Response to “Growing body of research rejects transgender movement”
Herein lies my response to The Washington Times’ recent article titled “Growing body of research rejects transgender movement”.
Is Caitlyn Jenner a woman? A growing body of research from scientists, philosophers and feminists says no.
Clearly not. Caitlyn and I are transwomen, not women. Our lived experiences are similar yet different to cisgender (non-trans) women. Practically in society, we’re women, but we’re transwomen, not women in the typical sense.
Contrary to the transgender movement’s central claim — that “gender identity” determines whether someone is a man, a woman or something else — Mr. Anderson said the only rationale for determining an organism’s sex is “by that organism’s organization with respect to sexual reproduction.”
Gender identity is one determinant of whether someone is a man or a woman, another determinant is biological sex. For example, I’m biologically male, but I’m on female hormone replacement therapy (HRT), I believe that my testosterone levels are much lower than the average female, my chest isn’t flat, I dress and act as a woman, and I have a female name. Virtually all men are like anything but me, but because I’m not biologically female, therefore I am a transwoman. If I am a man, then I’m the worst example of man, and referring to me as a man is an insult to all men. So insulting, that if I walked into the male facilities, I’d be kicked out instantly.
“Apart from that, all you have are sex stereotypes… There’s no other objective standard for identifying the sex of an individual.”
Sex stereotypes? Mr Anderson, I think you mean gender expressions. Sex and gender identity are different, but of course, related. And gender identity and gender expression are even more different, and even less related. Of course, biological sex remains the objective standard for identifying the sex of an individual, but differentiating that from gender identity and gender expression is important.
Gender describes the manifestations of the two biological sexes male and female, and that allows us to see the differences between male and female. In general, we see biologically-driven differences in behaviour between men and women, and that biology comes down to hormones, interactions between genotypes and phenotypes, and brain wiring. It’s an enduring trend we see throughout human history. There are a thousand or more versions to (non-binary) gender expressions, but there are only the male and female genders (gender identities) in existence.
Mr. Anderson said the transgender movement’s emphasis on surgical and cosmetic procedures is inconsistent with the notion that “gender exists primarily between our ears.” If gender is a mental phenomenon, “why do we then have to radically transform people’s bodies?”… Dr. Paul R. McHugh… concluded that the procedures brought no benefit to his patients… Today, he recommends that patients with gender dysphoria seek psychosocial treatment… “Gender dysphoria… is sometimes treated in adults by hormones or surgery, but there is little scientific evidence that these therapeutic interventions have psychological benefits”…
I underwent counselling and psychotherapy for years, and it did very little to treat my gender dysphoria. That started when I was 14-15 years of age. I transitioned when I was 21. That’s nearly 7 years of living an incredibly miserable life. I was under a lot of pressure to make psychotherapy work for me, but it only exacerbated my dysphoria, which only nosedived my sense of worth.
In hindsight, I’m surprised that I’ve never been diagnosed with PTSD. I am not going to ask you to try to empathise, because to ask you to empathise with incorrectly-treated gender dysphoria would be cruel on my part. After all that said and done, if I could have live as a man I would have, but gender dysphoria does not negotiate with biological sex, at all. It’s unbridled and autonomous psychological abuse addicted to band-aid solutions like psychotherapy, all of which disrupted my relationship with my parents, friendships, high school studies, social development etc.
The wholesale healing process only started when I started my gender transition. It’s exhausting to remember my horrific experiences to explain why I can’t live as a man. Whilst I’m not suicidal, for some time now I’ve been desensitised to idea of me dying for any reason, because only then will my gender dysphoria be rendered absolutely non-existent.
But for as long as I’m alive, I refuse to feed my gender dysphoria, and transition has being my most successful weapon thus far in starving my dysphoria. Dysphoria deserves starvation, not salvation. All medical conditions deserve starvation, not salvation. Oddly enough, this is why I oppose Safe Schools. I refuse to be used to spread social contagion.
In simple, I’d rather be dead than not live as a woman, as imperfect my womanhood is. Transition is better than being dead.
Miss McGowan had said being a transgender woman is not “growing [up] as a woman, that’s not living as a woman, and a lot of the stuff I hear trans [women] complaining about — yeah, welcome to the world.” She also said Caitlyn Jenner has “male privilege” and “doesn’t understand” what it’s like to be a woman.
And this is why I can’t take feminism seriously. Feminism is anti-male victimhood, anti roughly half of the world’s population, hiding behind questionable concepts such as male privilege. My pay did not go up or down when I transitioned from male to female. According to the gender pay gap narrative, my pay was meant to go down, so why didn’t it? That’s awkward… as awkward as the gender gap in job satisfaction.
Did I also mention that as a man I had trouble with reining in my agreeableness, ad that it was only some years later after transition that I took personal responsibility to modulate my agreeableness as a woman? Sorry feminists, but if you want higher pay, it’s your responsibility to learn to successfully negotiate higher pay (Google it). Not to mention that employers aren’t hiring more women than they already are because the gender pay gap is not real (let that sink in). That’s why modern feminism is over.