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Body parts determine our sex. But our brain determines our gender. Our brain controls everything. Some just don't identify with the parts they were born with. And kids know this at an early age. I know many can't understand and that's why they call them mentally ill. Why can't we just accept and acknowledge everyone is different.
Most young kids go thru a " dress up" phase where they preyend to be the other sex. They grow out of it in a few years, except when it is encouraged and that behavior is rewarded. Ad girls will go thru a stage around puberty where they notice that boys tease them about their body, and don't eant to play with them, and blame their boobs. They too grow out of it, unless encouraged not to.
My cousin's granddaughter, born 1998, from the day she could talk said she was a boy. Fought w/her parents from toddler age about wearing girls clothes. Mom insisted on dresses for family pictures but it was always a battle. She finally gave up and only within the past few years admits her daughter is 'unique.'
In high school, this girl dressed like a boy, only dated girls, currently is living with a girl, went to her brother's wedding a few years ago wearing a man's shirt and man's tie, hair tied back in pony tail. I was sent a few pictures - she looked like a skinny boy.
Gender issues run in that family. The paternal grandfather's oldest sister, Ethel, was a lesbian - born 1922 or thereabouts on the family farm. Think about that!!! 1922. When Ethel became an adult, she moved to Florida and lived with another woman until her death. I never met her, although I knew that family well. Very little communication w/her family. Family was notified of her death long after it occurred.
The granddaughter's mother has a sister who is married to another woman, lives in FL, has adopted (I believe) children.
So, this kid gets it from two sides - her paternal grandfather, and her mother's side.
My relative hasn't talked about gender surgery - but could very well be considering it. My cousin's sons, one the father of this girl, just "told" me last year, "she" liked girls. Like it was news. Of course, her grandmother and I had been discussing this - for us an oddity - from the time the issues arose - when the kid was two/three years old. I never got the paternal grandfather's take on this - it shouldn't have been a complete surprise since his sister was a lesbian - which for that time - born 1922 - was only whispered about.
So, odd as it may appear to many, being born in the wrong body is NOT A FAD. It is NOT a mental illness - it is gender confusion, hormonal/neurological - begun in the womb.
I do think there may be genetic component, as well - i.e., my relative who got the wrong genes from both sides of her parentage. Our modern-day pollution/contamination only exacerbates the issue - as mentioned above wildlife born with both sex organs or some permutation thereof. Of course, men who liked men goes back to the Greeks and Romans. No doubt there were women who preferred women in those days, too.
Sounds familiar. Something is going on because transgender never used to be a thing. Also, is this just the newest version of being gay? As in the quoted post, I believe people are born gay. I don't know why, how, etc.
But if you study ancestry/genealogy you can see it. Briefly, true story, in the 1800s a woman married into my main family line. Her second son grew up, got married, they never had kids. Sort of unusual for those days, but add to that, the next son never married. The father died and years later when this woman was 55 yrs old, she took her 30 or so son into her home and married his best friend who was probably gay.
Now that is weird. But it doesn't stop there.
Many years ago I was working online with another genealogist who happened to descend from that same woman's father. We were good online friends and after a while she confided in me that she was a lesbian.
Ok. One time she told me that in her research she had met several people who were related to us through that family and every one of them was gay. There's more.
Next, I met online a wonderful gentleman genealogist who was kind enough to help me obtain vital records in the UK where he lived. He had been a teacher but never married. Turns out he was related to this same family through both his mother and his father!
So, after he died, I received an email from someone I didn't know. He must have seen our messages on genealogy message boards. We used to give out our email addresses in case someone else was researching the same line.
This guy was absolutely LIVID and demanded that I tell him where to find my friend. I replied that the friend had passed away and then this person proceeded to tell me that the man had been a pedophile who seduced and molested his young male students. He had wanted to turn him in many times. Remember, the UK gentleman came from the same family.
