No More Bruce.....Say Hello to Caitlyn!

I have absolutely no problem with homosexuality, transgender or whatever... my Sister was the first gay marriage in Britain.


If either of my kids turn round one day and say they want to change sex, I'm cool with it.
If you're Male, but want to be known as a Female and wants the law and society to treat you as a Female, fine, good, go for it...


But I'll say the same to anyone as I said on here today... your are Female at birth, you're Female for life... the same for Males.
No amount of hormone tablets and plastic surgery to remove certain, erm, appendages, is going to change that.
Your DNA, your bone structure, the very genetic makeup of your body is set when you were still in the womb and cannot be reversed or changed.

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What were those parents thinking? Clearly he was Caitlyn all the time, how dare they name him Bruce.

He didn't have a problem being Bruce for 65 years of his life. I don't think when he was 20 he was saying to himself "I wish I wasn't Bruce". I think this is something that has transpired over the past 15 or so years, not 65.

I agree with Rodent. No problem with them at all but you can't change your sex no matter how many surgeries you have.

The big question should be... if Bruce has "always been Caitlyn"... that means a woman competed in those Men's races.


Should be stripped of those medals if I'm completely honest.

I never go nasty... I just go logical and truthful.

To look at someone who has struggled with gender identity issues for years and think that their decision to be recognised by their true identity is nothing more than "instant self-gratification" is an extremely reductive way of looking at it. It's not like going through with a physical gender reassignment is some kind of spur-of-the-moment thing - it takes years of psychiatric therapy and whatnot before it even gets started. Even then, it's not like having a gender identity different to your assigned gender means you have to go through with a literal sex-change. Trying to treat gender identity as a vice comparable with self-medication is disrespectful not just to transgender people but also to addicts. From all accounts, Caitlyn is genuinely happy to be able to openly express her gender identity as she does, so I'm not sure how this is celebrating the exact opposite of living as you are.

If there is anything about Caitlyn Jenner that could be considered a sad product of what our society has become, it's that she had to wait this long to even begin to be openly true to herself because of the various levels of transphobia coded into modern society. Violence, abuse, etc. Those are the real sad things about society, not some famous person deciding to be honest not just with themselves but with their loved ones and the general public.

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Aye; and I think calling people "haters" probably sends the wrong signal about what kind of discussion you're looking for, if you're trying to have a mature one.

If you are, then great. Let's start:

All this really means is that you define the word "woman" to mean "anyone who says they feel like a woman," right? To other people, that word is based in biology, and not much is accomplished by simply talking past this discrepancy. I suspect this is a big part of people's objection: being told how to speak. Being told that a word means something else now, and if you don't fall in, you're a bigot.

But moving past the rhetoric, the heart of the matter is what we do when someone says they feel one way, but objective reality says they're not that way. Obviously, you've decided that in the case of gender, feeling trumps reality. So the obvious question is: why? And if feeling trumps reality in this situation, why not others?

I think what Sean is saying is the same as me... in that Jenner, and all transgender people are lying to themselves... if you go back to what I said about biology.


People, especially famous people when it comes to plastic surgery changing sex, having hair implants and all that, they're lying to themselves... and it's seen as normal, even applauded and revered. That's the true sad state of society.

To Yoda's very good questions I will add.

What does Jenner being true to himself look like? Because from where I have been sitting it looks like outside appearence has an awful lot to do with that. So my statement about being comfortable in your own skin stands for now.

I will also reiterate my question from above. What do you think brought about this great desire to change gender?

Am I to understand that you're trying to blame society for your refusal to acknowledge Jenner's gender identity?

Yeah, that's why there's a difference between your assigned gender (which is what you're given at birth) and your gender identity. That was never in question. While Jenner may have been assigned a male at birth, the fact that she does not consider herself male now is what's important.

If the interviews she's given are any indication, this is a problem she's been dealing with in private for years. Besides, the length of time itself is more or less irrelevant. A person wants to change genders? So be it.

The problem some people have is, the life they were given, in this case Bruce being born a man, feels like the lie. Bruce felt like he was living a lie for the past however many years, and decided that in order to truly feel like himself, he needed to change. Not saying I agree or disagree, it's a personal choice. It's not my place to tell anyone how to feel or how to be happy, I'll leave that to Dr. Phil

I'll let him answer for himself, but he might be referring to the tension between support for transgenderism and the decrying of gender roles (which I feel pretty confident in saying you're not a fan of). These two ideas really don't fit together, despite the fact that anyone who holds one view pretty much invariably holds the other.

Example: it's one thing to say "I want to wear dresses now because I like dresses." That's a simple statement with no inherent connotations attached. But if you say "I want to wear dresses because I feel like a woman and that's what women wear," you're reinforcing traditional gender roles. You're saying overtly feminine things are for women, and that they can't feel like a woman unless they have those accouterments.

You're right, I did not explain myself. In the previous post I made, I brought up the discrepancy between assigned (birth) genders and gender identities. Caitlyn Jenner was assigned male at birth, but now identifies as female. That trumps the concept of objective reality since a person's basic physiology is not an automatic indicator of their gender identity. Identity as a fundamental concept is defined more by one's mind than by one's body anyway, so it's more than just a feeling. Some parts of your identity you can work to change, while others are basic parts of who you are as a human being and thus it really is simpler to just acknowledge them.

See my last response to you re: assigned genders.

