I spent three hours walking across the city the other day and had some time to think about where I've changed my mind since I started seriously digging into gender identity in 2016. In civic life, your sex (and only your sex) matters. Your private beliefs about your sex don't matter. Anyone is free to hold wacky beliefs about sex/gender but not to enforce those beliefs on others by, e.g., violating single-sex spaces or coercing 'affirming' speech. People should not be discriminated against for gender nonconformity or for holding wacky private beliefs about sex/gender (akin to religious beliefs) but that's it.
I went from “Trans? Fine. Live and let live.” To “Holy shit, this is a dark age religion that sacrifices children, demeans and endangers women, despises evidence, relies on lies and coercion.” To “Okay. Every act of reason, logic, honesty and humanism is a radical act.”
When my daughter and other kids at her school first started talking about trans 6 years ago when she was entering middle school, I rolled my eyes and payed no more attention than to other teen fads. I never thought the kids she mentioned were "real trans" (Whatever that means) but I thought it was no big deal. Like some are goth,some are punk, some are trans, it will all pass soon enough. Boy, was I wrong!
It just enrages me beyond belief that trans people are willing to sacrifice kids in order to increase their numbers, because that's what they are trying to do.
Many people who call themselves transgender claim they had no dysphoria but just identify with the other sex and wanted their body to match their brain. They claim no depression or dysfunction and that this is just a physical mismatch they needed to correct and that we should be respectful of their true identity. We ahould respect their need for corrective surgery and T, their new name and not misgender, etc. They say that it is abusive to question their identity even if they acknowledge having a biologically female body.
Ok, that is hard enough. But when, for instance, a transman wants to have a baby and then be called the father, the hoops your mind must leap to make sense of this are insurmountable. This is a female wanting to have a baby. They would have to stop the testosterone and let their female body function to become pregnant and birth a baby. They would be biologically the mother. And then go back on T to resume their identity?? Asking me to then call them the Dad is just too crazy making.
And then reading about so many people losing jobs, careers, reputations for refusing to use the preferred probouns or writing about transing kids and seeing the violence and abuse if TRAs against women, I just cannot take it any more.
This whole transgender thing is crazy making. After growing up with a mentally ill parent who had delusions I had to pretend to accept for survival, this whole thing with transgenderism feels exactly thw same.
The trans movement does not seem to have any idea what they are demanding that we do. I will not deny reality and I will not accept the dehumanization they require leading us down a road to disorentation, transhumanism, and a total destruction and inversion of any concept of truth, morality, humanity.
And no one seems to ever talk about the effects of T on a baby! It is insane to think you can just go off for a few months and then have a healthy baby and then just go back on. We know that some of the children of the East German female athletes that were lied to and doped by doctors had multiple birth defects and health conditions.
Men who ideate they are female, who've already married and have children (like my ex-husband) almost always want their children to address them with some version of "Mother." (like my ex-husband, who was there when I gave birth to both of our sons, with nary an aspirin for relief) and they believe this is their right. This is because without it, they can't "pass." The court granted generous visitation and our sons objected to the "mommie" stuff, but learned that some people in this world have the power to exact lies from others and tell lies themselves, regardless of the children's feelings. And yes, they were traumatized and are now a bit messed up at 32 and 35.
Oh my God. I can't believe you went through such a thing. He wants to be called "mommie", though his involvement in the production of his children involved his penis for just a few minutes? Yikes. There is a trans woman in England named Debbie Hayton who at least has the decency to own her life as a man before she transitioned, and her children call her "father" (I'm pretty sure, although I couldn't swear to it). She doesn't even mind being called "him". Transitioning turns people into liars.
I'm not a fan of Debbie Hayton, as he, yes he, put his wife Stephanie through hell, would not move out when she asked him to and has appeared with her on various platforms, (youtube channel, Gender A Wider Lens, OurPath.org--supposedly a venue for for the straight spouses/ex's) and he does all the talking. Stephanie gave up her heterosexual intimacy (she says they do not sleep in the same bed) against her will, in my view like most women who stay, to make sure no one else calls him "Mum." I know a woman who stayed as a "lesbian" for 10 years, fell in love with a man, her "now-female" ex sued for divorce on grounds of infidelity, and their daughter calls them Mommie-this and Mommie-that. I helped her straighten out (pun intended) a situation where she needed to fire a therapist who told her she needs to get over sharing Mother's Day and must call the ex, who just happens to be built like a linebacker, "she/her" in her own therapy. This therapist got the boot. For healing & the narrative, my memoir:
In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022, eBook & soft cover, 50 nature photos and a guide to restoring wildflowers as well as regaining sanity)
You are much more knowledgeable than I am. I had no idea Hayton had acted so poorly. In his articles, he defends women very capably, and he admits that he treated his family poorly. Certainly, he provides evidence that the desire to transition is overwhelming for some people. I learned how intensely focussed these people are a few decades ago when I met a gay man who was trans. Even though trans people were not well known back then, he felt very strongly that his feelings were somehow normal, and he wasn't ashamed of them. Their determination that they are actually a member of the opposite sex is intense and unshakable, so much so that it now makes sense to me that they are stirring up all this trouble. Imagine what the world would have been like if, decades ago, gays were so determined that homosexuality was right (I'm gay), that we tried to spread it to other people (as Anita Bryant thought we were doing, but weren't)?
This is the gist of the problem. "Gender dysphoria" is a psychiatric illness. Doing plastic surgery and wrong sex hormones to change the body to fit the mind is entirely different from a homosexual pursuing a same sex relationship. This reference to the previous stigma of same sax attraction as equivalent to the problem of body dissociation, is our biggest mistake. Body dysmorphia often stems from childhood abuse, religious contexts with restrictive sex roles and nowadays, pornography exposure. Ritchie Herron, a male detransitioner, is speaking well on these issues now.
Well, as a 72-year-old who is no longer sexually attractive, but who still has all my mental faculties and libido, I use gay porn, and see no problem with it. Indeed, much of gay porn just shows men enjoying each other, although in recent years I am seeing more things I don't like (slapping each other, spitting on each other, etc.). I have had people on Substack try to shame me for liking porn, but that is pretty hard to do when most of the MEN in porn obviously want to be in porn (they enjoy exhibiting themselves). But for women, it is different. Most women do it for the money. That's fine. Women, who are the gate-keepers of human procreation, must be more conservative in this area.
But getting back to your central point, as a gay man, I can't say that I am normal and trans people are abnormal. It just doesn't look good. I am religious and believe in reincarnation. I believe that what is actually happening with [most] trans people is that they selected the wrong sex before birth. Every soul must experience maleness and femaleness before the reincarnational cycle is over, and some souls have a fear of being male or female. For example, a soul that identifies as male may avoid being a female for a bunch of incarnations because he doesn't want to experience childbirth or the chronic second-class citizenship that all women experience. But after those lives, he needs to be a woman to further his spiritual growth. So, having incarnated as a man for another time, he decides he is really a woman and tries to transition to being a woman -- not realizing, of course, that being a trans woman won't give him the actual experience of womanhood.
Now, I understand that to a scientist like you, all this sounds ridiculous, but it's what I believe.
Another possible reason for choosing the wrong sex before birth is to experience the strife that results from that, which can teach a soul useful things. All these children who are transitioning as teenagers and then regretting it five years later are also learning spiritual lessons, such as the foolishness of acting rashly or without enough information.
Your ex can change his own documents but your sons' birth certificates still list him as a father and I assume there is nothing he can do about that. So sorry for all the pain this caused you and your sons.
Thanks. Everyone apologizes except the diagnosing PhD psychologist and him. My sons have the originals and I think their passports list him as their father as well. Neddy, as I call him in my memoir, must be exhausted from all the dressing and "woman-facing" for 3 decades! What I think is so odd is that his "true life test" was the preparation to "pass" and hours documented in his journals, sitting on barstools in Greenwich Village, a well-established gay environment. I saw it in his own quirky printing; he sought the gaze of (straight, one assumes) men. So he never really learned whether or not he "passes."
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Dec 12, 2022·edited Dec 12, 2022Liked by Eliza Mondegreen
As a long-time liberal, I always felt that it was best not to be rigid, but this subject has changed my mind quite a bit. I applaud you for the evolution you have made to a position which is more hard-line. Reality is what it is. Pretending that reality is malleable does no good for anyone. Sure, I'll call a trans woman "she" to be polite. I may even come to like some trans people personally. (I'm not close to any right now, although I've met several.) But I won't pretend that they are not men masquerading as women. Your sex, AND NOTHING ELSE, determines your gender. So personally, I will accommodate trans people in that I'll call them the pronoun they prefer, although that isn't true for so-called nonbinary people. (The day will never come when I refer to a single individual as "they" or "them".) And any trans woman who pretends to be a real woman, or trans man who pretends to be a real man, will get an earful from me. We do not do trans people any favors by participating in their pretenses and delusions.
Here is the proper attitude for a trans woman to have: "I am a man who, for whatever reason, wants to be a woman. Please treat me as a woman so that I can live my life the way I want to." (And vice versa for trans men.) If that were their posture, I think they would be accepted by society pretty quickly. But what we're getting is: "WE'RE SPECIAL. WE'RE DELICATE. IF YOU DON'T ACCEDE TO ALL OUR DEMANDS, WE'LL COMMIT SUICIDE!" No thanks.
