Answering Tough Questions in the Transgender Debate

I've done some thinking on transgender issues. I find it kind of interesting, and it's a hot topic these days so I decided to give this blog post a shot.

What is male or female?

In my mind it's actually not entirely clear what makes somebody male or female. Part of it is because male or female is too vague. Here's how I look at it:

Sex: Physical components of sex. Chromosomes, genitals and their functions (ability to produce eggs or sperm).

Sex Characteristics: Includes things like fat distribution, voice, etc. Based on biology, but not really considered enough to prove somebody is of one sex and not the other.

Gender: A vague word that is better used to mean gender identity, meaning brain components of gender, and the subjective feeling that arises from that. Yes, the way a brain is wired is in some ways physical and kind of attached to sex as well.

Gender Expression: Expression of femininity, masculinity, etc in presentation (clothing, makeup, etc). Partially genetic, but very heavily influenced by society.

When we call somebody male or female (and by extension, man or woman) what are we really implying? That the person's sex is male? Sex characteristics? Gender? Perhaps gender expression? This vagueness in language makes discussion confusing. Yes, transgender people are the minority, so for most of our lives we can just call people male or female and not have to specify anything. But if we're purposefully trying to talk about transgender issues where the language often gets squirrly ideally we should be specific.

Based on brain scans male to female transgender people have brains in between male and female, possibly leaning a bit towards the female side. With hormone therapy the brain continues to change to be more similar to a female brain. (More on this on the next blog post.)

What makes somebody of a female sex? I believe there are two points that trans critics have that have some merit. The first is the ability to produce eggs or sperm. More specifically, it's the ability to produce eggs or sperm had the person been born without abnormalities. This shuts down arguments about women who had their reproductive organs removed due to cancer, for example. The other has to do with chromosomes. Instead of saying that males are XX and females are XY and thus being susceptible to the XXY, XXX arguments trans advocates make, they instead say that the presence of the Y chromosome means male and vice versa.

These are very strong versions of arguments from trans critics, but they are not perfect. First, people with chromosomal abnormalities are generally classified as 'intersex', which is some sort of grey area in between male or female sex. This lends some credence to the idea that examined closely, once previously obvious distinctions get blurry. While in humans intersex people who are really ambiguously male or female and are able to reproduce with themselves are very rare, they are documented in other animals. In these cases it becomes harder and harder to figure out if something is male or female sex. These are rare cases of course, and most situations don't ever deal with rare situations by definition. But also rare are transgender people, and exceptions which break a rule should have us reconsidering whether our rule is as foolproof as we thought it was.

Here's how I'd put it: Sex relates to chromosomes and genitals. A trans woman can undergo surgery so that her genitals are close to a cis woman's, especially externally. It's not perfect. In either chromosomes and genitalia a trans woman cannot be equivalent to a cis woman. However, to me a woman is more than just her chromosome and genitals. It includes other aspects of her body, like her breasts, hips, skin, etc. If

Second, sex itself is a classification humans made up to serve various purposes. There's the technicality and there's the practicality. How we treat people shouldn't be contingent on a person's ability to make eggs, for example. It doesn't change how the person wants to be treated or called. If we could pin sex to simply chromosomes and completely ignore the expressions of those chromosomes and the gender of the brain, then biological sex ceases to be a distinction that makes a difference.

The brain is the thinker of thoughts, and what puts us ahead of all other animals on the planet. If somebody's brain is of the wrong gender relative to their physical bodies, then I argue it makes sense to treat somebody like the gender in their brain instead of going by a dry definition of sex.

What matters is treating other people with respect. The power balance is different, and so are the compromises people have to make to accommodate each other. Is it really so hard to use the correct pronoun if it's just a simple change from she to he or vice versa? If somebody wants other people to change their pronouns on them in real time or use new pronouns I can see the struggle. If you respect somebody enough then you will respect their decision to go by whatever they want. The point here is that the annoyance of using she instead of he is far less than the annoyance and sadness of being misgendered. If you understand the suffering transgender people go through then perhaps you will be willing to make some compromises... especially if the pronoun to use is dead obvious.

