The American Spectator : America in Transition

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America in Transition

By Stephanie Gutmann from the May 2012 issue

You get to be the sex you think you are (and everybody else has to acknowledge it).

(Page 3 of 3)

A PGP can change as often as one likes. If the pronouns in the dictionary don’t suffice, there are numerous made-up ones now in use, including “ze,” “hir,” and “hirs,” words that connote both genders because, as Katy explained, “Maybe one day you wake up and feel more like a boy.”

Butler is lucky enough to live in the anything-goes enclave of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Out in the hinterlands the idea that a newly chosen “gender identity and expression” must be tolerated at all times does not always go down so well. Men who have recently decided they are women, for example, and show up at work wearing a dress have been fired or been harassed until they quit. There have been a number of savage attacks on trans people who attempted to use the public restroom corresponding to their gender identity.

Enter what the New Republic last year called “America’s Next Great Civil Rights Struggle,” the struggle to end discrimination against transsexuals in housing, the workplace—and eventually any other place a trial lawyer can discover it. Sixteen states (plus D.C.) and 143 cities or counties have added “gender identity or expression” to their protected categories lists—alongside the usual race, religion, gender (the other kind of gender), age, and disability. A more subtle but telling sign that more states will probably add the new category is the news that 207 major corporations (places like Coca-Cola, Apple, Chevron, Kellogg, and Best Buy) now offer insurance covering the cost of full-scale “transitions.” According to 2011 numbers collected by the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equity Index, this is an increase “from just 85 a year earlier.” When HRC began following the issue a decade ago, no corporations covered the surgery.

A number of recent gender identity discrimination cases have been settled in the plaintiffs’ favor. If Johnny is hired as a paper pusher, and then starts to come to work as Jane, and then is fired, his lawsuit for workplace discrimination and wrongful termination is relatively straightforward, because the defendants cannot usually prove the sex change affected the job of paper pusher.

Things get murkier when a workplace has established a “Bona Fide Occupational Qualification” to justify hiring only males or only females. Yes, there are jobs where one can still discriminate. Take “urine monitors”—the people who would watch you pee into a cup if you went for a drug test.

El’Jai Devoureau is currently embroiled in a gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Urban Treatment Centers of Camden, New Jersey. Devoureau, a fortysomething who claims to have been dressing as a man for years, to have had years of hormone therapy and some kind of surgery which she/he has so far been very opaque about, and who even has a “male” driver’s license, applied for the male-only job but was fired after two days because Devoureau’s supervisor said rumors were going around that she/he was not a man. Devoureau, who wears long corn rows, sports a wispy beard, and looks a bit like the ’80s singer Terence Trent D’Arby, said, “But I am a man.” The supervisor said something to the effect of, “Um, we don’t think so.” And the standoff began. The case has thus begun its crawl through the New Jersey court system. More evidence to support Devoureau’s claim may have to be…er, unveiled to support Devoureau’s claim—but maybe not. As the New York Times says, the outcome could turn on “the question of what is a man.” It could certainly be precedent-setting.

WHAT I FIND REALLY ODD about this “new Civil Rights movement” is that it’s happening now—after decades of struggle over the boundaries of sex roles and a great expansion of norms. As one of the online commenters to the New Republic’s “Great New Civil Rights Struggle” article put it, “Isn’t the trans-sexual phenomenon at heart conservative? Instead of enlarging the range of human behavior, it narrows the options down to ‘girls act one way and boys another so if you act one way, you have to be trapped in the wrong gender’s body.’ ”

But exactly. As a sign of how far we have come, there is a film, Alfred Nobbs, currently in theaters. It’s about a 19th century woman “living as a man” apparently because she seeks the love of women. But in 2012 no woman has to dress as a man in order to openly partner with another woman. (Well, in most parts of the country!) No woman has to attempt to “pass” as a man to take a job on a highway crew, or to enter a training program for fighter jet pilots.

Another curiously retrograde part: Once they “transition” many transgenders become the most devout standard-bearers for sex stereotypes. “When you discuss what the patient means by ‘feeling like a woman’ you often get a sex stereotype in return—something that woman physicians note immediately is a male caricature of women’s attitudes and interests,” Paul McHugh wrote. “One of our patients, for example, said that, as a woman, he would be more ‘invested with being than with doing.’”

“Ever since I became a woman, I just can’t do math anymore,” trills the main source in the New Republic’s “Civil Rights” article.

Chaz Bono is now infamous for having become a walking sexist-comment-machine. (“I can be a a-hole; I can be insensitive.…There is something in testosterone that makes talking and gossiping really grating.…I’ve stopped talking as much. I’ve noticed that [my girlfriend] can talk endlessly.…I got way more gadget-oriented.…Definitely since transitioning I’ve wanted to be up on the latest, coolest toy.”)

Accordingly, Warren Beatty’s oldest child (who started life as Kathlyn but is known, after hormone treatments, as “Stephen Ira Beatty”) has taken to excoriating Bono from her blog, with flamers like: “I don’t want any rich white trans guy…telling the media that testosterone made him a misogynist…he has some deep-seated misogyny to work through.”

If your head is spinning with all this gender-bending, join the club. But keep in mind that there is one reference point that will hold steady like the North Star: With this new category of victim slouching toward Bethlehem to be born, the trial lawyers are girding happily. I await the day a male-to-female trans applies for a job at Hooters.

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About the Author

Stephanie Gutmann is the author of The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy (Encounter, 2005).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (312) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Clint| 5.18.12 @ 6:37AM

There's Bibi's Cabana Boys & Mittens Kittens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acQ6jLe3R8E

Jack in Wi.| 5.18.12 @ 7:31AM

The guy who used to service my vehicles for 20 years has decided after 30 years of marriage and several kids, that he was first homosexual, and now that he is a woman trapped in a man's body. He hand his wife have divorced and he is running arould in dresses waiting to get the surgery.

To me this is just another form of mental illness. It is a form of Munchausen's Syndrome, that the medical establishment should be ashamed of accommadating. It is yet another step down the road to cultural insanity.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 7:56AM

I wholeheartedly agree with you. All this, "it's just another normal" is BS. I REFUSE to look at it as normal.
I have gay and lesbian friends but I don't love them because they are gay, but for the good and productive people that they are. It saddens me that many don't know, LIKE women, that they are being used by the left to further an agenda that is, well, not normal.

Riff Raff| 5.18.12 @ 9:59AM

I know someone who is doing this now. I agree. One simply must be mentally disturbed to have amputations performed without any medical necessity whatsoever. This person's DNA still says he is a man and it will always say that. Surgery will not alter DNA.

We have reached a time in history where mental illness is not only tolerated, but celebrated. I made the mistake of reading this article whlie eating breakfast.

Sheila| 5.18.12 @ 11:01AM

Ah, but you forget - DNA is rayciss and homophobic. Reality is what people say it is, for there is no God and a cockroach is a rat is a boy, as PETA tells us. Life is through the looking glass, and you are a dinosaur. . . or you can, as I did, choose to proudly identify as a White ethnonationalist of biological gender.

RCV| 5.18.12 @ 12:09PM

...and that's what makes you so special, Sheila.

You are an embarrassment to the proud history of Western Civilization.

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 1:17AM

"your DNA will tell the truth about who you used to be"

Except that 1 in 300 men don't have XY chromosomes, and some women do.

DNA lies all the time in this matter.

"A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis." -- J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9

Surgery won't alter DNA - but a bone marrow transplant will, over time. So what?

D Kellems| 5.19.12 @ 12:36PM

The practice of psychiatry is one profession where the customer should NOT always be right! I always thought people went to see a shrink to figure out the cause of their problems and hopefully learn to overcome them rather than have their problems legitimized. The psychiatric branch of the medical profession has grown lazy, nobody has mental illness anymore, only different lifestyle choices. This is no different than teachers arguing that our schools aren't failing, it's just that the testing standards are too high. Then again, I suppose ignorance and stupidity are just a lifestyle choice too, right? Where do we draw the line on this? Is criminality a lifestyle choice too? The opportunities for absurdity down the road we're heading down as a nation are truly boundless...

xrk9854| 5.18.12 @ 10:55AM

Another person who has no idea what they're talking about. Gender identity and sexual orientation are completely separate issues.

Transsexualism is in fact a scientifically proven congenital birth condition. Literally hundreds of studies have been done at this point that prove your antiquated ideas wrong. But I'm wasting my breath because bigots like you rarely change their ways and/or admit they are wrong.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 11:29AM

Are those studies done by the global warming kind of "scientists"? If so, I rest my case.

All American American| 5.19.12 @ 6:28PM

Naaah they're done by gay trannies wearing pink tutus.

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 11:42AM

"Gender identity and sexual orientation are completely separate issues."

Then why do both communities yoke themselves under the "GLTB" banner?

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 11:47AM

After some brief research, I was unable to find the "hundreds of studies" you cited. I found studies which supported your position, but I also found others which did not. Your description of any ideas which differ from your as being "antiquated" reveals such a strong prejudice in your thinking that I suspect you are cherry picking among studies - accepting as "valid" only those which support your pre-conceived ideas.

But, for the sake of argument, let's assume your pre-conceived ideas are correct. Let's assume that tanssexualism is a congenital birth condition. So what?

There are plenty of studies which show that pedophilia has a biological, rather than psychological origin. In other words, they can't help it. Does that mean they should not be punished when they molest children?

Undoubtedly, we all have some incliniation, whether it be biological, psychological or otherwise, to do something which is wrong solely because it feels right. But that doesn't make it right.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 2:44PM

Here's a few of the hundreds of articles on the subject. For a short 7-page bibliography, I suggest looking at Prof Ecker's presentation to the American Psychiatric Association annual conference in 2009. Rather more have been published since then, of course.

Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids.
by Berglund et al
Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(8):1900-1908;

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus.
Kruiver et al
J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation.
Swaab
Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.

The classic paper in Nature was published in 1995, based on autopsy results.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality.
by Zhou et al
Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity.
by Garcia-Falgueras et al
Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.

White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. -
Rametti et al,
J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Jun 8.

Regional cerebral blood flow changes in female to male gender identity disorder. -
Tanaka et al,
Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010 Apr 1;64(2):157-61.

Much of what we know has been through studying intersex people. Those who change sex naturally are a particularly useful study area. 5ARD and 17BHSD are the two most well understood conditions causing this, but there are others.

Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth
by Reiner and Gearhart,
N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.

Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency.
Cohen-Kettenis PT.
Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Aug;34(4):399-410.

Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation
Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF
Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35

The abstract here over-simplifies a bit, but is a good summary:

"The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation."

This is best read in conjunction with:
Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?”
M.Diamond
Sex Roles (2006) 55:589–600

That explains the mechanism where a cross-sexed brain leads to a cross-sexed gender identity.

Biological and Psychosocial Correlates of Adult Gender‐Variant Identities: a Review
by J.F.Veale & D.E.Clarke,
Personality and Individual Differences (2009) 48(4), 357-366

Sexual differentiation of the human brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation
D.Swaab & A.Garcia-Fulgaras
Functional Neurology, Jan-Mar 2009:

Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure
by Pol et al,
Europ Jnl Endocrinology, Vol 155, suppl_1, S107-S114 2006

Neuroimaging Differences in Spatial Cognition between Men and Male-to-Female Transsexuals Before and During Hormone Therapy
by Scoening et al
J Sex Med. 2009 Sep 14.

Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism.
by Luders et al
Neuroimage. 2009 Jul 15;46(4):904-7.

Dichotic Listening, Handedness, Brain Organization and Transsexuality
Govier et al
International Journal of Transgenderism, 12:144–154, 2010

Atypical Gender Development: a review
Besser et al
International Journal of Transgenderism 9(1): 29-44. 2006

Specific Cerebral Activation due to Visual Erotic Stimuli in Male-to-Female Transsexuals Compared with Male and Female Controls: An fMRI Study
by Gizewski et al
J Sex Med 2009;6:440–448.

I don't want to blind you with science, but that short reading list, a tiny selection of what's on-line, should get you started.

Or you can just accept "Anatomically Girl Brain In Boy Body". That's grossly over-simplified, but captures the essence.

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.18.12 @ 3:14PM

More 'impressive' lists in appearance than this can be generated to claim the scientific method supports both anthropogenic global warming and macroevolution.

That the credibility and the integrity of the American Psychiatric Association is comparable to the credibility and integrity of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a grossly 'over-simplified' statement does not alter that the statement captures the essence of the truth revealed by the statement.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 4:00PM

I didn't say I found no studies, I said I found some, and also some in disagreement.