Perhaps the reason so many of us nice, liberal, over educated people had believed “trans rights are human rights” is because we supported gay rights. I think now we need to learn how to make distinctions between gay rights and trans rights in order to help other nice liberal people see that those are not the same things. Seeing the trans movement as something distinctly different from gay rights has been part of how I “peaked” (which I believe means when you suddenly see and change your mind).
I have some things to say about that, given that I am gay.
We gays secured our rights on the basis of our identities -- i.e., the principle that people should not be discriminated against for something that they ARE and can't change. Trans people are using the same principle. But here's the problem: When a gay man says he is attracted to his own sex, no one can dispute it. Everyone knows that gays exist, and no one would admit to being gay who wasn't gay. But when a trans woman says, "I am a woman", which is what they are claiming these days, there is plenty of objective evidence to dispute that. I agree that a trans woman (who is actually a man) should not be discriminated against for the way he feels, but trans women are claiming to be REAL WOMEN (based on the concept of gender identity). But gender identity hasn't been proven. Trans people need to be treated differently by the courts from gay people because there is proof that they aren't what they say they are.
Thus, I think trans people should be protected in housing, employment and public accommodations (because there is no good reason to discriminate against them in those areas), but their gender identity (which is nothing more than a feeling) should not give them entry into women's spaces BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT WOMEN.
Now, getting them to stop influencing children will be harder because they have that right. I think the solution there is to have a national law forbidding gender transitioning by children.
Perhaps one reason gay rights and trans rights have been conflated is because both identities have been based on a feeling (sexual attraction and gender identity). That’s why it’s so important, in my mind, that we work to disentangle those two feelings. Both use the concept of self-acceptance, but one is intended as a way for living *as one is* and the other promotes *mutilating healthy bodies*--the latter is about as far from self-acceptance as is possible to go.
I agree, except for the part about no one admitting to being gay who isn’t gay. For today’s youth I think that’s no longer true, and it’s always been less true for girls than for boys. When my friend’s daughter was in high school 8 years ago, she talked about all the girls who were claiming to be bisexual even though they clearly weren’t. But they felt it would make them more attractive to boys and make them seem sophisticated. In my daughter’s 6 grade class, 6 years ago, she claimed to be bisexual. This is a kid who didn’t go through puberty until she was a freshman in high school, so at that point she wasn’t sexually attracted to anyone yet. Nearly half of that class (of gifted kids, no surprise) claimed to be gay.
Interesting, Dee. That just confirms my impression of kids as being given to trends. Being trans, of course, is now a trend. Among the boys, however, I doubt many of them pretended to be gay who weren't. Remember, this was the "South Park" generation. They used the word "gay" to mean "stupid".
As a gay man, I have to be honest about not fully understanding girls and women. They want to be in a relationship as intently as the boys/men do, yet they seem to be less focussed on sex, which is a central part of relationships. I ascribe this to animal instinct, as in, the instinct of the male is to impregnate, while the instinct of the female is to insure her mate has good genes. Another way of saying this is that women are more interested in romance, while men are more interested in sex. Do you think that's accurate, or are those simply steretypes?
I am unfortunately all too aware that trans is a trend since the same daughter who claimed to be bisexual in sixth grade is now 17 and thinks she’s a gay boy (the fact that she’s actually attracted to males, i.e. not gay by any definition that makes sense to my generation, became too clear for her to deny as she got older so she had to find another way to secure her membership in the gay community, which she desperately wants to belong to). As far as I can tell it’s the boys too. This really isn’t the South Park generation - I don’t think my kids even know what that is. We’re talking about kids who are in high school now, and they have dramatically different views than people who are now approaching their 30s. While it’s great that gay kids don’t feel the need to stifle and hide themselves anymore, a whole new set of problems has cropped up. I am watching this happen and am completely floored by the fact that a movement intended to prevent kids from having to pretend to be something they aren’t in order to fit in seems to have led to my daughter trying to pretend to be something she’s not in order to fit in. My head is spinning.
As for your other question - I think that many women do have high sex drives, but yes, there are likely some evolutionary differences in how that gets expressed. Teasing out what’s a biological difference and what’s influenced by culture is hard. It seems women may be more selective about partners and less likely to engage in casual short term relationships, and that those who do engage in casual sex do so because they believe themselves to be too low status to secure a good long term relationship so this is a second best reproductive strategy. It seems likely that the driving evolutionary force behind men’s sex drive is to impregnate as many females as possible, while the evolutionary force behind women’s sex drive is to secure a relationship with a male who will stay and be a good father. So I can imagine that would drive some different behaviors, although I don’t necessarily think women (at least young women) have lower sex drives. Anyhow, this is all just speculation, I am no expert on this topic.
I enjoyed reading your follow-up comment. You are clearly very thoughtful. I'm not sure I've got anything to say, except that being a kid has become more complicated.
It sounds like your daughter has decided that her "gender identity" is male, but you don't mention that she has done anything to transition. I hope she doesn't. The more I read about it, the clearer it is that transitioning (meaning going the whole medical route) is a nightmare. There is also something puzzling about it. People who transition apparently believe in the fiction that they will end up with the body of the opposite sex, but of course, they don't. I remember reading one young woman, who was transitioning to a male, say that she was thrilled to learn that she would be given a big penis. Of course, what they give trans men is just a sausage-shape piece of fat with skin on it (or, at least, that is my impression after looking at some pictures). They probably snake the urethra through it, though that would involve taking a urethra from someone else (a donated corpse?) because a woman's urethra would not be long enough. Such an artificial penis could not change its state from soft to erect, nor could it eject sperm. The point is, it's all fake. Trans people talk about being their "authentic selves", but their bodies are anything but authentic.
Anyway, I hope your daughter gets through all this without damaging herself.
I agree on all of your points, although I am in a tricky position in practice because I work in academia. I think almost everything you articulated here is consistent with where we would all end up if we took seriously the idea that trans identification/gender dysporia/gender identity disturbance are all signs of mental health disturbances, not merely an alternative identity.
Hi, Rebecca. I hope you don't mind that I'm taking it upon myself to reply to your comment.
I am gay. When I was young, some people wanted gays to accept the idea that we had a mental-health problem. We wouldn't. We wanted to be seen as just another kind of normal. Now, as an elderly man (72 and still going), I am agnostic on this issue. Who cares if I am gay because of some mental condition? The point is that gays constitute about 8% of the population (and more if you include bisexuals), and any group of that size should be respected by society. The overall point is this: Humans come with all sorts of mental states. As long as their mental states don't harm society, they deserve to be free and happy.
I feel the same way about trans people. My objection to trans people is that their demands are excessive, and they are harming people (children, women). Even if they were more than 1/2% of the population, they don't have the right to demand that other people change the way they speak, or let them influence their children, or that women should have to welcome them into their sports or other private spaces. Trans people are simply demanding too much. So whether being gay or trans is a mental illness or not, really doesn't matter. They're just asking for too much, and that's it.
Actually, let me add a point: Accepting yourself as normal for being gay is a lot more justifiable than being trans. There are multiple ways for men to pleasure each other, so they can have a normal sex life -- and the same is true for Lesbians. But if being trans means taking hormones and altering your normal body by having multiple surgeries, then that is a lot less defensible as normal. There is something to be said for accepting yourself as you are. I would like to see the day when men in dresses and women in suits are no longer shocking to people. Forget about the operations and just be the way you want to be. Sadly, though, I question whether society will ever accept that. One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors.
Caleb, thank you for writing such a thoughtful comment on my comment here! I agree with much of what you wrote. I am a clinical psychologist studying both healthy and unhealthy development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (my name is even in the back of the DSM-5!). I think that it matters profoundly whether we consider something to be a psychological disorder or not. The current criteria in the DSM-5 for what constitutes a mental health disorder are that the condition causes either 1) significant distress and inner suffering, or 2) impairment in daily life (e.g., in relationships, work, school). By this definition, being LGB is not a psychological disorder, whereas gender dysphoria is because it causes distress and impairment (it if did not cause impairment, then why is medical treatment considered necessary?). The movement to classify trans as an identity category rather than a psychological disorder has had all kinds of ripple effects and has helped pave the way for the social contagion of trans identities in young people. And I would argue that this shift has also led to the kinds of public demands that the trans movement has made; it's not the only reason for the public demands, but I think it is one critical cause. By linking the T with LGB as an identity category (rather than a mental illness), trans activists have been able to make the case for many of their demands in the public sphere.
Rebecca, you make a very good argument, so much so that you may have convinced me. My problem is that, as a gay person, it just doesn't sound right (or look good) for me to say "I am normal, but trans people are not". Besides, there came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that penises evolved to fit into vaginas, so perhaps that really IS the only true normal. I must say, though, that my homosexuality has never made me unhappy in itself. I haven't had a lot of long relationships in my life, but then, that's just me. Most of my gay friends have had great relationships, some of them lasting decades. Those who are now single are single only because their spouses died.
I think I'm going to have a button made for myself that says, "I'm normal. What are you?"
After I figure out what the DSM-5 is, I'll look you up.