The pronoun legislation in Canada is out of control!
I believe in free speech. I have a preferred pronoun, but if you use the wrong one I should not be able to sue you. It doesn't bother me much personally, but if somebody uses the wrong pronoun as a backhand way to make some stupid statement about sex or gender, then I would be annoyed. Free speech means little if we just ban speech we don't like. It's a double edged sword. People should have the right to be terrible human beings verbally.

As I mentioned, the harder it is for a reasonable person to use the preferred pronoun, the more slack I give that person. People who have atypical preferred pronouns should be understanding of the fact that the public probably met somebody like them for the first time. I don't actually think it's very unreasonable to request somebody use a pronoun, just like how I don't think it's unreasonable to request somebody call you by your name. I don't think making up pronouns is that ridiculous, just like how people make up names. Words have to get made up from somewhere in some period of history. If a trend doesn't catch on, then don't expect strangers to get your pronoun on the first try. Again, they're not entitled to use your preferred pronoun... or name.

How can one feel like the other sex/gender if they've never been it before?:
One could argue that a person who is transgender feels like they are the other gender/sex because they already are. It's a subjective feeling. Maybe it's worth thinking about how one would feel if they woke up as the other sex. I know many men claim everything would be all wrong. The feeling that one should be the other sex could be summarized as 'I feel like the other gender' by some.

Transgenderism vs Transracialism:
Since I consider a MtF to be technically a male with a female mind who should be considered for all intents and purposes a female, I am able to sidestep the issue of transracialism. A person without the genetic factors proximate to somebody native to another part of the world can't claim to be of a race similar to people from there. However, they can claim to be born or steeped in their culture and thus 'identify' with that culture. Race is a gnarly thing because it's hard to categorize people genetically. Albinism does nothing for this debate because it is a disorder that merely affects pigments of the skin.

Transgenderism vs Otherkin
Talk about otherkin gets tiring for many transgender folks because they often get compared to otherkin as for why their belliefs/etc are ridiculous. Two things here: One, be careful of the slippery slope fallacy. It was a similar thing with gay marriage: If we let gays marry what's stopping people from marrying their dogs? No, they are different things and one doesn't get to pull an extreme to block off any change. We can simply draw the line at human identification. Two: Being literally a dog is like a mild form of murder because we are reducing the capability of a human and bringing it down to a dog level. There is a reason why other animals in the animal kingdom have lives worth less than a single human. If one wants to be a dog/human creature with the intelligence of a dog, there is no medical intervention that can do that. Transgenderism on the other hand is different.

If these are all mental illnesses should we encourage such behavior and thoughts? Usually this is followed by an example of a man wanting to cut his arm off, comparing it to a man having his genitals cut off.

It depends on how one reaches the most fulfillment from life and gets the least suffering based on our current technology. Sure, it's easy to say 'don't give in to delusions', but one also has to look at the realistic harms to themselves and others (and lots of harm I still believe has to do with society seeing the problems as sick, which calling it a sickness ironically reinforces). If somebody truly gets the most fulfillment from life being a dog, holy shit, go be a dog. One has to wonder if these debates from the Right come from a genuine place of concern or disgust of the transgender person or the Left.

As for the arm example, if prosthetic arms are as good if not better than a regular arm, then it makes sense to cut off your arm for a biological one. Of course, that doesn't fully translate to the castration example. But remember that most transgender people never undergo SRS. They usually stop at hormones, and starting early already gives very good results.

If a person can still function with SRS, one has to wonder what the boundaries for surgery should be. If we think transgender people who get SRS have a mental illness and should not be allowed to, should we also ban women from getting double G cup breast augmentation surgery?

The question is how useful treatment like therapy is. We've been down that path for homosexuality and got to a dark place. Also recall that there is some evidence to suggest that transgender people do tend to have different brains than their cisgender peers, being in between both sexes or closer to the one they identify as. There is no evidence of a similar thing with the Otherkin, who typically pick a cool animal instead of some ugly one. It's easier to believe on has a different gendered brain due to some chemical or developmental hitch than somebody having a fox brain.

