You’re Wrong About Why People Change Gender - Dr Az Hakeem interview

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Andrew Gold interviewed Dr Hakeem at the Battle of Ideas and it’s, as usual with Dr Az, a fascinating interview. Thought I’d post it here for anyone who’s interested in watching:

If I remember correctly, no brain studies have controlled for sexual orientation, nor have controlled even adequately for the impact of comorbities or interests on the brain and of specific hormones on the brain.

We know that hormones and other chemicals impact the brain, that groups with shared interests and behaviours develops particular brain patterns and sexual orientation has been suggested would be part of that.

I have yet to see any study that controls for these variables adequately.

Wasn't it an interesting interview. I actually liked that he stuck to his specialism. Interesting that this is another psychiatrist that our local transactivist disapproves of. I wonder what it is about these knowledgeable, insightful professionals that triggers them?

Use it as frequently as you can get away with.

I always use it to describe transvestites. It stirs a recognition and remembrance in some people.

Yes, there's guesswork, but JM wrote a whole book about JM's transition which tells us much of what we need to know. There were some excellent reviews of it as well, notably by Rebecca West and Nora Ephron.

This is from Rebecca West's review:
She sounds not like a woman, but like a man’s idea of a woman, and curiously enough, the idea of a man not nearly so intelligent as James Morris used to be…when Miss Morris writes of the result of her hormonic treatment, ‘my small breasts blossomed like blushes,’ one feels sure she is not a woman. Almost any woman not feeble-minded would know that is a remark one must leave for other people to make.

You can read the whole review here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/14/archives/conundrum-by-jan-morris-a-helen-and-kurt-wolff-book-174-pp-new-york.html

Even the excerpts in the review leave you in no doubt that there was a sexual element to JM's transition.

Yes, I've read that review.

I don't think Morris was very insightful about Morris, and it's not at all clear to me, from the categories that Dr Az was describing, that Morris fit the AGP rather than transvestite category

As explained elsewhere, I was talking about particular subsets of AGP, and those two mentioned would be Anatomic AGP, rather than transvestic AGP. So they wouldn't stand out as they wouldn't wear sexual/fetish wear because they wouldn't gain arousal from the clothing.

AGP was generally accepted within the sex therapists world for a couple decades until trans activists didn't want their secret known.

Dr Ray Blanchard is not a hack, and the theory on AGP was detailed after conducting interviews with thousands of transsexuals.

Always amusing that AGP gets written off so quickly and then we get told about "gender souls".

Personally I believe there is credibility in the theory around hormones and "feminised" brains in homosexual men leading to gender transition. But I also believe that heterosexual men (the AGPs) do not have a "feminised" brain. There is likely a wiring issue in the brain leading to internalised sexual attraction.

I think terms like "feminised brains" are better then "female brains", because all males have a male brain.

Essentially the heterosexual male transitioners would rather you believe that they are like the homosexual male transitioners, when in fact it is due to sexual arousal (AGP).

So he was saying that JM was Anatomic AGP? I thought he was saying that he fell into the asexual transsexual category. I'll have to watch the interview again. I may have misunderstood.

I think you could read it either way, but I also thought he meant that it wasn't the clothing as such. Might be impossible to say without asking him.

Male sexuality can be so labyrinthine I bet there's no twisted path or weird corner it couldn't find itself in. A wonder if a gay man could be fine with his own sexuality but dislike it in other men, ie. he's only attracted to 'straight' men and where that could take him.

Thinking about something that Butters brought up earlier in the thread, the 'many studies', I'm sure a tra trailed a couple of years ago some sort of scientific test for being transgender that they were shortly going to unveil. I'm sure they were expecting plaudits instead of the pile on they got from other trans allies. The last thing they wanted was a 'true trans' test that would have potentially uncovered all those who were AGP, indulging some other fetish or just troubled in some other fashion. Not that they worded their objections like that though. I don't believe the test, if it ever existed, was forthcoming.

A wonder if a gay man could be fine with his own sexuality but dislike it in other men, ie. he's only attracted to 'straight' men and where that could take him.

I think this is definitely a thing, but it doesn't have to be about "disliking" other gay menthough that does seem to be a thing too.) It's more about being romantically/sexually attracted to straight men. Which is an unfortunate conundrum.

Theres a danger this has been over complicated or over analysed.

Trans identifying men are just men and therefore will be all sexualities, all personalities, all different attitudes to cosmetic surgery.