I should have explained why the DSM-5 is. It's the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders in the U.S., similar to the ICD used everywhere else in the world (except that the DSM only covers psychiatric disorders, unlike the ICD, which covers all medical conditions). I was a consultant to the Personality Disorders chapter of the manual--a topic highly relevant to trans identification, I believe.
Thanks for filling me in on those details. So at the present time, is transgenderism still seen as a psychiatric disorder?
I read that article which described people who want to cut their limbs off. This is a world of obsession that I'm unfamiliar with. Even my belief in reincarnation and karma doesn't explain it.
Again, I'm sorry for switching names on you. Perry James can't be located in any phone book, and I feel more comfortable that way. Although perhaps that makes me a coward.
Caleb: "One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors."
Amen to that. I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of "doctors" sweating bullets over the prospect of getting their asses in a sling over their "gender-affirming surgeries", if not losing their licenses.
I'm a strong advocate of the "old" (more than five years old!) categorisation of sex, sexual orientation, and gender expression. The first two are intrinsic and cannot be changed, and there is (to my mind) sufficient evidence for both of them providing evolutionary benefits. Gender expression, of course, is neither intrinsic nor unchangeable, and there is no evidence that it has significant evolutionary benefit. What has been counted as "manly" or "womanly" has changed throughout history and across cultures, and is driven largely by fashion - compare, for example, male styles of clothing in Ancient Greece, England during the Interregnum and then just a few years later during the time of Charles II, and now.
Maybe one day we'll find out what the mechanism is that means some people are same-sex attracted, but, ultimately, we don't need to. It is obvious that sexual orientation exists, that it cannot be changed, and that it cannot be induced.
Generally agree with most of what you said there, notably "What has been counted as 'manly' or 'womanly' has changed throughout history". Though that does raise a somewhat sticky question as to whether "man" and "woman" are sexes -- adult human males & females -- or whether they're genders -- i.e., anyone who looks like adult human males and females. Why I think we should qualify every use of those words -- e.g., "man (sex)" and "woman (gender)" -- or deprecate them entirely due to too much ambiguity.
Though I'm rather curious about your, "The first two [sex, & sexual orientation] are intrinsic and cannot be changed ..." I'll certainly agree that no human is going to change sex, except maybe to sexless and sometimes back. But I wonder exactly what you mean by "intrinsic" in that situation.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you might be interested in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction, the Abstract and the definitions for the sexes in its Glossary, in particular:
Of some related interest is this Oxford University Press site, they being the publisher of that journal, citing the "article metrics" of the article which shows some 1700 tweets of it -- to the general consternation, discomfiture, and chagrin of various transactivists, spectrumists, and assorted charlatans, grifters, and scientific illiterates:
Though I'm not entirely sure that those championing that article have taken a close look at the definitions there since it seems clear, to me and some few others, that the logical consequence of them is that many members of many sexually-reproducing (anisogamous) species -- including the human one -- are, in fact, sexless. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Don't think that perspective really "squares" with "intrinsic". Or with the more common refrain if not feminist mantra that "sex is immutable" -- it ain't, at least by those definitions.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Are you interpreting this definition to mean that if someone is not actively producing gametes at this moment they are “sexless”? I think it’s implicit in the definition (but maybe should be explicit) that if someone has the necessary anatomy to produce a type of gamete, that defines their sex. Certainly organisms can be pre-pubescent, or post-menopausal, or in between cycles, or surgically altered, but they either have the physiology to produce eggs or sperm and that persists over their lifetime even if the actual production of gametes doesn’t happen during all life stages.
Good question, one I've puzzled over for some time.
However, it seems more logically and biologically consistent to argue that to qualify as a male or a female, one has to have functional gonads -- i.e., those producing gametes on a regular basis. Those MHR definitions both say "produces ... gametes", and "produces" is apparently "present tense indefinite":
"We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why it’s sometimes called present indefinite)."
So, by those definitions, the prepubescent -- XXers or XYers or those of any other variations -- are neither male nor female; they're sexless and generally don't acquire a sex until they hit puberty. Similarly for the otherwise infertile -- some 7% of adult XYers are infertile and therefore sexless; likewise the transgendered who have their gonads removed.
Though it might be emphasized that most adult XXers between puberty and menopause still qualify as females since they're still producing ova "regularly", even if less frequently than adult XYers are producing sperm. Frequency itself isn't the issue, it's only the regularity -- like a car manufacturer that "produces" 10 Chevrolet Sparks a day, versus one that produces one Aston-Martin Valkyrie a month ...😉
While there's some utility in the "functional/non-functional" definitions of biologist Emma Hilton and Company -- see below -- and which more or less encompass your comments about "necessary anatomy" and simple "physiology", they often lead to some serious complications, contradictions, inconsistencies, and terminological problems when applied to other species -- problems that aren't present when using the MHR definitions.
Hilton's definitions -- from a letter-to-the-editor published by the UK Times, a decent newspaper but hardly a peer-review biology journal:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
You might be interested in my further elaborations on that theme here, particularly the quote there of Paul Griffiths -- University of Sydney, philosophy professor, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- published in Aeon magazine:
In some cases there aren't many consequential differences in which of those two sets of definitions we apply. But when push comes to shove -- the transgender issue in a nutshell -- then I think that the biological definitions published in the MHR have to qualify as trump, are the only game in town.
Sorry, but I think if the definition you’re referring to states that young girls and post-menopausal women aren’t female and young boys aren’t male, then it’s the definition that’s wrong. The definition needs to reflect reality, you can’t change reality to conform to the definition. More likely I think that the implicit part, that an organism has the right anatomy to produce a certain type of gamete in their lifetime, seemed so obvious that no one thought to include it in the definition. I’m not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty aren’t women, other than making a lot of people mad!
In addition to the things you’ve identified here, I have changed my mind about cosmetic surgery as a whole, because it is continuous with transgender and with transhumanism. I don’t know what sort of policy response is the right answer, but when my cosmetic surgeon’s office started offering “gender affirming” surgeries, the connection between trans and cosmetic surgery generally became quite clear. Now I am horrified by the cultural meaning of what I have done to myself. I always knew that it was “cheating,” but now I see that it is part of a much larger project to alienate people from their bodies.
"cosmetic surgery" is definitely a bit of a slippery slope, though I don't think it's entirely or always a case of "cheating". Though definitely moot exactly where the dividing line, the Rubicon is, where it becomes pathological.
But most of "gender-affirming surgery" seems well past that line, across the Rubicon and into Rome, laying siege to the Senate, and engaging in insurrection -- so to speak ... 😉 Part and parcel of the "Big Lie" that we can change sex -- arrant nonsense or anti-scientific claptrap at best.
Though too many people, and too many of the MSM, contribute to that by endorsing or peddling the view that changing our genitalia to LOOK like that of the other sex means that we've actually changed sex. One of the biggest Big Lies to have come down the pike in a very long time, and one which far too many of us are culpable in contributing to.
As a person who has had many cosmetic surgeries, I have come to believe that the entire phenomenon is first a symptom and then also a contributing cause of a hyperfocus on the visual to the exclusion of most everything else. Basically ever since the invention of photography (and prior to that, the mirror) there has been a growing focus on the visual aspects of any given phenomena- narrative, food, and sex among them. This dovetails very nicely with capitalism without virtue, in which a race to the moral bottom is facilitated: who can find the next nonexistent problem to which to sell us a solution that may well cause more harm than good? What is the difference, really, between surgery to reshape labia and to create labia? They are both performed on people who are risking their healthy body tissue in pursuit of an aesthetic ideal that has been sold to them as a solution to an intolerable problem. What is the difference between breast implants for a woman or for a man who wants to be one? Both are sought for the same underlying reason. Cosmetic surgery came first, and it is more accepted, but really both are about saying F you to the bodies we were born with in order to conform to something we think of as better. That’s how I see it anyway. There are people who take things to less of an extreme: there are some men who just cross dress at home occasionally for fun, and plenty of women who have one surgery and are done. Nonetheless it is the more extreme manifestations that tend to shed light on the underlying causes of these phenomena.
Thanks for a fairly detailed and in-depth response, much of which I agree entirely with 🙂.
Particularly your closing:
"Nonetheless it is the more extreme manifestations that tend to shed light on the underlying causes of these phenomena."
Reminds me of Konrad Lorenz' "Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins" -- highly recommended, BTW -- particularly where he notes that:
"The analysis of the organic system underlying the social behaviour of man is the most difficult and ambitious task that the scientist can set himself, for this system is by far the most complex on earth. .... Far from being an insurmountable obstacle to the analysis of an organic system, a pathological disorder is often key to understanding it. We know of many cases in the history of physiology where a scientist became aware of an important organic system only after a pathological disturbance had caused its disease. [pg. 2]"
Hard not to see much if not all of transgenderism as a rather serious "pathological disorder" of far reaching consequence. Maybe moot exactly what is the corresponding "organic system" but I've often argued that it is the one that undergirds how we all develop our senses of self.
And, part and parcel of which is imprinting, a fairly durable psychological concept on which Lorenz also had some cogent observations:
"Lorenz demonstrated how incubator-hatched geese would imprint on the first suitable moving stimulus they saw within what he called a 'critical period' between 13 and 16 hours shortly after hatching. For example, the goslings would imprint on Lorenz himself (to be more specific, on his wading boots), and he is often depicted being followed by a gaggle of geese who had imprinted on him."
