Allies we can do without, and loaded-question answering. (Ahoy trans-misogyny!)

Thank you for your time and effort RTTG. I also hope that you hang around for a while.

I feel a tad bothered that G. Muffin's comments are being singled out when a lot was said in that thread and not just by her, I suppose I'll have to suck that up. I would like to pose a potentially loaded question based on one of her statements that I hope isn't too trite.

I won't bother commenting on the first part of her quoted statement.  I find the second part, "It's permanent and only available through the miracle of modern medical science" to be more compelling than it has been given credit for.

A theme that often arises in discussion is whether reliance on technology for our needs alienates us from ourselves. Transgender individuals provide an interesting example where techology actually helps connect a group to a emotional/psychological/spiritual imperative.

The question could be raised if something is potentially lost by taking a technological approach as opposed to an alternative. I'm quite willing to accept that in this instance technology may provide the best possible way, as I have accepted in many other matters, but the discussion of the relation of technology to identity and alienation would be of interest to me.

Between dealing with commercial spammers and right wing losers with too much time on their hands, I haven't had time to more than glance ot these threads.

So, let me make amends by saying HI and I also hope you'll stick around.  This is a much under discussed and poorly understood issue.  I've for the most part been a fan of Michelle Landsberg, but can accept that she may be on the wrong side of an issue or two.  I look forward to hearing more from you.

Conversation over. Please don't start a thread about my misogyny or racism or whatever.

You lose because you bore me.

What a fucking idiotic thread.

Disgusting, RTTG, absolutely fucking disgusting.

I withdraw my previous support.

Your advocacy fails. Epic fail.

I am impressed too, thank you for taking the time Red Tory Tea Girl, I found your posts enlightening.

G.Muffin, this is actually not about you or at least not about the human being you can be, kind and present and funny, at least that is the way it seems to me, it seems this is way more about views that we hold which may or not be true and which sometimes may be true for some but not for others.  We can all learn, we can change.

I have a friend who is transitioning to male, I have not known him for long and had I not been told I would never have thought that he had previously lived as a she because he is so clearly a he.   I will add that he is a wonderfully kind person with great clarity and joy in his life, a successful career and a happy relationship.

Ok, I changed my mind about the blocking thing because I really don't want to, but you will need to show some respect for people who disagree with your POV or stay out of the threads.

Okay, Oldgoat. If I don't agree with a poster who deliberately twists my words because she doesn't agree with me, I'll just take it like a man and ignore it.

But please do us the favour of desisting from linking your issue to the much more fundamental issue of women's choice.

If you don't want me as your ally, that's fine -- I no longer entertain your issue as worthy of a fight.

I'm not transphobic -- I just don't agree with medicine's approach to the problem. If your reading comprehension is so poor, that you can't tell the difference, you're not worthy of my time. So, again, this conversation is over. Please don't start another thread to bait me.

I have had the benefit of seeing the down side to trans operations. You choose to ignore the conversations that I have had with people in unspeakable pain. That tells me all I need to know about your particular brand of advocacy. Your issue and your approach to it don't engage me. I will try to ignore your further posts. Please don't deliberately bait me into a response in order to fuel your need to display recreational outrage. It's transparent and not very honest.

Oh yeah. Well "surgery" is what I do when I cut.

It fulfills a need.

And, yet, MSP won't pay for it.

Give it a fucking rest.

"Massive bodies of evidence" are what allow the MHA to force me to take neurotoxins.

I'm not interested in agenda-driven research.

I'm interested in the people I meet on psych wards and how they got there.

I didn't abort my "boy." I celebrate him. I love being a girly girl with a tomboy streak.

These are neurological disorders and they can be treated and, eventually, one day they can be cured.

It won't be the surgeons. It won't be the psychiatrists. It will be the neurologists.

Should the bisexuals be surgically changed into actual bisexuals? That would be handy.

I am a woman. It's my choice. Will you allow me to hang? It's my wish and I'm rational.

There are plenty of examples of people transitioning or living as neither male nor female in non-western societies. Trans people pre-date western medicine by millenia. The "medical solution" that so bothers some people is just western medicine's way of continuing practices that have been with humans forever. As RTTG mentioned before people have used substances to alter their hormones for a long time. If surgery is so "extereme" i could think of a lot of other extreme surgeries that are used with much less scrutiny and consternation... c-sections, circumcisions, hugely painful and invasive cancer surgeries, organ transplants, etc.

Also, I recently saw a documentary about transitioning in Iran. In Iran the government covers surgery and hormones. Sounds good at the onset but what appeared to be happening is that the government encouraged all gay men to transition to women (perhaps the Iranian government is who Sineed had in mind when she opined in the other thread that trans activists were pushing surgery on young people). Even though many of the people in the flim might not have transitioned if their lives were not in danger because of their sexualities, what caused the most devistation in their lives appeared to be when their families and comunities refused to accept them after the surgery.

An analogy occurred to me today as I was responding in a different discussion about a different topic. I wonder if it is a fair analogy, and if it's OK for me to state it here. If it is an offensive analogy, please let me know, and if you could do me the favour of filling me in on my complete cluelessness as to why, I would appreciate it.

My analogy is that of, let's say, a black person who feels that she, internally, is caucasian. She does not identify with the, let's say, particular African culture in which she was raised, and she abhors the way she looks, which is consistent with how others from her region look. She is suicidal because her body does not express who she is internally, and it also, due to discriminatory practices in the field in which she seeks work (let's say acting), seems to be affecting her ability to find the work she wants.

If we agree that what she has is a kind of body dysphoria, in addition to real life discrimination, and those conditions are causing her severe depression and risk of suicide, and she lives in a country where health care is socialized, do you think she should qualify for surgery and other treatments that will bring her internal concept of herself in line with how she looks? This question is not intended to bait or to trivialize transgender issues. I see it as analogous.

Why do you need the neurological distinction?

and

Red Tory Tea Girl wrote:

It's also quite interesting that you would use an analogy of transitioning to a seemingly privileged class, considering I'm a trans lesbian (That means assigned male, transitioning to female) and most babblers believe in the concept of male privilege and straight privilege. Care to elaborate where you're going with this analogy?

I think I know where: You're going to argue that transsexuality reifies the existing gender power structure, and an apparently racist analogy would work a lot better rhetorically than mentioning those who transition away from privilege, like, for example, Grey Owl, one of the most famous transracial people in history. It makes it look a lot more progressive to oppose public support for presented gender transition, if it and analogous behavior is simply seen as a subisdized stepping stone to privilege and parasitism.

No. I thought about that, and felt that the analogy could go either way. But it could be about perceptions of what the transitioned-to condition might do for the person wanting transition.

So anyway, you would support it. Perhaps transraciality has not yet emerged as a health issue.

BTW, did Grey Owl identify as a First Nations person?