The words these men use: addiction, intrusive thoughts, obsession, nothing else in my life matters, I can't control this, I'm willing to give up my long term relationship to get relief from this.
Why aren't doctors and therapists recognizing the obsessiveness and compulsiveness, the addiction, the perseverative, racing, and intrusive thoughts for what they are? These men are literally speaking out loud the actual problem. Gender is as surface level as hand washing, checking locks, or the drug of choice of any other person suffering from a thought distortion disorder.
Soot on comment. As someone who specializes in OCD related disorders this is such a clear symptom presentation of significant obsessive psychopathology. Now days we think political correctness and not competent diagnostic skills. We now think we have to normalize mental illness, and in so doing we do our clients a terrible disservice!
“I got bullied heavily for being effeminate, sensitive and acting 'gay”. I feel that for so many transitioners internalized homophobia is the root problem.
Yes! that's clear from the comments cited in this post. Being an effeminate boy/man or masculine girl/woman means you can attract negative attention, so it's just so much less trouble to change gender. Right!
I’m a terf but I found many of these posts very moving. The psychological distress is so raw. But it does sound like these men might benefit from therapy for OCD. And I suspect their reddit commentators just reinforce their gender obsession and give it wings.
Dr. Elliot Kaminetsky, child psychologist has renamed this malady exactly in the OCD sphere. Identity-Based Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Treatment should be cognitive behavior therapy, new schedule of time outside with little time online and new physical exercise routines. These men only become more dissociated and disconnected mind and body. Many of them "forget" to mention the pornography they spend so much time watching.
This is pretty orthogonal to the topic at hand, but identity based disorders could also include Rachel Dolezol and other race fakers. It could include the people obsessed with amputating a limb in hopes of being seen as disabled. These two examples are seen as attempts to illegitimately claim an identity. If they would all be included in a single psychological/psychiatric category, gender identity disorders would again be seen as disordered. That could shift professional practice in this realm.
We can hope! It looks like the interview I'm recording on Megyn Kelly YouTube channel tomorrow will be aired at 5 pm eastern standard time. I'll be on a panel with Emma, the daughter of a man who claims to be a woman.
This whole trans movement and its endless discussions have always made me wonder what the hell they're talking about when they say they've always known they were a woman. What does that mean? For me you know you're a woman when you walk out the door on a hot day wearing a tank top and have to go back to put on something less revealing because of being harassed on the street. Or realizing that you're bleeding through your sanitary protection and onto the chair, in class. That kind of thing is how I've known I was truly a woman, but somehow I don't think that's what at issue here. Too bad.
Oh, didn't you hear, transwomen have periods too. "Bottom [sic] line is, people of all genders menstruate. Trans women’s periods are just as real and valid as anyone else’s." https://www.modibodi.co.uk/blogs/womens/transwomen-period
Sadly, there are some who simulate menstruation (or worse) so they can feel like - you know - what they really are.
Oh, I just noticed, it says people of ALL genders menstruate. So men do as well. Who knew?
Yes. What did AOC say? "menstruating people's" 😂. I guess these poor men were just "assigned" wrong at birth. Now we can all blame the obstetrician's who get to decide what gender we all are. (That assigned at birth nonsense makes me nuts!).
I read your link. Amazing. "Some trans women don't have uteruses," I learned: well I never! Does that mean some do? Anyway, unfortunately for them they don't actually bleed, but they do get to experience listlessness and mood swings and the like. Well, that's something at least. Too bad they'll never get to panic silently while trying to figure out whether they've really just bled onto the chair or not. Which I guess means that when they get to fake-menopause it will be less of a relief.
They swear up and down they don't know what a woman is when asked to define the word, but it's understood without confusion what one is when someone expresses wanting to become one.
As the sole collector of data on trans widows in the world, I hope the wife/girlfriend of this dude leaves. It is not safe psychologically or even physically. The escalation he's talking about will mean his priority is him, not the relationship, not her. Note how callously he mentioned her. I have not one ounce of sympathy. He is exactly the age of my ex-husband's entrance to the "pink glitter tunnel."
I have said this before, but when I read such agonizing obsessive confessions I think, “ For crying out loud, I barely have time to sit and drink a cup of coffee and read a book, so how are these poor guys making rent, cooking, eating and sleeping?“ When you perseverate to that level, you have a mental illness. “Chopping wood and carrying water” used to be a sage piece of advice. Maybe we should bring it back before we loose a whole generation to this insanity.