Simply citing a list of studies and findings is not - in and of itself - pursuasive in any event. I'm no scientist myself, but I have cross examined enough scientists - from psychologists to chemists to pulmonologists - and presented as witnesses enough of same on behalf of my clients to know that most studies regadless of field are bull, and are produced not to avance knowledge into previously unexplored areas, but rather to provide support for the pre-conceived ideas of those who either conduct them or fund them. I have learned from that experience, from taking apart biased methodologies to poking holes in basic faulty logic, that I should acept no study - even one with findings I agree with - at face value.

I am blinded by science, neither however, am I blinded to it.

In addition, while cited a long list of studies, if you go back and re-read my post, where you will find I asked one fundamental question which you avoided making any effort whatsoever to respond to.

So what?

As I pointed out in my post (which obviously did not read in full) it does not matter whether or not the idea that transsexualism is a congenital birth condition. Doing something which is wrong simply because it feels right doesn't make it right.

You also failed to address my question regarding whether pedophiles should be punished when they molest children if - as it would appear from the same sort of studies you're citing in defense of your position - it turns out that pedophilia is a congential birth condition.

In short, you effectively rebutted an argument I did not make.

Now grow a set and respond to the arguments I did make.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 4:01PM

Bad writing catches up to me again.

I am not blinded by science, but neither am I blinded to it.

One of these days, I'm gonna have to start using the preview button.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 11:56PM

Your point was obvious from context, so no matter. Do the best you can to achieve perfection, but as you won't, don't sweat the small stuff.

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 4:46PM

Boy, oh, boy: the development issue really has not been proven---that's theory, not fact. I'm not sure how I would go about proving the theory, since GID is not really all that common and the prospective study would need to be gigantic.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 10:03PM

All we can say is that every Trans person ever tested has shown these characteristics.
As Transsexuality is only about 1 in 30,000 (by the APA's figures), we've already tested a decent fraction of the total. There's good reason to believe this figure is wrong though, out by a factor of 10, so we've only tested 5% not 50%.

Most medical therapies are based on far less evidence than we have here, but they don't face opposition based on ideology and religion.

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.18.12 @ 11:08PM

There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on intolerance of those identities lacking credibility or those oriented without integrity due to willful unintelligence or dishonesty. This condition is understood to manifest itself through a congenital predilection to severe physical beatings of those identities willfully unintelligent or dishonest and discredited without integrity.

All that can be said is that the severe physical beatings you as an identity willfully unintelligent and dishonest and discredited by your lack of integrity will be subject to will be based on a congenital condition which is intolerant of your faith in your ideology that evidence shows is emotional prattle to the exclusion of reason and experience willfully.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 11:20PM

Which arguments?

Should pedophiles be punished for molesting children? Yes. And? What has attacking, raping or murdering other people got to do with this situation?

Do pedophiles commit suicide if not allowed to molest children? There's no evidence of that. Trans people commit suicide if not allowed to transition though, and most cogently, there's no danger to third parties. The two situations are completely different.

You ask "so what". Here's some examples of what happens in actuality.

Start with

http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

That's 5ARD, a mutation that's fairly rare in the USA, but more common than the CCR1 mutation that causes red hair in some parts of the world.

The "natural sex change" it can cause is great for the (neurological) boys, but a nightmare for the (neurological) girls. That isn't "theory".

Here's such a case.

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ais.....CA_237.pdf

There, the girl in question sought permission from the Australian Family Court to have surgery and hormone therapy to stop her masculinisation.

So, would you grant her request to end this nightmare? Or refuse it, merely because it's a "natural change"?

Conversely, would you mandate surgery and hormones on a neurological boy to stop the change, merely because his birth certificate says "female"?

Now if you'd allow surgery for neurological girls, and not mandate it for neurological boys - why treat Trans people (whose biological situation is stable, but who are neurologically identical) any differently?

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.19.12 @ 10:16AM

Unadulterated bullshit transparent arguments translated by unadulterated bullshit transparent lawyers translated in unadulterated bullshit courts of 'justice' through the interpretation of the translations by former unadulterated bullshit lawyers transitioned to unadulterated bullshit judges does not translate the unadulterated bullshit transparent arguments transmutatively into scientific fact to be translated into transmutatively enacting laws and transmutatively providing goods and services for unadulterated bullshit transmutations of unadulterated bullshit transparent transitioning transidiotic individuals to prevent unadulterated bullshit transparent transitioning transidiotic individuals from killing their unadulterated bullshit transparent transitioning transidiotic selves all based on unadulterated bullshit transparent transitioning transidiotic internet posting individuals.

carnot| 5.19.12 @ 10:56PM

and who pays?

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 4:45PM

Let's say for the sake of argument that it's congenital.

So what?

If we find out necrophilia is congential, shall we give 'em first refusal on the morgue's product?

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 3:12PM

NAMBLA and the liberals will straighten out this notion that pedophilia is not normal in the 3rd or 4th Obama term.

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 3:15PM

"Transsexualism is... a scientifically proven congenital birth condition." OK. So what? So are Huntington's Chorea, and Parkinson's. Some people have a genetic predisposition to addictive behaviors, like alcoholism. Some people have a genetic predisposition to some forms of cancers. That something is "congenital" does not mean it is not pathological. We don't cater to these conditions, we try to find cures for them. Unless it is "transsexualism", where politics takes over and we DO cater to people's pathologies. "Transsexualism" is a mental pathology, nothing more. That it is biological in nature does not change this.

Nothing said here demonstrates "bigotry." Labeling people "bigots" in this discussion is absurd and inflammatory, and it is the tactic of the arrogant.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 9:59PM

The cause is a physical one. Mixed anatomy, both male and female parts.

This causes intense distress, up to and including suicidal ideation, the same phenomenon seen in accident victims who have been castrated.

The cure - 98% successful - is hormone therapy and surgery, in both cases. Other therapies have been proven ineffective over the last 60 years, and it is no longer considered ethical to try things which we have ample proof don't work.

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 11:37PM

"The cause is a physical one. Mixed anatomy, both male and female parts."

This is Hermaphroditism, not transsexualism. You are changing the subject.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 11:44PM

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus.
Kruiver et al
J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

"The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder."

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality.
by Zhou et al
Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

"Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones"

I'll quote from the Full Bench of the Australian Family Court, when it had to examine the expert evidence in the Re Kevin set of decisions:

At paragraph [252]: ‘The traditional analysis that they are "psychologically" transsexual does not explain how this state came about. For example, there seems to be no suggestion in the evidence that their psychological state can be explained by reference to circumstances of their upbringing. In that sense, the brain sex theory does not seem to be competing with other explanations, but rather is providing a possible explanation of what is otherwise inexplicable’.

At paragraph [270]: ‘But I am satisfied that the evidence now is inconsistent with the distinction formerly drawn between biological factors, meaning genitals, chromosomes and gonads, and merely "psychological factors", and on this basis distinguishing between cases of inter-sex (incongruities among biological factors) and transsexualism (incongruities between biology and psychology)’.

At paragraph [272]: ‘In my view the evidence demonstrates (at least on the balance of probabilities) that the characteristics of transsexuals are as much “biological” as those of people thought of as inter-sex’.

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.19.12 @ 10:35AM

A very recent study may be the first to show the present findings that analysis does not explain how unadulterated bullshit is anything other than unadulterated bullshit but there seems to be no suggestion in the evidence that certain views demonstrate that the characteristics of unadulterated bullshit on this basis is 'biological' distinguishing incongruities between 'upbringing' or 'psychological factors' and the evidence has drawn satisfication that unadulterated bullshit is merely unadulterated bullshit.

NotALibertarian| 5.21.12 @ 11:03AM

"The cure - 98% successful - is hormone therapy and surgery"

Documentation, please.

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 3:19PM

McHugh is your intellectual superior-I'd bet the ranch on it.

Elle| 5.18.12 @ 4:29PM

People will find what they are supposed to find if they know what's good for them- in the interest of their career and financial well being.

gearjammer| 5.19.12 @ 9:13AM

Gotta get those " research grants ".

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 11:17AM

It's called GID, Jack. Not Munchhausen's.

Of the 4 transexuals I have treated in my practice, with three of them, the transexual situation was the most normal thing about them. The fourth was the most memorable prisoner case I ever had. (Please note, no identifiers here, not even remotely)

However, one thing is for sure---none of them were in doubt about their choice. And that leads to an interesting discussion in the literature about the concept of binary versus non-binary gender identity. It hurts my head.

Our society gets sicker and sicker thanks to Liberals.

chuck| 5.18.12 @ 4:21PM

OT,
Question for you. I've always wondered, people with GID, when they dream, in their dreams are they the sex they were born, or are they the other sex?

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 4:57PM

Chuck: I honestly don't know. I don't do much work with dreams---I didn't find it to be effective in what I primarily do, which is keep people from dying due to psychiatric illness. My "n" was also small, only 4.

What I did find, however, was that in 3 of the cases, the patients were so ill in other ways that the transexualism was a very tiny part of the presentation. In the fourth, it was the major part, but the dangerousness issue, which was just past by the time I was dealing with the patient, had been catastrophic and horrifying. With that one, a mild change in the therapeutic approach rapidly resolved the dangerousness issue and the rest of the treatment was boringly dull. (I do my best work when I am bored to death and my patient is doing well. In 3 of the 4 cases, it was train wreck city all the time, but the transexualism had very little to do with the problem. In the fourth, it was critical, but easily resolved by me and then the rest of the treatment was dull and uninteresting, and dream discussions were unnecessary---I also try not to pry into my patient's lives more than I need to to get a good result.)

I'm sorry I didn't answer that more directly, but as I was writing I was thinking of confidentiality issues while also answering the question. In addition, while I have been exposed to the literature in GID somewhat and have had a few cases, the majority of my cases are severe mood, behavioral, and psychotic disorders---GID actually isn't generally in that---if you are really following through with GID treatment, you have to have your life reasonably together and thus wouldn't be dealing with a hospitalist like me, and if you are seriously mentally ill, GID would be so far down the list usually that it wouldn't be the deciding issue.

By the way, Chuck, completely off topic---you do beautiful work.

chuck| 5.18.12 @ 9:50PM

OT,

Thanks for taking time to try to answer my question. When I was in college, I had a course called Human Sexuality, Family, and Marriage. We had a guest speaker who was born a male, and had the surgery to become female. Strange thing was he was a straight male, but "she" is a lesbian. No shit!
I always wondered how the sub-conscious mind dealt with gender identity. Seems to me that if you are truly the "wrong" sex, in your dreams you would be the opposite sex, because that's what your mind would be.

BTW, how have you seen my work? I've stated I'm a contractor, but never put my name out.
And thanks!

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 9:55PM

"Seems to me that if you are truly the "wrong" sex, in your dreams you would be the opposite sex, because that's what your mind would be."

Yes, that's pretty much the reality. Waking up can be both disorienting and distressing, finding bits that should be there are not, and bits that shouldn't be there, are.

It's not something they get used to either, the distress is the same at 55 as it is at 15.

chuck| 5.19.12 @ 10:20AM

So before your surgery, and even now, when you dream, are you male, female, or occasionally male and occasionally female?

Just curious.

Zoe Brain | 5.20.12 @ 12:26AM

I stopped trying to be male in my dreams 30 years ago. I could only manage it one time in 12 by then anyway. Since then, I'm just me. Who happens to be female.

chuck| 5.20.12 @ 8:28AM

Thanks for the insight. You seem like an intelligent person, and I hope you have a long, happy, and fulfilled life.

Occam's Tool| 5.21.12 @ 2:54AM

Written work, my friend.

Look, Zoe, most of the data on, say, schizophrenia has shown that schizophrenic brains, on average, "tend" to have certain results. Furthermore, I have NOT seen any data on biological tests for transexualism that are used in clinical practice. None. Usually, what the clinical data suggests is a period of living as the other sex, culminating in surgery if the various pre-trans steps are successful. The Harry Benjamin Society guidelines have no biological testing requirements. Version 7 2011 is here: http://www.wpath.org/documents/Standards of Care_FullBook_1g-1.pdf

Backwards into the Future| 5.18.12 @ 9:45AM

My, my, my.

How Ms. Gutmann has her panties tied in a knot. She cannot deal with the transgender issue with any intelligence, empathy, or insight. Instead, she vents her anger at people who are "different" from her and her kind.

Same old same old from American Spectator, the most stupid of the right-wing rags. American Spectator--always at war with Modernity and progressive Morality.

