Lavern Cox is Not a Woman--Biological Fact?

[VickySGV]

This is a legal Opinion by Walter Bockting PHD who is the past President of WPATH. and who was a keynote speaker at the 2011 WPATH Conference where SOC 7 was presented. His keynote speech contained the basic content of this document in regard to transgender identity.

https://www.aclu.org/files/images/asset_upload_file236_30367.pdf

I have at least 2 IRL friends who were his patients over the years.

[Guest KimberlyF]

This is a legal Opinion by Walter Bockting PHD who is the past President of WPATH. and who was a keynote speaker at the 2011 WPATH Conference where SOC 7 was presented. His keynote speech contained the basic content of this document in regard to transgender identity.

https://www.aclu.org/files/images/asset_upload_file236_30367.pdf

I have at least 2 IRL friends who were his patients over the years.

This is very much in line with my learning. Part of the problem here and in many cases is how each of us understand different words and the homogenization of words.

Sex is the body the doctor IDs at birth. Gender ID is the sense of self. Many people here have a conflict between the two. If there was no conflict, there wouldn't be a treatment plan involving meds and invasive surgery.

Over the years sex and gender have become the same and gender identity and gender presentation have become interwoven. And people argue when they may be agreeing using different words or others that think they agree really don't.

[Guest DesiB]

. . . But to illustrate a simple problem with your ideology, if you get a pet or procure livestock or even simply classify animals in the wild, how do you determine if they are make or female?

Obviously, we will classify animals according to their external genitalia (yet humans are still denied proper identification even after surgical correction of external genitalia) or their breeding practices (even though not all animals/human are fertile). But since we cannot communicate with pets and livestock to the same degree as we can with other humans, it is hard to know to what degree some of them do in fact have transsexual identification due to internal brain incongruency with the rest of the body. We know they have no provisions for transition! And who knows, maybe in their social systems they can be accepted as the proper sex/gender simply based on their behavior? I doubt that they have the same level of body image anxiety as we do. So is this illustration you offered even analogous?

[Guest Jennifer T]

. . . But to illustrate a simple problem with your ideology, if you get a pet or procure livestock or even simply classify animals in the wild, how do you determine if they are make or female?

Obviously, we will classify animals according to their external genitalia (yet humans are still denied proper identification even after surgical correction of external genitalia) or their breeding practices (even though not all animals/human are fertile). But since we cannot communicate with pets and livestock to the same degree as we can with other humans, it is hard to know to what degree some of them do in fact have transsexual identification due to internal brain incongruency with the rest of the body. We know they have no provisions for transition! And who knows, maybe in their social systems they can be accepted as the proper sex/gender simply based on their behavior? I doubt that they have the same level of body image anxiety as we do. So is this illustration you offered even analogous?

Analogous? Nah. But meant to illustrate that humans classify things by the outward appearance. Why do we do that?

[Guest Jennifer T]

. . . But to illustrate a simple problem with your ideology, if you get a pet or procure livestock or even simply classify animals in the wild, how do you determine if they are make or female?

Obviously, we will classify animals according to their external genitalia (yet humans are still denied proper identification even after surgical correction of external genitalia) or their breeding practices (even though not all animals/human are fertile). But since we cannot communicate with pets and livestock to the same degree as we can with other humans, it is hard to know to what degree some of them do in fact have transsexual identification due to internal brain incongruency with the rest of the body. We know they have no provisions for transition! And who knows, maybe in their social systems they can be accepted as the proper sex/gender simply based on their behavior? I doubt that they have the same level of body image anxiety as we do. So is this illustration you offered even analogous?

Analogous? Nah. But meant to illustrate that humans classify things by the outward appearance. Why do we do that?

And so I don't sound too cryptic, I'll answer. Because a good deal about 'identity' can be determined by a thing's (anything really / animate or not) physical make up. Identity, at least in my opinion, is a culmination of all aspects of self; not just one organ - even when that organ is the brain.

[Guest KimberlyF]

. . . But to illustrate a simple problem with your ideology, if you get a pet or procure livestock or even simply classify animals in the wild, how do you determine if they are make or female?

Obviously, we will classify animals according to their external genitalia (yet humans are still denied proper identification even after surgical correction of external genitalia) or their breeding practices (even though not all animals/human are fertile). But since we cannot communicate with pets and livestock to the same degree as we can with other humans, it is hard to know to what degree some of them do in fact have transsexual identification due to internal brain incongruency with the rest of the body. We know they have no provisions for transition! And who knows, maybe in their social systems they can be accepted as the proper sex/gender simply based on their behavior? I doubt that they have the same level of body image anxiety as we do. So is this illustration you offered even analogous?

