo? (I know why women would prefer to use the men's room; it's faster.)
• Is NC going to require transgender persons to wear a "T" on their outermost garment much as Hitler forced Jews to wear Stars of David to signify their status as Jews?

Restrooms are for the gender one is at the time one uses it. Rationally (not emotionally) what does the gender one used to be have to do with it? It's not as though being able to use the restroom of the opposite gender is even remotely why folks switch from one gender to the other.

Yes, such a law is needed as businesses and schools have tried to come up with reasonable accommodations and transgender people proclaim that is insufficient because it does not force everybody else to see them the way they see themselves. In schools, for instance, it is not uncommon for young adults to already have issues with their bodies. To force them to use the restroom with people of the opposite sex would do nothing but further harm to people with such sensitivities.

 

[80zephyr]

My cousin is a post-surgery transsexual boy now. I did ALOT of research trying to understand what was going on. For some reason, our cultural normalizes this illness and I don't understand why.

I have only read the papers that I linked in my prior message. I don't understand GD in any sense beyond the intellectual one that I gained from reading those papers. Thing is that I don't really care to understand GD beyond that. It's a mental illness that some people have. I hope they get treated for it, and I hope the treatment works for if it works for them, that's good enough for me.

Even post-surgery, their suicide rate is 20%. These people need professional help.

Okay, but it seems to me that SRST is part of the help that is available to get. Far be it from me to take issue with their getting it, and then having a conniption over their, after getting treated surgically, behaving in accordance with the sex the surgery assigned to them.

You know which ones are trans..lol

You might know. I damn sure don't. Were I to meet Caitlyn Jenner, assuming she didn't tell me her name, I'd never know she was once a man. Of late, I've seen some transgender folks on the news and there's nothing about them that I'd notice in restroom environment or passing them in an airport, say, that'd suggest to me that they once were members of the opposite what they are when I encounter them.

As I said before, great costuming creates an illusion of reality, not reality itself.

If I make myself look like Obama, it would not make me a black male. I would merely look like one.

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals. Read the bill. It applies to government facilities. Who the heck strolls into government facilities or goes to school, in the case of kids, in costume, other than perhaps on some special day like Halloween or around Christmas time? I suppose adults could go to a government office wearing a costume, but nobody's taking issue with folks in costume using the restroom. But whether folks are in costume or not isn't even the point.

The issue is that folks who've undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRST) do have the "equipment" corresponding to their new sex/gender, but their birth certificates may indicate a different sex/gender. The law requires that such folks who are now women, but who were born boys, to use the men's room. And it requires folks who are today men but who were born as girls to use the ladies room.

Now it is so that a transsexual can have their birth certificate altered to reflect their new sex and doing so will solve their problem, at least in North Carolina. I don't know enough about transsexual folks' "issues" to have a sense of whether there's any legit reason why they would not move to revise their birth certificate, nor can I attest to whether it's customary that transsexuals do have their birth certificates adjusted. So I cannot address whether they should or should not have their birth certificates adjusted following their surgery. I do know the law re: NC birth certificates requires they have the surgery before moving to modify their birth certificates. That may present some temporally driven inconvenience, but unless the birth certificate modification process takes a very long time, I suspect that can be endured without great concern.

What I can say is that for many folks, because the price of SRST is quite high and not covered by many health insurance policies, I suspect that many folks who undergo the procedure do so in stages rather than as we watched Bruce nee Caitlyn Jenner do whereby s/he one day was a dude and "overnight" was a woman.

In light of that, it occurs to me that requiring a mid-process transsexual to use the restroom of his/her birth may force them to publicly, and to all manners of random strangers, disclose by their actions that they suffer from a mental illness. I don't know of many other folks or class thereof who have mental illnesses that aren't readily apparent and who are also obliged to disclose that they suffer from that illness. Indeed people aren't generally forced to disclose anything about their health status and why transsexuals should be forced to do so is beyond me.

To my mind, and in light of the areas of uncertainty I have, I just don't see a need for a law dealing with transsexual folks because they can alter their birth certificates. I don't see a need for a law to deal with people in costume because, well, they are in costume. And I don't see a need for a law that singles out folks who are at some intermediate point in the process of receiving treatment for their gender dysphoria and forces them to disclose their illness to everyone who observes them going to or leaving the restroom.