Your fevered articles will be, in a few years' time, a hoot to read.

Did I say, "hoot"? On second thought, that's what they are now. The stupidity of the ideas displayed on these pages always brings a smile to my face.

Keep hating the present and fearing the future, all you AmSpec fanatics!

Truncheon| 5.18.12 @ 9:52AM

How amusing. You get your "panties in a wad" when someone observes that chopping up your perfectly healthy penis and re-arranging the remains into a simulacrum of labia might be inappropriate....

xrk9854| 5.18.12 @ 10:52AM

For your information during sex reassignment surgery for transsexual women very little is "cut off". Most of the donor material is in fact refashioned into a beautiful, and functional, vulva (labia, vagina and clitoris). Surgical results are so good today a doctor wouldn't know unless I told them.

The problem with people like you is PREJUDICE. You're making judgments about something you know NOTHING about.

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 11:31AM

You are defending the mutilation of healthy organs -- an industry that rakes in billions of dollars each year by chopping up a vulnerable population? And you call others hateful?

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 12:05PM

When the doctor's results are so "good" that you can bear children in the same manner as a "woman" who was born in a "man's body," then I take your argument seriously. Until then, all your saying is that if an artist is skilled enough to make a rock look like a tree, then it's a tree. But it's not. It's still a rock, regardless of it's outward appearance.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 12:07PM

Please excuse my writing difficulties today. That sentence should have read:

When the doctor's result are so "good" that you can bear children in the same manner as "woman" who was not born in a "man's body."

Amazing how three little letters make such a big difference.

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 12:05AM

Excused.

However, let's take a look at the consequences of what you're saying: that sex depends on fertility.

I'll leave it up to you to determine what consequences logically follow regarding children, post-menopausal women, those who have had a vasectomy or hysterectomy etc.

By the way, we may see your condition satisfied soon, medical science is advancing all the time.

KerryA02| 6.3.12 @ 4:48PM

"By the way, we may see your condition satisfied soon, medical science is advancing all the time."

Indeed. There are many cis women and men in the world who have serious problems with their reproductive organs. As scientists explore those issues and resolve them, that work could be used to help transsexuals achieve their goals.

Simon Templar| 5.18.12 @ 3:54PM

"The problem with people like you is PREJUDICE. You're making judgments about something you know NOTHING about."

I laughed when I read this and then my mood quickly changed to anger.
First, we conservatives are really sick of your incessant and endless proposition that you KNOW more about everything than anyone else and that you are somehow free of prejudice and bias. Oh, you, the liberal, has such respect for science, logic, and knowledge. LOL.

No, it is is you as Ronald Reagan said know so much that is not actually true. That ranges from everything from basic economics to global warming to American history. All of which you have revised to fit your political agendas and your latest protest and obsession.
There is no definitive science that supports ANY of your horseshit particularly in the sexuality area. It is that plain. So, keep your perversions to yourself and stop judging everyone that does not agree with your latest claim, issue, perversion, or demand whether that is state tax supported contraception, homosexual marriage, or anything else.

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 4:25PM

Hooray ! Romney should hire you for debate prep !

Dugan| 5.19.12 @ 12:36PM

No, we (what ever label you wish to apply - I'll used 'human' thank you) do not think we know more about EVERYTHING.

We just know more about this subject, because we are affected by it or know people that are.

Consider that most people really don't know much about anything that they aren't part of or do for a living.

It's hardly perversion - I don't know ANYONE (of the admitted handful of friends I have in this situation) that WANTS this.

You do seem to be over-generalizing here, I know this because I used to call myself 'conservative' - then I started talking to people, and learning things.

I don't think the state should PAY for any of this, but it needs to protect the rights of those that have this condition.

They only do this because - all too often - NOT doing it is painful. It's not a decision that one makes lightly. They harm no one....I do not understand the opposition to this, except it challenges an old world-view.

They ought to be in pain, because it challenges someone's opinion about the way things ought to work? That's barbaric...

Morris Albert| 5.19.12 @ 1:04PM

. . . whoa whoa whoa

feelings

nothing more than feelings . . .

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 4:46PM

The technical term is addadictomi.

Lost| 5.18.12 @ 5:16PM

sex "reassignment" is actually just cosmetic surgery, nothing more . to say their gender has change is false no matter how loud you shout I am prejudice. If I have surgery to look like a vulcan and think I am a vulcan does that mean I am a vulcan?

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 12:10AM

Depends.

Is your blood green, based on copper, not iron compounds?

Would an MRI scan show partly Vulcan anatomy?

Are there cases where humans have turned into Vulcans, or Vulcans into humans?

If not... then your analogy fails.

Lost| 5.21.12 @ 12:35PM

Why does it fail? Well it does not. It is dead on. Name one case where a man became a women (or the other way around) because of cosmetic surgery based on your criteria. Do they have functional wombs/testicles, can they reproduce in the manor for the gender they say they are? No? What makes their "new" gender any more true than me believing and looking like a Vulcan?

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 10:43AM

Try READING the article. There's no "hate", no venting of anger, merely bemusement, and, yes, disagreement about a new definition of what constitutes a woman. If disagreement is automatically labeled "hate" it's impossible to talk. Is that what you're in favor of, "Backwards Into the Future."

xrk9854| 5.18.12 @ 10:47AM

No hate, just stupendous ignorance.

Sheila| 5.18.12 @ 11:03AM

That's right - DNA is ignorant and hateful - and you're the arbiter of all about you.

I, on the other hand, am not bemused, as is Ms. Gutmann - I'm downright hateful and proud of it. You're an evolutionary error in need of rebooting.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 1:28PM

Facts are sometimes a pain in the behind.

KerryA02| 6.3.12 @ 4:30PM

Stephanie Gutmann, I know you don't accept your responsibility for it, but the hatred which Sheila is expressing is the hatred that you are unintentionally justifying with your poorly researched "journalism."

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 11:05AM

Where's the "stupendous" ignorance in the article, xrk? You are stating your opinion, as am I. In my opinion, a vagina is still only a "simulacrum" unless it is the pathway to a womb or the place where there **was** a womb. While we're at it, since you obviously are quite well informed about these surgeries, maybe you can answer something I've been curious about: Can a manufactured vagina...um, how do I put this in a family magazine...respond to arousal? I am not trying to taunt or bait. This is a genuine question.

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 11:19AM

Stephanie: yes, it can. In a surgical procedure such as this, the vaginal material from what I have read is refashioned from penile material for sensation purposes. F to M changes are more problematic.

This does not mean that surgery in this setting isn't quite problematic.

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 11:25AM

thank you!

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 11:25AM

Stephanie: here's an article to look at---

"Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Apr;34(2):147-66.
Sexuality before and after male-to-female sex reassignment surgery.
Lawrence AA.
Sourcealawrence@mindspring.com

Abstract
The sexual behaviors and attitudes of male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals have not been investigated systematically. This study presents information about sexuality before and after sex reassignment surgery (SRS), as reported by 232 MtF patients of one surgeon. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. The mean age of participants at time of SRS was 44 years (range, 18-70 years). Before SRS, 54% of participants had been predominantly attracted to women and 9% had been predominantly attracted to men. After SRS, these figures were 25% and 34%, respectively.Participants' median numbers of sexual partners before SRS and in the last 12 months after SRS were 6 and 1, respectively. Participants' reported number of sexual partners before SRS was similar to the number of partners reported by male participants in the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). After SRS, 32% of participants reported no sexual partners in the last 12 months, higher than reported by male or female participants in the NHSLS. Bisexual participants reported more partners before and after SRS than did other participants. 49% of participants reported hundreds of episodes or more of sexual arousal to cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy (autogynephilia) before SRS; after SRS, only 3% so reported. More frequent autogynephilic arousal after SRS was correlated with more frequent masturbation, a larger number of sexual partners, and more frequent partnered sexual activity. 85% of participants experienced orgasm at least occasionally after SRS and 55% ejaculated with orgasm."

The problem, from my limited experience, is that the Gender Identity Disorder (as the DSM-V will label it) tend to be the least important psychiatric problem in the patients I have seen, kind of like whipped cream on a turd pie.

gearjammer| 5.19.12 @ 9:16AM

Can the M to F's just swap with the F to M's. I can see Dr. Filly do this show.

KerryA02| 6.3.12 @ 4:26PM

The neovagina and labiaplasty surgeries were first done on cis women who had deformed or injured vaginas or labia. It was then used on trans women. It has since been perfected. Neovaginas, when done by an experienced surgeon, are indistinguishable from any other vagina. Neovaginas are fully functional.

If the only purpose of a vagina is to provide a pathway to the womb, why are you interested in whether or not it can respond to arousal?

Wouldn't it be appropriate for a journalist to research these questions BEFORE she publishes her erroneous and ignorant assumptions? If you had researched them, then perhaps the hatred you are unwittingly spreading in your essay might not have been spread. Now that you are more aware of the actual facts, isn't an apology in order?

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 3:18PM

I'm glad you admit this, xrk9854.

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 10:59AM

Ms. Gutmann:

There is HATE in your article .-- from the very first comment about The New York Times... and it only heats up from there.

Ya don't "approve" of sex-re-assignment surgery??--THEN , DON'T HAVE ONE-- but leave this topic-- and the options open- for those who UNDERSTAND the issue, and can talk about it without your rather creepy tone

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 11:04AM

You sound like the Spanish Inquisition team screaming "HERETIC!" at anyone who disagrees with you.

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 11:21AM

You're actually completely missing the point of the article, Pelleas, which was that it is now possible legally to change one's sex, without any physical changes, based simply on this amorphous concept of "gender identity." That is the news here. What I think about "sexual assignment surgery" (that it may make some people feel better just like, say, getting breast implants, but that no sex is being changed) is a side point. And how does my expressing my opinion close down options?

TLP| 5.19.12 @ 8:29AM

That's what he does, around here, Pelleas. He misses the point.

Some believe that he is really not who he says he is. Some believe that he has multiple identities that Manifest themselves, on this site.

Unfortunately, all of them are as Stupid, as this one.

You're best bet it to just ignore him, whoever he is.

KerryA02| 6.3.12 @ 4:39PM

"it is now possible legally to change one's sex, without any physical changes"

You mean "gender" not sex. Gender is the social construct. Sex is the physical construct. Gender is what's on your ID. Sex is what's in your pants. Changing one's gender requires government approval. Changing one's sex generally requires hormones or a surgeon.

As for "sexual assignment surgery" why don't we look at what Jesus had to say about it?

Matthew19:12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Looks like Jesus approves, so what's your problem with it?

Simon Templar| 5.18.12 @ 4:02PM

The only hate I see and hear is coming from you liberals who like to shout, hate, every single time someone does not fall down and worship your latest perversion or idol. You do not approve of the authors position, fine, but keep your damn mouth shut about the 'hate' baloney and learn to accept other people's views as legitimate as yours.
The only thing creepy here is your manipulative attitude and your self righteous, know it all liberal mental framework.

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 10:59AM

Ms. Gutmann:

There is HATE in your article .-- from the very first comment about The New York Times... and it only heats up from there.

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 11:11AM

Pelleas, I stated a fact, that the New York Times seems like the chronicle of a parallel universe to me. I'm sure you must feel that way reading the American Spectator. So what? People are different. Where's the hate there? I ask this because I am genuinely interested in this left wing habit of labeling anything with which they disagree "hate." Sure, it's a good way of ending debate. But do you really think it's hate? Wow, you should have seen my dinner table when I was growing up. I guess you would have thought my actually very loving family really hated each other.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 11:34AM

It's they're only way of arguing for deviency.

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 11:37AM

The hate you exhibit is made CRYSTAL CLEAR by your snideness, and "oh, so amusing" quips made at the expense of stuff that you find is "comically" horrific ,

The is no "left wing habit " in calling a spade a spade-- and calling hateful comments, hate... unless you subscribe to the right wing habit of calling everything you disagree with "un-patriotic" "crazy" insane" sick" "socialist", et al....

Appleby| 5.18.12 @ 12:01PM

When did "disagreement" become "hate"? Was I absent the day these words became synonyms?

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 12:12PM

Liberals label as "hate" anything they disagree with because otherwise they would have to intellectually defend the indefensible.

They can't do that because, by definition, the indefensible is indefensible.

Therefore, they result to insults and labels as a substitute for intellectual debate.

Simon Templar| 5.18.12 @ 4:04PM

When the liberal decides and makes the pronouncement.

