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If you don't mind sharing, what triggered your epiphany? I won't mind if it's too personal to share over a 'net forum.
Mines kinda stupid and personal so I'd rather not share it, but it happened around 10 or 11 and the lie completely collapsed. Everything else was biding time until I could do something. I was always pretty honest with myself about myself and I didn't really hold on to a lot of preconceptions. I had a lot of other little things growing up but they weren't very definitive and were more little surface things that I didn't understand at the time.
So I'm curious about other LGBT folks: How long did it take you to realize you weren't 'normal,' and was it a single moment of epiphany or a gradual realization?
It has been a gradual lifelong crescendo of realization for me. All of my life I have struggled with people saying that it was wrong, and until very recently, they managed to succeed in convincing me that it was a joke.
I'm still mostly closeted, and so I won't really say what I am.
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Todd's account of his realization is not too far from my own, especially this part:
I was missing body parts that I should have, and I had body parts that I shouldn't. I remember going to sleep night after night hoping that this time I'd wake up and things would be correct. That never changed, but for years I completely buried it as best I could; keep thinking you're a straight cis-male, because to be otherwise would be bad, or something like that. What would your family say? How would friends react? That sort of thing.
I had a very strong epiphany right before or (less likely) right after I turned twelve. I can narrow the day down to within five months of when it happened, near the start of 7th grade. A long period of confusion and shame followed. (There weren't any out LGBT people amongst family or friends, and those at school were in very different social circles. This was back in the 80s.) Got a better sense of things in college, still felt shame about it, but shortly after graduating from college, I can still remember the moment I sat down and typed the sentence "I am a transsexual." in a Word Perfect document a couple of times, to kind of say it to myself. And then saying it out loud to myself.
And going off of what Crystal said, after college, one of the things that delayed my progress was reading in some outdated semi-medical book that was all I could find at the time (early 90s, suburbs, book was from the 70s), that male to female transsexuals weren't attracted to women, and that if you were attracted to women, you couldn't be a transsexual. (It actually had a section on this.) Looking back, my reaction was kind of dumb, and I still kick myself about it, but it filled me with doubt, which took me a bit to get past. Also took me a while to realize I was bi as well.
I took a long, long time to come out (started two years ago, at 40, and was completely out by, depending on how you look at it, September or December of this past year). I thankfully got transition underway during that gradually widening coming out period. Still wish regularly that I'd gotten started at 21, but I try not to get hung up on that.
So I'm curious about other LGBT folks: How long did it take you to realize you weren't 'normal,' and was it a single moment of epiphany or a gradual realization?It has been a gradual lifelong crescendo of realization for me. All of my life I have struggled with people saying that it was wrong, and until very recently, they managed to succeed in convincing me that it was a joke.
I'm still mostly closeted, and so I won't really say what I am.
Hang in there, Esper. Hold on to yourself.
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And on that note, if anyone has suggestions for lobbies, action groups to support, or legislature to keep an eye out for to promote or oppose, I would love to have them.
There's the National Center for Transgender Equality, which takes on various trans issues, and has info on those issues. (And keep an eye out for Mara Keisling, the Execute Director, who does a fair amount of media outreach on trans issues.)
There's the trans-inclusive ENDA, of course.
There was the recent New Jersey bill to allow trans people to change their gender marker on their birth certificate, but it looks like Gov. Christie vetoed that yesterday. Those sorts of bills pop up from time to time.
Lately, I've been reading The Transadvocate to keep up on various battles, like the conservative push in California against AB-1266, a recently enacted transgender student rights law. There's a little info about the law here. There's currently a conservative petition effort to try to get a referendum against it - they're counting signatures right now, and last I checked, it's not clear which way it will go.
The ACLU has a summary of current laws affecting trans people here.
In my state, Wisconsin, there's Fair Wisconsin, which fights for LGBT rights in this state, including trans rights. They have a brief summary of trans issues in Wisconsin here.
There are also sometimes laws at the local level, the county and city/town level. For example, as a Wisconsin trans woman, I have better protection for my gender identity, in terms of housing and employment, from local Madison laws and Dane County laws than I do from state or federal laws. So you might go poking around your local community to see what protections are there or are needed.
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And on that note, if anyone has suggestions for lobbies, action groups to support, or legislature to keep an eye out for to promote or oppose, I would love to have them.
