Mary Harrington - Why are so many transgender prisoners sex offenders?

The whole 'identifying as' something comes from Queer Theory. Now we hear people who are lesbian or gay saying " I identify as a gay man" or "I identify as Queer". This is quite a new phenomena - that is straight from post modernistic ideas about the construction of the self, whereby there is only role play and no core self.

That is because of your belief in such a thing as a " genuine" trans identity - which you cling to no matter what arguments or alternative evidence/persepctives are put to you.

If you were really interested in testing out your beliefs you would have subjected them to some of the evidence and accounts that are in plentiful supply on this board.

Queer Theory ( from which gender identity theory arises) is all about playing roles. The performance of gender.

'Identity' in the way you are using it is role play. That is why someone identifies as something - and not with something. Identifying with something means that you share a set of values or conditions.

If you identify as something, it implies you are not actually that thing.

We keep going round in circles...and you have totally avoided the issue of the sexual motivation that lies behind transition for many, even though you posed a question about it, and evn though you have been on this board for years.

How "genuinely" someone believes something is something only they can know; plus it still doesn't make that belief true. We all hold beliefs of one sort or other, and then the time comes when the scales fall from our eyes and we come to realise that what we believed was a fantasy; or the belief was an avoidance strategy; or a naivety; or whatever it was.

You do realise that Stonewall and the new orthodoxy both say that being trans is not a medical condition, and that one does not even need to be suffering from dysphoria to be "genuinely" trans, don't you?

Of course you do.

How other people identify is for them alone. It has got nothing to do with the rest of society until it impinges on other people's rights and protections or transgresses societies moral or criminal codes.

You've been posting for years....i recognise your username. You must have read the many many threads that deal with this?

See the 'trans widows' thread if you are unaware of the sexual motivations and obsessions that have taken hold of many men.

Is that the Grayson Perry post that has been deleted? The one where he describes the reasons and motivations ( including sexual) behind cross dressing?And where I mention Andrea Long Chu discussing how pornograophy is what turned him trans?

i though we were having a genuine conversation -I didn't realise that you were seeking to report honest posts ( perhaps it was not you who reported?)

You are still clinging to the "genuinely trans" claim. Adopting a trans identity is not like being gay - which is just a matter of fact around being attracted to people of the same sex. There is no " matter of fact" about being trans. It is not one thing. It is many things. Many motivations. Many different reasons. Many different pathways. It is not one single state.

Add to that the implicit thrill in transgression...which is what lies behind Queer theory.

I've been witnessing the transition of a young man over the last 12 years or so - from a distance via an Internet forum. He started off with intense and chronic dysphoria and distress around his male organ - but now genuinely seems to believe ( or has talked himself into - with the encouragemnt of allies) a belief that he is a woman.

I don't think this belief will persist forever, even though he has now had the 'full' surgery. In fact - that surgery, and its consequences, may well escalate the final reckoning with reality.

I see them as people who are driven by a psychological condition or state of mind - to enact a role.

I think there are many different people who have adopted a trans identity and they have a variety of motivations and experiences. I mentioned two to you a few days ago - the tweo men who featured in the Netdflix documentary 'Regretters'. They both knew they were not really the opposite sex - they recognised they were adopting this persona in order to fulfil a deeper need that was driving them.

So the answer to that question is maybe some do, but plenty of others don't. And even then, the some that do may eventually desist when reality creeps in and can no longer be denied or avoided.

There seems to be a desire amongst many to assert that if a trans identified person is violent, predatory or abusive then they cannot actually be 'genuine'. This posits that trans identified people are by nature victims and incapable of the same range of behaviours as everyone else, which is simply not true.

The fact, though, that many men who are now transitioning are of the AGP variety - and would previously have been referred to as cross dressers. These people have a high level of paraphilia which can manifest in transgressive behaviours, sexual drives and desires. You only have to speak with the wives, and families, to know about this.

What I recognise is that some people identify as trans. I don't recognise that they are what they feel they are, no.

Theer are lost of men who have vulnerabilities in prison - and yes, there could be a separate wing to protect them from violence. The issue is, though, that many of these men with trans identities who are in prison are themsleves predatory and/or violent.

It is the transgression between public and private that is the issue. Identity should largely be a private matter - not a public one.

That's the issue, though. And that is the difference, generally, with Christians who maintain a personal faith. They don't require everyone else to believe in it too.

There are trans identified peole who do know they are not really the opposite sex. They don't seek to impose it upon everyone else- it is just a way of 'presenting' that they feel they need to do.