i been reading lisa’s post over on questioning transphobia that highlights an article published in cosmos magazine entitled “Gene linked to transsexualism”. another link in the comments points to a bbc article covering the same study. in a nut shell:

…some male-to-female transsexuals carry a different form of a gene, called an androgen receptor, which modifies the body’s response to testosterone.
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…the form of the gene found in the transsexual group had a larger number of repeats of a short, repetitive sequence of DNA - making the gene significantly longer than the form found in the control group of non-transsexual men.
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…”This [study] supports the notion that transsexualism has a biological basis rather than being due to psychosocial factors in early childhood…

many of the comments in lisa’s post express many of my concerns. while i support studying gender identity and its causes, i’m not very confident that the resulting data will be used to my benefit, and/or for the benefit of other members of my tribe.

i can imagine that at some point, some biological template will be developed to diagnose “gender identity disorder”, and those who don’t “measure up” will be denied medical treatment or insurance coverage. or worse, that the unborn will be tested for this and either aborted or “cured” while still in the womb.

it’s unfortunate that a culture who has the technology to study and identify the causes of humanity’s diversity, also has the technology to destroy those types of people that are arbitrarily deemed undesirable.

and frankly, i think we’d all be a lot better off studying the cause of bigotry, and working on a cure for that.

charlene moore-arcila is apparently not passing, through the philadelphia septa system that is. their “transpass” has a gender marker, and depending on the driver, charlene is sometimes perceived as male when she buys the “female” transpass, and female when she buys the “male” transpass.

maybe they should call it the “cispass”.

from abc 6 action news.

according to this article from ascribe:

New figures released today by the Transgender American Veterans Association reveal that transgender service members and veterans, like many transgender people in the U.S., face a variety of forms of discrimination based on their transgender status. The survey of 827 U.S. military veterans and active-duty personnel mark the first major empirical findings on transgender people in the military.

ya think? well, at least now there’s actual empirical documentation.

kinds gives this issue some teeth.

it started with posts like this, from say uncle, a gun rights proponent, whose blog i read pretty much every day. yeah, he supports mccain, but no one is perfect. on the other hand, he’s pro rights, so he also supports glbt rights, and the pink pistols.

it was escalated with posts like this, from kynn, a “transgender::genderqueer” woman who takes issue with “pompous, idiotic gun-fetishists [who] need to shut the fuck up and stop trying to politicize tragedy to justify their own lunacy.”

words were exchanged, including the obligatory insults on trans appearances and subsequent apologies. and all the while, feeling torn between my affiliation with both what i’ll call “gun culture” and the “trans community™”.

why can’t we just “get along”?

it seems the baptist press is “educating” the world in “medicine”. i had no idea they were “the” authority when it comes to “medical treatments”. to wit:

For teenagers who believe they are transgender, Spack (which, by the way, rhymes with quack) will offer hormone therapy. These treatments are considered drastic and will alter the way a teen will grow and develop. Long–term hormone therapy cannot be reversed.

obviously, any doctor whose name rhymes with any word that has any negative connotations is unqualified. i wonder how that works with “columnists” who write for “news with a christian perspective” websites. after all, “boggs” rhymes with “hogs”. or something.

but wait, there’s more:

I find it criminal that impressionable young children and teens are led to believe they are biological accidents just because they exhibit interests that are deemed more appropriate for the opposite gender. Dr. Sills told FoxNews.com that the three year-old she deemed as transgender insisted she was a boy and mimicked masculine behavior.

I wonder if Sills has ever encountered a three year-old that insisted he or she were an animal or super hero? Some young children become jealous of a parent and insist they are married to their moms or dads. I wonder how Dr. Sills would handle such cases.

right, because “gender confusion” is the same thing as “species confusion” or belief that one is a superhero. after all, humans procreate male, female, and intersex offspring, just like they produce cat, dog, and spiderman offspring.

or something.

Now it seems some progressives think little Sally playing with a fire engine indicates that she really wants to one day be Frank the fireman.

i wasn’t aware that the only criteria used for a diagnosis of transgender, and the subsequent “sex-change” of said person was that they play with toys that children of the “opposite sex” typically play with. i wonder what happens if one plays with all kinds of toys.

it doesn’t end there, however. the “author” of this piece provides us with a “scientific & medical” “solution”:

I am not trying to make light of the fact there are people who are psychologically confused when it comes to their gender — and some of them are children. However, these people and kids are in need of prayer and counseling, not hormone therapy and a surgeon.

