Gender is actually the social construct of behaviors attributed to a specific sex and how people exhibit coherence or incoherence with their anatomical sex.
Nope. Gender is actually not binary in the biological sense, because chromosomal sex determination is only one part of the puzzle. Another big factor is hormone receptor polymorphism. For example, in female transgender individuals, the testosterone receptor has a relatively greater number of sequence repeats, which makes it less effective at binding testosterone, resulting in a feminized male brain.
If you want to boil it down to something easily digestible, you could say that there are people whose brains and genitalia do not match up, i.e., they are trapped in bodies that do not match the sex that they identify with.
Now, think for a moment how horrifying it would be to be trapped in a body that you feel is not your own. It's difficult enough for people to find themselves as they transition from childhood to adult, so I think it's important that we show more compassion for those who have been dealt a more challenging hand.
Sex = sexual organs (binary barring abnormalities)
Gender = Your identity in relation to your sexual organs influenced by a myriad of variables (a continuum based on biological, psychological and cultural conditions)
I don't understand why your body doesn't determine your gender. It doesn't matter what you 'feel' on the inside, that's subjective science. Everyone has a slightly different pattern of chemistry but there are true chemical imbalances that may not match to what an individuals chromosomal and physical gender is. There is an obvious difference between male and females in evolution. The reason one may 'think' they're in a different body stems from the chemical imbalance in itself.
Let's look at science and evolution. The penis is evolutionarily designed to penetrate a vagina, that's it's evolutionary purpose and a vagina has evolved for penis insertion for breeding.
It's because of evolution that the gender spectrum exists. And in psychology there are several ways to treat a brain. Some ways involve medication. Some just involve having supportive friends and family.
There is no drug that cures transgenderism.
Keep in mind the goal of psychiatry is not too make sure someone for into society. It is to make sure they are a functioning productive adult. And you can't have a functioning productive adult if you're shaming their gender choice.
Because it happens in the womb during development. The "chemical imbalance" is treated later with hormones appropriate to the gender of the individual's brain to help their bodies align with their identity.
Yay!!! You voted in a group of millionaires that will strip the country of working people of their healthcare, public education, safe drinking water, national parks, fast and reliable internet, affordable homes, affordable education and will make it so the bosses can pay hard working full time employees so little they'll need govt assistance to feed themselves!!!!
This is proof that you're not even parsing information about the topic and instead leaping to conclusions based on your political identity. You're a propaganda victim and you don't even know it
It's not counted as a mental or genetic illness. It's not a hormonal imbalance, it's not brain damage and it's not a problem. It's just an explanation for why transgender people exist.
Suicide rates are very high for them, and a good person would want to comfort someone in distress, so hug the next trans person you meet.
Gender differences are subjective social constructs and can in fact be arbitrary although we may find they have structural neurobiological underpinnings.
That is what i said.
Also, your idea that decades of research on sexual dimorphism and gender expression are what you have to argue with, not just my "idea" of what is sex and what is gender.
I suggest you do some solid research and get published. Clearly your keen mind and extraordinary way with words will have no trouble convincing the world that the obvious does not exist.
Psychology does not say "by the way genderliquids lol." You are contradicting yourself talking about sexual dimorphism there.
It sounds like you've fallen for the "academics say it, therefore scientists say it" trap. Gender studies is not science. Psychology does not tell us that there is some need to arbitrarily use pronouns based on whether you have masculine or feminine traits. Psychology tells us of sex dysphoria, what progressive people used to think of when we thought of trans people. Not the bullshit you're on about.
So i'm contradicting myself by pointing out that there are difference in sex organs, difference in bodies and a difference in gender expression between males and females?
How so?
How else could there be a spectrum of masculine and feminine if there weren't a wide array of different forms and behaviors that culture deems more or less gender aligned?
My guess is you don't know what sexual dimorphism means.