This left me speechless for quite a while. It's hard to follow some of the mobius twists and turns of the statements these poor deluded men make. 'Trans' thinking beats anything I've ever encountered among all the conspiracy theorists, psychic-phenomena believers, ancient alien nuts, the lot. Up is down, left is right, and 'being your authentic self' is somehow 'passing', after getting various treatments to change into something you're not.
I suppose, despite the anxiety that hits us if we begin to suspect we're wrong about any cherished belief, those other types are just beliefs about things, the world, out there. The cognitive dissonance for those beginning to doubt - or having known deep down they were wrong for some time - must be excruciating, because these questions are about oneself and one's relationships with everyone else.
Statements like, "I want to be a woman so much..." accompany, "I'm a trans woman" and "[I] did everything within my power to repress my transness" and "I'm sick of the longing to be something I can never be," virtually in the same breath. I guess he's trying to make the mental transition from thinking he's a woman stuck in a man's body to recognising he's just a man who wishes he was a woman, while he's been trying to get his body to go in the other direction. I hope he gets support. This is worrying: "I told myself that I would do whatever I could to pass as a woman and if I still didn't pass I would end it."
I'm appalled that a man who wants to paint his nails doesn't feel free to do so unless he gets permission from society by declaring a trans identity. It's exactly what Katie Herzog meant when she said that gender ideology flips "I am a man/woman and I reject gender roles" on its head and turns it into "I reject gender roles and therefore I am not a man/woman."
And this is without a doubt getting worse as people—especially young people—are ostensibly being taught to "respect others' gender identities." What this means in reality is that they will stay vigilant to spot any hint of gender non-conformity in others and themselves. It blows gender non-conformity out of proportion and pathologizes the natural variation, maybe not explicitly, but by endlessly asking "are you sure?? Are you sure you're not trans?? Even though you like [things typically liked by the opposite sex]??" And I find this entrapment maddening.
A while ago, I came across my mother's writing about my childhood. One of the things she had written was how my 4th grade teacher thought I might have gender identity issues growing up (this was in a non-Western country by the way) because he noticed that I was hanging out with girls more often. My teacher and mother were certainly concerned judging from the tone of her writing. Reading it many years later, I was surprised that I had been a visibly gender non-conforming kid (because I didn't remember any of this), and relieved by the fact they had put their concerns away and watched me patiently as I grew up, without asking confusing questions.
When I recently asked my mother about my childhood gender non-conformity, she didn't know what I was talking about. And I thought that was funny and beautiful. I felt grateful. She had done what a proper adult does and sat with the discomfort and uncertainty, not taking them out on me.
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
I get the feeling that a lot of these guys need a trans identity as a way of giving themselves permission to engage in behaviours or activities that they see as feminine. They've embraced binary thinking about masculinity and femininity so unquestioningly that the only way they can conceive of stepping outside "their" box is by persuading themselves that deep down they are really feminine women, not effeminate men. Or maybe they're just fetishists who aren't being completely honest even in online trans spaces...
I am a woman and I know what it feels like. It starts with being born into Patriarchy and growing up oppressed by the stereotypes and limitations of those stereotypes. It continues as constant bombardment from the media, reminding you of how unworthy you are of the very word Woman, if you don't match up to the arbitrary demands of fashion. It continues as you learn to wield a weapon, or at least keys between your knuckles, as you walk to your car. If you're lucky, all this will be worth it one day when you land a man and have a baby, or better, six! If you didn't want those things too bad for you! Maybe you're "actually" a man. It ends with men in Womanface claiming your sports, spaces and all rights and liberties. No matter how you did your womanhood, you will see that men are doing it better. It is preferable to grow up male and opt-in to an oppressed sex class, rather than be born into it. That requires no skill.
The words these men use: addiction, intrusive thoughts, obsession, nothing else in my life matters, I can't control this, I'm willing to give up my long term relationship to get relief from this.
Why aren't doctors and therapists recognizing the obsessiveness and compulsiveness, the addiction, the perseverative, racing, and intrusive thoughts for what they are? These men are literally speaking out loud the actual problem. Gender is as surface level as hand washing, checking locks, or the drug of choice of any other person suffering from a thought distortion disorder.