By concentrating on the differences and sub dividing between types of trans identifying men, we may be losing what they all have in common and why they are doing it.

It depends on what you are trying to do I suppose.

But I would say the fact is there is in many cases kind of medical argument being made for approaching gender in a particular way, medically, legally, and socially. The claim that it is a kind of dsd, for example. That calls for a medical refutation.

It reveals some thing about why TRAs do certain things as well, which sometimes seem contradictory.

And it's useful in itself for the people that have these kinds of problems and disorders. I knew a woman about 10 years ago, when a lot of this was becoming mainstream, who was really beside herself with her 17 year old son, who was engaging in cross-dressing and convinced he was a woman. She had no idea what to do for him. At the time I was thinking maybe AGP, but having just watched this interview, it's possible he was actually the autistic type. If she could have had some guidance I think she would have been so relieved.

I also think a better understanding of how and why these conditions appear in young men might allow us to minimize them somewhat.

I understand what you are saying @illinivich but I think it suits the TRA to have trans identifying men under one rather vague umbrella. They don't want to much scrutiny especially if this would highlight that a form of fetish was a motivation factor for many adults. This would never do as the arguments for trans rights and protections would fall onto stony ground.

We are conditioned to be more sympathetic to men who arent top dog, even though their actions are hurting everyone around them as much as the less sympathetic cases.

The autistic man, gay man or porn influenced man are all seeing women as an identity they can become rather than real people. All of them expect women to accept what they are saying, and put our needs secondary to them. They just have different excuses why they are doing it.

We are then lead to believe that the autistic man, or the gay man are victims, and ignore the danger they are to women. An autistic young man could be influence by porn as much as the middle aged transitioner, the gay man might want to physically hurt women as much as any man.

Im just aware that these conversations frame the types of trans identifying men as being benign. And i don’t think that's true.

The trans umbrella is dangerous because its grouping men with women, adults with children. The various names for adult men - transvestite, transsexual, cross dresser is less so because they all have the same thing in common - they are all adult men.

I looked into this brain structures thing a few years ago and dimly remember it wasn't very convincing. Only a few studies actually on people not given hormones, little if any attempt to control for things like homosexuality, autism or other possible confounding factors.

In any case, a neurological explanation (these men's brains are in certain respects more like typical women's brains) and a psychological explanation (they have a fetish) are not necessarily in competition.

There's also no reason why tiny physiological differences in the brain should take precedence over the rest of a person's physiology where this is entirely sex-typical. It's perfectly valid to separate toilets on the basis of genital structure, and sports on the basis of bone and muscle structures. In neither case is it obvious that brain structures should have anything to do with it. We don't urinate with our brains, or throw balls with them.

One also wonders why, if brain structure differences are such a well-established feature of trans people, no trans people are advocating brain scans to distinguish the true trans from the fakes.

Do you feel this way about all people with trauma related beaviours and mental illnesses? Lots of those people can engage in very antisocial behaviour. We should just forget about what the cause is, or treating them, because then we might feel sorry for them?

I mean - I get told off on MN pretty regularly because I don't tank an enabling line with addicts who are being anti-social which seems to be the current approach among progressives, but I wouldn't go so far as to say we shouldn't talk about the origins and causes of addiction and its related anti-social manifestations.

If there was any conclusive tests for brains, they would be used to diagnose.

The studies have weak correlations at best due to not testing like for like.

However, desperate people are desperate to make out they are in someway different from the sex category they reject.

The post you replied to didn't mention anything about causes or treatment.

@illinivichseemed to be just making the point that trans identifying males who are gay or autistic are not necessarily benign and that making a distinction between different types of trans and suggesting that some types are harmless, acceptable or pitiable might be a mistake, since all of them view women as a costume, which is, in itself, harmful to women.

Causes and treatment are a different issue altogether.

We should just forget about what the cause is, or treating them, because then we might feel sorry for them?

Where did i say this? As oldcrone says, im looking at it from the perspective of women having to live alongside these men.

Dr Hakeem is insightful, but he did suggest that some men are less harmful than others - the ones who wanted to live unnoticed for example.

There are a lot of seemingly unrelated excuses why men are pretending to be women. I think women and girls are best to keep in mind what they all have in common and the environment that allows it.

