Just a question re transgender

[drasticdonkey]

I'm part of a following online (think sci-fi) and I've noticed that this group of people is increasingly made of trans people/gender fluid/queer people etc.

Not only that, but as I've gotten to know the group more/become closer to people I've noticed the following:

• The prevalence of mental health issues in this group
• the prevalence of adhd/autism in this group
• many of them have POTS, or chronic pain conditions or ehlers Danlos.
• the clothing and hair is also very similar, almost like a uniform
• they enjoy certain sci fi shows/certain characters and really become fixated on every aspect of it
• fights often erupt as people get easily offended over very silly things and almost compete to be the "worst off or have the worst mental health" if that makes sense

I suppose my question and thoughts turned to "is any of this connected?!". Has any science/research properly investigated these links? Aibu to wonder if all these things are connected - in particular the medical aspects?

I'm not aiming to offend on this thread but really I'm just curious re the genetic aspect

NameChangedForThis1985
Ah yes.... "some other fatigue causing illness or chronic pain illness that isn't yet diagnosed and is a mystery"
Also known as Lazyitis. Family member has it which means she doesn't get up until 2pm, 3pm, 4pm so she couldn't possibly get a job and she's soooo tired. Forgetting that she stays up online until 4 in the morning.

I thought that just meant you had a liver complaint! That is explained in Three Men In A Boat:

"With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all. .... I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”"

The first time I saw a link between Sci Fi and trans was the Wachowski brothers (who became the Wachowski sisters-unusual for the time) they are the ones who wrote and produced The Matrix, in1999.

In fact one of the characters Trinity in the Matrix who Neo falls in love with was origionally going to be a woman in the matrix (false world), and a man in 'real life', but they thought that the plot twist would be too much for a mainstream audience.

Medievalist. The generation gap looks different but never changes.

Me too!

We have a lot of ND, Pots, hypermobility in family. I believe that the hyper mobility drives infant reflexes not going dormant which is linked into ND / Pots etc.

Is that the long winded condescending way of the usual attempt to shutdown something you don't like 'educate yourself'?

I don't disagree. What's wrong with this picture? The expectation of 'performing' as an assigned gender. We were doing so well with freeing kids of sex-role stereotypes ('gender'), encouraging them to develop their interests, talents and personalities regardless of what is now called cis-heteronormativity. Nobody needed to try and change sex, only to find their personal selves in their natural bodies.

Then some bunch of transhumanist Americans with bottomless funding decided to start indoctrinating everyone that we are not our bodies. That we can & should change our fleshbags to be what 'we' - the disembodied self - feel suits us. Medical institutions and weird fetishists alike glommed onto this with enthusiasm, adopting the relatively easy sell of changing sex if you don't feel comfortable being a walking sex-role stereotype (who the fuck does?)

That their movement has become an enforcement of gender stereotypes whistles right over most of their heads, although the teams that drive it are well aware. They exist, btw, and their strategy documents are published.

It makes me really, really sad. Girls should be playing football or Warhammer with total confidence by now; boys should be playing with fashion and makeup; all the young people SHOULD have been quite at home with their physical sex and felt free to be themselves, untrammelled by outdated 'gender' expectations.

But that doesn't feed a vast medical industry or deliver under-confident young bodies to fetishists. So we've got this instead.

But this is part of the problem. Ds has ASD and ADHD and when he finished Uni he had all sorts of reasons for not getting a job - a very long list indeed. Starting with - what people with ASD can’t do. I’m afraid I’m not very trendy on this thinking because I said - you either learn to do it or accept a limited life while you wait on the world to change to suit you. Everyone is scared of doing stuff, no one likes getting up in the morning, no one likes making that phone call - - you might find it harder but what choice do you have and the only way to learn is by just jumping in.
Back home, away from Uni he is no longer surrounded by ND people telling him it’s ok to opt out. He’s got a job - now that was a big learning for him and he needed a lot of scaffolding but he kept going - he’s gained so much confidence and he hasn’t mentioned anxiety in months - he feels like a different person - full of optimism. Sometimes it’s not being ND, sometimes it’s just plain old fear and nerves - like we all experience.

What's your evidence for this?

Hypermobility of joints is one of the causes for some retained primitive reflexes. Retained reflexes are associated with a lot of abnormal functioning.

"Multiple studies show that children who have retained reflexes have discrepancies in sensory development, postural disorders, decreased motor/cognitive performance, and decreased psychomotor development."

Primitive reflexes disappear as a child's nervous system develops proprioception and learns how to voluntarily control the body. I'm unclear on what is cause or effect with many of the affected functions but it's thought that physiotherapy can partially or wholly complete 'integration', after which the individual will have fewer issues growing up.

https://www.occupationaltherapy.com/articles/understanding-primitive-reflexes-they-impact-5409-5409

@Garlicworth Thank you for posting the link, it's an interesting read! It doesn't actually prove what the original poster was claiming, though.