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 1:09PM

Pelleas, It's called "irreverence." I have a feeling you've never seen what real hate looks like. Go to YouTube and watch an Islamic sermon about homosexuality. Now that's hate speech.

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 4:53PM

Ms Gutmann

I could just as easily watch a youtube video with a NORTH CAROLINIAN "CHRISTIAN" "PREACHER" spewing the same filthy hate speech-- so what's YOUR POINT, eh?

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 4:59PM

Pelleas: actually, you would be hard pressed to find a Christian preacher who lead a lynch party to kill a given homosexual, you really would. You don't know many fundamentalists, do you?

KeepTheCahnge| 5.18.12 @ 2:03PM

Your continuous SHOUTING identifies you as a drama queen. Your 'argument' is shrill and monotonous.
Anyone's opinion that runs afoul of the 'approved' orthodoxy is shouted down as being 'hate'. Most often, nothing less than gushing approbation is satisfactory.
Get over it. Your sophomoric tactics are transparent and you devalue the word 'hate' by continually spouting it at anyone who disagrees with you. I truly hope that you never run head-on into real hatred.

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 3:21PM

"Pelleas" is one of the trolls. His tactic is to inflame with accusations of "hate" and "bigotry" among others. He has little of note to say and only fans the flames. Alfred Pennyworth (Batman's butler) said in "The Dark Knight" that "some people just want to watch the World burn." Such is "Pelleas."

KerryA02| 6.3.12 @ 4:40PM

Where's the hate? Stop ignoring the many hateful comments on this thread which your amateurish and misinformed journalism has motivated.

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 4:48PM

I certainly hate people like you, and am happy to join the mob stoning them If only there were a mob. Like in the good old days.

Jim| 5.18.12 @ 3:27PM

You just have to understand liberal "code" - hate means you don't agree wholeheartedly with them. Hard to have an intelligent discussion with them, they have absolutely zero listening skills. So much for their self proclaimed open-mindedness! Just like Obama thinks of us - we are to listen and obey, not think we are intelligent enough to discuss anything.

spike59| 5.18.12 @ 4:11PM

please remember, you're dealing with devotees of LeftSpeak here; any statements that do not fall in line 100% with the 'hive narrative' can only be attributed to hatred and ignorance. they are lovers of 'diversity' in appearance; but as for diversity in thought, opinion, and belief? ehhhh, not so much...

Butch| 5.18.12 @ 7:44PM

You nailed evil and ignorance, Spike, but don't forget the third leg of the argumentative stool, stupidity. "You're either stupid, ignorant, or evil" is all they know how to say. The Big Three.

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 10:48AM

Your position seems over-wrought and anti-science, driven by emotion, rather than facts and logic. At least the secularists of old respected Natural Law as understood through the sciences. They may not have acknowledged God, but at least they acknowledged tangible reality.
That is the author's whole point. Civilized society cannot function when the State places Delusion on equal footing with reality, no matter how charitable the intention. We descend into barbarism.

D Kellems| 5.19.12 @ 1:54PM

Well said, I sometimes wonder if society hasn't gone off on one hell of a bender in regards to individuality. The world is getting smaller by the day and it is getting increasingly difficult to stand out and be "special". There are numerous people who either have or percieve themselves as being put upon and react by creating an artificial identity of sorts as a way to give the middle finger to the world. These people look or act in a provocative manner and only dig in further when the inevitable negative reaction comes from society. Just look at all the over the top piercings, tattoos, brandings, and yes, alternate lifestyles that have come out of the woodwork in the last generation or so. People tattoo their faces to look like a cat or a lizard and get celebrated on TV for being a walking, talking, F*** YOU to the world. I can't help but think that many of the same motivations existfor at least some in the LBGT community. It sure would seem that they've planted their flag and are daring the world to say or do something about it. The medical, legal, and political establishments will be their instruments to demand tribute and compel all the rest of us to plant a big wet kiss on their posteriors. These days being different in private is no fun, they have to rub peoples noses in it publicly so they can mock our indignant reactions to their delusional behavior....and when they tire of mocking our "bigotry", they'll sue us.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 11:32AM

Why do leftist use the word "hate" all the time? Nobody said they hated anyone!

A new one though from the regressive left is, are you ready......."hate porn". That's when you ask about an obama surrogate bribing Rev Wright to keep his loud mouth shut about obama sitting in his pew for 20 years, listening to "hate speech". Real and true hate speech. Where is your uproar about that obvious hate?

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 11:43AM

Teaghan:

Actually, the best think that could have ever happened to VINDICATE the Reverend Wright, was the release of those audio tape interviews with that slimy scumbag excuse for a "writer"--- NOTHING that Mr. Wright says IS SHOCKING or unpatriotic IN THE SLIGHTEST-- AND-- HE DID NOT TAKE THE BRIBE, DID HE?

It does, however, cast a slight spot of poor judgment over President Obama, for not sticking by someone he claimed was a friend...

Pelleas| 5.18.12 @ 11:43AM

Teaghan:

It does, however, cast a slight spot of poor judgment over President Obama, for not sticking by someone he claimed was a friend...

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 4:25PM

Wright has not been "vindicated." Your absurdities are piling up.

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 4:29PM

Is offering a bribe a slight spot, also ?

AbsolutelyRight| 5.18.12 @ 2:20PM

Mr. Future,

Ms. Gutmann has it right. "Transgendered" persons aren't "different"..They are mentally ill. And please don't use the term "progressive morality" as it means nothing as it is a contradiction in terms.

People who are mentally ill do deserve our sympathy and deserve to be treated for their neurosis and psychosises, but they do not deserve encouragement and certainly not a right to foist their craziness upon the rest of society.

Liberals who condescend to them in the name of civil rights are neither compassionate to them, or to the rest of us...and leftists progressives know exactly what they are doing..breaking down traditional family by using every legal and PR opportunity to destroy gender roles. Exploiting vulnerable mentally ill people is their bread and butter in that quest.

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 12:07AM

""Transgendered" persons aren't "different"..They are mentally ill. "

To the same extent that Left-handed people are "mentally ill", no further. That too is a consequence of anomalous neuro-anatomy.

Joe Callan| 5.20.12 @ 12:18PM

20 % of the human population hardly constitutes an "anomaly".

KKKlintie| 5.18.12 @ 2:19PM

Still thinking about Bibi? You tired of your Ron Paul doll?

Clint's "Dad"| 5.18.12 @ 2:21PM

It ain't me. I took all them tests, DNA, blood, Ain't Me.

Clint| 5.18.12 @ 4:16PM

Occam's Tool," Dr.Reich Showed Little Micky How To Eat My Tool ."

Alan Brooks | 5.18.12 @ 3:06PM

'Bots are one solution, and don't say they aren't 'natural'-- you aren't tree huggers:
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/niman20120518

richard ryan| 5.18.12 @ 3:49PM

"To each his own.." as they say. But I have to honestly say this discussion seems absurd and disgusting. I don't like where things are going...

Alan Brooks| 5.18.12 @ 4:37PM

You are a technophobe?: we alter the world far more drastically in other ways.

Appleby| 5.18.12 @ 6:37AM

I'm sorry. This is just silly. It is a lot of putative adults playing dress-up and a macabe kind of Halloweening.

No matter how many surgeons slice and dice you up, if the police find your body on a lonely road well after your sell-by date, your DNA will tell the truth about who you used to be. It's very, very sad to think there are people who have absolutely nothing else to do but allow their fixation on sex to ruin their bodies and the lives of their children .

old white guy| 5.18.12 @ 7:20AM

yep, the dna is male or female no matter how much tinkering is done with the body.

Von Mises Jr| 5.18.12 @ 9:22AM

Why can't guys just wear "MOM" jeans like our President if their DNA is screwed up?
This is actually a political ploy by the left since the race card is no longer working. We will not be able to criticize "Bonny" Obama or we will be guilty of gender crimes!

John Navratil| 5.18.12 @ 9:51AM

When I was learning the English language, nouns had a gender and people had a sex. What happened? Did I miss some great PC moment, long ago?

Truncheon| 5.18.12 @ 9:54AM

I agree. This article would have been much better if the proper term, "gender", had been used. It's an irritatingly widespread error.

KyMouse| 5.18.12 @ 11:26AM

I think the problem is that "sex" now means "sexual intercourse." It is something one does, not what one is. Therefore, that sloppy usage has led us to use "gender" instead.

To me, "gender" will continue to pertain to language, as in "la maison" (feminine) and "le livre" (masculine). Alas, I am in a minority that is heading for la morte.

Vern Crisler| 5.18.12 @ 10:41AM

I must admit that I really hate gays and transgendered types. They're just not crazy and flamboyant enough for me.

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 1:19AM

So much for DNA telling "the truth".

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 6:53AM

I've steadfastly refused to play along with the self-mutilation crowd. I match my pronouns' gender to the chromosomes of their predicates.

A man who had it sliced is a man who had it sliced. A woman who underwent an elective addadictome is still a woman.

Naturally I've been denounced, castigated, ostracized, belittled, jeered, booed and shunned.

It's been great! I recommend this social filter. It repels precisely those one would wish to live without.

chuck| 5.18.12 @ 7:38AM

The male to female surgery is known as "lopadicoffome".

pineapple| 5.18.12 @ 10:47AM

Thanks for my laugh of the day!

Sheila| 5.18.12 @ 11:05AM

I believe both terms originated with Rush, or at least that's where I heard them a few years ago (I've moved far beyond talk radio to the altright).

chuck| 5.18.12 @ 11:33AM

Actually, I heard the term back in the late 60's or early 70's when these things were first being performed.

spike59| 5.18.12 @ 4:15PM

a surgical technique perfected developed by Dr. Ivan Tacutchacockoff

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 2:22PM

So you'd refer to both mother and daughter as "he" and "him". Because of their chromosomes.

R-i-i-ght. Ho Kay.

What about someone who's had a bone-marrow transplant? As the senescent cells are replaced by stem cells from the donated bone marrow, their DNA changes. Their whole bodies become genetically identical to the donor.

Even if they're XX, and the donor is XY, a woman's ovaries become XY. That doesn't change her sex.

Sorry, this is more complex than you were taught at school.

Thomas Aquinas| 5.18.12 @ 2:52PM

The existence of club foot does not make it permissible for someone to hire a plastic surgeon to turn his healthy foot into a club foot.

Yes, there are cases like these. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule. They are tragic cases precisely because the right thing didn't happen.

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 4:50PM

I think I'd use "it" with respect to the subjects of the article, and to you.

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 5:03PM

Zoe: but we are not talking about genuine hermaphrodites or other odd cases. That's not what the transexualism stuff is really about. This is about normally physically developed men and women who want to be the other sex.

Zoe Brain | 5.18.12 @ 11:39PM

Nope. That's the point, these people have mixed anatomy.

See for example Prof Milton Diamond's presentation to the APA on the biological evidence :
"Transsexuality as an Intersex condition".

The mixed anatomy is something that can be observed in MRI and PET scans, and in autopsies.

Boy Brain in otherwise Girl Body, or the reverse, basically. Though it's more accurate to say "Mostly Boy Brain in particular areas, in mostly Girl Body though often with externally obvious Intersex symptoms too". That clouds rather than clarifies the issue though.

Please don't use the word "hermaphrodite", "Intersex" is preferred, unless talking about the few instances where both ovarian and testicular tissues are present. Most Intersex people have ovotestes (tissues with both ovarian and testicular characteristics), or ambiguous genitalia, or XXY chromosomes, or other partial cross-sexed anatomy rather than "hermaphroditism" as such.

In Transsexuality we *are* talking about such "odd cases" as you put it. 1 in 60 people are technically Intersex. If someone is asymptomatic, with their Intersex condition only being detectable by batteries of lab tests, does it really matter to them? Only about 1 in 1000 is the situation obvious from unmistakable external physical signs.

Transsexuality is even rarer, about 1 in 3000.

While Transsexuals form a large subset of Intersex situations, other syndromes are far more common. One in 300 men aren't XY. One in 500 women have CAH, so have partial masculinisation. One in 450 males (and some 1 in 2000 females) are XXY.

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.19.12 @ 11:08AM

While transidiotic supporters form a large subset of examples of unadulterated bullshit that are far more common in internet postings of unadulterated bullshit than pyschologists can take any partial comfort in from a mere job security perspective alone, this point is emphazised when for an example of unadulterated bullshit this epitome of unadulterated bullshit can be seen for the epitome of unadulterated bullshit it is: "Please don't use the word "hermaphrodite", "Intersex" is preferred".

macwell| 5.19.12 @ 3:30PM

Your posts are great, I haven't laughed so hard in ages. Thanks and keep up the good work.