The Transgender Law Center is a good group pushing for trans rights and humane treatment of trans people by the law, and lobbies for trans protection.
And one of the best blogs out there for trans news and information (in addition to the Transadvocate) is Transgriot. Monica is a community treasure and deserves more exposure.
Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.
So I'm curious about other LGBT folks: How long did it take you to realize you weren't 'normal,' and was it a single moment of epiphany or a gradual realization?
I became aware that I liked men when I was 14-15, after discovering yaoi anime, because neither in my village nor the city where I went for my secondary education there wasn't any mention of homosexuality (despite my favorite aunt being a lesbian, which I found out later). Then I realized that I found my tennis instructor hot and I was in love with my male best friend.
After a time I realized that most of the time I didn't feel a man, and although I knew about trans people, most of the time I didn't feel female either. It wasn't until a year ago or so that I found out about gender fluidity, and it felt as the right way to describe me.
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For a while in my adolescence, I convinced myself that I was simply too much of a gentleman to fantasize about the girls at school, so that is why I fantasized about the boys. Denial is a powerful thing ;)
By about 16, though, I had figured out that chivalry had nothing to do with it.
And one of the best blogs out there for trans news and information (in addition to the Transadvocate) is Transgriot. Monica is a community treasure and deserves more exposure.
+1 on Transgriot.
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And on that note, if anyone has suggestions for lobbies, action groups to support, or legislature to keep an eye out for to promote or oppose, I would love to have them.The Transgender Law Center is a good group pushing for trans rights and humane treatment of trans people by the law, and lobbies for trans protection.
And one of the best blogs out there for trans news and information (in addition to the Transadvocate) is Transgriot. Monica is a community treasure and deserves more exposure.
Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.
Lambda Legal on the other hand has been really good for trans* rights. Dru Levassuer is a wonderful man who has helped the trans* community immensely. Glenn v. Brumby and McCreery v. Turner just two of the cases he has been an instrumental part of.
For a while in my adolescence, I convinced myself that I was simply too much of a gentleman to fantasize about the girls at school, so that is why I fantasized about the boys. Denial is a powerful thing ;)
By about 16, though, I had figured out that chivalry had nothing to do with it.
That's kinda awesome, actually.
Imagine having your guy friends go on about certain things... and realizing you don't actually understand it fully. Then the same thing with your girl friends.
It didn't take long to realize after middle school because of that.
For a while in my adolescence, I convinced myself that I was simply too much of a gentleman to fantasize about the girls at school, so that is why I fantasized about the boys. Denial is a powerful thing ;)
What a nice way of putting it. :)
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Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.
Yeah, it's weird. There is a lot of misinformation out there and not just among heteronormative cis people but also within the GLBT community. There was a huge fluff up 10 years ago with the Lambda Literary award for instance. They give out awards for outstanding GLBT literature and the book they wanted to give the award to a horrible book that won't bother advertising here; suffice to say that it was a terrible and transphobic book. There were petitions and letters and they were adamant on their stand for awhile. Official letters came in and they were just cruelly dismissive. Eventually they did the right thing but it was disturbing.
So I'm curious about other LGBT folks: How long did it take you to realize you weren't 'normal,' and was it a single moment of epiphany or a gradual realization?
For me it was kind of gradual/me bing in denial. I noticed it firt when I a in 8th/9th grade when I started looking up shirtless men online. I went with the opinion that i was just to nice to look up women like Celestial Healer. I didn't really fully accept it until i was in college.
So, if a young male relative of your's said that he'd been looking at shirtless men because he's too nice to look at shirtless women....what would you say to him?
Not sure. But I would probably be laughing internally(maybe).
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For a while in my adolescence, I convinced myself that I was simply too much of a gentleman to fantasize about the girls at school, so that is why I fantasized about the boys. Denial is a powerful thing ;)
By about 16, though, I had figured out that chivalry had nothing to do with it.
Wait... Celestial Healer not being chivalrous?! Aaarghhh! Nooo! My whole worldview was shattered!
