Frank Maloney - Gender Reassignment

[CKDexterHaven]

Lived over 60 years with full male privileges - Check
Rose to the top of a male-dominated profession - Check
Right-wing political candidate for UKIP - Check
Homophobic public comments - Check
Believes in family values and traditional morality - Check
Believes in a 'female brain' (like people used to believe in a 'negro brain' and a 'Jewish brain') - Check

Nasty radical feminists are meant to be the reactionary ones but, to me, it is the transactivist movement that is conservative, homophobic and longs for the days when homosexuality was criminalised and men were men and women were women.

How do men and women think differently?

and I do agree with this also. But even in that vision, is it not still possible that gender dysphoria would still exist, and that even in the absence of oppressive stereotypes, people may still wish to identify as the opposite sex?

As I pointed out above, gender dysphoria does exist. It's documented and has diagnostic criteria in both of the main handbooks to psychiatric diagnostics. If someone has gender dysphoria, they don't wish to identify as the opposite sex, they have a deep seated belief that they are a person of the opposite sex, they have simply been born in the wrong body, and will undertake surgical remedies in order to rectify the situation.

The 'lady brain' myth has been debunked very successfully as well, sorry.

I'm going to be flamed for asking these questions but sod it, here they are anyway. If male and female brains are identical, where does maternal instinct come from? Where does the alpha male drive come from? These are both pre-society so they are not socialised.

I can't think of many species of animal where there is no difference between female and male behaviour. What makes us special?

What is maternal instinct? What is the alpha male drive? Honest question. What do they actually mean?

Do those things really exist, do you think?

There was some recent research indicating that when men were primary carers of their children, their brains changed in exactly the same way as mothers' brains did - suggesting that (as I think we know already) our responses shape our brain architecture, rather than vice versa.

I am not sure what the alpha male drive is.

Do you accept that the male and female of most species exhibit difference behaviour? How do these differences arise? Why doesn't that apply to us?

What other species have invented motor vehicles? Aeroplanes? Nuclear bombs and the associated social and political structures that accompany and reinforce a perceived need for them?

None? But that doesn't really counter the argument does it? Which is why I find this problematic.

The fact that we have evolved to a point where there is no need for any differences between female and male "inbuilt" drives doesn't mean they have disappeared.

Also, I haven't put forward any opinions. Mine are not formed yet. I was hoping I would get some answers to the questions I posed in order to help with that.

Do you accept that the male and female of most species exhibit difference behaviour?

No.

How do these differences arise? Why doesn't that apply to us?

See above, but also, buffy is right - there's plenty different from us.

I'll ask one back: what makes you imagine animals don't exhibit their own socialised behaviour? Why would humans be unique in being conditioned by society? Social conditioning isn't some kind of subtle, Cold-war-mind-experiment type thing. It simply means the expectations you pick up from seeing other people act a certain way.

harold - well, I'd say it's an opinion to believe things like maternal instinct exist.

All species both males and females have drive to survive and procreate, evolution demands it, that means we all tend to want the biggest share and the most power to ensure our survival. The so called Alpha Male drive is really present in all of us, some more than others but it is not something restricted to men. Instead the Alpha Male stereotype most likely came around as men are physically stronger than women so they generally won the battle.

I think many women can relay tales of when we wanted to act like typical alpha males, when we bit back aggression, ignored fear and told ourselves that we mustn't be ruthless to get our way as that is unkind, unfeminine and unladylike. Women die because they act like how society tells them to rather than listening to our instinct. Women can also fight just as viciously and ruthlessly as men when survival depends on it, I certainly did and I was actually quite shocked at how violent and aggressive I was capable of being.

"If male and female brains are identical, where does maternal instinct come from? Where does the alpha male drive come from? "

And what of all the women who don't have "maternal instinct"? (And what does that mean anyway? I'm not sure). And what of all the men who don't have "alpha male drive"? (Even more unsure what this means).

These ways of being (maternal instinct, alpha male drive) sound like the extremes of gender stereotyping and even gender fetishisation to me - me tarzan you jane with the gentle maternal female sitting at the hearth with babies all over her, patient and benevolent, while the big strong man goes off being alpha whatever that even means.

In real life, and observing real actual people, it is certainly not true that even the vast majority of women have this undefined "maternal instinct" and very few men have "alpha drive" if it means what I think it must mean, I prefer to call these men "arseholes" personally.

Pointing at a few people who meet gender stereotypes at their most extreme and saying "that's how it is" ignores the fact that most people are a mix of attributes and interests labelled "masculine" or "feminine" and leaves for eg men who want to work in childcare or women who want to race cars up shit creek quite frankly.