It is no coincidence that so many people from this one family were gay. None of them even knew each other growing up, some were in different countries, and they didn't choose to be gay.
If you've stuck with me this far, you can see how, somehow, this is inherited.
The bottom line:
Being gay is now accepted. Wanting to change into the opposite sex is not, and I think it's an exaggeration, a fad, and definitely a tiny extreme minority. If the 4 year old girl feels like a boy, then just allow her to be a girl who feels like a boy. She'll probably grow up to be a lesbian. Fine, but STOP when it comes to hormones, surgery.
There has always been a continuum when it comes to male-female. Feminine men, masculine women, and everything in between. Fine. Accept that. That's where it is; that's where it ends.
Understanding within yourself that you are not wired to live as the gender your genitalia suggests you should does not equate with fancying yourself a pickle, or a dead historical figure.
You don't know what biological mechanism or otherwise makes this a reality for some people.
Perhaps when we understand how the wiring between hormonal systems, brain chemistry, or whatever else may be at play to trigger this does so, it will become blatantly obvious and we will no longer be mystified by it, and it will make perfect sense to our future selves, just like the myriad of other things we've learned about biology that are now commonplace and understood.
There are women and men, and as all people start life as female, it is not a huge stretch to imagine something happens to some people where that process of becoming one of those options is just not binary for them like it is for most.
I don't know anyone who starts in the womb as a female and ends up a horse. Or a mermaid.
This is incorrect. We are XY or XX from the moment sperm meets egg (rarely XXY as previous poster said.). We are not nothing, nor do XX’s change to XY’s.
Furthermore, XX or XY creates circumstances during development in the womb, at the cellular level. An XX person is different on the cellular level than an XY person. This goes on to affect things like the heart and lungs and muscles, not just genitalia.
Quote:
Cretella, president of the Gainesville, Florida-based American College of Pediatricians, outlined her definition of what determines a child’s sex.
“Biological sex is not ‘assigned,’” she said. “Biological [sex] is imprinted by our DNA at the moment of conception, and it’s [in] every single cell in our bodies.” It comes down to chromosomes, she explained: If you have a Y chromosome, you’re a boy. If you don’t, you’re a girl.
You are also overlooking that some people do in fact identify as “furries”:
Quote:
A study on furries led by Canadian college professor Dr. Kathy Gerbasi and published in the journal Society & Animals found that approximately 25% of those surveyed considered themselves less than 100% human and would become 0% human if they could. Strike said that most furries he encountered grew up with interests in anthropomorphic cartoon characters and now find comfort around others with the same interest.
None of these people started life as a furry dragon, yet here we are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brrabbit
You can argue that a man cannot become a woman, but I might point out that a man can fit into woman's gender role in the society and blend in successfully. When we talk about changing genders, it's often we talk about those societal roles, and rarely (if ever) about what chromosomes they had.
A man cannot be a mother. Ever. Mothers and fathers are not the same, regardless of who stays home and who goes to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FinsterRufus
What do you mean hasn't happened in all of human history?
Numerous cultures have accepted either multiple genders or that there are transgender members of their societies for thousands of years.
I mean that the numbers of young persons (particularly girls) who believe they are the wrong gender is at an alarming high…more than at any other time in modern history.
It has raised concerned in the UK. In 2018:
Quote:
Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt has asked officials to investigate the reasons for the dramatic 4,415 percent increase – and wants to know if the internet could be influencing the way girls think about the issue.
Figures indicate the number of children referred for gender treatment such as hormone injections has increase from 97 in 2009/10 to 2,519 in 2017/18.
Most strikingly, among girls, the figure is up from 40 to 1,806, meaning girls are currently far more likely to seek to become boys than vice versa.
That is my thought. These Republicans who screamed bloody murder with covid and vaccine restrictions have no problem telling trans persons and or their parents how to live their lives. Another thread on CD talks about a possible legalization of Marijuana and its amazing how many Republicans want to tell people what they can put in their bodies. They hypocrisy is over the top.