;)
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Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.Yeah, it's weird. There is a lot of misinformation out there and not just among heteronormative cis people but also within the GLBT community. There was a huge fluff up 10 years ago with the Lambda Literary award for instance. They give out awards for outstanding GLBT literature and the book they wanted to give the award to a horrible book that won't bother advertising here; suffice to say that it was a terrible and transphobic book. There were petitions and letters and they were adamant on their stand for awhile. Official letters came in and they were just cruelly dismissive. Eventually they did the right thing but it was disturbing.
It is not that weird, really. Just usual human behaviour.
We would like to think that people who have been victims of discrimination will never commit discrimination themselves. That victims will NEVER become bullies. Basically, that victims are always innocent and will always remain so.
It is an idea so deeply engrained that we keep on believing it, even though the real world gives us many many examples to the contrary, time and again.
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Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.Yeah, it's weird. There is a lot of misinformation out there and not just among heteronormative cis people but also within the GLBT community. There was a huge fluff up 10 years ago with the Lambda Literary award for instance. They give out awards for outstanding GLBT literature and the book they wanted to give the award to a horrible book that won't bother advertising here; suffice to say that it was a terrible and transphobic book. There were petitions and letters and they were adamant on their stand for awhile. Official letters came in and they were just cruelly dismissive. Eventually they did the right thing but it was disturbing.It is not that weird, really. Just usual human behaviour.
We would like to think that people who have been victims of discrimination will never commit discrimination themselves. That victims will NEVER become bullies. Basically, that victims are always innocent and will always remain so.
It is an idea so deeply engrained that we keep on believing it, even though the real world gives us many many examples to the contrary, time and again.
I think you might be getting the wrong idea.
First, the author of the text Guillet mentions is not a member (or even a friend, IMHO) of the LGBT community. Essentially, he's a menace to the transgender and bisexual members of the queer community, and that this was an instance where the dominance of gay men and lesbians within the LGBT community becomes salient. The inclusion of a transphobic text just makes it clear that the LGBT community is made of Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts—of which the Gs, Ls, and Bs can be just as ignorant of the Ts as cisgender heterosexual people.
Second, the defense of the text's inclusion is more complex than "some victims become bullies" (no doubt there were many bullies among the defenders). LGBT folks already face a great deal of social obstacles in living, and it isn't uncommon for individuals and groups to negotiate their inclusion in such a way that marginalizes other members of the LGBT community.
Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.
These consequences stem from a particular social configuration which privileges biomedical authority over all others in regards to questions of the body, sexuality, and gender. The heterosexism of a systems that makes reproduction the center of gender and sexual discourse depends on cissexist systems to justify reducing it (body, sexuality, and gender) all down to innate genetic or hormonal characteristics. It is a broader issue than just "bullies," and requires significant (and often radical) consideration on that part of queer people as to how cisgender, heterosexual dominated society organizes our speech and action.
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First, the author of the text Guillet mentions is not a member (or even a friend, IMHO) of the LGBT community. Essentially, he's a menace to the transgender and bisexual members of the queer community,
I don't know why I didn't realize until now that J. Michael Bailey's The Man who would be Queen is what was being talked about. I should have realized this sooner. Something about "menace to transgender and bisexual people" tipped me off that it was him. Anyway, since it's apropos, Lynn Conway has a lengthy takedown of Bailey's book online. It's a really terrible book full of awfulness and blatant transphobia. Bailey in general is full of awful ideas. Like anti-gay eugenics. Or thinking that bi men don't exist.
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Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.I think we've gone around on this before, but this explanation gives me a better idea where you're coming from.
I can see what you're saying, but I don't think it's the biological essentialism part in itself, but the dualist dichotomy used. Phrasing it as something like "Sexual orientation is innate, but may include exclusive attraction to men, exclusive attraction to women or anywhere on the spectrum between", would easily include bisexuals while leaving the essentialism intact. In fact, that's how I've always understood it.
Including trans concepts in the explanation would complicate it, just because there are more variables, but doesn't change the basic biological essentialist view of sexuality: That both your physical sex (the genitalia, if you will), the gender of your self image and your sexual orientation are biologically determined. It's just that they're not simple binary either/or conditions.
(Apologies if I've used inappropriate terms. No offense is intended.)
This is basically taking the epicycle approach to understanding sex, gender, and sexuality. I have no doubt that biological essentialism can be adapted to capture a broader range of deviancies from the gender and sexuality norms.
