Hypothetically....

[AyeKarumba]

If you had a child who was anorexic, would you say "don't worry we can fix your body because that's your problem. ....have dome diet pills now then you can get a tummy tuck & a breast reduction when you are older. That will make you happy"

Or would you ask why their world had made them feel so uncomfortable in their own body & try to help them feel happy with who they are?

Both are based on innate sense of being that can't be objectively proven.

No, sexuality is sexual/romantic attraction. It can be objectively demonstrated and described.

Gender identity cannot be objectively described without reference to stereotypes. Take away any link to feelings of dysphoria and you just have gender based ideology - a belief that behaviour, feelings and presentation can be wrong or right depending on your sex. This is sexism.

@merrymouse

Both are based on innate sense of being that can't be objectively proven.

No, sexuality is sexual/romantic attraction. It can be objectively demonstrated and described.

Gender identity cannot be objectively described without reference to stereotypes. Take away any link to feelings of dysphoria and you just have gender based ideology - a belief that behaviour, feelings and presentation can be wrong or right depending on your sex. This is sexism.

Sexual attraction and sexual orientation are not the same thing.

Sexual orientation being innate is not something that can be objectively proven. It relies on you believing me when I tell you my orientation.

The thing is, mothers are ALWAYS going to lie in wait for anything that may turn out to be a threat to children.

The teen years are a horror show for this, we've all been there in our own youth, peer pressure, body image, confusion about sexuality, you name it. None of that's new. What is new is the massive rise in teen girls identifying our of their sex. Everyone knows some child who has done this, but interestingly enough, there are very few cases of 40+ women changing sex.
If it was a case that society is more accepting now, surely there would be evidence of equivalent numbers of adult women transitioning?
Wouldn't our teen besties have told us of their secret feelings? They told us everything else.
Or current besties over wine?
But no - if anyone reports teenage gender nonconformity it's all, its thank Goodness I'm not young now, I could easily of gone that route, and I'm perfectly happy now that adolescence is over.

So, no, it doesnt add up. Questions need to be asked. Untruths and fudges and screaming fits about bigotry wont put parents minds at ease.

And the more you look into it the more you see the dearth of evidence. Buzzwords and mantras aren't evidence.

@7Days

The thing is, mothers are ALWAYS going to lie in wait for anything that may turn out to be a threat to children.

The teen years are a horror show for this, we've all been there in our own youth, peer pressure, body image, confusion about sexuality, you name it. None of that's new. What is new is the massive rise in teen girls identifying our of their sex. Everyone knows some child who has done this, but interestingly enough, there are very few cases of 40+ women changing sex.
If it was a case that society is more accepting now, surely there would be evidence of equivalent numbers of adult women transitioning?
Wouldn't our teen besties have told us of their secret feelings? They told us everything else.
Or current besties over wine?
But no - if anyone reports teenage gender nonconformity it's all, its thank Goodness I'm not young now, I could easily of gone that route, and I'm perfectly happy now that adolescence is over.

So, no, it doesnt add up. Questions need to be asked. Untruths and fudges and screaming fits about bigotry wont put parents minds at ease.

And the more you look into it the more you see the dearth of evidence. Buzzwords and mantras aren't evidence.

Your hypothesis would be remotely interesting if you evidenced it with a similar rise in 40+ people identifying as LGB.

The absence of such a rise suggests that your hypothesis is flawed.

I actually think it's a core issue of the trans debate from the feminist perspective - the inability to gauge the idea of being trans as anything other than "conforming to sexist stereotypes" without considering how innate the concept of gender is to humans.

People have been researching differences between male and female brains for as long as they have been researching brains. Nobody has shown that a type of brain is wrong or right in a male or female body.

It’s also very difficult to map any unifying concept of biology onto all the people now included under the very large trans umbrella.

[quote BabySharkdodoo]@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog apologies for suddenly popping in mid-discussion, but realised (after googling articles) that you are right, there has been a large rise- this article discusses it, and also references a de-transitioner study: www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A[/quote]
Thanks for sharing:

"Definitions are inadequate in explaining how anyone experiences the gender of the opposite sex. Without further explanation of ‘toys, games or activities’ that are typical of each sex, this is left to parents, teachers and doctors to determine. The inference might be that gender-congruent behaviours have some objective existence and not fulfilling them might indicate a ‘trans’ identity. Children who do not conform to social norms and expectations come to dislike their sexual characteristics: that embodiment of their gender dissonance.
There is a lack of consensus demonstrated as to the exact nature of the condition. Questions remain for psychiatrists regarding whether gender dysphoria is a normal variation of gender expression, a social construct, a medical disease or a mental illness. If merely a natural variation, it becomes difficult to identify the purpose of or justification for medical intervention"

*Sexual attraction and sexual orientation are not the same thing.

Sexual orientation being innate is not something that can be objectively proven. It relies on you believing me when I tell you my orientation*

I was trying to find a way to word this but, yes, exactly this.

The problem with having discussions here is that people have to be receptive to and placing value on literal feelings. If you are not willing to accept that the way someone feels matters then what's the point in talking about it? Because it does rely on human feelings and perceptions. That doesn't make it less valuable or important.

@yeahbutnaw

Here's a useful view on the reasons people detransition.

Yes, that is similar to this one (found in www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A)

@yeahbutnaw

Does Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria exist?

I'm pretty confident it doesn't. It's not mentioned in any clinical settings.

Of course it exists. Like all psychological phenomenon and diagnoses it is reached by looking at shared subjective clinical features across a population. Does Borderline personality disorder exist? Does schizophrenia exist?