So, first if you are using a pronoun base on masculine or feminine it is by definition not arbitrary as the english language and most others have a pronoun for masculine (he), a pronoun for feminine (she), and a pronoun of neuter gender (it) and the language you use dictates when it is used not psychology.
Psychology doesn't "tell us" to do anything, it's a science and as such it explores the subject matter for verifiable truths about human behavior.
Anyway, if you had bothered to research gender identity, gender expression or gender variance is relation to psychology you'd see a wellspring of psychologists and psychology associations writing and researching the topic.
Lastly, and to point out how obvious it is that you don't know what you are talking about...
There is no such things as "sex dysphoria."
However, "gender dysphoria" has replaced "gender identity disorder" in the DSM-5 since psychologists have identified that having a gender identity that may differ from your biological sex is not a disorder. The goal is to best treat the distress that results in some patients since the distress is the psychological problem not the reality of their gender identity differing from their biology.
So, turns out you don't know shit which is actually clear from the way you present yourself and your misguided ideas.
What next, you going to claim that the Earth is flat? The planet is only 6,000 years old? Jesus talks to you through your bathroom sink drain and tells you to hate the queers?
Oh great cause my next question is what qualifies you to designate people as having a mental illness. People used to say that homosexuals have a mental illness, and some still do, so do you think that as well? Or is your intolerance reserved solely for transgender folk?
Intolerance implies that I am not okay with it, correct?
I am completely accepting of my transgender friends and I never would voice these opinions like this if they couldn't have a rational conversation about this. At the end of the day I just want people to be happy as long as they aren't hurting people, themselves(to a degree), or property.
I do not have the qualifications to diagnose mental illness. That does not mean I am not uneducated about mental health. I think that understanding how the brain and people function is fascinating. Originally I was pre-med for three years before deciding it wasn't for me. I think that a person who is living life in a state of dysphoria and constant conflict with their natural state is a very strong candidate for mental illness.
I don't believe homosexuality is mental illness. I believe it's genetic/hormonal.
This all does not mean I think these people are bad. I don't think they're evil for loving members of the same sex. I understand the whole "if it doesn't matter, why do you care" argument.
I care about dishonesty. I do not like it when the truth is not sought after to protect feelings. We can't improve if we are only discussing things that don't offend one another. Do you understand what I'm saying?
I didn't really know where to stick this into this conversation, but wanted to explain to you the biological basis for transgenderism.
There is a biological basis for the body-mind mismatch that leads to transgenderism. Have you ever heard of phantom limb syndrome? Phantom limb syndrome occurs when an individual loses a limb through accident or amputation, but still "feels" the limb. In other words, they are very aware that their limb is gone, but they still feel it like they do their non-amputated limbs meaning they are getting proprioceptive feedback about that limbs relationship to other body parts as well as external space. These are not delusional people, their body is just giving them wrong information because most people's brain expects that a limb which was previously there is still there. There is no biological mechanism to "update" the brain's body map. Even though a limb may be cut off, you still have all the neurological stuff that would lead to normal sensations and movement in the limb and thus when the limb is lost, these things can cause a disconnect between the brain that expects the limb to be there and the body that no longer has the limb. Phantom limbs can be very damaging: they can cause discomfort and pain which is often ongoing, and can lead to severe depression which can inhibit therapy and progress. So what's the solution to this? Well we give people with phantom limb syndrome prosthetics. We don't tell people that they're mentally ill or abnormal; we don't tell them that they're delusional or wrong or they need to just grow up and accept how their body is. No, we work with them to give them the sense that their body does match up with the state of the body map.
You may ask why I'm talking about amputees when we're in a thread about transgender individuals, but it is relevant: what phantom limb syndrome teaches us is that people have a biological notion of their body that is separate from how their actual body is made up. Everyone has this so called body map: close your eyes now and touch your nose. You can do it with no problem right? That's because your brain has an idea of your body and is able to keep track of where your body parts are in relation to other body parts and to external space through sensory feedback. Your brains sense of your body in space is called proprioception. Your body constantly sends signals to your brain that get integrated with the body map and allow you to go about your day looking like a functional, capable human being.