The first line of your post:

Okay, but this thread and the NC law isn't about people who are in costume -- crossdressers and drag queens -- it's about transsexuals

Ok, let say it is. Now, how do you regulate that just trannies can use the restroom of their choice? I mean, if a pervert wanted an easy in, all he has to do is dress like a woman, correct?

What these permissive laws presume is that only people that these laws are passed to protect will use them, and nothing could be further from the truth.

So, its why we "keep it simple" because if we don't, how do you separate a trans from a pervert legally?

Mark

Red:

• How do you separate a pervert from a non-pervert at all?
• Do you actually think that a pervert in costume is any less a pervert out of costume?

Other:
Frankly, I think it easier to distinguish poor thinkers from average and rigorous ones than it is to separate perverts from non-perverts.

In this case, the pervert has an "out". He can simply identify as the other sex. Its already happened where the law was changed.

Man caught undressing in front of girls at Green Lake locker room

As for your crack about "rigorous" thinkers, it appears that you have not taken into consideration things like this can happen when a bad law is passed.

Maybe you should look in a mirror to see which thinker you are?

Mark

 

[Asclepias]

TN has used the term crazy, insane, and mentally ill interchangeably in other threads. I am positive his attempt is to denote a negative condition.

Okay. I can't address the hypocrisy, and/or general lack of integrity that may or may not accompany his quiescence regarding my defense of his lingo in this thread, that exists (or doesn't) in TNHarley's comments. I'm not going to and have not gone looking through his posts to find out.

Depending on the context in which one uses the labels there is absolutely zero truth to your claim that its not negative.

I realize that. I wrote as much.

Like doctors before him your source has no credibility or authority to label it an illness.

Before whom?

Until the doctor can show physical damage to the brain or body of transgenders due to feeling this way it is not an illness.

Be careful what you ask for lest you get it:

• Sexual differentiation in the human brain
  
• Sexual differentiation of the human brain: Relation to gender identity, sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders
  
• Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
  
• A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality
  
• Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism
  
• The (CA)n Polymorphism of ERβ Gene is Associated with FtM Transsexualism -- This is a peer review study that sought to verify the findings of the preceding paper. The study confirms the correlations and findings discovered and documented in the preceding study.
  
• Increased Cortical Thickness in Male-to-Female Transsexualism
  
• Effects of androgenization on the white matter microstructure of female-to-male transsexuals. A diffusion tensor imaging study
  
• Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids
  
• The genetics and epigenetics of sex differences in the brain
  
• Reframing sexual differentiation of the brain -- This document discusses approaches to identifying and evaluating the differences in the brains of males and females.

Are there studies that show results and that fairly conclude there aren't brain differences between folks who do and don't suffer from GID? Yes, there are. As I said, the matter of what constitutes and does not constitute GID is not settled among medical professionals. But as I also noted, being neither a transsexual nor a medical professional, I'm in no position to have an informed opinion on the matter, and as such, I take the conservative stance with regard to the body of knowledge that's in existence and come down on the side of granting the benefit of my doubt by trying to treat with dignity the people who have been diagnosed with GID or gender dysphoria.

Red:
"Damage" in this context isn't really an appropriate term because the term "damage" carries the connotation that for damage to be found, a state of non-damage needs to have existed. You, not I, are the one who has expressed a need for scientific levels of precision and understanding in order to have this conversation, and you did so by asserting that you demand something of science/medicine in order for you to accept the findings of some dozen or more medical professionals, even though you are neither a doctor nor non-medically certified mental health professional.

Other:
I truly am coming to believe that you quite simply have no real idea of just how much rigor and objective analysis/effort going into scholarly research and concluding based on that research, along with that invested in the research documentation that passes the peer review process such that it thereby, without qualification by the editors and publishers of scholarly journals, gets published in those journals. The nature/content and tone of your remarks are incongruous with those of anyone I've ever encountered who understands and has worked with/at the levels of rigor mandated for scientific research and conclusion.

For example, you have no training in medicine or mental health treatment, diagnosis or research, yet you decry and discount the findings of numerous folks who do, and you dare to do so absent providing so much as one shred of comparably credible evidence to support your claims. Moreover, you write things like " until you a doctor can show..." but you clearly didn't even read the documents wherein you'd have found that doctors have shown exactly that which you want to them to show. You have not shown anything, yet you demand scientific levels of certainty even as you don't write with that level of precision and neutrality/objectivity yourself. Lastly you remarked on TNHarley's past, by your observation, instances of hypocrisy as though it (assuming it exists, though whether it does is irrelevant) has some bearing on the insufficiency of your own remarks. What gall.