If somebody is an Otherkin my guess is it's not really a problem since they're not identifying as a wolf and killing random people on the street. Nobody is ENTITLED to respect in the colloquial sense. We should treat humans well because of the extent of their experiences, but as far as most people are concerned, we treat humans well because they are our fellow man and that's that. If one wants to say they are their fellow dog, don't be TOO surprised if one gets treated like a dog. I can't change how everybody thinks.


Cis Women not wanting dicks in changing rooms:
The idea is Cis-women have experience a ton of men sending dick pictures, sexual harassment, and some rape. This makes women not want to see penises, and having trans-women with penises in locker rooms makes them uncomfortable.

That sort of logic can be applied to almost anything. A woman is raped by a black woman. Therefore, she is traumatized by black people and don't want black people in changing rooms. The fact is your neighborhood MtF transgender person who took hormones is physically weak with libido probably slashed. The men who traumatize women are pretty much cis-men, not MtF trans women, yet the latter get hurt by what the other group of people do. This is a problem for MtF because it's a problem with who they are rather than what they've done or are even capable of doing (violently holding down a woman for rape). Yes, it's possible for a trans woman to get SRS on the genitals, but that is a surgically intensive and expensive procedure most people cannot do.

The other question is whether we're going to treat trans women as women or not. Yes or no? Because what other choice is there? Do we send trans women with breasts into the male changing room? Do we feel that trans women are second class relative to cis females? Transgender women suffer violence, both normal and sexual, at greater rates than cisgender women, so if anything putting them in men's rooms is worse. Which is worse: Being triggered by a penis or being raped by one in the men's locker room?

The stereotype for women who come up with these types of arguments are what the transgender community labels as "terfs", which stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". This is a subreddit of these people in r/GenderCritical. It contains many women saying 'I used to be a trans supporter until... *insert negative experience with a transgender person here*'. Most of the time their claims ring hollow to me. It seems like such a trope: The former trans ally that is now very critical. Were they REALLY allies of the trans community, or did they just tolerate them?

I was never a fan of radical feminists in the first place, so you can see where I'm starting from mentally.

Transgenderism is a mental illness:

DSM V defines mental illness as a behavioral or psychological syndrome reflecting underlying psychobiological dysfunction. It cause clinically significant distress or disability but cannot be an expectable response to common stressors (culturally sanctioned behavior to  particular event like trance states in religious rituals are exempt). It cannot be primarily a result of social deviance or conflicts with society.

It's true that for many transgender people, transgenderism causes significant distress due to gender dysphoria. Disability is generally not a problem until depression is extreme, and by then it already met the criteria for significant distress anyways.

It is psychobiological. The pieces fit. I think transgenderism is a mental illness if enough gender dysphoria is present. But a few things must be mentioned here: Not all transgender people have extreme dysphoria. Experiences vary. Also, mental illness is a classification, here defined by the DSM. It doesn't automatically tell us how to treat and deal with transgender people. There is a risk of stigma that could be counterproductive even if for some the classification fits. As I've mentioned already, previous attempts to 'fix gay people' ended up down a dark alley. One can argue that the correct treatment for transgenderism is medical transition.

People get mental illnesses. It happens. Sometimes your body hurts. Sometimes your mind hurts. It's not always something to be ashamed of. We all have struggles in life. That's how I look at it. As long as I don't dump my personal problems on others, it's not a problem for them.

Something something bathroom rights:
Why must the many change and cave to the few? Why must many cisgender people have to bother with the problems of the few transgender people and their bathroom rights?

In terms of bathrooms the tradeoffs are not symmetrical in intensity. Transgender people have been using your bathrooms before you did and they will continue to do so, only now they're not going to be carried off like a pervert committing a crime. In other words, the sacrifice of the many is very little if none. On the other hand, what is a transgender person to do? If they use one, they stick out like a sore thumb, and they are already statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted (far more likely that way than vice versa). Fundamentally I'm not even sure we need to have bathrooms sectioned off for one gender or the other so you already know my inclinations from the start.

Not much stops a man from crossdressing, entering a bathroom, and raping some young girl. The sign on the door saying 'female gender' instead of 'female sex' won't stop them. If a woman wishes to be more defensive if they spot a masculine looking person in their bathroom, go for it. Confront people acting strangely or possibly illegally. Finally, I find the concept of gender specific bathrooms without stalls to be dumb. The more rare instance where a building has such facilities we decide to section it off so less people can use it?