I have no issue with trans people or gay people or someone who wants to smoke pot. Time to leave others alone. The vast majority of trans people are just living their lives not asking for anything. Yet Republicans keep taunting them for political gain. How sad.
No, we don't all start out female in the womb. We all start out as protoplasm in the womb. Then we do indeed move through being a mermaid. Or a seahorse, depending on your perspective: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-l...e/art-20045302
Genetically, i.e., biologically, however, we do start out as male or female, right out the gate. XY or XX. Occasionally XXY or XYY, and even XXX, but those syndromes are very rare, and they are still sexed.
Sorry, I should have specified we all start out with female genitalia in the womb. Thank you for the correction.
Regardless, my point stands that who knows what happens in some circumstances during that process, on a level we don't grasp yet.
And no we don't move through being a mermaid, because mermaids don't exist.
And, so my cousin and her daughter-in-law hoped - she would outgrow it - but, alas, the girl only became more masculine. In essence, however, I agree with you. There are some - a small percentage like my relative - who are born in the wrong body. Today's trend, otoh, is bogus and does a disservice to those truly afflicted.
Yes, some girls have strongly masculine traits, and vice versa. And yes, some very unfortunate people develop gender dysphoria. Hopefully there will be better treatments for that some day.
But no... these people are not literally "born into the wrong body".
A man cannot be a mother. Ever. Mothers and fathers are not the same, regardless of who stays home and who goes to work.
A trans-woman cannot get pregnant, and cannot give birth. But she totally can feed the baby and raise one as a mother (if let's say she's in a lesbian relation and the biological mother dies for any reason). It's unusual, but not impossible.
Why are you talking about mermaids when this is about gender. They don't need mental health. They know exactly what they are doing and just want to live their lives and be happy with the body they identify with. Their decision doesn't affect you so just let it go.
But they aren’t usually happier, even after transitioning:
“The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over 30 years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.
There are multiple instances in the UK of young women suing the National Institutes of Health for encouraging them to transition.
Quote:
A year after starting the puberty-blockers she said she was prescribed the male hormone testosterone, which developed male characteristics like facial hair and a deep voice. Three years ago, she had an operation to remove her breasts.
"Initially I felt very relieved and happy about things, but I think as the years go on you start to feel less and less enthusiastic or even happy about things.
(Snip)
She decided to stop taking cross-sex hormones last year and said she was now accepting of her sex as a female. But she was also angry about what had happened to her in the last decade.
"I was allowed to run with this idea that I had, almost like a fantasy, as a teenager.... and it has affected me in the long run as an adult.
There are thousands of stories of people who regret transitioning, but they don’t get much attention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by in_newengland
Wanting to change into the opposite sex is not, and I think it's an exaggeration, a fad, and definitely a tiny extreme minority. If the 4 year old girl feels like a boy, then just allow her to be a girl who feels like a boy. She'll probably grow up to be a lesbian. Fine, but STOP when it comes to hormones, surgery.
There has always been a continuum when it comes to male-female. Feminine men, masculine women, and everything in between. Fine. Accept that. That's where it is; that's where it ends.
Or perhaps the four year old child could receive therapy:
Quote:
Andy had a sister with special needs when he was 3 years old. His mom and dad had to give more attention to her to accommodate her condition. Andy thought that they favored his sister over him and that he needed to be a girl for his parents to love him.
By focusing the therapeutic session on family dynamics, Andy was able to progress through his treatment.
“Over the next year, this therapeutic work is what relieved Andy’s gender dysphoria,” Cretella said in an email to The Daily Signal. “He no longer had the psychological need to be the opposite sex in order to feel loved. Within a year of that session he was happy, healthy, and identified as a boy.”
But Cretella said Andy wouldn’t have received the same treatment today.
“Today, Andy’s pediatrician would refer Andy and his family to gender specialists or a gender clinic,” she said. “The parents would immediately be told this is who Andy is.”
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