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:39AM

amongst the tS folk, zoe is considered bonkers...

UNADUL......| 5.23.12 @ 11:11AM

If you're not just bullshitting me, thanks, and I'll try, but can't bullshit you and make any promises I may not be able to keep.

oldfart| 5.18.12 @ 6:56AM

This is not America in transition. It is the 'bubble people' in transition. You know – those that live in the I95 corridor on the East Coast – the Berkeley to LA corridor on the Left Coast – and certain other parts of the country. These self-appointed people who live in an artificial reality of their own making where the entire universe centers on them. This is not the first time human history were this has happened (later Roman Empire - etc). Nor will it be the last. It may very well be this is nature's way of continuing to improve the human genome – because these people seldom pass on their DNA to later generations – a genetic dead end.
Did you ever notice this is common to areas of high population density? Studies with rat populations indicate that high density rat populations, where amble food and comfort are available, stop breeding and eventually collapse.

TLP| 5.18.12 @ 7:59AM

Persia, Athens, Babylon, Egypt, Rome.

You are absolutely right, old timer, when you say that this isn't the 1st time.

However, I would remind you how all of the Previous Incarnations of what The Left is doing to us, now, ended up.

SODDOM and GAMMORAH, by any other name, will still bring GOD'S WRATH.

I'm pretty sure that we're about thisclose to finding out.

Don't you?

oldfart| 5.18.12 @ 8:18AM

Yep

Joellen| 5.18.12 @ 8:47AM

Please read Corinthians. We have so walked away from GOD's law - and yet we think there will be no retribution - HA - how arrogant (like the thief on the left of JESUS CHRIST); we will all witness sooner than later GOD's wrath. Keep praying that America falls to her knees and begs ABBA FATHER's forgiveness and direction.

Dugan| 5.19.12 @ 1:37PM

I *have* read Corinthians.

That passage concerning 'feminine men' is about Temple Prostitution and an inability to stick to the precepts of the Law.

What is that GREATEST Commandment?

Love God with All Your Heart

...the second is like it:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

...then read Romans:

"none is righteous, no - not even one".

Spare me your Righteous Indignation.

Fictional Teen M.D.s Never Lie| 5.19.12 @ 3:37PM

Pedophiles and necrophiles and beastialphiles and incestophiles and rapistophiles feel you.

Who cares how all the other gendered feel, about the other thirty-one thousand something other verses in the Bible, including the other six thousand four hundred sixty something other commands in the Bible?

They feel you Dugie. Whoa whoa whoa feel you.

Mistral| 5.18.12 @ 7:41AM

Goodbye USA - Thank God you are coming to the end you deserve. You no longer trust in God.

KyMouse| 5.18.12 @ 7:42AM

A man who has that surgery becomes only a mutilated man. A woman who has that surgery becomes only a mutilated woman.

I've brought this question up before:

If I am whichever sex I say I am, in spite of my DNA, anatomy and so forth,, am I also whatever AGE I claim to be? Must people believe me if I say that I am not only male, in spite of what my chromosomes say, but a three-year-old boy?

If my 10-year-old niece says she is a 21-year-old woman inside, who is to say she isn't? Now she can go buy booze.

If a 40-year-old child molester says that he is really just five years old, should he be tried in juvenile court, or not held responsible at all?

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.18.12 @ 7:57AM

All excellent points. It seems that most delusions that conflict with objective reality start out small, but require willing enablers to expand them, starting with the phases of "understanding", "tolerance", "acceptance" and then "protected class".

The logical conclusion of your age example in this model would be the taxpayers will be required to buy the alcohol for your ten year old niece, and I will be required to make my children play with the child molester.

Anthony| 5.18.12 @ 8:56AM

Which raises another interesting question about whether a person can vote twice, involking both sexes.
Obozo's hacks have this covered already. It could be a landslide folks!!!l

Von Mises Jr| 5.18.12 @ 9:27AM

Now I understand why Obozo picked "Bite Me" as VP. He heard that Joe had plugs. He just never thought to inquire if they were on his head.

Al Adab| 5.18.12 @ 11:13AM

Simply another example of why what we call the "Culture War" is actual;ly of the greatest significance to the nations future. Much more is at stake than just meliflous anodynes. The attempt to redefine reality to suit our personal proclivities is misguided and dangerous in the extreme. As Lincoln put it, "If we call the dogs' tail a leg, how many legs does the dog have?" "Four, just calling the tail a leg doesn't make it one."

Basing public policy on false premises leads to dangerous actions. If the premises are flawed, the actions will be flawed as well. This is a blueprint for disaster.

Von Mises Jr| 5.18.12 @ 11:57AM

If they can perform lopadickfromme operations on all our Brave New World soldiers, they won't need messy abortions anymore.

Appleby| 5.18.12 @ 12:03PM

Even better, if I say that I am Black although I am clearly White (assuming anybody in the world was "clearly" a single race), does that mean I get to go to the head of the line, and get into law school despite the fact that I never finished high school? The possibilities are fascinating.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 12:14PM

Ask Elizabeth Warren.

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 5:05PM

By the way, Big E, have you ever read "Limbo" by Bernard Wolfe? Listed in the top 100 science fiction novels of all time by David Pringle. Really quite fascinating.

Drunken Sailor| 5.18.12 @ 12:15PM

Excellent point! I guess I can claim to be a black female now and shoot for the double minority status on goverment job applications, Wait, If I say I am a black, female, transgender does that get me triple bonus points?

KyMouse| 5.18.12 @ 12:55PM

And claim that you have some permanent disabity no one can detect, and you've really got it made.

Drunken Sailor| 5.18.12 @ 1:00PM

Got it!
Black female, transgender with a shy mulitple personality trapped in a man's body. I think that should cover it, I'm off to the goverment employment office in search of a new careeer!!

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.18.12 @ 7:44AM

I worked with a guy in law enforcement for 30 years. The day after he retired he announced to the world he was really a woman. He was 6'3" and thin.

For the entire time I had known him he had rifles, bragged about hunting, owned a large 4 x 4 pick up truck, had a large boat he took fishing every weekend, bragged about well, being a man.

Now he brags about being a woman and on the internet. His wife claims he lives in the basement and she can't afford to divorce him.

The neighbors hate him because he mows the lawn on a riding mower in a skimpy pink bikini.

I'm with Jack above. I think it's a mental illness. He was always a little high strung and now he's not strung at all. Maybe.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.18.12 @ 8:04AM

I throw in my vote with mental illness as well. What is tragic about this one is that rather than merely afflicting individuals, we are being asked to all participate in its symptomology and pathology. It is as if to accommodate a man with tuberculosis, we are all asked to cough and hack along with him.

Dr. X| 5.18.12 @ 10:10AM

Yes, absolutely. We are talking about normalizing mental illness here. In fact, the Left's entire program is nothing but mental illness. From socialism to homosexuality to "gender-reassignment" to porn to deviance to affirmative action to allowing immigration from primitive Third World nations to national hari-kiri in our foreign policy, it is ALL abnormal.

Michael savage is right -- liberalism IS a mental disorder.

Butch| 5.18.12 @ 8:18PM

I never wavered from it a bit. Dr. X, you and I are on exactly the same page regarding homosexuality.

Mike Hawk| 5.18.12 @ 3:36PM

We have one of those guys at work. Tall ganglywith long hair. Used to walk all over the place outside at lunchtime. We Nicknamed him Waldo. Now Waldo is called Dickless Tracy. He is now an ugly tall not so gangly guy in women's clothes with a big wide butt and doesn't go walking. I have to wonder what his daughters think. He has that hoarse voice now that is neither male not female. I'm not hostile or nasty, I just don't deal with him. He's weird.

Cobalt| 5.18.12 @ 7:59AM

A cry for attention?

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

Or something much more ambiguous; something boarding on mental illness?

skip| 5.18.12 @ 10:58AM

What do you call someone so removed from reality they are telling God that He is 'wrong' - that the Almighty Creator had erred and made them the 'wrong' gender? 'Delusional' doesn't begin to cut it.

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 1:26AM

Some of God's handiwork.

http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

No doubt you don't approve.

V| 5.19.12 @ 7:32AM

Some more of god's handiwork. I suppose these kids shouldn't correct their birth conditions either.
http://www.wlapf.org/v1/images/cleft_group.jpg
http://www.seattlechildrens.or.....oot-lg.jpg

skip| 5.19.12 @ 10:47AM

What do you call someone so removed from reality they are using non sequiturs in telling someone else they are wrong? - that the someone else is proven wrong through the use of non sequiturs? 'Delusional' would seem to begin to cut it.

Zoe Brain | 5.20.12 @ 12:54AM

Sorry the point wasn't clear. Too subtle for you, and that means it's my fault for not being clear enough for you to understand.

OK, let's take it from the top:

"What do you call someone so removed from reality they are telling God that He is 'wrong' - that the Almighty Creator had erred and made them the 'wrong' gender?"

Let's leave aside the insults. They're irrelevant.

The link showed that the Creator makes people who naturally change sex.

So your argument about God being incapable of making people the wrong gender, or alternately, that He somehow Errs when doing so, is rather arrogant. Telling God what He can and cannot do, I mean.

Your idea that anyone who thinks differently from you is "delusional" is also supremely arrogant.

skip| 5.21.12 @ 8:29PM

reason and experience:
"What do you call someone so removed from reality they are telling God that He is 'wrong' - that the Almighty Creator had erred and made them the 'wrong' gender?"

emotional prattle:
"Some of God's handiwork. [link] No doubt you don't approve."

reason and experience:
"What do you call someone so removed from reality they are using non sequiturs in telling someone else they are wrong? - that someone else is proven wrong through the use of non sequiturs? 'Delusional' would seem to begin to cut it."

* * * * * *

emotional prattle:
"Sorry the point wasn't clear. Too subtle for you, and that's my fault for not being clear enough for you to understand. Let's leave aside the insults. They're irrelevant. The link showed that the Creator makes people who naturally change sex."

reason and experience:
The point was clear. The point was not subtle - so slight as to be difficult to detect. The point was clear that your link was a non sequitur - a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it. Nowhere in your link was there any evidence those individuals in the link acted in any way to indicate they believed God was 'wrong' in how God created them.

reason and experience:
You want to leave aside the insults. After attempting to insult me by insinuating I lack the ability to detect and understand your obvious point that was easy to detect and understand. Your point that was not a point but a non sequitur, that I had initially pointedly pointed out to you that was easy to detect and understand, that you had failed to detect and understand.

reason and experience:
If an insult - to demean or offend - is a truthful statement of reality but demeans or offends, the statement is not irrelevant - unrelated to the matter being considered. Nowhere in your link was there any evidence those individuals in the link acted in any way to indicate they believed God was 'wrong' in how God created them. Yet you attempted to insult me, even as you suggested insults be left aside, when your insult only served to insult yourself as your alleged point was not a point but a non sequitur that was easy to detect and understand which you failed to detect and understand.

emotional prattle:
"So your argument about God being incapable of making people the wrong gender, or alternately, that He somehow Errs when doing so, is rather arrogant. Telling God what He can and cannot do, I mean."

reason and experience:
The link you provided, genius, did not show that God made any individual the wrong gender. God is incapable of making any individual the wrong gender, genius. Only individuals lacking intelligence and honesty would think God is capable of erring by making any individual the wrong gender, genius. And only individuals lacking intelligence and honesty would be so utterly unintelligent and dishonest they would tell God the He erred by making any individual the wrong gender, genius. God never errs, genius, God has never erred, genius, and God will never err, genius. Only someone unintelligently and dishonestly arrogant - displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth and self-importance - to the point of the unintelligent and dishonest arrogant individual being delusional - strongly holding to false beliefs in spite of invalidating evidence especially as a symptom of mental illness - would ever unintelligently and dishonestly let alone delusionally do such a thing, genius. Haven't you already done exactly these things, genius?

emotional prattle:
"Your idea that anyone who thinks differently from you is "delusional" is also supremely arrogant."

reason and experience:
Your statement is what is known as a non sequitur, genius. I never implied anyone who thinks differently from me is delusional. You are supremely arrogant. And supremely delusional.

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 11:38AM

My heart hurts and my stomach queazy when I look at Cher's daughter. What a tragedy.

Ddog| 5.18.12 @ 11:53AM

But your mind should be clear. What might one expect from Cher's daughter?