Soot on comment. As someone who specializes in OCD related disorders this is such a clear symptom presentation of significant obsessive psychopathology. Now days we think political correctness and not competent diagnostic skills. We now think we have to normalize mental illness, and in so doing we do our clients a terrible disservice!
“I got bullied heavily for being effeminate, sensitive and acting 'gay”. I feel that for so many transitioners internalized homophobia is the root problem.
Yes! that's clear from the comments cited in this post. Being an effeminate boy/man or masculine girl/woman means you can attract negative attention, so it's just so much less trouble to change gender. Right!
I’m a terf but I found many of these posts very moving. The psychological distress is so raw. But it does sound like these men might benefit from therapy for OCD. And I suspect their reddit commentators just reinforce their gender obsession and give it wings.
Dr. Elliot Kaminetsky, child psychologist has renamed this malady exactly in the OCD sphere. Identity-Based Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Treatment should be cognitive behavior therapy, new schedule of time outside with little time online and new physical exercise routines. These men only become more dissociated and disconnected mind and body. Many of them "forget" to mention the pornography they spend so much time watching.
This is pretty orthogonal to the topic at hand, but identity based disorders could also include Rachel Dolezol and other race fakers. It could include the people obsessed with amputating a limb in hopes of being seen as disabled. These two examples are seen as attempts to illegitimately claim an identity. If they would all be included in a single psychological/psychiatric category, gender identity disorders would again be seen as disordered. That could shift professional practice in this realm.
We can hope! It looks like the interview I'm recording on Megyn Kelly YouTube channel tomorrow will be aired at 5 pm eastern standard time. I'll be on a panel with Emma, the daughter of a man who claims to be a woman.
I'd recommend ECT -- electro-convulsive shock therapy ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy
This whole trans movement and its endless discussions have always made me wonder what the hell they're talking about when they say they've always known they were a woman. What does that mean? For me you know you're a woman when you walk out the door on a hot day wearing a tank top and have to go back to put on something less revealing because of being harassed on the street. Or realizing that you're bleeding through your sanitary protection and onto the chair, in class. That kind of thing is how I've known I was truly a woman, but somehow I don't think that's what at issue here. Too bad.
Oh, didn't you hear, transwomen have periods too. "Bottom [sic] line is, people of all genders menstruate. Trans women’s periods are just as real and valid as anyone else’s." https://www.modibodi.co.uk/blogs/womens/transwomen-period
Sadly, there are some who simulate menstruation (or worse) so they can feel like - you know - what they really are.
Oh, I just noticed, it says people of ALL genders menstruate. So men do as well. Who knew?
Yes. What did AOC say? "menstruating people's" 😂. I guess these poor men were just "assigned" wrong at birth. Now we can all blame the obstetrician's who get to decide what gender we all are. (That assigned at birth nonsense makes me nuts!).
I read your link. Amazing. "Some trans women don't have uteruses," I learned: well I never! Does that mean some do? Anyway, unfortunately for them they don't actually bleed, but they do get to experience listlessness and mood swings and the like. Well, that's something at least. Too bad they'll never get to panic silently while trying to figure out whether they've really just bled onto the chair or not. Which I guess means that when they get to fake-menopause it will be less of a relief.
They swear up and down they don't know what a woman is when asked to define the word, but it's understood without confusion what one is when someone expresses wanting to become one.
For these men (and my son) to be a woman is the same as to look like a woman, or to be socially perceived a woman.
What they are NOT doing is reading Elena Ferrante or Toni Morrison. It is looking at women from the outside and then thinking that's all there is...
They’re immersed in anime and video games. No time for Tony Morrison!
(No shade on your son. I am very lucky my child desisted.)
Very astute distinction!
As the sole collector of data on trans widows in the world, I hope the wife/girlfriend of this dude leaves. It is not safe psychologically or even physically. The escalation he's talking about will mean his priority is him, not the relationship, not her. Note how callously he mentioned her. I have not one ounce of sympathy. He is exactly the age of my ex-husband's entrance to the "pink glitter tunnel."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owyUun77TKo&t=106s
I have said this before, but when I read such agonizing obsessive confessions I think, “ For crying out loud, I barely have time to sit and drink a cup of coffee and read a book, so how are these poor guys making rent, cooking, eating and sleeping?“ When you perseverate to that level, you have a mental illness. “Chopping wood and carrying water” used to be a sage piece of advice. Maybe we should bring it back before we loose a whole generation to this insanity.