Is it accepted by ideologically captured gender clinic settings - of course not, it undermines the ideology, since it refers to a new cohort of patients, who inconveniently keep desisting and detransitioning.

@BabySharkdodoo Do you have a link to that "study"?

Explain your comment to me, if you can, yeahbutnaw

@AdHominemNonSequitur

How do you know that ROGD exists? Because you "feel" it's true? Is there any actual evidence?

Is it possible that your prejudice is clouding your judgement?

@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog Surely that quote is just saying that parents of children or people themselves should not assume that not conforming to stereotypical gender roles or behaviours equates being transgender. I don't take it to mean no-one can be transgender?

I need to read the whole article I guess!

Sexual orientation being innate is not something that can be objectively proven. It relies on you believing me when I tell you my orientation

You could be lying, but you are describing an idea that has objective substance. Similarly I could lie about liking chocolate or we would both agree on what I was describing.

Gender identity (unmoored from stereotypes) has no objective meaning.

@7Days if you have a specific question, I'd be happy to answer. Otherwise, you can re-read my comment. I'm not here to educate you. I'm here for discussion. That requires you invest some effort.

Sorry, ‘but we would both agree on what I was describing’.

I do find the article a bit weird though, it doesn't sound very unbiased. Shall have to look into the author, wahh

@merrymouse

Sexual orientation being innate is not something that can be objectively proven. It relies on you believing me when I tell you my orientation

You could be lying, but you are describing an idea that has objective substance. Similarly I could lie about liking chocolate or we would both agree on what I was describing.

Gender identity (unmoored from stereotypes) has no objective meaning.

No, the idea of "sexual orientation" has no objective substance. Sexual activity does, but people have a sexual orientation regardless of whether they engage in sexual activity or not.

[quote yeahbutnaw]@7Days if you have a specific question, I'd be happy to answer. Otherwise, you can re-read my comment. I'm not here to educate you. I'm here for discussion. That requires you invest some effort.[/quote]
Ok, if you cant, that's fair enough too.

I've been reading about gender issues for quite a long time, and I admit that even now I'm still totally confused between the difference between 'body dysmorphia' (for whatever reason) and 'gender dysphoria'. On paper, I get what gender dysphoria is - to an extent. I understand, to some extent, that it isn't a mental illness.
But - body dysmorphia is very much a mental illness.
And when you start looking at the assistance, help, support offered to people with gender dysphoria - it's shockingly focused on changing bodies.

There's a survey at the moment for trans/gender diverse people in a particular region, and nearly all the questions are assuming 100% that such people want or need to have hormones, surgery, and other bodily changes. This seems to be to be somewhat of a conflation between gender and body - or gender and sex.

And, as seems to be the case very often, everyone uses these terms and assumptions completely differently without defining them.

For some people, 'trans' means someone who has had surgery to change their body from one set of sex characteristics to another.

For other people, 'trans' means questioning ideas of gender and may mean no 'transition' at all, or perhaps using different name/pronouns, but accepting that gender may not have any relevance to one's body as it's what's inside that's the 'true' gender.

The longer these terms remain woolly and undefined, the longer we are all going to talk at cross purposes.

@7Days There's a difference between "can't" and "won't".

For example, you can respond to the substance of my message. But you won't.

[quote PearlescentIridescent]@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog Surely that quote is just saying that parents of children or people themselves should not assume that not conforming to stereotypical gender roles or behaviours equates being transgender. I don't take it to mean no-one can be transgender?

I need to read the whole article I guess![/quote]
It demonstrates how difficult it is to pin down what those feelings are. I base my definition of woman on material reality. Women are discriminated against because of their biology and reproductive capacity. If we are to record the impact of this and if we are to change it our institutions and our laws need to be clear about who women are. Feel like a woman by all means, but it's not the same thing.

@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog Yes okay that makes when defining biological women but why does that mean someone can't be a transwoman? I'm so confused. No one is saying transwomen are biological women. They're two different things

No, the idea of "sexual orientation" has no objective substance. Sexual activity does, but people have a sexual orientation regardless of whether they engage in sexual activity or not.

Because they do or don’t experience attraction. That is not a tangible physical object, but it is an objectively understood idea.

@SapphosRock

Bad analogy. Anorexia is a mental illness and can be cured with psychotherapy and / or medication. Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness and cannot be cured, no matter how much therapy a person has.

The Dutch doctors who developed the treatment approach of blocking puberty very much disagree with your claim. So does the available literature. The majority of children diagnosed with early-onset gender dysphoria (which is not the same as being transsexual or transgender) grow out of it. Percentages vary, slightly more boys than girls desist but even among girls it's a majority who desist. The Dutch approach therefore includes intense and longlasting psychological assessment and treatment for these children.

The cohort of teen girls who suddenly come out as trans long after puberty has started are a new cohort for whom we cannot say whether their gender dysphoria responds to psychological treatment protocols or not. We simply do not have the data. We do know from anecdotal evidence that at least some of them do recover from gender dysphoria, unfortunately the stories we know are mostly of those who first transitioned medically. As they now number in the hundreds, there is either a problem with the diagnosis or the treatment approach (the Swedish experts from the Karolinga Institute said in the Swedish documentary that they strongly suspect their established assessment protocols may not fit this cohort).

For late-onset transsexuals it is however true that there seems to be no cure. They need a completely different treatment approach to children and adolescents and it does tend to favour transitioning but they can respond positively to counselling (not counselling undertaken with the aim to cure them though but to support them in living with the condition).