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:

Hmmmm it could be said that super manly men, (sometimes homophobic) are trying too hard to be men, they have had such specific socialisation in to the manly man thing, that, if inwardly that is not how they really feel, then they conclude they are more female?

I think there's a lot in what you're saying Banned. It must be very difficult to be made to fit into any kind of stereotype, the manly man being one of the most difficult, perhaps. I have wondered about the whole "wrong body" thing, because who among us is happy with their body? I'm very grateful for my body but I have given it some awful abuse over the years one way or another. Maybe the changing gender idea is more about having the wrong mind. The mind doesn't match the body. (Not that a mind can match a body.) The mind says, "my female/feminine side is much more significant than my male/masculine side".

So feeling inside that you are not a manly man (not unreasonable I suppose) can lead to thinking you must be a woman?

Looking at that written down still doesn't make it make sense. I believe that sex is real and we have whichever type of body we are born with i.e. male or female. How we feel inside doesn't change our body from one sex to another. Our body is what it is.

There is research which suggests that most, as much as 90% of trans identifying males do so because they are either autogynephillic or have a transvestic fetish. The rest are identifying out of being male for psychological reasons.

Yes, you make a good point.

I do remember reading, and hearing, opinions from Blanchard and from Zucker that the vast majority of males seeking transition nowadays are AGP, which both doctors explained was a huge swing from the previous patient population in which the majority of males were same-sex attracted and had expressed strong difficulty living as males.

What timescale was that talking about? Could the reduction in same-sex attracted cases be related to the reduction of social stigma around being gay? It would make a lot of sense, if so.

I do think cohorts need breaking down by age though. For the 18 and under boys in secondary school I know who identify as girls they are almost my certainly same sex attracted or autistic

I do think there is less social stigma about being same sex attracted but I think there are few positive role models and a typical teenage wish to fit in. There is an LGBT courage collation who did a really powerful trailer on the desire to "fix" yourself and be like everyone else

https://x.com/lgbtcourage/status/1864789481062126071?s=46&t=xVOQDbf--_6fQjLOGCjMftQ

If my memory is correct, they were discussing the period from late 80s/early 90s onwards.

And the patient population they were treating were young boys or men who had been displaying what was considered (at the time) behaviour associated with girls or who had expressed from a very young age a desire to be girls.

Even then the use of sexist stereotypes was used to inform diagnoses.

@inkymoose ( long time no see lol) i always end up back with Helen Joyce on this, almost like she is a pontoon, i can rope on to where there is no where else to moor.

I believe our mind and body are one thing our whole being. One cannot exist without the other.

I believe this because when i walk around i feel my feet,

when i cry my heart aches

when i am scared my heart beats faster,

When i am anxious my stomach aches

If i have blemish or a spot it pisses me off but it is mine it belongs to me.

and so on

But most of all i grew in my own body, and gave birth to babies who have grown into sentient beings themselves.

So i know i am my body and my body is me.

Men do not have the grounding experience of birth, nor do young people.

flowing from that if a person says my body is not me they have a psychological disorder.

I think you've put your finger on something there. That though there is more general social acceptance for being gay than there was half a century ago, the wider picture is modified by subcultural elements, in this case the adolescent need to run in packs, and what is currently considered to be cool.

In fact I'm now wondering whether social acceptance of same-sex relationships is partly why being gay isn't a cool-kid thing now. Not "edgy" enough. So the poor gay kids fall between two stools; they don't belong with the majority (and will be made to feel it) and they're not weird enough to be an inside outsider (and will be made to feel that too). The exception seems to be transing to "become" gay (which actually adds up to being straight, but nobody's meant to notice that!).

So the social influences towards transition on older gay men may have eased off over their lifetime and lead to a drop in takers, but a young gay boy may feel differently.

Evidently the medical profession hadn't caught up with all the gender-bending in popular culture!

The more I think about this stuff the more I realise that the social matrix in which it is played out is incredibly complex, and that the pressures and influences in particular cases or groups of cases can be radically different. "No debate and if we happen to collect any data we're not sharing it" is criminally unhelpful.

I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Gareth Roberts’ book 'Gay Shame' which is an analysis of genderism from a gay lens and in chapters 1 - 3 he discusses the issues you have mentioned. He believes that a particular middle-class type of homosexuality has become quite mainstream and is therefore unattractive to people who wish to be considered edgy, thus they adopted the label 'queer' and ran with it to eventually encompass lots of aspects that weren’t originally considered to be queer (e.g. straight people).

He has also discussed the topic of sexual jealousy that can exist in gay men towards women. Gay men who don’t understand why women hate being seen as sexual objects by straight men because they would love to be seen as sexual objects by straight men.

He addresses the issues of drag and surrogacy as well as the failure of older gay men to see what’s happening to younger men (and lesbian women) that encourages alienation from their bodies.

He also discusses the huge difference in formative experiences that exist between elder gays and young gays as well as the separation of the gay community from the, as he describes it, civilising effect and practical thinking of women.

There’s so much more interesting analysis that I’ve probably not summarised sufficiently well but he has produced a fascinating book. I highly recommend it.

With teens, I think almost all teens have some confusion and uncomfortable feelings about their emerging sexuality.

It's also the case that teens are hyper-aware of anything they feel makes them stick out or different - even just being the center of attention for something positive makes many very uncomfortable in a way that seems totally over the top to adults.

So it would not be at all surprising that teens who think their sexual interests are different from the usual would feel especially self-conscious about that - think of all the other crazy things many are self-conscious about.

The thing about roll models is interesting. It's struck me before that there are not so many really viable gay and lesbian roll models who are just really average and normal, or maybe better to say, those people don't tend to make their sexuality a central element of identity, and teens may not notice those people. Al out of the most visible gay icons are very over the top in their presentation.

I am sure lots of teens just aren't interested in being like that, and if they think that is what it means to be gay, or that those are the people they will be thrown in with, they may not be very enthused.

That sounds like an interesting read, thanks for the tip.

I guess the difference between a gay man's idea of being a sex object and being an actual female sex object is the difference between being a dinner date and being dinner!