No, it doesn't, but I can see where she was coming from. I had no idea about any of this!

@Nonstopnoise - I couldn't have put it better myself! I still absolutely dread making phone calls and will try and avoid it wherever possible despite being in a fairly professional job. Another reason my relative gives is that she's too anxious for interviews - not realising that it's not a pleasant experience for anyone really!

There is/was a thing for tattoos of one indicating a suicide attempt. Not sure if tatoos were relevant here though - I don't think you can claim exclusive ownership for the use of such a generic thing.

There are several groups of people that are being conflated by some posters.

Do you remember the concept of the Friday afternoon car? The lemon, made when factory workers were tired and looking forward to the weekend and paying less attention to detail!

Some bodies feel like that- lots of comorbidities, all real, possibly auto immune, some trivial, some severe, shit to have to live with.

Then there are the teens who catch everything they read about and pathologise normal experiences.

Recognising the second group doesn’t invalidate the first.

Though I left a support group where the leader genuinely had lots of health issues but seemed to want to extend the symptom list beyond what was reasonable. It was like a matter of pride to show what we have to put up with and say ‘I suffer from 73 of the 95 symptoms of [fibro].’ Half of what she said was really helpful, the other half embedded a ‘too ill to manage’ mindset.

I just went to twitter and searched "pots queer" and so many profiles came up.

One that thinks he is a wolf... and has 18 plus themes. Pronouns include "it"

Another: I'm a queer, disabled artist, Chronic illness, MCAS, ME/CFS, POTS, long Covid

Another: Your disabled queer kinky vegan pagan

They are all into kink, trans, enby (which I think is non binary) and have several of the conditions I mention.

Honestly, this is so frequent that it can't be a coincidence.

Yup, no coincidence they're just all absolutely nuts and constantly attention seeking.

@drasticdonkey Yes, there is so much of it, all over various social media platforms. I understand some people feel offended by it being brought up, but it isn't intended to be personally hurtful to anyone. This is a very real phenomenon and I think it's perfectly legitimate to discuss it. Some of us have been watching this unfold (and seeing the damage it causes) for years now.

Social media has a lot to answer for.

I agree that it's no coincidence but I disagree about the cause.
There is a strong correlation between autism and a whole host of autoimmune diseases, including ones that (if you are a skeptic) are not possible to fake eg crohns disease (diagnosed by structural changes to the gut seen via biopsy). You don't have to be autistic to suffer from these conditions of course, but they are far more prevalent amongst autistic people than neuro typical ones.

So if many trans people are autistic then it stands to reason that the incidence of these conditions will be far higher than normal within the trans community.

So I'm wondering if there is a genetic element to all of this. All the links between other conditions and autism. Perhaps the same can be said for transgenderism. Perhaps we should be treating it like a medical condition. I think it would help people be more understanding and treatment would be different perhaps (focusing on mental health improvement and coping strategies NOT hormones and surgery)

Medical condition? No. Mental health condition? Possibly, in some demographics , particularly younger ones, along the lines of eating disorders. Paraphilia? Highly likely, particularly in adult male demographics.

Transgenderism cannot be considered as one 'condition'. It is different in different demographics.

First responsibility lies with adults with a duty of care: parents, teachers, counsellors etc, to reinforce that

1. you are fine as you are
2. if it's normal to be discomforted by puberty
3. it is normal to feel discomfort between what you think and what you feel others expect of you
4. it is fine to break stereotypes
5. it is fine to behave according to the stereotypes of the other sex
6. it is fine to be lesbian/gay/bi/whatever
7. you are fine as you are.

And these adults must also accept that young people experiment, but that experimentation does not change reality and the young person must have both the freedom to experiment and the freedom to change their minds.

And at the other end, fetish and kink should get back where they belong: in the bedroom, between consenting adults only.

It's not easy to be trans and most trans people are just trying to get by in life (contrary go clickbait headlines.) A lot of them have been harassed in life, or had a tough time growing up (along with other conditions like autism, etc) so have faced higher levels of trauma or the general challenges of figuring out their identity. The world is shifting more right wing and has become more hostile to trans people, especially if you live somewhere like the states.

Fair enough, but it doesn't mean that they should expect the rest of the world to live according to their beliefs.

It's no different to a very religious person wanting to live according to their beliefs.

I suppose my question and thoughts turned to "is any of this connected?!". Has any science/research properly investigated these links? Aibu to wonder if all these things are connected - in particular the medical aspects?

Undoubtedly these things are all connected. The patterns of behaviour are not healthy.

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