I talked to the wonderful Lydia Perovic a few weeks back — you can find our conversation here: Excerpt: What are some of the forums that you’re following? For my academic research I hang out on the Reddit forums FTM, FTM men, FTM over 30, and the two detrans sub-reddits. But I keep track of a much broader range of them. I do monitor the Male-to-Female forums too; the one that is a real trip is called Translator. They're almost all middle-aged autogynephiles. It’s really a bunch of men talking about their lives falling apart but getting support for it from other people. You can do it sister! kind of support. It will be topics like, “I came out to my wife and she wants to divorce me and I feel really invalid” or, “I came out to my therapist and he said that I'll never pass as a woman and I feel really invalid” and then everybody's like No, you look great! Or, “I put my face into FaceApp and is this even possible for me” and of course the answer is no but everybody would be like “oh yes it's totally doable”. It’s a wild place.
Thanks for this. I agree wholeheartedly that trans is a language of distress, at least for young people. An article just came out in the Atlantic about how teenaged girls are suffering, and the article says life is especially terrible for those who identify as LBGTQ. Predictably, no correlation is drawn between poor mental health and claiming those identities; it’s all about how those folks are mistreated BECAUSE they have those identities, which of course is nonsense. It’s forbidden in mainstream journalism to even suggest that there could be a correlation between having poor mental health and “coming out” as trans, so thank you for this sane well-conceived piece.
I didn’t realize this was a trend for middle aged women but it makes sense to me. As a middle aged woman myself, it is pretty stressful trying to figure out who you want to be and what you want your life to look like once your kids start becoming more independent and your aging body becomes more apparent.
Thanks, I think the concept of an idiom of distress is bang-on, and it's strange that more people don't understand how culture and an underlying ateiology of some kind interact to form conditions. In particular, the medical/psychiatric institutional bodies and practices that play the role of reifying the narrative and determining the 'proper treatment'.
It's curious this mind-blindness is happening on the Left when it's postmodern/post-structural academics such as Foucault and Althussar who articulate how prone we are to being enculturated.
Speaking of "Crazy Like Us" by Ethan Watters, I also came across "Anatomy of an Epidemic" by Robert Whitaker. It's not an easy read, but still very fascinating.
"Because I'm attached to a university, I go to all kinds of talks that are on the topic or on unrelated topics. There was a very interesting one about multiple personalities recently. And there's plenty of material on campus."
Thanks for this. I agree wholeheartedly that trans is a language of distress, at least for young people. An article just came out in the Atlantic about how teenaged girls are suffering, and the article says life is especially terrible for those who identify as LBGTQ. Predictably, no correlation is drawn between poor mental health and claiming those identities; it’s all about how those folks are mistreated BECAUSE they have those identities, which of course is nonsense. It’s forbidden in mainstream journalism to even suggest that there could be a correlation between having poor mental health and “coming out” as trans, so thank you for this sane well-conceived piece.
I didn’t realize this was a trend for middle aged women but it makes sense to me. As a middle aged woman myself, it is pretty stressful trying to figure out who you want to be and what you want your life to look like once your kids start becoming more independent and your aging body becomes more apparent.
One, I did not know that your name is a nom de plume. Good on ya for protecting your privacy.
Thanks, I think the concept of an idiom of distress is bang-on, and it's strange that more people don't understand how culture and an underlying ateiology of some kind interact to form conditions. In particular, the medical/psychiatric institutional bodies and practices that play the role of reifying the narrative and determining the 'proper treatment'.
It's curious this mind-blindness is happening on the Left when it's postmodern/post-structural academics such as Foucault and Althussar who articulate how prone we are to being enculturated.
Speaking of "Crazy Like Us" by Ethan Watters, I also came across "Anatomy of an Epidemic" by Robert Whitaker. It's not an easy read, but still very fascinating.
So, just, f*cked up. Got it.
"Because I'm attached to a university, I go to all kinds of talks that are on the topic or on unrelated topics. There was a very interesting one about multiple personalities recently. And there's plenty of material on campus."
Ouch.