Struggling with trans friend

[Llamallamadingdong]

I have a friend (male) who has decided that they are actually female.

They’ve felt this way for many years now and confided in me and have not told anyone else. Recently had their first gender clinic appointment and have been told that the clinic will not help until they have at least tried to present as female (so far they have messed about with some clothes and makeup alone at home but never gone out in public)

Anyway they recently approached me and asked if I would help pick an outfit, do makeup and help with hair and then go out with them trying to present as female.

The problem is I just can’t do it. Fundamentally I don’t truly believe that we can change sex and I feel like I’m supporting a weird fantasy. Not sure what I want from this thread, I seem to be the only GC person in my friendship group and I feel like I’m a horrible person for potentially denying someone something they really want.

It's a fetish. You cannot change your sex. Make up and dresses are just cosplaying at being a woman. You are doing the right and kind thing not to help them feed their delusions

It's a fetish because you can't change your sex? Is anorexia or body dysmorphia a fetish too?

Neither of these mental health conditions require participation and affirmation from loved ones and strangers alike. And neither of them give men the opportunity to masturbate in women's changing rooms and post videos of it online.

It’s a fetish because a large number of these men are sexually aroused at the thought of themselves as women, or dressed as women. They commonly talk about “euphoria boners” on Reddit and x. It’s autogynephilia.

Some trans people do have body dysmorphia hence the wish to take drugs and have surgery. It is unfortunate that the TRA lobby have persuaded so many in power that this is an acceptable ’treatment’ for a mental condition. We don’t affirm people with anorexia by encouraging them to diet or giving them bariatric surgery or weight loss drugs. Particularly not children.

But those are mental illnesses. Are you saying trans people are mentally ill??? Wow!!!!

I agree with you. Female coded things being seen as lesser is an issue but those examples, as described, aren't the best ones to evidence it. While 'run like a girl' probably is meant to be derogatory most times it is said, that's the thought process of the (usually older, male) coach or parent saying it, it doesn't mean everyone has the same intrinsic view of women as lesser or weaker.

I imagine if the children were told to 'run like a child' or 'run like an old person' or 'run like a police officer' 'run like a ballet dancer' 'run like Usain Bolt' they'd resort to stereotypes and over-exaggeration too. That doesn't mean they automatically think older/younger people, specific careers or olympic athletes are 'lesser' than them or they don't respect them.

Perhaps read the thread.

Yes, some of them are.

Anorexia isn't a sexual fetish. The point being that believing something that is untrue doesn't automatically = a sexual fetish.

I did. You compared being trans to mental illnesses. Is that the take you’re going for?

That's disgraceful, and depressing.

Lol, you clearly have comprehension issues then. I'm quite literally challenging the common assertion that trans people are mentally ill/have a fetish on the basis that we don't really know the reasons any more then we know why people are gay, which used to also be considered a mental illness but is now accepted despite also revolving around feelings and having no more scientific explanation than transgenderism.

I pointed out that most people's objections to the trans lobby come from the unreasonable demands made by some of them, yet this doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it's a neurological condition. Similar to how we treat autistic children differently to how we did 100 years ago yet the condition itself hasn't changed.

I used to teach on this subject and I found a video of an American sports coach describing how he asked one of the boys he coached how he’d feel to be described as ‘like a girl’ and this boy saying that he would be “devastated”. Not angry or embarrassed but devastated- to be compared to a girl. Because his view of girls was so horrific.

Context is everything here though.

Men generally compete at a much higher level than women do in sports due to the obvious physical advantages, which is why you see things like the team that won the women's world club being soundly beaten by a regional under 15's boys team.

So to say a male sportsman is 'like a girl' is essentially calling him weaker than his peers.

If you asked a female model how she'd feel to be described as 'like a man' she would almost certainly consider it an insult.

And the running thing was obv an exaggerated attempt to portray a 'dainty' style of running.

Yes, it's absolutely based on a stereotype but it's one that we reinforce by and large. We could all adopt a butch look with short hair and dungarees and swear like sailors but we don't. We're much more likely to adopt a 'feminine' style whilst men are the ones trying to build imposing muscular physiques and presenting 'alpha' personas.

This is the basis for the stereotypes but we happily play along and reinforce them. It's women that run the fashion industry after all not men.

It's women that run the fashion industry after all not men.