You might also be interested in Woody Allen's Zelig - "The Chameleon Man" - as an amusing illustration of how people pickup and "ape" the behaviours of those around them. A very human thing to do but it also has some serious pathological manifestations:
Nicole: "What is the difference, really, between surgery to reshape labia and to create labia?"
Good question, though I think there's a rather profound difference there. For example, a world of difference between a woman trying to look more sexually attractive -- AS a woman, as an adult human female -- and a transwoman -- i.e., a male transvestite if he still has his nuts, or a sexless eunuch if he doesn't -- trying to LOOK like a female. The former isn't trying to hide her membership in the category "female" -- maybe trying to enhance it, in fact -- while the latter is basically perpetrating a fraud by trying to claim membership in a category which he won't ever be able to "pay" the membership dues for.
Seem to recollect a recent case of a transwoman who married a guy without telling him which wound up in court when he wondered why "she" wasn't able to get pregnant. And transwoman (?) Blaire White had a video or two about transwomen tricking guys into having sex with them without telling the guy of their "status" as such -- rather unhealthy at least, probably why some transwomen, rather sadly, wind up getting murdered:
At Lime Soda Films YouTube channel (filmmaker, Vaishnavi Sundar) you will find a trailer for Behind the Looking Glass, a documentary on trans widows, with 30 women participating. Some of us allowed our faces onscreen, as we're already retired and our children are already on our side or estranged.
As per the guidelines on the webpage, Trans Journalists Association Style Guide, our stories are rarely told in the press. The promulgation of the belief these deceitful men will be on the sharp end of aggression by "far right religious groups" has had immense success.
Ute Heggen Youtube channel for updates and information on the truth regarding the coercion, deceptions and mother erasure, all approved of by the political Left Wing in the West.
I 100% agree. Up until a year or two ago, I couldn't care less if someone was transgender or not. Then this topic was so massively pushed into the media sphere that I couldn't believe what was happening and it happened in warp speed: the ideology crept into school curricula, there was "drag queen hour", Tavistock, mastectomies on minors, etc.
For me, it stops with children. Indoctrinating them with gender ideology and exposing them to the lifelong risk of leading unhappy lives because they think they are not perfect the way nature made them is just criminal to me. Dito women's safe spaces.
Gender ideology just plainly negates biological reality. But biological reality will always be the one and only truth there is:
Yep basically made the same shifts as you. It’s been pretty wild! Have to walk on a lot eggshells now bc of how many trans identifying people I know, it’s been weird
My path has followed very much yours. I was quite live and let live .. now I see a dangerous ideology that relies on coercive control. I'm far more outspoken too, and my boundaries are firmly set. I don't care what the 'be kind' people think of me. I'm right, they're wrong.
Same. That’s why it’s impossible to talk about with “regular” people. The truth is horrifying and completely nonsensical, and there’s no middle way possible with dangerous and damaging lies that are enforced with state power.
However, anti-trans people have had one small victory over the years. My initial anger at them was when Renee Richards got the courts to rule that she could play tennis at the U.S. Open as a woman -- I think that happened in the 70's, maybe the 80's. Today, however (according to Martina Navratilova), Richards agrees that she shouldn't have had that right.
Older people, who are open to looking back at history, recognize this new woke movement and the extreme totality, in it's agendas.
As you stated,
"I realized there was no acceptable banner under which the people formerly known as women could organize that would be acceptable to trans activists."
You are correct, because to these people, your acknowledgement will never be enough, you must accept, support and participate, in their XYZ agenda.
This is true in ALL the 1001 things we are seeing today...pick one and apply what I just offered.
Back to the Gender SJW's. You cannot be allowed to say "I am a woman and proud of how I was made". You MUST label yourself as a "sis" woman...so you no longer get to define what you are/are called...they do. You also MUST agree, that your privacy (as an individual/group) is secondary, to someone's feelings (which could change the following hour or minute and be just as valid as the proceeding on). Additionally, you MUST celebrate, that a biologically formed male athlete, beating biologically formed female athletes is heroic and to be cheered by all. Lastly, you MUST teach this to your children (but especially daughters) otherwise you are a bigot, phobe and supremacist.
I was thinking the other day about the feminist movement and their war for equality, in the workplace. Where are they now???
It's baffling, that all I have to do is say I am a transwoman...so a man who identifies as a woman, birthing person, menstruater, chest feeder, wear a dress or maybe just show up in an outrageous drag costume...and chances are I'd be considered for a job, well before a real, regular, normal woman.
We have 2 drag dudes in the current cabinet, of the regime...are we really accepting that there weren't women, who were more qualified than these two clowns??
The truth is, there probably were, but these perverts were chosen to promote the ESG, woke, trans, lib agendas. If you were a woman who disagreed, I'm sure you kept quiet.
My last comment about your observations...
"In 2016, I would have uncomfortably laughed off the transhumanism stuff but now it seems obvious that this is where "embodiment goals" and "meatsuit" logic leads and where the extraordinary power behind this movement comes from."
Many decades ago, people did the same...laughed uncomfortably at the nut case, proposing some outrageous talking point or deviance. They scoffed and dismissed. However, as you and the rest of us have seen, that past collective apathy, led to where we are today.
My caution to all of you, but especially the academics like you Eliza, is don't dismiss this stuff, when you see it.
This has all been leading to the normalization of pedophilia. I was warning about this during the Clinton Era, but everyone just shook their heads and nervously laughed. We are now seeing academics writing papers and teaching, that this is just another way of thinking, it's another form of love and we of course, now have a more inclusive label for these perverts...MAPs.
Take the crazies you see seriously...they are the scouts for the hoards running toward your castle, just beyond your view.
Wanted to add this...lest anyone thinks this whole convoluted agenda, is about genders/sex/or equity...this cudgel is being pushed on national and global levels.
When a drooling idiot, says the quiet part out loud.
This is what they do, gather the fringes under one umbrella...now they are all the same issue...if you don't call yourself a sis woman, or cheer the trans swimmer, you're racist, anti-Semitic, a phobe.
This is a concerted demoralization of societies, around the globe, in the form of erasing the norms and truths.
I used to think LGBTIQA++ organisations were well meaning and just out of balance in favour of the Q and the T. I just wanted them to give reasonable, equitable attention to actual lesbians and gays. Now, I think they are amongst the biggest enemies to homosexual well-being and are actively working to harm us. How much of this is conscious or deliberate, and how much is just mindless tribalism ("Gender good! Everyone else right-wing and bad!") I still don't know.
Yeah. I'm gay and ALMOST part of the Stonewall generation (I landed in the Village a few years after the uprising). I feel completely excluded by the gay community now, which has been badly fooled by the trans nonsense. I get thrown off of gay sites now because of my comments. It doesn't help that I also have negative views of drag queens, who mock women. Now, if there were "drag kings" who mocked the machismo and/or the immaturity of men, I might feel better about drag queens.
Totally. I've got to the point of avoiding anything rainbow or pride-themed and being quite mistrustful of other lesbians unless I've sussed them out on this issue. It's taken me a while to acknowledge the pain that comes from that, the loss that's involved. It's an incredible relief, almost exhilarating, to meet other homosexuals who share (or even tolerate) my views. There's something a little pathetic about feeling so damn happy to just know a few people I can be honest with, who aren't horrified by me. Feels like Closet 2.0.
Well, it's not so bad for me because I'm older and mostly retired. But I do have my own problems. I am a serious poet who, strangely enough, is writing the best poetry of my life in my old age. I had a knock-down, drag-out argument via email with a poetry editor who was going to publish my poems but then found out about my anti-trans views. Naturally enough, he won't publish them now. (Sorry to those of you who have already heard this story.) I am now trying to cultivate a relationship with another poetry editor who is also a liberal. She publishes a super-liberal online journal which is all about social justice. So I told her that I was a liberal except for trans ideology, which I am against, and now she is contacting me less. I think she is trying to decide, "Do I accept his poems because they are really good, or do I ostracize him because he might be prejudiced?" Right now she has five of my poems submitted to her, and I think I'll find out the answer when she decides whether to accept or reject them.
But I have read about other people, like you, who have lost friends over this issue.
(Note: I have just changed my name on Substack because I am going to publish my own articles, and I don't want trans maniacs tracking me down and causing me trouble. However, I may choose to go back to my real name. Perry is my middle name, and James is my mother's maiden name.)
You put it so well. I wanted to be kind, tolerant and supportive; I was a UU for decades. Then my vulnerable kid's health and well-being were invaded by a system of thinking that is every bit as dangerous to her as Heaven's Gate was to those true believers. I'm devastated to know that doctors are willing to harm my child in the name of the tolerance I believed in and taught my kids. It is not possible to overstate the sense of betrayal I feel. Sadly, the frenzy with which activists are demanding everyone agree unquestioningly to this leaves no room for any support of cosmetic treatments for anyone.
I went from “Trans? Fine. Live and let live.” To “Holy shit, this is a dark age religion that sacrifices children, demeans and endangers women, despises evidence, relies on lies and coercion.” To “Okay. Every act of reason, logic, honesty and humanism is a radical act.”