Should MtF people be allowed to show their breasts in public?
I feel people should be allowed to go nude. But if we want to play by the weird social rules of 21st century America, then the answer is no. Which is it, are you a male or female? Either trans and cis women should be allowed to show their chest, or neither.

It's just a fetish!
Addressed in the last blog post about Blanchard.

Should transgender people be allowed to serve in the military?
I think so. I think it's ridiculous to suggest transgender people in general cannot aim a gun or strategize. If people are worried about health coverage that is a seperate issue.

On selective service, that entire system is a giant middle finger to all men. I don't think MtF or FtM or males or females should be in that system. It's all or nothing.

Male, female, or anything in between, people joining should fulfill some test. If they pass, they're in. If they fail (and it doesn't matter the reason), they're out. I don't care if it's biology which one can change or not. The test must be equal for all or it is discrimination.

It's disgusting!
Yeah, so are you, and old people having sex but you don't see me complaining. :^) Is this America or what? Land of the free? Pursue happiness as you see fit.

Ben Shapiro:
Ben Shapiro claims that transgender people are humans and that he wishes them the best in fixing their own personal problems. However, he believes trans women for example, are men, and he is not willing to call men women or use the female pronoun. That alone is a defensible position, but it's a very PG version of what he really thinks. For example, his arguments against the validity of transgenderism is often that people cannot call themselves 60 years old if they are not 60, or that they cannot identify as a moose and expect others to call them a moose. As mentioned already, it is entirely possible that there is such thing as a male brain and a female brain. At the very least, we know there are biological markers that suggest that somebody is transgender or cisgender. There is no such thing for somebody identifying as being 60 years old or a moose.

Ben also believes that the 40% attempted suicide rate of transgender people is evidence that transgenderism is a mental illness. Again, already discussed is that severe gender dysphoria might make it as a mental illness but not all trans people have gender dysphoria. Yes, attempted suicide rate of transgender people are high, but it's ridiculous to suggest that acceptance of transgender people has no effect in attempted suicide rates.

The real problem are the people who make fun of transgender people, with comments like 'I identify as a helicopter'. Again, these people make light of serious problems because they have never experienced it. Even if transgenderism is a mental illness, attacking trans people is not right.

Critiquing Blanchard's Autogynephilia Theory

Ray Blanchard pushed the idea of autogynephilia, which is defined as 'a man's paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman'. He separates male-to-female transgender people into two categories: Homosexual and non-homosexual men. According to him, gay men go transgender to have sex with other men, while straight men do so because they're turned on by the thought of themselves being feminine. In other words, there are gay transgender MtF who want to knock up guys and straight MtF who have a fetish. Needless to say, Blanchard ideas are... heavily contested.

On top of the lifelong problems with acceptance throughout life, the sex lives of a MtF would be affected as well. The amount of people willing to date a transgender person is still relatively small, and the lack of testosterone can hamper sex drive. If any male tries to transition to female medically solely for a kink, they will find themselves ostracized and without a mate or sex drive. It becomes their nightmare. We would expect detransition rates to be very high but that's not the case. Instead, anti-androgens are taken with practically all hormone replacement therapies (HRT). For some, simply shedding some masculine characteristics and attaining a more androgynous appearance could keep dysphoria at bay, something that makes no sense if it was simply a fetish.

If somebody wants to be a sexy nurse, they can just buy a costume instead of going through medical school to visit random patients for 40 hours a week. If a guy wants to have sex with other guys, there are ways to do so, especially with gay acceptance at an all time high. Go to a gay bar. Trying to transition to a girl to attract guys is an ineffective and indirect route. Trying to transition medically for the sake of a fetish is signing up for a world of pain for something can be satisfied privately on the weekends.