Both the situating of the norm, and the construction of deviance are social processes that aren't reducible to scientific knowledge about human biology. These things are "set up" well before the scientific method is applied to test hypotheses. In a sense, you've already determined biological essentialism by seizing on socially assigned and highlighted differences as biological fact. At the end of the day, I see scientific practice as just another form of social practice, and subject to the same kinds of critiques we can subject any social practice.
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First, the author of the text Guillet mentions is not a member (or even a friend, IMHO) of the LGBT community. Essentially, he's a menace to the transgender and bisexual members of the queer community, and that this was an instance where the dominance of gay men and lesbians within the LGBT community becomes salient. The inclusion of a transphobic text just makes it clear that the LGBT community is made of Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts—of which the Gs, Ls, and Bs can be just as ignorant of the Ts as cisgender heterosexual people.
Well, that's not entirely fair. Trying to disassociate the GLBT community from this specific instance, doesn't do the community any favors. The book was blessed by none other than Anne Lawrence and uses many of her theories(theories that have plagued the transgender community for years) to justify it's claims. Anne Lawrence is a member of the transgender community, an M.D. and a PhD in psychology and actually lives in the area I actually live. Wether Bailey is in this community or not is not the point, the Lambda Literary Foundation is a respected entity promoting great works for the GLBT Community and dismissing this incident because of Bailey completely misses the point. I think we're crossing wires here. I was writing letters to the LLF Directors and getting snarky responses back and that's a valid experience. This is a book they wanted to promote as representative of the Transgender community for the good of the Transgender community and it stigmatized every one of us as either fetishists or nonexistent entities. It is a perfect example of the ignorance we face even within our own community and I don't think that should be devalued. If you would like to learn a little more about this, my suggested reading is here(Which I only include because the book has already been mentioned): The Anne Who Would Be Queen. Also, call me Lissa, please. This isn't the military and I'm not grading your thesis. =)
Second, the defense of the text's inclusion is more complex than "some victims become bullies" (no doubt there were many bullies among the defenders). LGBT folks already face a great deal of social obstacles in living, and it isn't uncommon for individuals and groups to negotiate their inclusion in such a way that marginalizes other members of the LGBT community.
I never called them bullies, I called them misinformed. I could expand that to willfully ignorant in some cases but by and large there is just a good amount of old fashioned ignorance within the GLBT community about Transgendered men and women. A lot of our inclusion together is that we are discriminated against in many of the same ways. The T community and GL community have occasionally been at odds about our inclusion together but the fact remains that we face a lot of the same fears, hatred and prejudices in society and standing together is the best way for both of our communities to gain traction.
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I don't know why I didn't realize until now that J. Michael Bailey's redacted is what was being talked about. I should have realized this sooner. Something about "menace to transgender and bisexual people" tipped me off that it was him.
Really would have preferred not to have mentioned it for exactly said reasons.
Edit: Also, Lynn Conway is my hero. Just going to put that there. That is all. =)
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Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.I think we've gone around on this before, but this explanation gives me a better idea where you're coming from.
I can see what you're saying, but I don't think it's the biological essentialism part in itself, but the dualist dichotomy used. Phrasing it as something like "Sexual orientation is innate, but may include exclusive attraction to men, exclusive attraction to women or anywhere on the spectrum between", would easily include bisexuals while leaving the essentialism intact. In fact, that's how I've always understood it.
Including trans concepts in the explanation would complicate it, just because there are more variables, but doesn't change the basic biological essentialist view of sexuality: That both your physical sex (the genitalia, if you will), the gender of your self image and your sexual orientation are biologically determined. It's just that they're not simple binary either/or conditions.
(Apologies if I've used inappropriate terms. No offense is intended.)
This is basically taking the epicycle approach to understanding sex, gender, and sexuality. I have no doubt that biological essentialism can be adapted to capture a broader range of deviancies from the gender and sexuality norms.
Both the situating of the norm, and the construction of deviance are social processes that aren't reducible to scientific knowledge about human biology. These things are "set up" well before the scientific method is applied to test hypotheses. In a sense, you've already determined biological essentialism by seizing on socially assigned and highlighted differences as biological fact. At the end of the day, I see scientific practice as just another form of social practice, and subject to the same kinds of critiques we can subject any social practice.