Yeah, that's a much more concise way to put it!
When my daughter and other kids at her school first started talking about trans 6 years ago when she was entering middle school, I rolled my eyes and payed no more attention than to other teen fads. I never thought the kids she mentioned were "real trans" (Whatever that means) but I thought it was no big deal. Like some are goth,some are punk, some are trans, it will all pass soon enough. Boy, was I wrong!
It just enrages me beyond belief that trans people are willing to sacrifice kids in order to increase their numbers, because that's what they are trying to do.
Many people who call themselves transgender claim they had no dysphoria but just identify with the other sex and wanted their body to match their brain. They claim no depression or dysfunction and that this is just a physical mismatch they needed to correct and that we should be respectful of their true identity. We ahould respect their need for corrective surgery and T, their new name and not misgender, etc. They say that it is abusive to question their identity even if they acknowledge having a biologically female body.
Ok, that is hard enough. But when, for instance, a transman wants to have a baby and then be called the father, the hoops your mind must leap to make sense of this are insurmountable. This is a female wanting to have a baby. They would have to stop the testosterone and let their female body function to become pregnant and birth a baby. They would be biologically the mother. And then go back on T to resume their identity?? Asking me to then call them the Dad is just too crazy making.
And then reading about so many people losing jobs, careers, reputations for refusing to use the preferred probouns or writing about transing kids and seeing the violence and abuse if TRAs against women, I just cannot take it any more.
This whole transgender thing is crazy making. After growing up with a mentally ill parent who had delusions I had to pretend to accept for survival, this whole thing with transgenderism feels exactly thw same.
The trans movement does not seem to have any idea what they are demanding that we do. I will not deny reality and I will not accept the dehumanization they require leading us down a road to disorentation, transhumanism, and a total destruction and inversion of any concept of truth, morality, humanity.
And no one seems to ever talk about the effects of T on a baby! It is insane to think you can just go off for a few months and then have a healthy baby and then just go back on. We know that some of the children of the East German female athletes that were lied to and doped by doctors had multiple birth defects and health conditions.
How do you know that? Please share refs or other sources if you have them. Thanks.
Men who ideate they are female, who've already married and have children (like my ex-husband) almost always want their children to address them with some version of "Mother." (like my ex-husband, who was there when I gave birth to both of our sons, with nary an aspirin for relief) and they believe this is their right. This is because without it, they can't "pass." The court granted generous visitation and our sons objected to the "mommie" stuff, but learned that some people in this world have the power to exact lies from others and tell lies themselves, regardless of the children's feelings. And yes, they were traumatized and are now a bit messed up at 32 and 35.
Oh my God. I can't believe you went through such a thing. He wants to be called "mommie", though his involvement in the production of his children involved his penis for just a few minutes? Yikes. There is a trans woman in England named Debbie Hayton who at least has the decency to own her life as a man before she transitioned, and her children call her "father" (I'm pretty sure, although I couldn't swear to it). She doesn't even mind being called "him". Transitioning turns people into liars.
I'm not a fan of Debbie Hayton, as he, yes he, put his wife Stephanie through hell, would not move out when she asked him to and has appeared with her on various platforms, (youtube channel, Gender A Wider Lens, OurPath.org--supposedly a venue for for the straight spouses/ex's) and he does all the talking. Stephanie gave up her heterosexual intimacy (she says they do not sleep in the same bed) against her will, in my view like most women who stay, to make sure no one else calls him "Mum." I know a woman who stayed as a "lesbian" for 10 years, fell in love with a man, her "now-female" ex sued for divorce on grounds of infidelity, and their daughter calls them Mommie-this and Mommie-that. I helped her straighten out (pun intended) a situation where she needed to fire a therapist who told her she needs to get over sharing Mother's Day and must call the ex, who just happens to be built like a linebacker, "she/her" in her own therapy. This therapist got the boot. For healing & the narrative, my memoir:
In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022, eBook & soft cover, 50 nature photos and a guide to restoring wildflowers as well as regaining sanity)
You are much more knowledgeable than I am. I had no idea Hayton had acted so poorly. In his articles, he defends women very capably, and he admits that he treated his family poorly. Certainly, he provides evidence that the desire to transition is overwhelming for some people. I learned how intensely focussed these people are a few decades ago when I met a gay man who was trans. Even though trans people were not well known back then, he felt very strongly that his feelings were somehow normal, and he wasn't ashamed of them. Their determination that they are actually a member of the opposite sex is intense and unshakable, so much so that it now makes sense to me that they are stirring up all this trouble. Imagine what the world would have been like if, decades ago, gays were so determined that homosexuality was right (I'm gay), that we tried to spread it to other people (as Anita Bryant thought we were doing, but weren't)?
This is the gist of the problem. "Gender dysphoria" is a psychiatric illness. Doing plastic surgery and wrong sex hormones to change the body to fit the mind is entirely different from a homosexual pursuing a same sex relationship. This reference to the previous stigma of same sax attraction as equivalent to the problem of body dissociation, is our biggest mistake. Body dysmorphia often stems from childhood abuse, religious contexts with restrictive sex roles and nowadays, pornography exposure. Ritchie Herron, a male detransitioner, is speaking well on these issues now.
Well, as a 72-year-old who is no longer sexually attractive, but who still has all my mental faculties and libido, I use gay porn, and see no problem with it. Indeed, much of gay porn just shows men enjoying each other, although in recent years I am seeing more things I don't like (slapping each other, spitting on each other, etc.). I have had people on Substack try to shame me for liking porn, but that is pretty hard to do when most of the MEN in porn obviously want to be in porn (they enjoy exhibiting themselves). But for women, it is different. Most women do it for the money. That's fine. Women, who are the gate-keepers of human procreation, must be more conservative in this area.
But getting back to your central point, as a gay man, I can't say that I am normal and trans people are abnormal. It just doesn't look good. I am religious and believe in reincarnation. I believe that what is actually happening with [most] trans people is that they selected the wrong sex before birth. Every soul must experience maleness and femaleness before the reincarnational cycle is over, and some souls have a fear of being male or female. For example, a soul that identifies as male may avoid being a female for a bunch of incarnations because he doesn't want to experience childbirth or the chronic second-class citizenship that all women experience. But after those lives, he needs to be a woman to further his spiritual growth. So, having incarnated as a man for another time, he decides he is really a woman and tries to transition to being a woman -- not realizing, of course, that being a trans woman won't give him the actual experience of womanhood.
Now, I understand that to a scientist like you, all this sounds ridiculous, but it's what I believe.
Another possible reason for choosing the wrong sex before birth is to experience the strife that results from that, which can teach a soul useful things. All these children who are transitioning as teenagers and then regretting it five years later are also learning spiritual lessons, such as the foolishness of acting rashly or without enough information.
Your ex can change his own documents but your sons' birth certificates still list him as a father and I assume there is nothing he can do about that. So sorry for all the pain this caused you and your sons.
Thanks. Everyone apologizes except the diagnosing PhD psychologist and him. My sons have the originals and I think their passports list him as their father as well. Neddy, as I call him in my memoir, must be exhausted from all the dressing and "woman-facing" for 3 decades! What I think is so odd is that his "true life test" was the preparation to "pass" and hours documented in his journals, sitting on barstools in Greenwich Village, a well-established gay environment. I saw it in his own quirky printing; he sought the gaze of (straight, one assumes) men. So he never really learned whether or not he "passes."
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
As a long-time liberal, I always felt that it was best not to be rigid, but this subject has changed my mind quite a bit. I applaud you for the evolution you have made to a position which is more hard-line. Reality is what it is. Pretending that reality is malleable does no good for anyone. Sure, I'll call a trans woman "she" to be polite. I may even come to like some trans people personally. (I'm not close to any right now, although I've met several.) But I won't pretend that they are not men masquerading as women. Your sex, AND NOTHING ELSE, determines your gender. So personally, I will accommodate trans people in that I'll call them the pronoun they prefer, although that isn't true for so-called nonbinary people. (The day will never come when I refer to a single individual as "they" or "them".) And any trans woman who pretends to be a real woman, or trans man who pretends to be a real man, will get an earful from me. We do not do trans people any favors by participating in their pretenses and delusions.
Here is the proper attitude for a trans woman to have: "I am a man who, for whatever reason, wants to be a woman. Please treat me as a woman so that I can live my life the way I want to." (And vice versa for trans men.) If that were their posture, I think they would be accepted by society pretty quickly. But what we're getting is: "WE'RE SPECIAL. WE'RE DELICATE. IF YOU DON'T ACCEDE TO ALL OUR DEMANDS, WE'LL COMMIT SUICIDE!" No thanks.
Perhaps the reason so many of us nice, liberal, over educated people had believed “trans rights are human rights” is because we supported gay rights. I think now we need to learn how to make distinctions between gay rights and trans rights in order to help other nice liberal people see that those are not the same things. Seeing the trans movement as something distinctly different from gay rights has been part of how I “peaked” (which I believe means when you suddenly see and change your mind).
I have some things to say about that, given that I am gay.