The definition of paraphilia has been redefined in DSM V to mean 'persistent and intense atypical arousal pattern accompanied by clinically significant stress or impairment'. In my experience, transgender people who got turned on with feminization or crossdressing who transitioned lose their attraction to those things after it gets normalized. That's not very persistent. It's also not very impairing in the sense that arousal occurs from other sources for every transgender person I've come across (their ability to be aroused does not require a specific kink). The thought process of MtF people seem to suggest that a fetish for crossdressing is a normal phase that many transgender people go through.

But that's not even needed. In Blanchard's world there are only two types of male to female transgender people, and none of the reasons really involve identification with another gender or gender dysphoria, which is insane. It might be nice to 'solve' such complicated issues with such simple and neat little boxes, but it doesn't correlate with reality.

Here's an alternate explanation that is worth considering: A straight biological male before hormones is attracted to femininity. It may be a part of why a man might want to be a woman. Wearing clothes that are taboo to wear, feels different, and reminds the man of women probably would turn many guys on. On the other hand, there is also a pull to dress oneself make oneself pretty and presentable both for oneself and others just like cisgender females. Add in possible gender dysphoria which may be extreme or not exist at all.

It's possible to find a girl's form pretty aesthetically, as if it was a piece of fine art. It's also possible to be incredibly turned on by a pretty girl, or to prefer her form because one finds their own form disgusting. There are different possible reasons for wanting one thing. A similar idea works for crossdressing. It's possible to dress for purely fetish reasons or purely fashion reasons, or a mix of both. When it's purely one thing then the motivations are probably more obvious, but when it's a complex mix of both it's silly to say it's 'just a fetish'.

Finally, I want to highlight just how anti-trans Blanchard is. He said that the male partner of a straight MtF is 'usually a vague, anonymous figure rather than a real person and probably has little excitatory function beyond that of completing the fantasy of vaginal intercourse in the female role'. Blachard believes that since straight MtF have their core identity built on autogynephilia (fetish), MtFs are 'focused upon an imaginary partner who is faceless or quite abstract, and seems to be present primarily to validate the femininity of the person having the fantasy, rather than as a desirable partner in his own right'. The quote just now is from Lawrence, Blanchard's partner in crime (although Blanchard himself echos these beliefs). From what I could see, the straight MtF relationships actually tend to be more stable than homosexual MtF relationships. Since Blachard says that straight MtF suffer in their relationships because the foundations of their relationships are based on a fetish and the ones from homosexual MtF are not, we would expect the exact reverse by a large margin.

Is it still possible that many MtF transition due to a fetish which then manifests in ways which destroys their ability to enjoy that fetish via a super long and convoluted process? ...I guess, but there's no evidence to suggest that.

Often the difference between a fetish and a larger gender identity issue is that identity issues affects a person's life outside of sex. What starts as a sexual fantasy can change how one views themselves, affecting their life in other ways. This is because sexual experience is often private and personal, making it a safe place to explore things that one might not consider exploring in other parts of life. It's possible for one's brain, feelings, and opinions to change through self discovery, and that self discovery can come from many different things. The source isn't always the reason behind the new discovery just because it was discovered from it.

Finally, there is a growing pile of serious critique against Blanchard (http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-real-autogynephilia-deniers.html). My favorite is the study of autogynephilia in cis-women, and based on a self-reported survey similar to Blanchards. almost a quarter of women would be autogynephilic. If people accuse the 'liberal media' of being biased for 'the standard transgender narrative', then Blanchard's study and conclusions were heavily biased due to this obvious bias against transgender men. I'm almost waiting for the day where Blanchard just yells 'IT'S ALL JUST A FETISH, OKAY?', while people are contemplating suicide from hatred of their own bodies... over a fetish? That must be a hell of a fetish.

Unlike Blanchard I will say this: Dress publicly for sexual or non-sexual reaons in private or public if you want. Roleplay online for arousal, curiosity, or comfort if you want. Mull over the idea of what it means to be a woman every day and reflect on whether that would be wonderful in every way or if it's wonderful because it's sexy. It's all okay. Be mindful of the consequences of your actions, don't harm others, and try to enjoy life by living for yourself instead of others. Your time on this earth is limited.

Sources:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00918369.2010.486241
https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/3ewh26/im_a_gender_therapist_at_an_informed_consent/
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-real-autogynephilia-deniers.html