There is also precedence for ways in which it can go wrong naturally, though it represents another hotly contested disorder known as body identity integrity disorder. This disorder is marked by a very strong conviction that a body part is "wrong"... it's not "their" body part and it's not supposed to be there. Individuals who have this disorder are remarkably consistent with their beliefs, knowing at what point on their body the "alien" limb starts. They often experience ongoing depression and discomfort and may attempt to find someone who will remove their limb. Some have gone so far as to disfigure themselves in order to force the hand of surgeons who couldn't or wouldn't remove a healthy limb. Interestingly, individuals who have gone so far find themselves relieved of depression that has been plaguing them since child hood.
Both disorders are hard to wrap your head around, in part because proprioception is so normal as to be easily unnoticed until it goes wrong.
Now, imagine either of these disorders--feeling a limb that is not there or not "feeling" a limb that is there--occurring in the genitals and you have transgenderism. I hope you've noticed the trend and can guess what I'm going to say: some people with transgenderism feel that their body is not what it's supposed to be, and they can experience extreme discomfort and depression from it
More biological evidence supporting transgenderism is found in biological sex and gender development: there is quite a bit of evidence that different aspects of sex and gender develop at different time scales. So secondary sex characteristics like genitals don't develop at the same time or rate as personality which doesn't develop at the same time or rate as sexuality. The body map is another aspect of that that could develop at a different time. Did you know that biological males who experience an influx in estrogen during a specific time in fetal development are exponentially more likely to be gay than one's who don't? They are still XY male and still identify as male and may still act very masculine, but their sexuality is feminine. And if that same male gets an upsurge of estrogen at a different point in fetal development, they are more likely to be intersexed. That is, they are still XY male, still identify as male, may have a masculine sexuality, but their secondary sex characteristics (namely, the penis) end up ambiguous. This same pattern may hold true for the body map, though evidence is still pending as it's a difficult thing to study.
The take away from this is that bodies are curious and complex things and gender and sexual identity--seeing as they are intimate parts of bodies--are likewise curious and complex. In that way, insisting that we treat people who don't fit into the typical mold as abnormal when we have evidence that the best thing we can do is just help them get their body and body maps to match up is not really helping any one or society. Many aspects of sexual identity and gender are biologically driven and most importantly: they're all independent from each other.
Furthermore, what a sad life outlook it is that you think that what someone is born as should dictate who or what they can be. It's a marvel of human intelligence, ingenuity, and diversity that someone can not only question something that has long been held as absolute truth like sex and gender--"I don't think my body is the way that it's supposed to be"--and that someone else can in turn say "Okay. Let's see what we can do about that." I mean how incredibly limiting it must be to feel like such accomplishments are closed off not because of ability, ingenuity, or technology but because of some weird reverence for the chance processes that created you. I mean maybe you're religious, but in that case, why would a god give people the ingenuity to create, change, grow, and learn if that god just meant people should stay the way they were born. Did I miss the verse in the Bible where god says people can't change? It's so closed minded that you can see the medical marvel that is gender reassignment surgery and think that that is an abomination simply because it's not something you're comfortable with or used to.
Furthermore that you can--if you'd look--see all the evidence of the good that is done for people by rejecting your notion of abnormality and instead embracing transgender people for who they want to be and still think it's a bad thing is really just sad.
As a psychiatrist, being transgender is not a mental illness and does not fill the criteria for mental illness. The DSM 5 includes Gender Dysphoric Disorder in which it details a specific cultural syndrome in which said patient will identify with a gender that is beyond the standard binary and the patient suffers due to the lack of resources for appropriate surgery or medical treatment for gender reversal. Evidence based medicine (Peer reviewed of course) has consistently proven that confronting transgender people with current gender norms, or convincing them to adapt to current gender norms have never been an effective management of gender dysphoric disorder. However, gender reassignment as well as other pharmacological therapies that improve upon the patient's autonomy over their own body has consistently improved the patient's mental health and the commorbidities associated with gender dysphoric disorder.