We gays secured our rights on the basis of our identities -- i.e., the principle that people should not be discriminated against for something that they ARE and can't change. Trans people are using the same principle. But here's the problem: When a gay man says he is attracted to his own sex, no one can dispute it. Everyone knows that gays exist, and no one would admit to being gay who wasn't gay. But when a trans woman says, "I am a woman", which is what they are claiming these days, there is plenty of objective evidence to dispute that. I agree that a trans woman (who is actually a man) should not be discriminated against for the way he feels, but trans women are claiming to be REAL WOMEN (based on the concept of gender identity). But gender identity hasn't been proven. Trans people need to be treated differently by the courts from gay people because there is proof that they aren't what they say they are.
Thus, I think trans people should be protected in housing, employment and public accommodations (because there is no good reason to discriminate against them in those areas), but their gender identity (which is nothing more than a feeling) should not give them entry into women's spaces BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT WOMEN.
Now, getting them to stop influencing children will be harder because they have that right. I think the solution there is to have a national law forbidding gender transitioning by children.
Perhaps one reason gay rights and trans rights have been conflated is because both identities have been based on a feeling (sexual attraction and gender identity). That’s why it’s so important, in my mind, that we work to disentangle those two feelings. Both use the concept of self-acceptance, but one is intended as a way for living *as one is* and the other promotes *mutilating healthy bodies*--the latter is about as far from self-acceptance as is possible to go.
I agree completely.
I agree, except for the part about no one admitting to being gay who isn’t gay. For today’s youth I think that’s no longer true, and it’s always been less true for girls than for boys. When my friend’s daughter was in high school 8 years ago, she talked about all the girls who were claiming to be bisexual even though they clearly weren’t. But they felt it would make them more attractive to boys and make them seem sophisticated. In my daughter’s 6 grade class, 6 years ago, she claimed to be bisexual. This is a kid who didn’t go through puberty until she was a freshman in high school, so at that point she wasn’t sexually attracted to anyone yet. Nearly half of that class (of gifted kids, no surprise) claimed to be gay.
Interesting, Dee. That just confirms my impression of kids as being given to trends. Being trans, of course, is now a trend. Among the boys, however, I doubt many of them pretended to be gay who weren't. Remember, this was the "South Park" generation. They used the word "gay" to mean "stupid".
As a gay man, I have to be honest about not fully understanding girls and women. They want to be in a relationship as intently as the boys/men do, yet they seem to be less focussed on sex, which is a central part of relationships. I ascribe this to animal instinct, as in, the instinct of the male is to impregnate, while the instinct of the female is to insure her mate has good genes. Another way of saying this is that women are more interested in romance, while men are more interested in sex. Do you think that's accurate, or are those simply steretypes?
I am unfortunately all too aware that trans is a trend since the same daughter who claimed to be bisexual in sixth grade is now 17 and thinks she’s a gay boy (the fact that she’s actually attracted to males, i.e. not gay by any definition that makes sense to my generation, became too clear for her to deny as she got older so she had to find another way to secure her membership in the gay community, which she desperately wants to belong to). As far as I can tell it’s the boys too. This really isn’t the South Park generation - I don’t think my kids even know what that is. We’re talking about kids who are in high school now, and they have dramatically different views than people who are now approaching their 30s. While it’s great that gay kids don’t feel the need to stifle and hide themselves anymore, a whole new set of problems has cropped up. I am watching this happen and am completely floored by the fact that a movement intended to prevent kids from having to pretend to be something they aren’t in order to fit in seems to have led to my daughter trying to pretend to be something she’s not in order to fit in. My head is spinning.
As for your other question - I think that many women do have high sex drives, but yes, there are likely some evolutionary differences in how that gets expressed. Teasing out what’s a biological difference and what’s influenced by culture is hard. It seems women may be more selective about partners and less likely to engage in casual short term relationships, and that those who do engage in casual sex do so because they believe themselves to be too low status to secure a good long term relationship so this is a second best reproductive strategy. It seems likely that the driving evolutionary force behind men’s sex drive is to impregnate as many females as possible, while the evolutionary force behind women’s sex drive is to secure a relationship with a male who will stay and be a good father. So I can imagine that would drive some different behaviors, although I don’t necessarily think women (at least young women) have lower sex drives. Anyhow, this is all just speculation, I am no expert on this topic.
I enjoyed reading your follow-up comment. You are clearly very thoughtful. I'm not sure I've got anything to say, except that being a kid has become more complicated.
It sounds like your daughter has decided that her "gender identity" is male, but you don't mention that she has done anything to transition. I hope she doesn't. The more I read about it, the clearer it is that transitioning (meaning going the whole medical route) is a nightmare. There is also something puzzling about it. People who transition apparently believe in the fiction that they will end up with the body of the opposite sex, but of course, they don't. I remember reading one young woman, who was transitioning to a male, say that she was thrilled to learn that she would be given a big penis. Of course, what they give trans men is just a sausage-shape piece of fat with skin on it (or, at least, that is my impression after looking at some pictures). They probably snake the urethra through it, though that would involve taking a urethra from someone else (a donated corpse?) because a woman's urethra would not be long enough. Such an artificial penis could not change its state from soft to erect, nor could it eject sperm. The point is, it's all fake. Trans people talk about being their "authentic selves", but their bodies are anything but authentic.
Anyway, I hope your daughter gets through all this without damaging herself.
I agree on all of your points, although I am in a tricky position in practice because I work in academia. I think almost everything you articulated here is consistent with where we would all end up if we took seriously the idea that trans identification/gender dysporia/gender identity disturbance are all signs of mental health disturbances, not merely an alternative identity.
Hi, Rebecca. I hope you don't mind that I'm taking it upon myself to reply to your comment.
I am gay. When I was young, some people wanted gays to accept the idea that we had a mental-health problem. We wouldn't. We wanted to be seen as just another kind of normal. Now, as an elderly man (72 and still going), I am agnostic on this issue. Who cares if I am gay because of some mental condition? The point is that gays constitute about 8% of the population (and more if you include bisexuals), and any group of that size should be respected by society. The overall point is this: Humans come with all sorts of mental states. As long as their mental states don't harm society, they deserve to be free and happy.
I feel the same way about trans people. My objection to trans people is that their demands are excessive, and they are harming people (children, women). Even if they were more than 1/2% of the population, they don't have the right to demand that other people change the way they speak, or let them influence their children, or that women should have to welcome them into their sports or other private spaces. Trans people are simply demanding too much. So whether being gay or trans is a mental illness or not, really doesn't matter. They're just asking for too much, and that's it.
Actually, let me add a point: Accepting yourself as normal for being gay is a lot more justifiable than being trans. There are multiple ways for men to pleasure each other, so they can have a normal sex life -- and the same is true for Lesbians. But if being trans means taking hormones and altering your normal body by having multiple surgeries, then that is a lot less defensible as normal. There is something to be said for accepting yourself as you are. I would like to see the day when men in dresses and women in suits are no longer shocking to people. Forget about the operations and just be the way you want to be. Sadly, though, I question whether society will ever accept that. One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors.
Caleb, thank you for writing such a thoughtful comment on my comment here! I agree with much of what you wrote. I am a clinical psychologist studying both healthy and unhealthy development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (my name is even in the back of the DSM-5!). I think that it matters profoundly whether we consider something to be a psychological disorder or not. The current criteria in the DSM-5 for what constitutes a mental health disorder are that the condition causes either 1) significant distress and inner suffering, or 2) impairment in daily life (e.g., in relationships, work, school). By this definition, being LGB is not a psychological disorder, whereas gender dysphoria is because it causes distress and impairment (it if did not cause impairment, then why is medical treatment considered necessary?). The movement to classify trans as an identity category rather than a psychological disorder has had all kinds of ripple effects and has helped pave the way for the social contagion of trans identities in young people. And I would argue that this shift has also led to the kinds of public demands that the trans movement has made; it's not the only reason for the public demands, but I think it is one critical cause. By linking the T with LGB as an identity category (rather than a mental illness), trans activists have been able to make the case for many of their demands in the public sphere.
Here’s a great article written a few decades ago about classifying conditions etc... definitely worth a read
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/
Rebecca, you make a very good argument, so much so that you may have convinced me. My problem is that, as a gay person, it just doesn't sound right (or look good) for me to say "I am normal, but trans people are not". Besides, there came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that penises evolved to fit into vaginas, so perhaps that really IS the only true normal. I must say, though, that my homosexuality has never made me unhappy in itself. I haven't had a lot of long relationships in my life, but then, that's just me. Most of my gay friends have had great relationships, some of them lasting decades. Those who are now single are single only because their spouses died.
I think I'm going to have a button made for myself that says, "I'm normal. What are you?"
After I figure out what the DSM-5 is, I'll look you up.
I hope you do get that button made up! :)
I should have explained why the DSM-5 is. It's the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders in the U.S., similar to the ICD used everywhere else in the world (except that the DSM only covers psychiatric disorders, unlike the ICD, which covers all medical conditions). I was a consultant to the Personality Disorders chapter of the manual--a topic highly relevant to trans identification, I believe.
Thanks for filling me in on those details. So at the present time, is transgenderism still seen as a psychiatric disorder?
I read that article which described people who want to cut their limbs off. This is a world of obsession that I'm unfamiliar with. Even my belief in reincarnation and karma doesn't explain it.