Drunken Sailor| 5.18.12 @ 12:16PM

Bingo! Attention whores and Drama Queens.

Moe Blotz| 5.18.12 @ 8:04AM

The question that comes to my mind about the woman-to-man conversion is where does the woman get the parts necessary for the installation? Do the sex perversion hospitals have an addadicktome waiting list so that incoming well hung dead bodies may donate their male naughty parts to the prospective convert? On my drivers license I can check off eyes, liver, heart, kidney, but I see no space where I can tick a box to donate balls.

Paul Kotik| 5.18.12 @ 4:51PM

Kinkos? "Sure, we can do that".

POST American| 5.18.12 @ 8:33AM

---What comes of a national weekly
variety show built on humiliating the father figure
------for years.

Beyond that, the picture certainly speaks for itself
---and EUGENISTS giggle with still another
triumph of Tavistock social programming.

Meanwhile, stepping over the John Wheeler
memory hole,

------------and the FUKISHIMA world
nuclear disaster blackout

------------------and the GMO Monsanto food Halocaust cover up

---------------------and the months ago 'natural' death of Breitbart

-------------------------and the 'disappearance' of the substance of the Obama college videos

-----------------------------and the weeks ago poisoning of Breitbart's coroner

---and the days ago 'disappearnce'
of the ONLY witness to Breitbart's end ------

and the handover of American sovereignty
to the world banking EUGENICS borg U.N.

------and NDAA 1021

-----------and the TSA lockdown and degradation op

----------------and acts of open TREASON
and USURPATION from Pelosi,
Ginzburg, Pantetta, Holder, Obama----

and ----and -----and ----and -----and

h & p ph| 5.18.12 @ 9:49AM

Excellent, POST American,

I'm dazzled by your poetic vision. Keep the posts coming. And thanks!

Purple Lips| 5.18.12 @ 8:40AM

We should have sympathy for these lost souls. Little do they realize it, but to thier Progressive enablers they are nothing more than circus freaks whose only worth is how well they can titilate and shock the Bourgeosie. But, "Epatez les bourgeois" is so 19th Century. The last of the true bourgeois were slaughtered in places like Ypres, Verdun, Somme, and Tarnow.

We live in the age of the Last Man. And as Nietzsche said of the Last Man,

"The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the Last Man lives longest."

KeepTheChange| 5.18.12 @ 8:42AM

Check out this YouTube and laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVKUap1HgU
It pretty much sums up this issue for me and comes to mind whenever this weirdness is brought up.
On a sadder note, though, the joke is on our society. The "T"s have been relatively quiet but just wait until we live in a world of 'two mommies' and 'two daddies' sanctioned by the state. Then the LGBT crowd will kick it into high gear and we will find an endless list of 'rights' the "T"s are being denied and how we must alter society to accomodate them.

Louis Jenkins| 5.18.12 @ 8:51AM

As I stated on a previous day, once the homosexuals have the right to marriage it is just the beginning of even more new demands to made on our society. Can't wait until the Muslims take over this country. The fur will fly.

cuban pete| 5.18.12 @ 10:55AM

As the man said,"May you live in interesting times."
The only religion that lefties tolerate is Islam because it is PC. But you are exactly right Louis. When these two protected species clash it will be fun.
Have a great weekend. Because I live near Chicago I must stay indoors due to the NATO meeting.

henry| 5.18.12 @ 8:52AM

I quite understand all the confusion, because now I finally realise what's wrong with me. I'm a lesbian, trapped in a man's body. What should I do?

Frekki| 5.18.12 @ 9:11AM

Nothing, you've got the best of both worlds.

Good Luck| 5.18.12 @ 9:38AM

Henry, you're not alone. A good friend of mine, a nice Jewish girl from NY, has a long romantic relations with a transgender lesbian, i.e. a man who liked women so much that decided to become one, went through hormonal treatment, plastic surgery (implants), the whole shebang. So, there are male lesbians beside Eddie Izzard.
According to the research (see http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/p.....sbian.html ) 99% of male lesbians keep their male genitals and perform as normal males. So, basically, the girl dates a feminized man. What is interesting, that both are obsessed with "male chauvinism", date-rapes and garbage like that. Also, if you think of it, a transgender lesbian in NY is probably at the very top of the PC totem pol. Been an ethnical minority helps too. How can you beat that? A minority, a female, a transgender, a lesbian, all rolled in one. Ba-boom, collect the prize. Do you think any editor in NY city has balls to fire a person with so many aces in her cards? Just imagine a feeding frenzy of the media? Lawsuits? She is a trial lawyer dream.

henry| 5.18.12 @ 10:31AM

Actually, I don't want any operations. I just like women. But I am, biologically, a man.
Complicated, no?

Willis| 5.18.12 @ 11:57AM

Some of us got it the first time, Henry.

Le Cracquere| 5.18.12 @ 11:30AM

Nothing much different that I understand. I think you're entitled to the ladies' tee at the course, though.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 9:05AM

Ever notice how often insanity begins when a psychologist or psychiatrist declares "normal" that which is perverse?

Ground Control| 5.18.12 @ 10:03AM

Yes. I have been noticing this for over 40 years. One is left to wonder how much further it can go until society collapses entirely.

Occam's Tool| 5.18.12 @ 12:47PM

Hey, hey, hey, guys. Some psychiatrists are Conservatives.

The Big E| 5.18.12 @ 2:27PM

Never said otherwise.

kwan| 5.18.12 @ 9:37AM

This has all the wacked-out weirdness of "The Island of Doctor Moreau" movie where a psycho doctor/surgeon attempts to convert animals into humans. One of the philosophical themes of the movie was human interference with nature which is exactly what we have going on here.

Le Cracquere| 5.18.12 @ 11:30AM

"Are we not men?"

Nope. And you're not gonna be.

Tim the Enchanter| 5.18.12 @ 5:22PM

Nope. We are Devo.

WillyP | 5.18.12 @ 9:43AM

Many years ago, I had told a friend that I had complete control over my dreams. That I could dream I was flying, or that I was with a beautiful women, whatever. He said the most profound yet incredibly simple thing to me: "You are only dreaming that you are in control of your dreams". And ever since he imparted that nugget of wisdom, I have never dreamed I was in control of my dreams.

Now, I wonder... How can a male feel like they are trapped in a woman's body? (or vice versa, of course) Because, how would a man know what it feels like to be a woman? We can only know what we think it is like to be someone else, we will never know if we are correct or not, or whether we are just imagining the whole thing. There may in fact be people who have wrong physical gender, but it is just insulting to them for someone to say 'I feel like a man' or 'I feel like I am a woman. Because if you say that you are basing it purely on your own pre-conceived, stereotyped notion of what it feels like to be something you are not. What you are really saying is, 'My personality conforms more closely to the my stereotypes of the opposite gender'. Some of those stereotypes might be accurate, or they might not, either way, if as they say, the difference is in the brain, then it's all in their head. And if that's all that counts, then who's to know, like my lucid dreaming, where reality stops and where insanity begins? Bono is a perfect example of this... If she was born male in the brain, and IF it was an accurate description of maleness that men like gadgets (and presumably not women) wouldn't she have said, 'I have always liked gadgets'?

KyMouse| 5.18.12 @ 10:06AM

That's an excellent point, WillyP -- I can't know what it is to be anyone except who I am. All I would have to go on is what I assume the other person to be, and that would have to be based on my subjective observations.

And yes, if the person has always been of the opposite sex, that person should have always thought and felt the way he/she does NOW.

That would be the whole point of "being trapped in a ____ body," wouldn't it? You've just been surgically altered to LOOK like what you've always been? So why the change in outlook, interests, etc.?

Thanks for the banquet of food for thought, WillyP.

cowgirl| 5.18.12 @ 10:21AM

I want to be Bill Gates not because of his sexual orientation, but because he is loaded. When do I get my surgery????

This is how childish this whole bucket load of horse crap is becoming.

There was an Angel name Lucifer who wanted to be God. Well he ran into some issues with that and now is rotting in hell - with a lot of other people obviously....

There is a lesson to be learned from this...

R Martin| 5.18.12 @ 12:10PM

Dang, I didn't think about Gates. As I was reading the piece I thought, "This development could be a good thing. How far might science go to affect physical changes that match our mental conceptions?" I know that I am the world's best golfer, hopelessly trapped in a pathetic duffer's body.

The Gates surgery might be a better option.

RWM| 5.18.12 @ 10:36AM

Well, for my part, I've always believed that Marxism and Socialism and their idiot heir, Liberalism, is little more than a grown up game of "let's pretend". Just as with the child's game in which one says "let's pretend" about something and the others are supposed to play along, the grown-up version features a relatively few self-appointed know-it-alls who believe things that are counter to all human understanding and history and want the rest to follow suit. Why? Because by definition that places them at the head, the lead, the definer and adjudicator of all things- God. They have a will to power and determination to rework the world to fit their delusions and so maneuver within their society to do something about it be it through the power of a gun or ballot. But the grown up version is no game and once in place, even by the latter, is always, always compelled and enforced by the former. They prefer it that way, it's more fun.

"Let's pretend..." that a man will willingly innovate, incur risk, work and sacrifice over time to benefit strangers who take an ever larger share of the fruits of his efforts, that people will build for the future when they have no ownership, not even of the roof over their heads, in the results, that if enough smart people are gathered together and given enough power and money they can rightly figure out what all of their fellows need in every jot and tittle of life, that a true equality between all men can be achieved as measured in results dictated by the self-interested leaders of the game not of impartial opportunity and law, that even human beliefs, emotions, motives and impulses can be regulated, altered and conformed to achieve unanimity. Even the early Socialists recognized the fantastic nature of their project and spoke of the need for a "New Man", one purposely constructed from the inside out and compatible with their game. Elaborate schemes and methods of destroying families and all the extensions of them were launched and ruthlessly enforced in order to build this new, compliant man. No less than Lenin himself purportedly once said, "If a man will not believe, it is necessary to make him believe."

Fast forward a century and we are witnessing the logical end of one, perhaps most meaningful, tangent of their game. Sexual "liberation" and license is about the only one of many in which people are still seemingly free to make whatever choices they wish but in reality is the final, last push for the know-it-alls to compel the greater mass of their countrymen into moral and thought compliance. "Let's Pretend..." that a bearded lady "married" to another woman and who gets pregnant via injection of a stranger's semen is really a man, husband and father because she says so, a man who wears dresses because it makes him feel like a lady has the "right" to enter women’s restrooms, locker or dressing rooms, the wishes of all the real women be damned, that Ken and Steve playing house in the Grove with their adopted or laboratory designer kids gestated in the belly of a paid surrogate means the same thing to the future of a civilization as betrothed men and women raising their own together and on and on and on.

Of course in all the glowing accounts of this Freak Show of the Revolution never is it pointed out that these poor, deluded souls represent just 2-3% of our population. Now, what these people do in the privacy of their own lives and homes is not the concern of those who hew to a true view of liberty. Live and let live. But that's not how it's going is it? No, we must all play along. We must all play "let's pretend" with them...or else. When the bearded lady says she's a man or burly guy in a dress calls himself a "she" we must nod in earnest agreement and approval and pray they regale us tales of their quest for self-actualization. We must further accommodate all of their flights of fancy in the workplace and in our own private lives. And true to the totalitarian playbook, mere acquiescence or an attitude of "tolerance" is insufficient commitment and proof in itself not that the 2-3% are free to pursue their demons up to the point they impinge on other's rights but that the mass of normal people are evil for an unwillingness to forfeit their rights on demand.

Tolerance is Oppression so only universal, True Belief is acceptable. We are at the advanced stage where a sidelong glance, clumsy phrase, non-current terminology, casual indifference or the unfamiliarity with an obsessive's latest "gender identity" flow chart is evidence of counter-revolutionary thought crime. And who gets to decide all this? Why the obsessives and their enforcers in charge of the game, that's who. Morals, religious belief, custom, tradition and the history of all others through all time must all be swept aside to make way for the obsessives. Just the other day a headline from St. Louis informs that a local jurisdiction has passed an ordinance that religious organizations cannot "discriminate" against the behaviors of the obsessives meaning, of course, to refuse any of their demands up to and including those that violate all that the organization, the very real people who comprise it, believes and lives for. An advancement, btw, the liars running the game once promised would never come to pass and if you believe the demands will stop at the church job benefits, well, more fool you. To the enforcers, their very resistance and non-cooperation in the game to this sublimation is prima facie evidence of their evil and a greater justification in itself for the sublimation.