There is also the slight problem globally that the belief that men and women are inherently different is translated to women are subhuman which leads to them being declined basic human rights in many areas of the globe.

Even in the UK a girl with an interest in Physics is going to struggle to get anywhere with it due to a huge number of of small but accumulating pressures.
In a different part of the world a girl having an interest in the "wrong" thing according to the gender rules in place in her society will get her killed.

This stuff is fairly important.

Even if on average males are more likely to X and girls are more likely to Y (although nature/nurture really at the moment no-one can say) that must not be used as an excuse to force people into these tiny boxes.

If you got rid of gender (WAHEY!) and people could wear what they chose and study what they chose and work at what they chose and fuck who they chose without getting heaps of shit about it then everyone would be much much happier, wouldn't they.

YY, seven.

I know race parallels aren't always helpful, but it reminds me very much of the phoney 'separate but equal' rhetoric. It's a useful way of erasing the reality of discrimination - because, after all, we're all equal, so there can't be any, right? But we're all different, so we can't expect to get the same standard of living as men.

"This stuff is fairly important." Understatement of the year.

what about paternal instinct? This is at least as strong as maternal instinct -in fact you might say even stronger given that many men would not know who their children were - so the desire is abstract rather than built on a concrete relationship with a particular child

A lot of this is interpretation- we view a bull in a field as innately aggressive but a cow who charges us is just protecting her calf

Can I go off on a bit of a tangent?

LRD said upthread that it seems that many feminists come out as "male" on those internet test type things. This comes up quite a lot. I myself am the proud owner of a male brain, unfortunately I couldn't show it to men people to stop them harrassing me when I was young but that's another story.

So. We have feminists, who tend to be women, who are feminists for a bunch of reasons, but it does seem that there is a high proportion of people who do not conform to gender stereotype. Whether through interests, sexuality, that sort of thing. Many of us have female bodies but, wait for it, "male" brains. Does this sound familiar.

So you possibly have 2 groups who are experiencing the same discomfort with gender roles, with two different solutions. 1 group says get rid of gender and everyone be who they are . The other group says gender is a real actual "thing" so those who have a brain that doesn't fit their body must belong in the other body. Group 1 says fuck that I'm not a bloke what are you on about. Group 2 says ah you don't understand even though you don't think you have a female gender actually you do and moreso you are happy with it otherwise you'd want to change, like me.

Bit of a tricky one isn't it.

Interestingly feminists are usually women and the more extreme transactivists seem to be transwomen. I have googled transmen and feminism to see what they have to say and there wasn't much out there although I did read a very interesting and well written piece by a young transman who identified as a feminist also and took a line similar to many of the feminists on here. Anyway, is it interesting and relevant that the group who were socialised as women and the group who were socilaised as men seem to have very different ideas as to how to tackle what I suspect is a similar problem? Don't know the answer, just chucking it out there.

drwitch yes "parental instinct" might be more apt. DH is far more "maternal" than me. And I observe lots of other men I know who are kind, patient and gentle with their children - the traits which are labelled as "maternal".

And why shouldn't men be allowed to be that way? It's a good thing isn't it, that these days men are allowed to be soppy with their children?

Lrd, I am not suggesting that anyone with no gender identity has to take on the label agender. But some people who feel that way do take on that label.

It has never been part of trans activism to suggest that every single person has a gender identity and agender people do not exist.

Rosegarden, you are being incredibly rude. You cannot possibly know the lives or minds of strangers on the internet and be more capable of them of knowing their gender identity. You are moving far beyond trans activism and into some kind of totalitarian way of thinking where you get to define other people's brains into sub categories based on your own personal ideology.

Harold, hominids, including humans, don't have alpha male physiology.

I think it may very well be the 'same' problem viewed from two opposing ideologies.

I think in both cases, the ideology itself helps you to reject stereotypes to some extent - so it's not just that we're the people who're least comfortable with gender, it's that we're in the habit of questioning whether things we do are simply innate, or whether we can actually reject what everyone insists we should accept as part of being 'female' or 'male'.

Cross post. almond - I didn't mean to come across as if I were getting at you. Sorry if I did. I was just thinking about terminology, really.

I do disagree that it's not part of transactivism to suggest every person has a gender identity - it may not be mainstream, but I've heard it an awful lot! And usually as expressed on this thread, variations on 'of course you have a gender identity, you just don't consciously know it because you're totes happy about it'.