This is simply not true.

“Currently, there are fewer women CEOs in Fashion than in the Aerospace or Finance industries. Over 85% of graduating majors from top fashion schools are female and one in six individuals employed by the fashion industry globally identifies as female (Fair Trade Certified), but only around 14% of the top 50 major fashion brands are run by women (2018).”

(https://industry.notjustalabel.com/editorial/gender-gap-why-do-men-still-rule-fashion-world)

Context is everything here though.
I don’t agree. I think for a boy to consider being compared to a girl whatever the context “devastating” is wholly related to how girls are seen.

I see very little evidence in the world that women and girls are not seen as lesser, lots and lots to suggest we are, and you only have to listen to Laura Bates for a few minutes to understand that the problem is huge and growing: boys and young men see women in shocking ways. This is not context-dependent, it’s an appalling pushback against us.

This is very much the approach I would take too.

What did you think to my earlier point in this question ie. ‘transsexualism’/‘transgenderism’ was around in the period during the 1900s where homosexuality and autism was being understood and researched so we have had just as much opportunity to understand it (and imo we do have a very good understanding of the various drivers).

To respond to @Annoyedone s comments - it is not a physical medical condition and it manifests in a self declared statement of feelings so by elimination it has to be a mental health condition.

The vast differences (and the missing group of older women) in cohorts and their respective histories back this up.

The research carried out so far (when not is not being shut down by trans activists) shows that the cohort of young girls affected by ‘transgenderism’ tend to have a background of autism, trauma from abuse or are lesbian with homophobic parents. This is very different to the young and older men who freely admit they ‘had their egg cracked’ (to use their phrase) by ‘sissy’ porn.

While some research (I think carried out on 8 deceased subjects) may have found some differences to other male brains but didn’t control for homosexuality, none of the research shows there is any neurological basis for both young girls thinking they are boys and men thinking they are women.

So the claim that we will find that we just need to increase our understanding of transsexualism/transgenderism and we will realise it is an innate condition along the lines of autism of homosexuality is incorrect. The existence of detransitioners alone backs this - you don’t get any autistic people renouncing their autism or ‘de-homosexuals’.

Let's unpick this from @Crackdown96

1. Quotation marks around 'feelings'. Such usage in this context is used to suggest a derogatory or dismissive tone.
2. This then adds fuel to suggest the already highly dubious claim 'I've no issues with gay people' is not entirely true. Why feel the need to state this? *N.B. correct use of quotation marks in this sentence
3. We LGBs don't have 'feelings' [sic] our sexual orientation is same-sex attracted and so are attracted to and fall in love with people of the same sex. There is a plethora of scientific articles delving into myriad theses of how this occurs just as there are studies into heterosexual attraction. Educate yourself.
4. There is no such thing as gender identity. We are born male, female or - in a globally miniscule number - intersex. That sex will not change during the course of anyone's lifetime.
5. The sweeping assumption that we all sweepingly assume that a whole group is mentally ill is completely unvalidated. If a man wants to wear a dress and wig and call himself Shirley then that's up to him. If he becomes sexually aroused in this garb then he is a fetishist. If he believes he IS a woman called Shirley then he is either a liar or deluded. If he wants me to believe he is a woman then he is further deluded because that's not going to happen. He is, and will always be, a man in a dress and wig, no matter how many hormones he takes, how many bits of himself he has chopped off or stuffed in, or how many handmaidens blindly applaud his 'bravery' N.B. correct usage of quotation marks to denote the writer's derogatory tone.
6. For your benefit and that of the hard of thinking, I repeat my original statement - DON'T BRING LGB INTO THIS. We gays are entirely different to TQ+ and will not be used as unwilling case studies used by erroneous and misguided individuals like yourself in an attempt to validate the TRA cult.

You're making my argument for me. I put 'feelings' in quotations because that's what people do when they describe the driving force behind transgenderism - well, they'd be even more derisive and say 'feelz' in many instances.

What did you think to my earlier point in this question ie. ‘transsexualism’/‘transgenderism’ was around in the period during the 1900s where homosexuality and autism was being understood and researched so we have had just as much opportunity to understand it.

You're lumping it in with autism which we do have a reasonable understanding of, which a sceptic might think is an attempt to piggyback on the credibility of that research. I'm not aware that the root cause of homosexuality is any better understood than the root cause of being trans.