Again, I'm sorry for switching names on you. Perry James can't be located in any phone book, and I feel more comfortable that way. Although perhaps that makes me a coward.
Caleb: "One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors."
Amen to that. I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of "doctors" sweating bullets over the prospect of getting their asses in a sling over their "gender-affirming surgeries", if not losing their licenses.
That happy thought sometimes gets me through a sleepless night!
I'm a strong advocate of the "old" (more than five years old!) categorisation of sex, sexual orientation, and gender expression. The first two are intrinsic and cannot be changed, and there is (to my mind) sufficient evidence for both of them providing evolutionary benefits. Gender expression, of course, is neither intrinsic nor unchangeable, and there is no evidence that it has significant evolutionary benefit. What has been counted as "manly" or "womanly" has changed throughout history and across cultures, and is driven largely by fashion - compare, for example, male styles of clothing in Ancient Greece, England during the Interregnum and then just a few years later during the time of Charles II, and now.
Maybe one day we'll find out what the mechanism is that means some people are same-sex attracted, but, ultimately, we don't need to. It is obvious that sexual orientation exists, that it cannot be changed, and that it cannot be induced.
Generally agree with most of what you said there, notably "What has been counted as 'manly' or 'womanly' has changed throughout history". Though that does raise a somewhat sticky question as to whether "man" and "woman" are sexes -- adult human males & females -- or whether they're genders -- i.e., anyone who looks like adult human males and females. Why I think we should qualify every use of those words -- e.g., "man (sex)" and "woman (gender)" -- or deprecate them entirely due to too much ambiguity.
Though I'm rather curious about your, "The first two [sex, & sexual orientation] are intrinsic and cannot be changed ..." I'll certainly agree that no human is going to change sex, except maybe to sexless and sometimes back. But I wonder exactly what you mean by "intrinsic" in that situation.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you might be interested in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction, the Abstract and the definitions for the sexes in its Glossary, in particular:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
Of some related interest is this Oxford University Press site, they being the publisher of that journal, citing the "article metrics" of the article which shows some 1700 tweets of it -- to the general consternation, discomfiture, and chagrin of various transactivists, spectrumists, and assorted charlatans, grifters, and scientific illiterates:
https://oxfordjournals.altmetric.com/details/2802153/twitter
Though I'm not entirely sure that those championing that article have taken a close look at the definitions there since it seems clear, to me and some few others, that the logical consequence of them is that many members of many sexually-reproducing (anisogamous) species -- including the human one -- are, in fact, sexless. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Don't think that perspective really "squares" with "intrinsic". Or with the more common refrain if not feminist mantra that "sex is immutable" -- it ain't, at least by those definitions.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Are you interpreting this definition to mean that if someone is not actively producing gametes at this moment they are “sexless”? I think it’s implicit in the definition (but maybe should be explicit) that if someone has the necessary anatomy to produce a type of gamete, that defines their sex. Certainly organisms can be pre-pubescent, or post-menopausal, or in between cycles, or surgically altered, but they either have the physiology to produce eggs or sperm and that persists over their lifetime even if the actual production of gametes doesn’t happen during all life stages.
Good question, one I've puzzled over for some time.
However, it seems more logically and biologically consistent to argue that to qualify as a male or a female, one has to have functional gonads -- i.e., those producing gametes on a regular basis. Those MHR definitions both say "produces ... gametes", and "produces" is apparently "present tense indefinite":
"We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why it’s sometimes called present indefinite)."
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/simple-present/
So, by those definitions, the prepubescent -- XXers or XYers or those of any other variations -- are neither male nor female; they're sexless and generally don't acquire a sex until they hit puberty. Similarly for the otherwise infertile -- some 7% of adult XYers are infertile and therefore sexless; likewise the transgendered who have their gonads removed.
Though it might be emphasized that most adult XXers between puberty and menopause still qualify as females since they're still producing ova "regularly", even if less frequently than adult XYers are producing sperm. Frequency itself isn't the issue, it's only the regularity -- like a car manufacturer that "produces" 10 Chevrolet Sparks a day, versus one that produces one Aston-Martin Valkyrie a month ...😉
While there's some utility in the "functional/non-functional" definitions of biologist Emma Hilton and Company -- see below -- and which more or less encompass your comments about "necessary anatomy" and simple "physiology", they often lead to some serious complications, contradictions, inconsistencies, and terminological problems when applied to other species -- problems that aren't present when using the MHR definitions.
Hilton's definitions -- from a letter-to-the-editor published by the UK Times, a decent newspaper but hardly a peer-review biology journal:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
You might be interested in my further elaborations on that theme here, particularly the quote there of Paul Griffiths -- University of Sydney, philosophy professor, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- published in Aeon magazine:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/on-being-defrauded-by-heather-heying
In some cases there aren't many consequential differences in which of those two sets of definitions we apply. But when push comes to shove -- the transgender issue in a nutshell -- then I think that the biological definitions published in the MHR have to qualify as trump, are the only game in town.
Sorry, but I think if the definition you’re referring to states that young girls and post-menopausal women aren’t female and young boys aren’t male, then it’s the definition that’s wrong. The definition needs to reflect reality, you can’t change reality to conform to the definition. More likely I think that the implicit part, that an organism has the right anatomy to produce a certain type of gamete in their lifetime, seemed so obvious that no one thought to include it in the definition. I’m not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty aren’t women, other than making a lot of people mad!
In addition to the things you’ve identified here, I have changed my mind about cosmetic surgery as a whole, because it is continuous with transgender and with transhumanism. I don’t know what sort of policy response is the right answer, but when my cosmetic surgeon’s office started offering “gender affirming” surgeries, the connection between trans and cosmetic surgery generally became quite clear. Now I am horrified by the cultural meaning of what I have done to myself. I always knew that it was “cheating,” but now I see that it is part of a much larger project to alienate people from their bodies.
"cosmetic surgery" is definitely a bit of a slippery slope, though I don't think it's entirely or always a case of "cheating". Though definitely moot exactly where the dividing line, the Rubicon is, where it becomes pathological.
But most of "gender-affirming surgery" seems well past that line, across the Rubicon and into Rome, laying siege to the Senate, and engaging in insurrection -- so to speak ... 😉 Part and parcel of the "Big Lie" that we can change sex -- arrant nonsense or anti-scientific claptrap at best.
Though too many people, and too many of the MSM, contribute to that by endorsing or peddling the view that changing our genitalia to LOOK like that of the other sex means that we've actually changed sex. One of the biggest Big Lies to have come down the pike in a very long time, and one which far too many of us are culpable in contributing to.
As a person who has had many cosmetic surgeries, I have come to believe that the entire phenomenon is first a symptom and then also a contributing cause of a hyperfocus on the visual to the exclusion of most everything else. Basically ever since the invention of photography (and prior to that, the mirror) there has been a growing focus on the visual aspects of any given phenomena- narrative, food, and sex among them. This dovetails very nicely with capitalism without virtue, in which a race to the moral bottom is facilitated: who can find the next nonexistent problem to which to sell us a solution that may well cause more harm than good? What is the difference, really, between surgery to reshape labia and to create labia? They are both performed on people who are risking their healthy body tissue in pursuit of an aesthetic ideal that has been sold to them as a solution to an intolerable problem. What is the difference between breast implants for a woman or for a man who wants to be one? Both are sought for the same underlying reason. Cosmetic surgery came first, and it is more accepted, but really both are about saying F you to the bodies we were born with in order to conform to something we think of as better. That’s how I see it anyway. There are people who take things to less of an extreme: there are some men who just cross dress at home occasionally for fun, and plenty of women who have one surgery and are done. Nonetheless it is the more extreme manifestations that tend to shed light on the underlying causes of these phenomena.
Thanks for a fairly detailed and in-depth response, much of which I agree entirely with 🙂.
Particularly your closing:
"Nonetheless it is the more extreme manifestations that tend to shed light on the underlying causes of these phenomena."
Reminds me of Konrad Lorenz' "Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins" -- highly recommended, BTW -- particularly where he notes that:
"The analysis of the organic system underlying the social behaviour of man is the most difficult and ambitious task that the scientist can set himself, for this system is by far the most complex on earth. .... Far from being an insurmountable obstacle to the analysis of an organic system, a pathological disorder is often key to understanding it. We know of many cases in the history of physiology where a scientist became aware of an important organic system only after a pathological disturbance had caused its disease. [pg. 2]"
Hard not to see much if not all of transgenderism as a rather serious "pathological disorder" of far reaching consequence. Maybe moot exactly what is the corresponding "organic system" but I've often argued that it is the one that undergirds how we all develop our senses of self.
And, part and parcel of which is imprinting, a fairly durable psychological concept on which Lorenz also had some cogent observations:
"Lorenz demonstrated how incubator-hatched geese would imprint on the first suitable moving stimulus they saw within what he called a 'critical period' between 13 and 16 hours shortly after hatching. For example, the goslings would imprint on Lorenz himself (to be more specific, on his wading boots), and he is often depicted being followed by a gaggle of geese who had imprinted on him."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)
You might also be interested in Woody Allen's Zelig - "The Chameleon Man" - as an amusing illustration of how people pickup and "ape" the behaviours of those around them. A very human thing to do but it also has some serious pathological manifestations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUW8JsLDsNo
Nicole: "What is the difference, really, between surgery to reshape labia and to create labia?"