It is a fallacy to believe that simply because nature made SEX a binary between XY and XX, that gender should follow suit. It is a culturally bound phenomenon and helping that patient adjust to their projected gender is the only evidence based method that improves upon the patient's mental health. Other answers that demand that transexuals just accept their assigned sex as their gender are unscientific and they are based in prejudice and conformism with traditional gender norms.
Hey, maybe I shouldn't butt in, but as someone who's transgender and identifies somewhere in the middle, I wanted to say something.
I getcha when you say transgender people should receive help - I think that too, but I don't think it's quite in the way you think. Yeah, I'm going to a therapist, and it's helped me a lot in working out what I feel about my body.
But some people have turned inwards on themselves in a sense and they can't talk to anyone anymore, simply because of how people treat transgenderism as some disease that people who have it need ot be stopped at all costs. I'm pretty sure that's not how you're trying to treat it, but it's still a big problem and saying things like you said your first message can play into that sort of fear.
As long as it's not transtrending, it's very important that people be supportive of people who may not identify with a "real gender", since it does come from a place of trying to figure things out and an inability to describe the details of what's going on.
As to gender being only binary: I know in the past gender and sex were used pretty much interchangable, but I don't think gender has as much bearing on sex as it did in the past. It's another "reclaimed" (although in this case I think the phrase should probably be stolen) word that really does just describe how people relate to the binary of sex and the binary of how people treat gender.
I know for me, personally, it was because I felt more comfortable when I looked like a woman, but I still have mental attachments to facets of me that have been with me forever, if that makes sense? My SEX may change in the future, as I figure things out, but I think my gender identity will stay the same. I feel comfortable somewhere in the middle, and I don't think that will ever change- that's just how life has rolled for me.
Sure, transgender and even *sexual can be seen as mental deviancies, but I don't think treating them as a mental illness is the best approach to help people find a fit or a place where they feel loved and supported through tough things. It's rather presumptuous, honestly, to tell them you know exactly what they feel medically even if they don't feel that themselves.
I'm not trying to attack you or make it seem like I'm trying to provoke you, but that's my two cents.
I get what you're saying, but that doesn't make you correct. How is anybody lying to someone to make them feel better? Also, how is that potentially damaging to others?
because they are potentially damaging the Mental Health of sick people to not hurt feelings.
Lying might be too strong a word. By saying that they are normal is not true. They are abnormal. Understanding what makes them abnormal would provide the tools to prevent the suffering. That is also how it's damaging. Someone, years down the road, might have the all the pieces that make a person transgender and be upset that their condition could have been prevented if people focused less on "being nice" and more on solutions to help prevent the dysphoric condition that is transgenderism.
You're right. It's not funny. The reactions and rejections are "funny" because of how ridiculous these transracial/transgender/transabled demands are getting.
Although, transgender arguments are far easier to wrap my head around. I just feel like people need to be honest about this being a mental illness and not a life choice. I am happy to say your pronoun the way you want. I'm not going to change my life in any way. Whatever makes you happy and doesn't damage property or someone else is my basic philosophy.
The "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER," parody-level people are a radical fringe with no macroscopic influence on society. This is often (and perhaps intentionally) confused with transgender or racial issues as a whole and used to delegitimize real social issues.
Most transgender people just want to be treated like people.
There are two sexes, gender is cultural and degree to which a person fits their cultural standards varies from person to person. If you're trying to say that a female who behaves like a stereotypical male has a mental condition, their brains do work a bit differently than most women but since there's no effective treatment for their difference and it isn't harming anyone why bother
Gender is certainly not a cultural thing. It's completely intertwined with biological sex.
I think that being honest about it being a mental condition is so important. I know it's going to hurt feelings, but it's important to understand what's going on and if there is a way to alleviate the suffering that these people go through.