There is a plethora of scientific articles delving into myriad theses of how this occurs just as there are studies into heterosexual attraction. Educate yourself.

This is kinda wishy washy. There are a plethora of scientific articles delving into myriad theses explaining the existence of Bigfoot and wild panthers in Gloucestershire. Can you point to any one scientific explanation of the root cause of homosexuality which is fairly widely accepted?

I think there are a few good reasons why it is probably not a "a neurological condition".

One reason is that even if all people under the "trans umbrella" suffer from a neurological condition, they quite obviously do not all have the same neurological condition. Heterosexual males who grow up as boys and live as men for decades, doing male things such as competing in men's sports, fathering children or committing sex crimes, before deciding to transition in middle age, do not have the same neurological profile as homosexual males who exhibit signs of gender dysphoria in early childhood or adolescent girls who decide they would rather be boys around the time the realities of female puberty and living as an adult women hit them like a train.

Another reason is that all these different groups seem to be heavily influenced by environmental factors, such as porn, homophobia in their communities, addiction, bullying and sexual abuse, and in many cases are comorbid with recognised conditions such as autism, ADHD and eating disorders. I think it is highly likely that if all these environmental influences and other conditions could be removed, the gender dysphoria would also disappear, in which case it could not be said to be a standalone neurological condition but rather a symptom of other issues.

And finally, with all the time and attention and money that has been poured into trans people and gender affirming care, I would have thought that if being transgender was a neurological condition, there would have been some solid research into it by now which would support this hypothesis. There is much talk of male and female brains, but no large scale studies actually looking at both trans and non trans identifying people's brains. Surely this would be a good place to start, and a fascinating piece of research. You study a few thousand ordinary mens and women's brains to see whether there are any clear differences between the two. If there are not, there's probably no such thing as a sexed brain. If there are, you study trans people's brains in the same way to see whether they most closely match their own or the opposite sex. I do not think the findings of such a study would actually be relevant for the purposes of single sex spaces or sports, but it would be a useful starting point for determining whether being trans is a neurological condition or not. You would probably need to do it by age group because I do not think the findings would be consistent across the board (unless the findings were, across the board, that there is no such thing as a sexed brain). But as far as I am aware no such serious research is being undertaken. Stonewall even campaigned to remove the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to get a gender recognition certificate, because they want less medical gatekeeping, not more.

If being transgender was a neurological condition, as backed up by serious research, it may be possible to develop a treatment to treat or even cure it. Not affirm it. Because that is what we do with neurological conditions. We treat them. We do not demand that the rest of the world adapts to them. Yes, we sometimes need to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities, but there is also an expectation that the person with the disability will try their best to do what is required of them with the necessary support.

I think there has been research showing that structurally when brain size is controlled for there is no such thing as a sexed brain, and you can’t reliably tell what sex someone is from a brain scan.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804

These are your words from above.

Lol, you clearly have comprehension issues then. I'm quite literally challenging the common assertion that trans people are mentally ill/have a fetish on the basis that we don't really know the reasons any more then we know why people are gay, which used to also be considered a mental illness but is now accepted despite also revolving around feelings and having no more scientific explanation than transgenderism.
I pointed out that most people's objections to the trans lobby come from the unreasonable demands made by some of them, yet this doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it's a neurological condition. Similar to how we treat autistic children differently to how we did 100 years ago yet the condition itself hasn't changed.

You were the one who twice brought up autism and homosexuality in relation to this. Of course research has been carried out into homosexuality, how else do you think we understand it better and society has come to accept it? We don’t have a ‘root cause’ as such but we have proven that it is innate and not a mental illness.

I have no idea why you are accusing me of ‘piggybacking’ on the credibility of autism research. I notice you avoid the substance of my question which directly challenges your theory that society just needs to ‘catch up’ with its understanding and acceptance of ‘trans’ in the same way it has with autism or homosexuality.

Do you genuinely think that one day we are going to discover an ‘innate’ way in which a man is really a woman or a young girl is ‘really a boy’? How do you see this working?

Gay men have fathered children though. Sometimes been married and done the whole 2.4 children thing before coming out as well. I actually know a builder who's married with three kids who I'm pretty sure is gay, or at least bisexual.

What does this have to do with whether being trans is a neurological condition?