Here's the problem: Even in tests where they assumed no sexuality, assumed sexuality is entirely fluid, and assumed sexuality came later... they still found recognizable in-built signs of both sexuality and gender in extremely young children. So far, all evidence is that sexuality is, itself, actually predetermined... but they can't figure out how, and they are finding that even bisexuality tends to be predetermined. Asexuality has also shown up.
That's why, anymore, it's becoming accepted that being gay or bisexual or asexual or whatever is not only natural, but not something you chose. That, in turn, is a massive victory for rights related to sexual preference, as it outright rules out the discriminatory arguments that sexuality is chosen. That's also why they're moving more and more towards complex models of sexuality; what you talked about in the post thejeff responded to is an extremely outdated model of human sexuality that is no longer actually used.
Calling it biological essentialism does not negate the accuracy of it. And arguing that the studies are "seizing on socially assigned and highlighted differences as biological fact" is actually a bad argument, as it's one of the arguments being used to discount the idea people who are not heterosexual deserve rights. How is it part of it? They argue that being gay/trans/whatever is a socially assigned and highlighted difference and that society itself causes people to think they're gay/trans/whatever. That anyone would believe it a legitimate argument in favor of rights of those considered non-normative has me gobsmacked.
Annabel, please get into the actual science on this. They've advanced quite a bit, and at this point have a pretty good idea of when sexuality is determined. And so far, pretty much all of the evidence they have says that not only is sexuality determined before birth, but that it's more complex than even the GLTB community has accounted for.
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I think we have a big difference between US and French cultures here (and between the reactions of the LGBTQ communities in both countries on this very topic).
The US community seems mostly in favor of the LGBTQ-"gene" (or predetermined) argument. While the French community mostly despises it AFAIK.
My guess is that, in the US, being born like this means that it is God's will (or Nature's will). And then discrimination becomes blasphemous (and thus immoral).
While in France (I do not know about the rest of Europe), the mere idea that it is scientifically predetermined quickly leads to the idea of being able to test the embryo for it, as if it was a genetic disorder, and "correct it", or even discard the embryo. Anti-LGBTQ eugenics if you will. Eugenics are abhorrent to modern French culture, due in no small part to the atrocities committed by Nazis in WWII.
The U.S. argument is entirely the opposite, in a way.
The U.S. opposition to gay rights, and by extension all GLTB rights, is primarily religious in nature. And only a certain part of certain religions; some of the native religions don't care. The religious argument is primarily that people are not born GLTB, but choose to be it, and need to convert to the cisgender heteronormative that those people argue they were born as. There's even been a number of attempts to create "cures" for being GLTB. They also oppose gay marriage by arguing it is a violation of God's will.
So the increasing evidence for it being natural is a massive victory because it proves those religious types don't know the will of their own deity... which, in turn, also proves them wrong on the marriage argument. And by eliminating the idea it's a choice, it also eliminates the idea that it's a choice which can be corrected.
As for genetic modification? There's not a lot of support for that being done on humans in the U.S. beyond disease cures and sexual preference is not something people would accept as being a disease. Besides, by all evidence, they can't control sexuality in the womb without an artificial womb; they've already eliminated all of the mechanisms that can be controlled without using an artificial womb as being the primary causes. That's part of why they're having so much trouble finding the cause; it's massively complex.
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Think congenital rather than genetic. It is not a gene but rather involves the processes that produces a human in utero rather than the blueprints. It being meidcally natural rather than godly would be the case here.
Although, one of the main epistles of Paul describes in depth why homosexuality should be seen, in his opinion, as ungodly, because it was not observed in nature, but we observe it in nature all the time now that we're really looking for it. So given that it seems to be a natural process that occurs not infrequently then saying that it's a choice or that it can be cured is a completely invalid stance. There are other more tenuous bits in the new testament that call out specific words that may have had other meanings in context but that was a direct and relatively lengthy call out.
Also there is medical stigma with a paraphilic association or seeing it as a choice or as a deviant sexual behaviour rather than a congenital and natural behaviour that cannot be changed or has no psychological treatment. That's pretty much the basic gist of most of the reasoning of the community I've seen there.
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I guess we can thank the very strong separation of State and Church in France in 1905 for this :-)
Many people in France admit that it is not a choice. We prefer the how to stay a mystery beyond the agencies of human beings, I think.