Everyone seems to want to classify. In my experience, many non-trans people will classify by primary sex characteristics, while many trans people will emphasize gender presentation.

[Guest ChrisHughes]

I personally think that when you bring animals into such a discussion (who mind you,have no self identity/free will to understand this) then the idea has went to far.

Animals are indeed free spirits with the ability to care,love unconditionally and many other things that we relate to for companionship but you can not state with a clean opinion that they also have the *ability to get married,have GRS* and many other human related actions/needs.

Thus they do NOT have a sense of being or self personality or *gender identity* they do feel,they do care but this is as far as their ability goes. Im sure many animal lovers will disagree and this is fine but remember,they do not exist or develop as a human does.

I wish to throw this out here as to make a point to this.

I learned a very important fact these past few weeks based on this very discussion. Before a hysto, my body reacted to HRT (T) in a very positive way but most of all,so did my brain/mental stability. But the two hormones over time,overwhelmed each other and began making me ill. (side note: i spent most of my life physically sick,in pain and mentally unstable due to E- long before even touching T) I was now producing more T then i should have been for someone producing E but the effects it had on my brain,were still positive. I was forced to stop for physical reasons until the hysto was complete. After the hysto,I found something very interesting. I decided to wait the 6 weeks before starting again so that i could heal but my brain (now lacking in E as well and no T) had other plans. One could say a form of mena took place and this is partly true. I was very tired,lack of interest in things- this is normal BUT i became angry,aggressive,irritated very easy,i began to have a mental break down,my reaction started to even scare me. i sunk into a depression as well and a VERY deep one,so near suicide. I could not (at the time) understand this extreme reaction mentally. so i thought to myself *maybe i should go ahead and restart* and so i did. A few hours later,as said T began to process through my system, i regained mental stability out of no where. the depression,aggression (which they say T can even cause an increase in but as you can see the results) and such extreme thoughts,had been removed. Now of course many can say many things as to why this is and i will not debate those things but knowing myself as well as i do, the only possible conclusion for me is- my brain literally needs THIS hormone and for reasons that can only be explained within these studies. As the link i posted explains, the severity can depend on the state of arrested development. I honestly believe without a doubt that these brain studies are 100% true and i also do know that i had no such reaction with the loss of E. I was even having migraines. (as i did 99% of the time while having E but until i continued my T as normal,they had stopped and so did most of my physical pain *among many other things*)

With the above,my point is simply that there are many things we still do not understand due to the studies (as a whole) that have been made. Opinion is different from fact and we are all very open and welcome to those opinions. But ones opinion is nothing next to what is fact for me. The same is said for the sex of my brain and its need for its corresponding hormone. Can i explain how E effected my body in such a negative way for so many years? No but i hope to find this out as well very soon. Could there be many other under laying issues? Yes that is very possible but i still stick with what i know due to my mental/brain's reaction to each of them. I ask that you do not dismiss studies that work very hard to push us forward in understanding all of these aspects because you feel your opinion over them,is valid. Until such a time that fact is placed before us in all of these,to prove or disprove ones opinion (aka one who simply has not suffered or dealt with such things) i feel that being fluid is the best way forward for ALL of us.

[Guest Berry Picker]

I totally agree Chris. This is my third week on Estrogen and from the beginning my mind is so calm and clear there is no tug of war going inside my body anymore. I live my life with a clear head now.

I have always believed that there are three parts: gender identity, gender expresson, and sex. If gender idenitity and our gender expression are fluid and on a vast rainbow scale how can our biological characteristics be any different? Like the above posters have posted there are females and males who are still recognized as their sex even with issues with their reproductive organs and chromosomes. We actually learned about this in Biology, our teacher spoke about how there are a lot of differences physiologically that can occur in females.

My sex cannot be just male, otherwise I would be perfectly fine dressing female all the time and just live perfectly with testorterone in my body. However thats not what I can do I hate hate hate getting a beard it has always been super painful, and I also find my penis very foreign to me.

I also really dislike this author, how could someone deliberatly hurt another person just to score a few partisan points. (How he kept refering to Laverne as "he") And gential mutilation? Give me a break.

Love,

Kathleen (Finally picked a permanent name)