Updated version of that sage advice:
Chop wood.
Carry water.
LOG OFF.
(These guys are sick from porn and from subreddits and discord channels that feed the obsession. I say again: Touch grass.)
This left me speechless for quite a while. It's hard to follow some of the mobius twists and turns of the statements these poor deluded men make. 'Trans' thinking beats anything I've ever encountered among all the conspiracy theorists, psychic-phenomena believers, ancient alien nuts, the lot. Up is down, left is right, and 'being your authentic self' is somehow 'passing', after getting various treatments to change into something you're not.
I suppose, despite the anxiety that hits us if we begin to suspect we're wrong about any cherished belief, those other types are just beliefs about things, the world, out there. The cognitive dissonance for those beginning to doubt - or having known deep down they were wrong for some time - must be excruciating, because these questions are about oneself and one's relationships with everyone else.
Statements like, "I want to be a woman so much..." accompany, "I'm a trans woman" and "[I] did everything within my power to repress my transness" and "I'm sick of the longing to be something I can never be," virtually in the same breath. I guess he's trying to make the mental transition from thinking he's a woman stuck in a man's body to recognising he's just a man who wishes he was a woman, while he's been trying to get his body to go in the other direction. I hope he gets support. This is worrying: "I told myself that I would do whatever I could to pass as a woman and if I still didn't pass I would end it."
I'm appalled that a man who wants to paint his nails doesn't feel free to do so unless he gets permission from society by declaring a trans identity. It's exactly what Katie Herzog meant when she said that gender ideology flips "I am a man/woman and I reject gender roles" on its head and turns it into "I reject gender roles and therefore I am not a man/woman."
And this is without a doubt getting worse as people—especially young people—are ostensibly being taught to "respect others' gender identities." What this means in reality is that they will stay vigilant to spot any hint of gender non-conformity in others and themselves. It blows gender non-conformity out of proportion and pathologizes the natural variation, maybe not explicitly, but by endlessly asking "are you sure?? Are you sure you're not trans?? Even though you like [things typically liked by the opposite sex]??" And I find this entrapment maddening.
A while ago, I came across my mother's writing about my childhood. One of the things she had written was how my 4th grade teacher thought I might have gender identity issues growing up (this was in a non-Western country by the way) because he noticed that I was hanging out with girls more often. My teacher and mother were certainly concerned judging from the tone of her writing. Reading it many years later, I was surprised that I had been a visibly gender non-conforming kid (because I didn't remember any of this), and relieved by the fact they had put their concerns away and watched me patiently as I grew up, without asking confusing questions.
When I recently asked my mother about my childhood gender non-conformity, she didn't know what I was talking about. And I thought that was funny and beautiful. I felt grateful. She had done what a proper adult does and sat with the discomfort and uncertainty, not taking them out on me.
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
I get the feeling that a lot of these guys need a trans identity as a way of giving themselves permission to engage in behaviours or activities that they see as feminine. They've embraced binary thinking about masculinity and femininity so unquestioningly that the only way they can conceive of stepping outside "their" box is by persuading themselves that deep down they are really feminine women, not effeminate men. Or maybe they're just fetishists who aren't being completely honest even in online trans spaces...
I am a woman and I know what it feels like. It starts with being born into Patriarchy and growing up oppressed by the stereotypes and limitations of those stereotypes. It continues as constant bombardment from the media, reminding you of how unworthy you are of the very word Woman, if you don't match up to the arbitrary demands of fashion. It continues as you learn to wield a weapon, or at least keys between your knuckles, as you walk to your car. If you're lucky, all this will be worth it one day when you land a man and have a baby, or better, six! If you didn't want those things too bad for you! Maybe you're "actually" a man. It ends with men in Womanface claiming your sports, spaces and all rights and liberties. No matter how you did your womanhood, you will see that men are doing it better. It is preferable to grow up male and opt-in to an oppressed sex class, rather than be born into it. That requires no skill.
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnmoore4/p/the-fifth-joyful-mystery?r=1b92lw&utm_medium=ios