I had hoped to see a quote or something from any of your links explaining the damage done to the brain or body of a transsexual. pre opt or otherwise. I'm certainly not going to read through all those links since its not that serious to me. If you could provide a snippet or two that would be great and I am open to being educated on the matter. I understand you feel that the term "damage" is not appropriate even though you gave some odd explanation to rationalize it. However, I have to ignore your views on that point because in order to call it an illness being a transsexual has to create some damage not found in non transsexuals in order to meet my standard of acceptance as truth. Differences of the brain have (as you admitted) been found in both transsexuals and non transsexuals which tells me its pretty much a crock to pretend differences are the same as damage.

Yes I demand the medical profession prove to me instead of me just going along with what they say because I know they are human and subject to political, social, and peer pressure. I understand their knowledge is limited to a track where they set their own standards. That doesnt make them anymore trustworthy than a layperson. It just makes them sound like they are. There are a multitude of factors that go along with any persons reality. For example 1 transsexual may be a transsexual due to some traumatic event in their lives. Others may be transsexuals because they physically possess more female hormones in their body. Still others may have varying combinations of both dynamics that contribute to them being transsexuals. No one knows all the combinations of factors that cause this.

Yes I am probably the most unique person you will ever experience. I have been known to cause people emotional trauma and to think about what they claim as irrefutable proof when all it really is....is a simplistic trust in a system they have no control over or knowledge about.

Lastly the burden of proof is not on me. I am questioning the so called experts since they are being used to establish a truth they have no way of proving. I'm not too concerned about the rigor and research that goes into their findings. You can work hard building a bridge and still fail to build one. You can even convince people that the parts of the bridge you have to swim is part of the bridge since you are the "expert". Calling someone an expert doesnt really do much for me. I need to see that their methods cover all bases and that its not just a convenient path that leads to the conclusion they wanted all along.

 

[D Truth]

North Carolina has passed a law that requires transgender people to use the restroom associated with, not the gender they are, but the gender they used to be, the one on their birth certificate. Boy...Have we really descended to that level of puerility on a statewide level? Apparently so, for NC has indeed passed that law.

Personally, I don't see much need for gender assignments on restrooms, although as a man, I'm thrilled that we have them because, IMO, women take too damn long to "do their business." God forbid I were to attend a large event like a football game or concert and have to stand in the women's line or a "any gender" line to go to the loo. I'd surely have not gotten to the urinal in time on at least a few occasions. LOL

More seriously, however, NC's new law strikes me as just silly.

• Who carries birth certificates around all the time?
• Who is going to check whether one has or has not undergone gender reassignment surgery?
• Why would a man want to wait in the women's line to go to the loo? (I know why women would prefer to use the men's room; it's faster.)
• Is NC going to require transgender persons to wear a "T" on their outermost garment much as Hitler forced Jews to wear Stars of David to signify their status as Jews?

Restrooms are for the gender one is at the time one uses it. Rationally (not emotionally) what does the gender one used to be have to do with it? It's not as though being able to use the restroom of the opposite gender is even remotely why folks switch from one gender to the other.

It boggles the mind how backwards these people in NC are that made up this law.

1) I carry my BC in my wallet
2) Well, such surgery is a sign of mental disorder now isn't it?
3) Agreed
4) Oy vey the six gorillion... are you black or jewish? and is there a difference?

Funny thing is that in africa, the silly avatar you use... homos are routinely subject to death by tire necklaces. Even more funny... you will not have a commentary on that now will you?
Maybe we need to push a pro homosex campaign on africa. I will happily help you with this, what say you missus Africa? The african people need to learn tolerance now don't they?

 

[GaryDog]

Considering it was American missionaries who introduced the idea of homophobia to Africans, I think Americans do have a responsibility to address that ignorant viewpoint, yes.

 

[Asclepias]

North Carolina has passed a law that requires transgender people to use the restroom associated with, not the gender they are, but the gender they used to be, the one on their birth certificate. Boy...Have we really descended to that level of puerility on a statewide level? Apparently so, for NC has indeed passed that law.