Good question, though I think there's a rather profound difference there. For example, a world of difference between a woman trying to look more sexually attractive -- AS a woman, as an adult human female -- and a transwoman -- i.e., a male transvestite if he still has his nuts, or a sexless eunuch if he doesn't -- trying to LOOK like a female. The former isn't trying to hide her membership in the category "female" -- maybe trying to enhance it, in fact -- while the latter is basically perpetrating a fraud by trying to claim membership in a category which he won't ever be able to "pay" the membership dues for.
Seem to recollect a recent case of a transwoman who married a guy without telling him which wound up in court when he wondered why "she" wasn't able to get pregnant. And transwoman (?) Blaire White had a video or two about transwomen tricking guys into having sex with them without telling the guy of their "status" as such -- rather unhealthy at least, probably why some transwomen, rather sadly, wind up getting murdered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wve1coCbSNw
Seems to be something of an important "qualitative difference" there.
At Lime Soda Films YouTube channel (filmmaker, Vaishnavi Sundar) you will find a trailer for Behind the Looking Glass, a documentary on trans widows, with 30 women participating. Some of us allowed our faces onscreen, as we're already retired and our children are already on our side or estranged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAlvw_kAHs
As per the guidelines on the webpage, Trans Journalists Association Style Guide, our stories are rarely told in the press. The promulgation of the belief these deceitful men will be on the sharp end of aggression by "far right religious groups" has had immense success.
Ute Heggen Youtube channel for updates and information on the truth regarding the coercion, deceptions and mother erasure, all approved of by the political Left Wing in the West.
Agree! Forwarded your article to several friends!
Thank you Eliza! My thoughts have evolved similarly.
I 100% agree. Up until a year or two ago, I couldn't care less if someone was transgender or not. Then this topic was so massively pushed into the media sphere that I couldn't believe what was happening and it happened in warp speed: the ideology crept into school curricula, there was "drag queen hour", Tavistock, mastectomies on minors, etc.
For me, it stops with children. Indoctrinating them with gender ideology and exposing them to the lifelong risk of leading unhappy lives because they think they are not perfect the way nature made them is just criminal to me. Dito women's safe spaces.
Gender ideology just plainly negates biological reality. But biological reality will always be the one and only truth there is:
https://twoplustwo.substack.com/p/i-identify-therefore-i-am-the-illusion
Yep basically made the same shifts as you. It’s been pretty wild! Have to walk on a lot eggshells now bc of how many trans identifying people I know, it’s been weird
My path has followed very much yours. I was quite live and let live .. now I see a dangerous ideology that relies on coercive control. I'm far more outspoken too, and my boundaries are firmly set. I don't care what the 'be kind' people think of me. I'm right, they're wrong.
Same. That’s why it’s impossible to talk about with “regular” people. The truth is horrifying and completely nonsensical, and there’s no middle way possible with dangerous and damaging lies that are enforced with state power.
However, anti-trans people have had one small victory over the years. My initial anger at them was when Renee Richards got the courts to rule that she could play tennis at the U.S. Open as a woman -- I think that happened in the 70's, maybe the 80's. Today, however (according to Martina Navratilova), Richards agrees that she shouldn't have had that right.
You are describing many of us! Thank you for giving us words.
Very well explained!
Older people, who are open to looking back at history, recognize this new woke movement and the extreme totality, in it's agendas.
As you stated,
"I realized there was no acceptable banner under which the people formerly known as women could organize that would be acceptable to trans activists."
You are correct, because to these people, your acknowledgement will never be enough, you must accept, support and participate, in their XYZ agenda.
This is true in ALL the 1001 things we are seeing today...pick one and apply what I just offered.
Back to the Gender SJW's. You cannot be allowed to say "I am a woman and proud of how I was made". You MUST label yourself as a "sis" woman...so you no longer get to define what you are/are called...they do. You also MUST agree, that your privacy (as an individual/group) is secondary, to someone's feelings (which could change the following hour or minute and be just as valid as the proceeding on). Additionally, you MUST celebrate, that a biologically formed male athlete, beating biologically formed female athletes is heroic and to be cheered by all. Lastly, you MUST teach this to your children (but especially daughters) otherwise you are a bigot, phobe and supremacist.
I was thinking the other day about the feminist movement and their war for equality, in the workplace. Where are they now???
It's baffling, that all I have to do is say I am a transwoman...so a man who identifies as a woman, birthing person, menstruater, chest feeder, wear a dress or maybe just show up in an outrageous drag costume...and chances are I'd be considered for a job, well before a real, regular, normal woman.
We have 2 drag dudes in the current cabinet, of the regime...are we really accepting that there weren't women, who were more qualified than these two clowns??
The truth is, there probably were, but these perverts were chosen to promote the ESG, woke, trans, lib agendas. If you were a woman who disagreed, I'm sure you kept quiet.
My last comment about your observations...
"In 2016, I would have uncomfortably laughed off the transhumanism stuff but now it seems obvious that this is where "embodiment goals" and "meatsuit" logic leads and where the extraordinary power behind this movement comes from."
Many decades ago, people did the same...laughed uncomfortably at the nut case, proposing some outrageous talking point or deviance. They scoffed and dismissed. However, as you and the rest of us have seen, that past collective apathy, led to where we are today.
My caution to all of you, but especially the academics like you Eliza, is don't dismiss this stuff, when you see it.
This has all been leading to the normalization of pedophilia. I was warning about this during the Clinton Era, but everyone just shook their heads and nervously laughed. We are now seeing academics writing papers and teaching, that this is just another way of thinking, it's another form of love and we of course, now have a more inclusive label for these perverts...MAPs.
Take the crazies you see seriously...they are the scouts for the hoards running toward your castle, just beyond your view.
Wanted to add this...lest anyone thinks this whole convoluted agenda, is about genders/sex/or equity...this cudgel is being pushed on national and global levels.
When a drooling idiot, says the quiet part out loud.
To wit...
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/joe-biden-starts-screaming-speech-trans-kids-something-racism-anti-semitism-homophobia-transphobia-related-video/
This is what they do, gather the fringes under one umbrella...now they are all the same issue...if you don't call yourself a sis woman, or cheer the trans swimmer, you're racist, anti-Semitic, a phobe.
This is a concerted demoralization of societies, around the globe, in the form of erasing the norms and truths.
I used to think LGBTIQA++ organisations were well meaning and just out of balance in favour of the Q and the T. I just wanted them to give reasonable, equitable attention to actual lesbians and gays. Now, I think they are amongst the biggest enemies to homosexual well-being and are actively working to harm us. How much of this is conscious or deliberate, and how much is just mindless tribalism ("Gender good! Everyone else right-wing and bad!") I still don't know.
Yeah. I'm gay and ALMOST part of the Stonewall generation (I landed in the Village a few years after the uprising). I feel completely excluded by the gay community now, which has been badly fooled by the trans nonsense. I get thrown off of gay sites now because of my comments. It doesn't help that I also have negative views of drag queens, who mock women. Now, if there were "drag kings" who mocked the machismo and/or the immaturity of men, I might feel better about drag queens.
Totally. I've got to the point of avoiding anything rainbow or pride-themed and being quite mistrustful of other lesbians unless I've sussed them out on this issue. It's taken me a while to acknowledge the pain that comes from that, the loss that's involved. It's an incredible relief, almost exhilarating, to meet other homosexuals who share (or even tolerate) my views. There's something a little pathetic about feeling so damn happy to just know a few people I can be honest with, who aren't horrified by me. Feels like Closet 2.0.
Well, it's not so bad for me because I'm older and mostly retired. But I do have my own problems. I am a serious poet who, strangely enough, is writing the best poetry of my life in my old age. I had a knock-down, drag-out argument via email with a poetry editor who was going to publish my poems but then found out about my anti-trans views. Naturally enough, he won't publish them now. (Sorry to those of you who have already heard this story.) I am now trying to cultivate a relationship with another poetry editor who is also a liberal. She publishes a super-liberal online journal which is all about social justice. So I told her that I was a liberal except for trans ideology, which I am against, and now she is contacting me less. I think she is trying to decide, "Do I accept his poems because they are really good, or do I ostracize him because he might be prejudiced?" Right now she has five of my poems submitted to her, and I think I'll find out the answer when she decides whether to accept or reject them.
But I have read about other people, like you, who have lost friends over this issue.
(Note: I have just changed my name on Substack because I am going to publish my own articles, and I don't want trans maniacs tracking me down and causing me trouble. However, I may choose to go back to my real name. Perry is my middle name, and James is my mother's maiden name.)
You put it so well. I wanted to be kind, tolerant and supportive; I was a UU for decades. Then my vulnerable kid's health and well-being were invaded by a system of thinking that is every bit as dangerous to her as Heaven's Gate was to those true believers. I'm devastated to know that doctors are willing to harm my child in the name of the tolerance I believed in and taught my kids. It is not possible to overstate the sense of betrayal I feel. Sadly, the frenzy with which activists are demanding everyone agree unquestioningly to this leaves no room for any support of cosmetic treatments for anyone.