So, the "massively complex" works in a way ;-)
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I guess we can thank the very strong separation of State and Church in France in 1905 for this :-)
Many people in France admit that it is not a choice. We prefer the how to stay a mystery beyond the agencies of human beings, I think.
So, the "massively complex" works in a way ;-)
That sounds pretty ideal, I think. We supposedly have that same separation of church and state but it keeps getting eroded and they keep getting their peanut butter in my sound legislation.
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Back on the trans health care issue, this seems worth noting: The federal Office of Personnel Management is "reviewing trans-exclusionary insurance policies".
If I understand this correctly, this could potentially affect all transgender federal employees.
And along similar lines, from last month, the Dept. of Health and Human Services is reevaluating the Medicare and Medicaid exclusions for gender surgeries.
Apparently, the clause that allows Medicare and Medicaid to exclude coverage of such surgeries is based on a report from 1981 that said there weren't enough long term studies about the effectiveness of such treatment. That outdated report has been thrown out by the Dept. as a basis for exclusions. Now they're evaluating whether or not to lift the surgery coverage ban itself.
Obviously, a lot of trans people (self included) won't be directly affected by any of this, but it seems like a good thing, like the EEOC's gender identity ruling a couple of years ago.
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Back on the trans health care issue, this seems worth noting: The federal Office of Personnel Management is "reviewing trans-exclusionary insurance policies".
If I understand this correctly, this could potentially affect all transgender federal employees.
And along similar lines, from last month, the Dept. of Health and Human Services is reevaluating the Medicare and Medicaid exclusions for gender surgeries.
Apparently, the clause that allows Medicare and Medicaid to exclude coverage of such surgeries is based on a report from 1981 that said there weren't enough long term studies about the effectiveness of such treatment. That outdated report has been thrown out by the Dept. as a basis for exclusions. Now they're evaluating whether or not to lift the surgery coverage ban itself.
Obviously, a lot of trans people (self included) won't be directly affected by any of this, but it seems like a good thing, like the EEOC's gender identity ruling a couple of years ago.
Yeah I read that. It's good news if it goes through. Likely a few states would even get their insurance comissioners to follow suit.
Yeah I read that. It's good news if it goes through. Likely a few states would even get their insurance comissioners to follow suit.
That'd be my hope, that there'd be a ripple effect from it, if it happens. (Won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen, though.)
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Yeah I read that. It's good news if it goes through. Likely a few states would even get their insurance comissioners to follow suit.That'd be my hope, that there'd be a ripple effect from it, if it happens. (Won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen, though.)
Likewise.
For a while in my adolescence, I convinced myself that I was simply too much of a gentleman to fantasize about the girls at school, so that is why I fantasized about the boys. Denial is a powerful thing ;)
By about 16, though, I had figured out that chivalry had nothing to do with it.
Thanks for sharing, I got a good chuckle out of this!
@Tequila Sunrise: Thanks for kicking off a good discussion.
And thanks to everyone for sharing their stories.
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Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.These consequences stem from a particular social configuration which privileges biomedical authority over all others in regards to questions of the body, sexuality, and gender.
You can call it biological essentialism. You can call it whatever you wish, but there's quantifiable evidence behind it. As far as the scientific community is concerned (biologists at least), the consensus has emerged that both sexuality and internal gender identity are innate, and of biological origin. The idea that they are both fixed prior to birth is pretty solid at this point.
The consensus at this stage is that as a result of atypical hormone flux in-utero or epigenetic influence on how the fetus responds to those hormone levels, the brain develops in ways that are broadly classed as more masculine or feminine versus a baseline. The structures responsible for gender identity and sexuality are independent however, being formed at different stages of development. Additionally, it isn't a binary situation, but very much a continuum between two extremes.
Rather than making bisexuality an impossibility as you suggest, it absolutely vindicates its presence, provides an explanatory framework for its presence, as well as providing quantifiable data to explain a whole spread of variation in human sexual and gender diversity.
That's awesome and also really freaking cool! Human biology that is (says a cell biologist). Further back in this thread (or another one that got locked a while back) I posted a bunch of papers talking about the topic if you're interested. Some really awesome work has been done in the past ten years.
Back on the trans health care issue, this seems worth noting: The federal Office of Personnel Management is "reviewing trans-exclusionary insurance policies".