The idea of course is that once all are forced to play "Let's Pretend", to learn to accept, fully internalize and subsume anything and everything else of meaning and importance in favor of whatever iteration, reiteration and re-reiteration is demanded there can be no more restraints. Except those imposed, calibrated and enforced by the keepers of the game. In the toolkit of nihilistic revolution has there ever come along a better sledge to smash all that's come before? To really get at those inner qualities of man the materialists never quite could?

Petronius| 5.18.12 @ 12:02PM

The sooner the economy crashes the better. Nothing else will stop the advance of this army of miscreants in their war against normality. But while this crap is on the features pages today, it will soon be on page one when the wannashes and wannahes demand public funding for their tranny-ops. That's what they're really after.

RobertK| 5.18.12 @ 11:16AM

Hi "Stephanie." I feel insulted that you use the female pronoun when you refer to yourself. What right do you have to use that pronoun and your so-called name? Have I seen letters from at least two gynecologists that certifies that you have female genitalia? And without that, you want me to accept you as a woman? At least try to conform to some basic social standards, "Stephanie."

Anyway, had "Stephanie" bothered to educate itself about modern research (instead of research that was conducted in the 1960s) it would have learned that research had moved on significantly since McHugh and his nonsense got David Reiner killed. If one were to look up modern research:

The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment: A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research.

Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex.

Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids. Cerebral Cortex.

And of course we might consider the most comprehensive study on a specific area, the results of which are published in:

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature

Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. J Clin Endocrinol Metab.

But this would, of course, requrire "Stephanie" to do some actual reporting.

(By the way your presentation in your picture is terrible, "Stephanie." I don't know why we should take you seriously when you look like that.)

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 11:39AM

Your assumption that deformities of the cerebral cortex should result in the mutilation of healthy genetalia is political quackery. By your logic, surgeons should fashion wings for people whose cerebral cortices tell them they are birds.

RobertK| 5.18.12 @ 2:06PM

Well what's the other option? Alter the cerebral cortex? I assure you, modern science is nowhere near the level of doing successful brain alterations.

P.S. No human has ever been documented as having the cerebral cortex of a bird. Unless you wish to submit your body to science, that's unlikely to change in the near future.

NotALibertarian| 5.18.12 @ 5:31PM

"‘People who think they are a woman trapped in a male body are, in my opinion, completely deluded. I certainly was. I needed counselling, not a sex-change operation."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....crazy.html

Zoe Brain | 5.19.12 @ 1:23AM

So says someone who we know is delusional.

They say that everyone else must be just like them.

I think we might be justified in taking what they say with a grain of salt.

RobertK| 5.19.12 @ 1:54AM

Oh lord god, Charles Kane.

You know you require years of therapy, hormone treatments and professional diagnoses (at least two), before you get Gender Reassignment Surgery.

Somehow, Charles Kane bypassed absolutely all of that. He was rich, he was having a nervous breakdown, he got the idea he might be transgender. He states a counselor gave him that idea, and who knows? Maybe that's true. But whatever the case, Charles Kane decided to bypass every single step in the standards of care on the way to his surgery.

Now this could become a cautionary tale as to why doctors have a duty and responsibility not to listen to their patients, and how some plastic surgeons ignore clear mental issues with their patient and established standards of medical care when money is thrown their way (He spent over $200,000 when all is told - the average cost of gender reassignment surgery is $10,000-$25,000. You do the math).

A good cautionary tale that would be. Instead, Charles Kane has decided to use his experience to explain why no one should ever do what he did - despite the fact that all standards of medical care dictate that NO ONE SHOULD DO WHAT HE DID.

Charles Kane had a mental illness, and instead of being responsible, his surgeons did NOT refer him to proper treatment and did NOT insist he get diagnosed by trained professionals, but instead happily accepted his money when he threw it at them.

If we want to establish mandatory screening for mental illness before plastic surgery, well, that might be no bad thing.

NotALibertarian| 5.19.12 @ 10:06AM

As you've noted, Charles Kane also managed to find professionals willing to go along with him.

You do not seem to acknowledge the amount of hackery that has spilled over into the medical profession from the social sciences, most aggressively begun by Alfred Kinsey. (There are plenty of doctors who do not go along with reassignment procedures.) Do you know much about Alfred Kinsey? His absurd methodology and dreadful "professional" conduct? But he also compartmentalized sexuality into its own "live and let live" category, so that latter doctors are under enormous pressure to be openminded about what is Normal, or risk being laughed at.

It is also concerning that you say the issue with Charles Kane was that he had a mental illness, implying that transgender people do not. Your assumption seems to be that because there is a physical cause, medical professionals should not consider it an illness. Why is that?

RobertK| 5.19.12 @ 4:41PM

Your last paragraph is a fascinating word salad to me. You note there is a physical cause, and ask why I don't consider it a mental illness.

Well, that about answers that, doesn't it?

To go into more detail, an example of a purely mental illness is Anorexia. On the surface, it bares a mild resemblance with Gender Identity Disorder. Yet even quick examination reveals the difference between mental and physical disorders. Anorexics never feel that they are skinny enough, no matter how much weight they lose. The physical changes to their body do not effect their mental self-image, to the point where they will be convinced they are overweight while dying of starvation.

In sharp contrast, the symptoms of Gender Identity Disorder are relieved by treatment. As their body transitions, the symptoms decrease. This is very consistent with most physical disorders that appear to mimic psychiatric disorders. For example, a Thyroid deficiency (hypothyroidism) produces symptoms very like severe depression (in fact the physical symptoms often go unnoticed), yet Thyroid hormones fix the issue near-perfectly. So too with GID.

I wonder if you'd suggest other patients with hormonal disorders forgo medical treatment in favor of psychiatric treatment. Do we council everyone with a low thyroid not to get depressed and send them to camps for weight loss? Do we put every bipolar person in psychological counseling and forgo the lithium? Hmmmm.

Yet here with this ONE PARTICULAR physical disorder, you want to treat it with purely psychological treatment? Does not compute.

NotALibertarian| 5.19.12 @ 10:45PM

"Well, that about answers that, doesn't it?"

Not really. You seem to be asserting that any disconnect with reality that can be correlated with brain malformation should not be considered a mental illness. That's a pretty radical position.

"I wonder if you'd suggest other patients with hormonal disorders forgo medical treatment in favor of psychiatric treatment."

I wonder why you are comparing thyroid treatments and lithium to the mutilation of healthy organs.
By the way, do you support the amputation of healthy legs for people with Body Identity Integrity Disorder? Would you if the majority of people who go through amputation reported that they are relieved by their treatment?

Zoe Brain | 5.20.12 @ 12:59AM

"By the way, do you support the amputation of healthy legs for people with Body Identity Integrity Disorder? Would you if the majority of people who go through amputation reported that they are relieved by their treatment?"

If there was no other way of relieving their distress, and it would likely stop them from either killing themselves or performing the amputations themselves - yes.

This isn't controversial when we're dealing with people born with 3 or more arms or legs, is it? Even if they're healthy organs?

NotALibertarian| 5.21.12 @ 10:12AM

It appears that sex re-assignment surgery does not stop people from killing themselves. A comprehensive long-term study out of Sweden:

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism . . . "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21364939

RobertK| 5.20.12 @ 9:56AM

I believe what I am asserting is that calling something that has its root cause in a PHYSICAL aspect of the body a MENTAL illness is categorically a failure of definition. There is nothing particularly radical about this position. It is, in fact, the position that all major medical organizations (AMA, WHO, etc.) take. Your opinion is very much the radical one - no major medical organization on this planet embraces any treatment for GID other than transitioning. This is based on solid, documented medical evidence that that is the only treatment that has anything resembling a success rate, and that the success rate for that treatment is staggering.

You may note the treatment guides also suggest counseling. Many parts of the physical illness have mental effects, and it's best to treat those at the same time. This is not unusual - many cancer patients are sent to counseling. It is difficult to live with many physical illnesses - yet that does not make them mental illness. Psychotherapy will not cure cancer, and it will not cure GID.

BIID, btw, is a very odd disorder. The fact that it targets white, middle-aged males and typically involves the left leg below the knee (all strange characteristics) means that the major theory on why it occurs is something related to a stroke-like event in the brain. It is simply too weirdly specific to be entirely a mental illness (occurring in a specific age range and favoring males - males tend to have more genetic illnesses due to the nature of the Y chromosome), and if the sufferers did happen to suffer extreme distress to their quality of life with the limb that could only be fixed by removal, I'd support it. At the moment, research is in its infancy, so who knows?

Note that it is very different from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, which is a purely mental illness, heavily linked to societal perceptions of appearance, and entirely divorced from the person's actual body (that's actually one of the criteria - you can't diagnose someone who is morbidly obese as having BDD because they are convinced they need to lose lots of weight).

NotALibertarian| 5.21.12 @ 10:06AM

"This is based on solid, documented medical evidence that that is the only treatment that has anything resembling a success rate, and that the success rate for that treatment is staggering."

Oh really? Do you consider being suicidal a hallmark of successful treatment? From Sweden, a long-term follow-up study of sex-reassigned people:
"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism . . . "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21364939

Please cite some sources for your claim that these surgeries are overwhelmingly successful.

Stephanie Gutmann| 5.18.12 @ 11:53AM

RobertK,

1. You too are missing the point. I am reporting on a social phenomenon not making a ruling on the effectiveness of sexual assignment surgery. I did volumes of reporting for this article but I could not afford to read every scientific journal ever written. Besides, we could do dueling science -- the way they do over, say, climate change -- and not get anywhere. The thing about science is it's never settled. There's always new data, new interpretations of the data, and new challenges to previous interpretations, and collections, of the data. There are lifetimes worth of data on both sides of the sex-is-immutable-no-it's-not argument.

2. As far as "proving" I'm a woman. I couldn't care a hoot. Only my husband knows for sure. Proving one's sex **does** become a problem however when being assigned to an athletic team, when being assigned to a billet in a military unit and etc. That's when intrusive questions have to be asked, because it does matter in these instances. It's unfortunate but "sex assigned at birth" really does matter sometimes. Sorry if that bugs you.

3. Try to avoid the ad hominem attacks. You seem like an intelligent person but a catty snipe about looks really blows **your presentation**

RobertK| 5.18.12 @ 2:04PM

Oh dear, "Stephanie," you don't like being judged on how you appear. In an article full of judgments on how people appear.

Lets move past appearance, and into brain power. You apparently bothered to look up studies done in the 1960s... yet never bothered to look up modern research? Or was it that modern research destroys your "point," and to get answers you like you have to go back to the 1960s?

The data on the 'gender is a purely social construct' side is gone. Dead. Gender is not a social construct, Stephanie. It is inborn, and sometimes it gets screwed up.

P.S. I ask you to provide one instance when you had to prove what shape your genitals were. One time in your life you were asked for a picture of your genitalia, or notes from gynecologists that certified what your genitalia looked like.

I bet it never happened. Well, until I asked you just now.

Awkward much, "Stephanie?"

AbsolutelyRight| 5.18.12 @ 3:06PM

Hey K
I think Stephanie looks great. But of course, I am a healthy happy hetero-sexual male...not an angry homosexual like yourself.
People with common sense know "the science" on this stuff is highly politicized, by your lefty lobby..in 1974 you know the lame way they removed homosexuality from DSM though Political pressure not science.

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 3:36PM

I know K. A dead ringer for Hillary Clinton.

KeepTheChange| 5.18.12 @ 4:06PM

@RobertK- Pull your claws in, kitten, and stop trying to draw Stephanie into a catfight, you naughty girl. She's not playing and no gynecologist need inspect your junk to identify your gender. We read you loud and clear.

RobertK| 5.19.12 @ 2:04AM

Oh come now, KtC, I simply turn the tables, and I'm the one being catty? I think this has been most enlightening. In her very first example Stephanie complains that it can't accept someone as a woman until it knows what is in their pants. But apparently I am supposed to accept it as a woman without proof of what is in its pants. And it's a matter between it and its husband. Well now, isn't that interesting.

The article has shown that clearly Stephanie feels the right to insert its opinion on people's appearance all over the place, yet I insert my commentary on its appearance in the very picture attached to this article, and it's a 'catty snipe.'

Hmmm... why yes, it might be. Interesting then, that Stephanie feels so free to hand out catty snipes.

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:20AM

we get it - the agenda is to relativize moral assertions based on "pre-existing" conditions.

this does raise an interesting thought: why, then, is not the often physical revulsion some feel toward homosexual acts also an innate, "make-up" driven instinct? why, pray tell, is this somehow susceptible to "education" and "will"?