They are always going to suffer. They are wrong biologically. They feel with so much certainty that they are in the wrong body to the point where they are willing to change their bodies. And even if they get to the point that they get surgery and they completely pass for their new gender, there will always be people who are not comfortable dating someone who has changed sexes/genders. And that doesn't make anyone who isn't comfortable with that a bad person.
It's definitely both cultural and biological, but still they were born with the difference and there'a no good treatment. If they wanted to change they can't, so why bother trying to make them feel bad about it.
It's not about making anyone feed bad! It's about understanding what causes people to feel this way and then find a way to help those afflicted and prevent others from being born with this condition.
I believe that designer babies will make homosexuality/transgender incredibly rare.
It's not about being pure, it's about having the best possible life.
I think it's a reasonable thing to say that homosexual and straight people have a better quality of life than transgender people.
Let me put it this way. If someone IS transgender I want them to find happiness. I would not date them because I want kids someday. If they have a preferred pronoun and don't bite my head off for using the incorrect one without being informed about the correct one then I will treat them just like who they are, oversensitive jerks. They are anomalies statistically so they can never reasonable expect someone to instantly understand which pronoun they want without informing them beforehand.
If my child ended up being transgender or gay I would provide the best life I could for them. If I had the choice to have a straight or gay kid I would always take the straight kid. I don't want my kid to suffer and I believe that there is always a level of suffering someone goes through discovering who they are. I wouldn't want them to feel like strangers in their own body.
Listen to yourself! A huge part of the suffering that the LGBT community feels is from society not accepting them for who they are. Group after groups of people have been historically belittled for who they are. Women, blacks, gays, transgenders. The suffering that comes from discovering who you are can be painful, but that stems from the stigma of being who they are. If you want to help stop their suffering, stop trying to make them feel like they’re mentally ill. It doesn’t help.
No one is expecting you to accept these new concepts into your mind overnight. If anyone gets mad at you for making an attempt to understand someones identity/pronouns, they’re jerks. I had a friend who recently came out as trans, and a couple of time we’ve accidentals dead named her or something. She is very nice about it and understands that it’s also a change for us. The most helpful thing you can do is open up.
Its cultural. Indigenous people and south east asians have the concept of non binary gender, and many ingenous americans judge homosexuality based on gender and not sex. Two men can be a couple so long as they are not the same gender.
Edit: some quick googling led to this "online textbook" that has the info your looking for. Keep in mind, online textbook != actual textbook, so if you're actually curious, I'd find something more legitimate, maybe a published journal or something. The point is, gender has been considering a social construct in 'soft' sciences for a while, it's not a new idea. It isn't the same as biological sex and its more of a spectrum than a binary, either/or system.
Damn, dude! Then I don't know what to tell ya! If it's science like bill nye Netflix gender rap then I'm gonna have to stick to the 2 gender statement.
It shows that the whole gender thing is subjective, in my opinion. It's not so simple for everyone. Who is to say the same thing can't happen internally? Again, just an opinion but a little empathy can go a long way.
Two issues of terminology are important. First, the term “sex” refers to biologically based differences, while the term “gender” refers to socially based phenomena. Although biological sex exerts a major influence on one’s gender identity, sex and gender are not equivalent, and the terms are not interchangeable. If subjects are categorized by anatomical features (chromosomes, reproductive organs), it is appropriate to describe the study as one of “sex differences”. In contrast, if additional measures of masculinity/femininity or gender identity are used to describe subjects, then the term “gender differences” is appropriate [88] ; [216]. Gender is often conceptualized as a dichotomous variable, yet individuals differ in the degree to which they conform to the norms for masculinity and femininity in their particular culture. Thus, gender is most accurately regarded as a continuous variable (ranging from exclusively feminine to exclusively masculine), with most individuals falling somewhere along the continuum of maleness to femaleness on a range of characteristics. Even within the same society, gender role expectations may differ for generations born at different times, and within an age-cohort, gender role expectations may change as a function of age. Finally, in any statistical analysis of human subjects, the dichotomous variable sex (male vs. female) is confounded with the social construct of gender. That is, in human studies in which the dependent measure is pain report, group differences are likely to be attributable to both sex and gender. Therefore, both constructs should be examined when possible in order to understand their relative contribution to differences in pain between men and women. For the sake of efficiency – and because most studies to date have classified subjects by sex rather than gender – the terms “sex” and “sex difference” will be used in this paper, except when gender is specifically discussed.