If I understand this correctly, this could potentially affect all transgender federal employees.
And along similar lines, from last month, the Dept. of Health and Human Services is reevaluating the Medicare and Medicaid exclusions for gender surgeries.
Apparently, the clause that allows Medicare and Medicaid to exclude coverage of such surgeries is based on a report from 1981 that said there weren't enough long term studies about the effectiveness of such treatment. That outdated report has been thrown out by the Dept. as a basis for exclusions. Now they're evaluating whether or not to lift the surgery coverage ban itself.
Obviously, a lot of trans people (self included) won't be directly affected by any of this, but it seems like a good thing, like the EEOC's gender identity ruling a couple of years ago.
Awesome news :)
@Lissa my response about bullies was directed at the the black raven's post. I should have made that more explicit.
Really would have preferred not to have mentioned it for exactly said reasons.
Edit: Also, Lynn Conway is my hero. Just going to put that there. That is all. =)
Conway does such a good take-down of Bailey that I figure it overrides any negatives of mentioning him explicitly.
It's always humorous to see biologists clinging to the outdated notion that gay men have "feminized" brains, and lesbians have "masculinized" brains. Though, this "different stages of development" addition is a woeful attempt to get away from the 19th century notion of gender inversion.
Speaking of people who think lesbian = masculine woman and gay man = feminine man: J. Michael Bailey.
The Machine God must have been hungry. I will need to ask the techpriests to appease him so he doesn't eat our posts again.
Sadly, we seem to get obnoxious religious nuts in the UK, just like in the US, though fortunately we seem to get far fewer than you do. He's even quoted as using the same sort of dog-whistle phrases as "a Christian nation". Blegh.
(I say that as a non-practising, non-Anglican, Christian.)
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I swear it was only like 5 years ago we were on the cusp of digit length and clockwise hair whorl research.
But seriously, I am asking about the evidence for a "staged feminization/masculinization" of queer brains that has driven the scientific community into broad consensus. Like, where these stages break down along development (are they different trimesters?). This whole thing just seems like a rather large mass of scientific work would be hard to miss. I'm just not finding it.
It's not hard to find.
But it’s also like asking for an explanation of the evidence regarding drug metabolism and clearance, why some people have reactions to some drugs while others don’t, polymorphisms in p450 enzymes, hepatic transporters, etc and doing that all in a message board post. For the topic at hand I can point out some highlights, but you’ll need to risk those PubMed papercuts if you want to follow the field.
I'd start with the '95 paper by Swaab et al, and work forward with his work, as well as a number of studies by a whole host of others in the past several years looking at grey matter anatomy patterns atypical versus biological gender matched controls in transgendered individuals, in which the anatomical differences appear prior to hormone treatment. Some fMRI work has been done by several groups as well, finding -as they refer to it- gender-atypical patterns as well, and in the absence of hormone treatment, so it isn't an artifact thereof.
Understandably we can't easily track brain development in response to testosterone exposure at different stages of fetal development, just due to the ethical issues there, but there have been some very nice studies finding neuroanatomical differences between heterosexual individuals of both genders versus bisexual and homosexual persons of those genders entirely independent of social factors much to the horror of certain non-quantitative schools of thought. Some of these studies have also found different structural differences in the brains of transgendered individuals versus age matched cis-gendered controls, in which the formers' possessed brains that mirrored some aspects of their preferred gender versus biological genders. One study in specific which I'd have to find makes a point that the overlap in gender-atypical structures makes it difficult to discern which portions play a role in gender identity versus sexual orientation.
It's complex and evolving, but above all else, it's measurable and testable, and falsifiable if other evidence emerges.
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Sadly, we seem to get obnoxious religious nuts in the UK, just like in the US, though fortunately we seem to get far fewer than you do. He's even quoted as using the same sort of dog-whistle phrases as "a Christian nation". Blegh.
(I say that as a non-practising, non-Anglican, Christian.)
In his defence, Britain never had a single flood in it's history (post Deluge, of course!) before the evil Cameron passed that law....
...hey! Wait a minute! Yes we did!
I'm beginning to suspect that there may, in fact, be no direct causal relationship between passing a law allowing gay marriage and...er...floods!
(I'm sorry guys, I can't find the keys to press to convey enough derision.)