Twenty years ago the majority of these men wouldnt be demanding to be called women. Is there more men autistic, gay, men who have trauma now? Or have laws, media coverage, teaching in schools, porn allow sexist men to reduce women to an identity they can adopt?

There's obviously a place to look at individuals and why they might want everyone to treat them as women. I think the conversion therapy bill is going to be detrimental to individuals. But different reasons don't lead to different types of behavior, so as women and girls forced to live alongside these men, how is knowing their underlying conditions helping us?

Dr Hakeem is insightful, but he did suggest that some men are less harmful than others - the ones who wanted to live unnoticed for example.

Dr Hakeem is insightful... from a male point of view. Many men, even those who acknowledge the harms of transgenderism, just can't seem to see what the problem is from a female point of view.

He mentioned Jan Morris as, I think, one of these harmless trans people who just wanted to blend in. Morris's daughter Suki has a different take on just how 'harmless' JM was.

Jan Morris was a trans pioneer — and a cruel parent

I finally got round to watching this video.

It's always interesting listening to Dr Az speak.

I thought that was the value of the interview, tbh. They were talking quite often about male sexuality, male fears, male socialisation etc.
I agree that the difference between female and male experiences on this topic seem hugely divergent.

I agree. It's not my main point of interest on this topic but it's an important one to understand for a holistic view.

I get the impression that Dr Az might say that the various sub-categories don''t necessarily understand the distinctions he's making and their own motivations very well, and can be confused by the social messaging and medical pathways.
And I suppose any of these groups could have other issues laid on top of whatever is behind their cross gender identification, like personality disorders, or other paraphilias that will complicate their behaviour.

This makes sense. However, I don't agree with him that many "GC" people have an incorrect understanding of autogynophilia. Blanchard coined the word and, as other PPs have said on this thread, as an umbrella it covers transvestic as well as anatomic drivers. Recognising the difference is important though and he explains that really well: the difference isn't in the risk to women, it's to the person with the autogynophilia. The risk being that those driven by an ananomically-led desire may make irreversible changes to their body and experience regret (because their sexual urge is no longer there), whereas those driven by transvestism are not likely to do this. I'm assuming the distinction is important when it comes to working with these people therapeutically.

Perhaps that's what he means by people having a poor understanding?

It's still very different from internalised homophobia being a driver. This remains distinct, as per Blanchard's description of a homosexual transsexual. This is presumably the best understood of the previous and current cohort of people presenting at gender clinics.

I guess the biggest takeaway for me from this video is that he's thinking about how this current, wider cohort of males could be helped therapeutically and that understanding the root of their distress is key. It's been said many times on other threads that the current demographic of young people presenting at gender clinics is completely different from the small number of cases in the past. Mostly that means looking at the impact on girls who identify as male or non-binary (because they represent the biggest numbers), but there has also been a rise in boys who identify as female. Autism is a massive part of it for both males and females, but the distinction between transvestic and anatomic autogynophilia is obviously important here too.

He's not the only person to talk about this. Sue and Marcus Evans, Joe Burgo, Stella O'Malley and others are also looking at it. I hope that adolescent males get better access to therapeutic help. It would ultimately benefit society as well as the individuals themselves (The biggest elephant in the room is the significant increase in sexualised content that this young cohort of males is exposed to with online porn and anime etc, all deliberately blurring boundaries. It's a perfect storm, unfortunately).

@ButterflyHatched
I think it's extremely disingenuous to dismiss the very real experiences of trans people who spend lifetimes struggling with crushing gender dysphoria (sex dysphoria?) as just a fetish or unaddressed diagnostic overshadowing.

I think it's extremely disingenuous to dismiss the very real experiences of women but you keep doing it. Why is it so hard for you to admit that not every trans person is sincere in their belief that they should be the opposite sex and that a sizable number are absolutely doing it for a sexual thrill? There are transwomen who are very happy to say that it's sexual for them so why do you insist on invalidating their lived experiences?

Surely the best way for society to find a way to balance the rights of women and trans people is for both sides to be honest. At the moment things are very one sided, women talk about why it's harmful for males to be in what should be single sex spaces but trans people keep flogging the lie that they 'just want to pee' despite all the evidence that proves otherwise.

The problem is the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is only a description of (traditionally) male behaviour. But that description has been used by some to suggest that there is a way for a man to become a woman, and force women to pretend some men are women.

What should have remained a obscure psychiatric term has been weaponised by men who want to impose their presence onto women.