“prayer and counseling”, the cure all for every social, medical, and spiritual ill. cause, you know, it seems to work so well within their own ranks. not. how many men of the cloth are convicted of sexual assault each year?

i have nothing against religious belief. in fact, i’ve been known to say a prayer or two now and again. and i’ve been known to hold a belief or two in a mystical invisible being living in the sky. but i don’t use that ever shifting belief as justification to speak with any authority about medical or scientific issues.

it wasn’t my 40 years of daily prayer that corrected the incongruity between my physical and mental existence, but rather the intervention of the qualified medical practitioners i hired to treat me.

what a concept.

this is classic, as it perfectly illustrates how trans people are simply not understood. to wit:

When transgendered folks get through the final stage of transitioning and reach “the end”, all that gender fluidity goes right out the window and solidifies into the crusty crud on the bottom of my boots. They have merely succeeded in upholding the gender binary — the very same binary which has held women down for the last 10,000 years.
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there is also no corresponding need to switch out body parts in order to express what is basically described as internal character, unless the purpose is merely to commodify one’s personality as a dainty girl might wear pink or a goth craves black. The genitalia have been reduced to the status of wardrobe accessory.

i guess the majority of trans people who never reach “the end”, and never “switch out body parts” don’t actually exist. and the majority of trans people that i know, who are in fact “gender fluid”, don’t exist either.

see, this version of “feminism” uses a few examples of individuals, and applies the characteristics of those few individuals to an entire class of people. i seem to remember there being a word that describes that type of stereotyping.

h/t belledame222

…may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

we used to recite that verse when we were children, especially after someone else called us names. not because we believed it; in fact, we did, and still do believe that names can hurt us. but because we tried to convince ourselves and our oppressors that names couldn’t hurt us.

for trans people, certain names take on significant hurt. specifically our old names. many of us won’t mention them, and even when we see it, it hurts.

i come across my old name on occasion, on mail, on documents, in old photographs, when someone slips. and once in a while, when we have to deal with society, like government agencies or during job applications. when i applied for my current job, the application instructed me to list any former names. so i did. and just this past week, when i applied for an arizona ccw permit. so even now, 9 years after i legally changed it, it still rears its ugly head.

it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. although i never liked my old name. even as a child, i thought to change it when i “grew up”. little did i know that it would follow me around for the rest of my life. but i guess that’s something that every person, trans or otherwise, has to deal with.

i think if you give a young child cars and an erector set to play with, they will develop spacial skills. navigating a car through the world, and building a 3-dimensional models tend to do that. if you give young child dolls and an easy-bake oven, they’ll develop verbal and reading skills. playing with toys that require the use of talking, and reading and following directions tend to do that.

i think that a child’s brain will develop the necessary pathways and circuits that enable those skills that you force upon it. and those pathways that are not required for those skills will atrophy. and that’s why the brains of men and women seem to differ, both in ability and scans.

i think we should start giving all children cars, dolls, erector sets, and easy-bake ovens.

apparently, deacon keith a fournier thinks me and my ilk are bullies simply for the want of moving through the world without harassment. i suppose he’d rather retain the right to shoot us on sight. perhaps that’s his idea of god’s plan.

i came across this post on towleroad, in which the comments perfectly exemplifies the “gay vs trans” argument.

mcnnyc points out:

When the movement first started it was just gay. The only reason lesbians got listed separately was because of feminism and, as Derrick noted, all the work they’ve done.

right mcnnyc, and then the trans people were listed separately because some gays don’t want to be associated with “those people”. because, well, gays are “more equal” than trans.

then ipodius perfectly expresses the issue:

I have listened to this debate until I just can’t stand it anymore. I’m also sorry to be politically incorrect here, but I don’t see what gender identity has to do with being gay. To wit: a male has sex reassignment and becomes female and has a male partner. She is straight. She goes through the process, is now legally a female and can marry her male partner. Now she gets all benefits as someone’s wife.

apparently, ipodius is unfamiliar with the littleton vs. prange case in which a trans woman was judged as “male”, dissolving her marriage. and this is only but one example in which a trans person’s gender was deemed legally invalid. and you know, people still seem to be confused when it comes to trans genders.

sorry, but “gender identity” has everything to do with sexual orientation - you can’t have one without the other. sexual orientation is defined in the context of gender identity, and gender identity is necessary in order to have a sexual orientation.

in many people’s minds, i am merely an effeminate gay man in an illegal marriage with another gay man.

and that’s why we are equal, despite your belief that you are more equal than me.