As far as the sad state of society goes, I do think it's a problem that there's this really narrow and unrealistic set of physical standards that people are pressured to conform to in order to be considered attractive or worthy of attention (especially when they involve women in general, who definitely get the short end of the stick in this regard). Of course, assuming that literally every single person undergoes cosmetic surgery is "lying to themselves" is a bit much - it's really just another form of self-improvement that isn't much different from working out. Yeah, it's extreme and superficial, but if that's what the person sincerely wants, then can it really be called "lying"? We can't judge everyone.

Source:

That doesn't sound like the whim of some B-list celebrity deliberately trying to make a tabloid headline. That sounds like someone who's weighed their options and the consequences and decided that this is the right thing for them to do.

I think "society norms" have a huge impact on who we become. I think it has an enormous impact on people with gender identity issues. In fact I can't ask you a single question about why Jenner feels this way that wouldn't reinforce social gender sterotypes. Maybe you can show me some examples that wouldn't.

In response to your last statement, I think the important question is why she does not consider herself male now?

I'll grant that. A transgender woman is under no obligation to conform to explicitly feminine gender roles in terms of conduct - it's not like reassignment surgery or hormone replacement are 100% mandatory either.

Well, you might as well ask them - all I can do is answer them.

As for that last question - that's just how she is? I can't be specific as to whether or not there are extenuating circumstances that led to this development, not without doing some research. I'll get back to you on that.

I don't wanna get too off track from the core questions, but I think the debate would be substantially improved by disposing of the obvious misnomer "assigned gender." This implies an element of whim or discretion which simply isn't there. Biological gender (until recently known as "gender") is not assigned at birth, it's identified. And this is clearly true even if you make a distinction between biological gender and gender identity. "Assigned" smuggles rhetoric and implication into what really ought to be a neutral, descriptive term.

I'm not sure how this answers anything. The question was why gender identity takes precedence over physiology, and you're simply saying it's because they don't match. Obviously they don't always match--that's why we're able to ask which takes precedence in the first place.

There's also the related question: why draw the line here? There's a condition known as Body integrity identity disorder, where people become convinced that one of their limbs is not really their own and doesn't belong on them. It is (rightly, to my mind) regarded as a mental illness. Nobody thinks it's a good idea for them to cut their own arms off and nobody thinks they're brave for admitting they want to.

You can probably guess my question: should this be classified as a mental illness? If so, why is it healthy to cut off some body parts, but not others, and who gets to decide which is healthy and which isn't?

Is it about looks, is it about sex, is it about a maternal instinct, is it about empowerment? All these questions lead me to the extenuating circumstances. I really do want to hear how you end up feeling about this. To me it cuts to the heart of it. I hope we can both be open to a different POV.

I'll say this first, so you all know what my point of view on this matter is before reading my post:

I'm completely in favor of surgical sex changes for people who have a genuine gender identity crisis (or what I think that means).

I'll respond to this little fragment first, because it's a good start to explain my way of thinking about the subject of transgenderism:

I think the heart of the matter could also be described as a confrontation between two realities: physical reality versus psychological reality.
Psychological reality can also be seen as part of the physical reality (or biological reality or whatever you want to call it) of course when you want to study it neurologically, but let's make a clear distinction to make the argument easier.
The important difference here is that I'm assuming that what Yoda describes as "feeling" is part of reality.

I'll give a short philosophical (fictional) hypothesis and I'll try to let you all understand my point of view a little better.

Let's first assume that we live in a world where complete biological gender change is possible. XY-chromosomes can be converted to XX-chromosomes and vice-versa. Then, let's assume that you (whoever reads this) are kidnapped and are forced to go through such a gender change operation. Your psychological reality is still the same, but your complete physical (biological) reality now demonstrates that your gender is the opposite of the one you were originally. It's a disturbing thought that kind of resembles what (I think) people with a gender identity crisis are going through.

You could still argue that the memory of being the other gender makes it more disturbing and "real", but let's say it would've been done right after you're born (you don't have any memory of it). Your psychological gender identity would still be the one of your original gender, while your physical identity would be the one of the gender you've been physically changed to. You would be prisoned in a body that doesn't "fit" your mind.

In that case, I think it's perfectly reasonable to argue that people who truly have this kind of identity crisis should be able to take measures to change their physical reality according to their psychological reality (or at least make it resemble how they "feel" they are).

Now, I know some people will protest againt what I think (according to what I've read about the subject) "transgenderism" actually is or means and I'm perfectly willing to have that discussion as well, but let me ask you all this question first:

If being a transgender would truly resemble the horrific psychological identity crisis that I explained in my hypothesis, would you still have problems with people changing their "sex" (or physical resemblance of one) through surgery?

I don't think any of us have a problem with it. We are just stating that an honest change of someone going from "Bruce to Caitlyn" is merely a psychological change and can in no way be physically (as in genetically) (and to a higher degree technically) possible.

I think the reason "assigned" became the preferred term over "identified" is because not only is it a bit unwieldy when you have to alternate between identified gender and gender identity as part of the discourse but also because a gender is assigned to a newborn after it has been identified. Not sure where the "whim" or "discretion" or "smuggled rhetoric" enter into it.

I think, therefore I am.

Doctors.

But seriously, that's kind of why there's all this psychiatry involved when it comes to undergoing full gender reassignment - to make absolutely sure that having the surgery is a conscious choice by a sound mind in pursuit of a clearly defined goal to help achieve physical and mental well-being and that there aren't any actual mental illnesses that could complicate matters. Not sure if cisgender people undergoing elective cosmetic surgery get similar treatment, but that's a debate for another time. So while it is a fundamentally mental issue, I don't think it qualifies as a full-blown illness, especially not on part with body integrity identity disorder.