Personally, I don't see much need for gender assignments on restrooms, although as a man, I'm thrilled that we have them because, IMO, women take too damn long to "do their business." God forbid I were to attend a large event like a football game or concert and have to stand in the women's line or a "any gender" line to go to the loo. I'd surely have not gotten to the urinal in time on at least a few occasions. LOL

More seriously, however, NC's new law strikes me as just silly.

• Who carries birth certificates around all the time?
• Who is going to check whether one has or has not undergone gender reassignment surgery?
• Why would a man want to wait in the women's line to go to the loo? (I know why women would prefer to use the men's room; it's faster.)
• Is NC going to require transgender persons to wear a "T" on their outermost garment much as Hitler forced Jews to wear Stars of David to signify their status as Jews?

Restrooms are for the gender one is at the time one uses it. Rationally (not emotionally) what does the gender one used to be have to do with it? It's not as though being able to use the restroom of the opposite gender is even remotely why folks switch from one gender to the other.

It boggles the mind how backwards these people in NC are that made up this law.

1) I carry my BC in my wallet
2) Well, such surgery is a sign of mental disorder now isn't it?
3) Agreed
4) Oy vey the six gorillion... are you black or jewish? and is there a difference?

Funny thing is that in africa, the silly avatar you use... homos are routinely subject to death by tire necklaces. Even more funny... you will not have a commentary on that now will you?
Maybe we need to push a pro homosex campaign on africa. I will happily help you with this, what say you missus Africa? The african people need to learn tolerance now don't they?

1. Thats your issue.

2. No.

3. No I dont agree.

4. I'm Black and as such probably descended from the original Hebrews.

I'm sorry my avatar caused you emotional trauma Please get back on topic. What commentary where you seeking that pertains to the OP?

 

[D Truth]

North Carolina has passed a law that requires transgender people to use the restroom associated with, not the gender they are, but the gender they used to be, the one on their birth certificate. Boy...Have we really descended to that level of puerility on a statewide level? Apparently so, for NC has indeed passed that law.

Personally, I don't see much need for gender assignments on restrooms, although as a man, I'm thrilled that we have them because, IMO, women take too damn long to "do their business." God forbid I were to attend a large event like a football game or concert and have to stand in the women's line or a "any gender" line to go to the loo. I'd surely have not gotten to the urinal in time on at least a few occasions. LOL

More seriously, however, NC's new law strikes me as just silly.

• Who carries birth certificates around all the time?
• Who is going to check whether one has or has not undergone gender reassignment surgery?
• Why would a man want to wait in the women's line to go to the loo? (I know why women would prefer to use the men's room; it's faster.)
• Is NC going to require transgender persons to wear a "T" on their outermost garment much as Hitler forced Jews to wear Stars of David to signify their status as Jews?

Restrooms are for the gender one is at the time one uses it. Rationally (not emotionally) what does the gender one used to be have to do with it? It's not as though being able to use the restroom of the opposite gender is even remotely why folks switch from one gender to the other.

It boggles the mind how backwards these people in NC are that made up this law.

1) I carry my BC in my wallet
2) Well, such surgery is a sign of mental disorder now isn't it?
3) Agreed
4) Oy vey the six gorillion... are you black or jewish? and is there a difference?

Funny thing is that in africa, the silly avatar you use... homos are routinely subject to death by tire necklaces. Even more funny... you will not have a commentary on that now will you?
Maybe we need to push a pro homosex campaign on africa. I will happily help you with this, what say you missus Africa? The african people need to learn tolerance now don't they?

1. Thats your issue.

2. No.

3. No I dont agree.

4. I'm Black and as such probably descended from the original Hebrews.

I'm sorry my avatar caused you emotional trauma Please get back on topic. What commentary where you seeking that pertains to the OP?

Excellent, we agree. You think that a massive pro-homosex media campaign should be launched on africa. Very good to see such reasonable debate result in such a progressive conclusion.

May I add that Planned parenthood should start sending their abortion fleets to africa? That would be truly progressive, because their are so many african women who are denied their right to choose killing babies. Why is that planned parenthood only sends the baby killing boats to Europe? That's not right! That's not equal! So many african women are denied their rights!!!

More so, there is a serious lack of progressive acceptance of transgender gender identification in africa that far surpasses the tolerant west. What is your thoughts on this? How do we get africa to accept transgender identity as normal?