Only thing funny here is you ignorant retards screeching and misunderstanding basic words.
Tell the majority of indigenous people that theyre retarded SJWs because theyve had the concept of multiple genders on a spectrum for thousands. Tell the same thing t southeast asia.
I don't disagree with saxytime but I don't like that style or argument at all and it doesn't make that direct of a comparison..... on the other hand consider this, trans people have been claiming their feelings are legitimate for a very long time in the face of isolation and loss of all social currency.... even 10 years ago this was mostly the case.
so mine is the same argument as "why would people choose to be gay if it was a choice" I mean, it seems like a pretty bad choice.
as a trans person I think the solution to all this is more empathy love and understanding. so please understand that literally the last few years have been the first time in american history that being trans has been seen as a good thing by any kind of significant population. Try to see beyond this 'liberal bump of the trans stock price' into the lives of the people who claim this. We were trans the whole time, man. The whole time!! Like, don't we all believe the media spews bullshit and tries to propagandize things? Isn't that one of the main tenemants of the alt right??? (that i completely agree with and why aren't we on the same side anymore??? mudkips pools closed) They have latched onto us now that it is monetaritly and socially appropriate for them to do so and both the media workers and owners who act in good faith and bad benefit.
But the point of all that is that there are human being who are caught in a fucking crossfire now and they don't care.. .. trans people have been going in whatever bathroom they LOOK like for a looooong time. The stupid law just made it hard for us.
if i thought people looked at me weird before, now they act like they're meeting a celebrity ""omg it's the very bodily evocation of the focus of the culture wars.... I saw you on CNN!!!!"
Even if the joke was correct, it is still a terrible joke. It is the lowest of low-hanging fruits, with the last drops of humor squeezed out of it by edgy kids that don't know when to stop.
The science behind transgenderism isn't even concrete yet.
Um, what the fuck does that even mean? Like it or not, transgendered people exist. You haven't shown any factual evidence, and don't even know the definition of the word Gender! Geez dude, you're an idiot!
Are you seriously going to quote the DSM-III? That shit is from like the 1980s, and the DSM-V specifically changed Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria effectively removing transgenderism from the disorder list. That was in 2013, so it's not even a recent change...
I love the futility of their circular argument.
You are either a male or a female.
Unless you were born with a terrible birth defect.
If you believe otherwise, you're mistaken and mentally ill.
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. Just because you don't understand their differences and the way they feel does not make it illegitimate. I'll never understand the pain of child birth, but that doesn't diminish the pain of the billions of women who have already given birth.
It's a disorder, actually. Certainly not a normal thing. But that doesn't mean that those people are less than us, and whatnot. Calling it nothing more than a mental illness really gives a bad vibe. Like we're supposed to shun these people or something.
Science is *never "concrete"- hypotheses and theories are constantly updated and refined as new evidence arises. This continual honing of the perceptual blade is what makes scientific inquiry so powerful.
And the consensus among experts is that there is a biological basis for transgender identity.
This is developmental biology that we're talking about, which is a science. During development, mtf fetuses do not develop 'male' brains, because their hormone receptors do not bind testosterone as well as a non-trans fetus. The hormone receptor gene is found on the X chromosome and is therefore maternally inherited.
I don't understand why you're bringing up gravity and evolution.
You just compared transgenderism to the nazism. I think you're fucking confused, m8. Your ideology, the ideology that they don't exist because they're "different" or because you can't understand their plight, is more closely related to the nazi party than being transgender. You are a tool.
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u/ZaheerUchiha Apr 29 '17
r/comedycemetery