RobertK| 5.20.12 @ 10:11AM

My question would be why you're so focused on what happens in people's bedrooms. I mean seriously, why? And does it apply everywhere?

Quite a few studies have shown that elderly people have, well, rather a lot of sex. That is something I have no particular desire to witness, and would say I feel some revulsion at the thought of seeing, but if a couple who is both above the age of 60 gets married, is it my business what they do in the bedroom? Would you suggest to me that I should be lobbying to amend the constitution so that they cannot possibly get married?

Do you feel revolted at the idea of two 70 year old people having sex? Does it sound like something you'd like to see? Do you think that means that 70 year old people should listen to you and not have sex?

Lets face it, it's nobody's business what happens in anybody's bedroom, as long as everyone involved is having fun. Two people who love each other should be able to get married, and if someone goes eww... well, we don't legislate on the basis of "ewww."

P.S. Homosexuality has very little to do with this discussion. But your brand of bigotry deserves a good smackdown every time it pops up.

NotALibertarian| 5.21.12 @ 10:16AM

"My question would be why you're so focused on what happens in people's bedrooms. I mean seriously, why? And does it apply everywhere?"

This was a rather obvious evasion to a very interesting objection carnot raises. Please answer his question.

K is for Koward| 5.22.12 @ 5:20PM

He kan't.

K is for Knucklehead| 5.18.12 @ 12:35PM

knucklehead:

a stupid person; used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence

Cobalt| 5.18.12 @ 11:27AM

This is all part of a greater plan.

"Political correctness is cutural Marxism"

The Origins of Political Correctness

http://www.academia.org/the-or.....orrectness

DISCOVERTHENETWORKS.ORG

http://www.discoverthenetworks.....asp?id=552

SL| 5.18.12 @ 11:40AM

Is that a pic of George Zimmerman? I'm confused.

Purple Lips| 5.18.12 @ 3:11PM

That's Cher's son/daughter/it

Teaghan| 5.18.12 @ 11:45AM

We are a nation divided~

jstwndring| 5.18.12 @ 12:51PM

~by Democrats.

gearjammer| 5.18.12 @ 4:32PM

Nothing new here, actually.

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:21AM

...and by opposing end them

Holly Knight| 5.18.12 @ 12:42PM

With so much said and so much commented all I can say is that there still is a lot of ignorance in the world. If I began to comment on one ignorant and biased sentence I would feel compelled to comment on them all. It is amazing how someone thinks they know something when they haven't walked the walk but these people still feel the need to be sarcastic and condesending toward that which they know nothing about other than some internet research. The attempt to make others feel less than they are through words, especially to a seriously oppressed group of people already, is simply being a bully. Ignorance with opinion is more of a useless "tool" for those that write for a living. It just causes pain and continues oppression and coming from a person that is a member of an oppressed "group", this is pathetic.

Drunken Sailor| 5.18.12 @ 1:03PM

I agree, Liberals should not talk about Conservatives like that!

Morris Albert| 5.18.12 @ 5:54PM

feelings
nothing more than feelings
trying to project my
feelings of libs

feelings
whoa whoa whoa
feelings
whoa whoa whoa
feel again of my lib fibs . . .

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.18.12 @ 9:30PM

Since you brought it up, I'll bring up a tale I might have told before.

I was sitting in a fighting hole on a ridge overlooking the Imjin River, staring into the DMZ. The area was floodlit at night, and the North Koreans would broadcast Korean music over a series of loudspeakers. We were told that the song selections were signals to the many patrols they had trying to infiltrate.

As I was pulling watch this night, suddenly the song selection changed. The North Koreans were playing Morris Albert’s hit “Feelings”.

Perhaps they were trying to make us home sick, or maybe it was a favorite of Kim Il Sung, or maybe, as your lyrics suggest, the North Koreans were merely expressing their solidarity with the American Left.

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 5.19.12 @ 11:56AM

"Yeah - it's me - so we got total consciousness going for us, but other than that we gotta call for a license to rid the world of liberal varmints - they're like the Varmint Viet Kim Il Cong - chicks who toast their hoohas then hit you with the toaster - men who are dicks that have no dicks - pretty soon it'll be human sacrifice - riots in the street - dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria - gunga galunga gunga gunga lagunga - us campers need to rise and shine and let's make today happen tomorrow today again before it's deja vu all over again and meatballs making love to sea otters rule us all."

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.19.12 @ 10:02PM

I'll make sure the Dalai Lama is ready for the next foursome, and right after, we'll start the work on the prosthetic genitalia made out of C4 (insert joke using the word "bang" here).

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 5.19.12 @ 11:21PM

"Yeah - it's me - at first I was pretty sure you've been in contact with the Twelfth son striking ball striker himself behind my back when you started capitalizing your name on the scorecards - and then really sure when you started taking my money - every - single - round - which has been pretty rough when you hit your putts - every - single - one - and always with the "it looks like a mirac- it's in the hole!" - every - single - putt - and the drives long and middle of the fairway - every - single - one - and always with the "gunga galunga gunga gunga lagunga" - every - single - drive - and the wedges on the pin - every - single - one - and always with the "I have to laugh- because I've outsmarted even myself" - every - single - pin - worst of all the lies - my lies - in a divot - every - single - one - even in the rough - and always with the "correct me if I'm wrong but if I kill all the golfers- they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key" - every - single - divot - even in the rough - what I have to know is - before the work I've been doing with C4 (insert reason using the C4 "purpose" here) can no longer be kept from being an explosive part of my game - of all the phenomenal success of your game - why the capitalization of your name on the scorecard?"

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.20.12 @ 8:34PM

Never ask a Navy man if he'll have another drink, because it's nobody's business how many drinks he's had.

The lack of caps was a computer function. First, I did, then once, when I updated, I did not. Sort of like a pond and a pool. I didn't pay any attention until one of the squeaking varmint Cong brought it up. (The pond would be good for him) Then, the next time I updated, I corrected back.

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 5.20.12 @ 11:38PM

"Yeah me - I gotta settle - I have it at $6,480 - and here I was sure the caps was somehow some total conscious bit the Twelfthmeister had imparted in your transformation into unbeatable - I can't believe it just had to do with another of these great big gobs of greasy grimey gopher guts scum slime varmint liberal cong - I think it's about time that somebody teach these liberal varmint a little lesson about morality - and about what it's like to be a decent upstanding member of a society - I am tired of smelling liberal varmint that you can't even tell is poontang or was poontang or wants to be poontang or is or was or wants to be trapped in a harmless squirrel or a friendly rabbit dude's pelt - or it's just a bush - or just smells dead - anyway - let me know if you'll have another drink"

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.21.12 @ 9:13AM

Just toss the cash into the 10,000 foot gorge. The DL can pick it up next time he slices one there. Meanwhile, I'll continue to surveil those who are working on their grass hybrids (one part zoysia with a Barranquilla lawn doctor's prescription-you go into the rough and come out in a puff).

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 5.21.12 @ 11:45AM

"Me - yeah - I really love our foursomes too - I live for them - keeps the insanity of the varmint liberal cong at bay - somewhat anyway - and the rotating fourth is a fully awakened stroke of genius - wonder who it'll be next - you gotta love a course that starts in tibet and swings through both kashmir and nepal - the more I think about it I think he puts it in the gorge on purpose - it does offer the best approach to that green - man I love that dude - what a card"

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:22AM

I think I'm going to cry.

bjp| 5.18.12 @ 12:58PM

WillyP makes a good point. How much of people concluding that they are transgender is a result of having it hammered into them when they are young that girls don't do this thing or boys don't do this other thing? If the young person has enough interests that are seen as belonging to the other sex and has this hammered into them that it is somehow inappropriate then how can we say this isn't part of the problem. And it is a problem for girls as well as boys. I suffered through being called a "tomboy" for years when I was simply interested in science and math and technical things and hiking in the woods around our house and playing chess and... Hence the name-calling which in a vulnerable person could become self-fulfilling.

Drunken Sailor| 5.18.12 @ 1:03PM

Don't sweat it. The neck of the woods I come from Tomboys got all the dates!

bjp| 5.18.12 @ 1:30PM

And they grow up to have the high paying science and engineering jobs!

Kyle's Dad| 5.18.12 @ 2:54PM

I'm a dolphin. Get over it.

http://www.southparkstudios.co.....hinoplasty

JimH| 5.18.12 @ 3:31PM

BARBER:
I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.
I sleep all night and I work all day.

MOUNTIES:
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.
BARBER:
I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shoppin'
And have buttered scones for tea.
MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He eats his lunch.
He goes to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays he goes shoppin'
And has buttered scones for tea.
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.

BARBER:
I cut down trees. I skip and jump.
I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars.
MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He skips and jumps.
He likes to press wild flowers.
He puts on women's clothing
And hangs around in bars?!
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.
BARBER:
I cut down trees. I wear high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Papa.
MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He wears high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra?!
[talking]
What's this? Wants to be a girlie?! Oh, My!
And I thought you were so rugged! Poofter!
[singing]
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.
He's a lumberjack, and he's okaaaaay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.
Thank You Monty Python.

MyGirlFriday| 5.18.12 @ 5:34PM

Life of Brian - PFJ Union Meeting:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBAx8jbYNs

Shiori| 5.18.12 @ 6:03PM

Of course, you're no l0nger allowed to call this a mental illness. What on earth is it then, when you're convinced with all your mind and heart that you're not the gender you were born as? Normal? Leave it to lefties to accuse nature of getting it wrong in order to absolve the person of any introspection or stigma. What bothers me most is not the reassignment itself - if that is indeed the best treatment for this dysmorphia, but that the person often has a spouse and children, even young children, when he decides he must be accommodated. The selfishness is hard to forgive where children are involved. Does this man care a fig about what his wife and children need? No - it's all about humoring their delusion. The old emotional blackmail trick is, "If I can't get a sex change, I'll kill myself." This is the most selfish manipulation of them all. Chastity Bono at least, had no children, but her girlfriend left her obviously - because after all, she was a lesbian, not a straight woman. She never asked for a man, or anything resembling one. Now 'Chaz' is just a mutilated woman, having had only her breasts removed. I would never treat people like Chaz with anything but kindness, but you have to wonder whether forced acceptance of an obviously profound personality disorder is helping or hurting them.

madi| 5.19.12 @ 10:57AM

Ugh, first of all why did i just enter my email on this website to post a comment here lol.

Anyways, back to what i'm writing. Someone mentioned that it was selfish and cruel for a m to f to transition when they have a wife and children. I disagree. It would be cruel if they left the children to transition, yes. But, if they are loving parents - what does gender have to do with it? I hear many stories of negligent or abusive parents. Do you think that is better than having a caring parent who just happens to be a different gender?

This is what's wrong with this way of thinking. You've got people seething or shunning or pointing and transgenders (who really are only a small percentage of the population) only because it goes against their CORE VALUES. The same values that have themselves evolved over time. Remember when Latter Day Saints had polygamy? Grown Mormon Men married little Mormon girls. Of course, now almost every mormon is ashamed of that and even call it "Fundamentalist mormonism". OOh, great wording, but, really - it's a reminder that nothing is constant, things change - day by day, minute by minute. If someone wants to change their gender, how does that affect you? does it question your own identity? are you fascinated? curious? Most cisgender people will probably only encounter trans people on tv or maybe once in a mall. So really, what pushes your buttons on this issue?

Dugan| 5.19.12 @ 1:44PM

Couldn't agree more, madi.....

...but I fear our efforts are wasted here.

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:25AM

finally a piece of honesty! it's all about values - and those are all up for grabs as we "evolve"!!!

careful with that thought honey. might not work to your favor down the road.

Alej| 5.18.12 @ 6:37PM

When I see crap like this, I believe Sharia Law may have a few good points.

Lisa McDonald| 5.18.12 @ 7:13PM

As a person born transsexual I agree with some of this article but I resent being associated with the term Transgender and the LGBT. What many of you may not realize is behind the big gay happy umbrella there have been many Transsexuals like myself politely asking them for years to quit with the all Transsexuals are Transgender crap or aligned with the LGBT. What the LGBT represents with Transgender is mostly the most psychiatrically disturbed people it can use to advance its crazy unproven queer theory. What Transgender represents isn't so much the rise of the Transsexual but instead the rise of the fetishistic Transvestite using Transsexuality for their gain at the expense of Transsexuals. As a person born Transsexual all my life I have felt misplaced in my body and have never truly identified as male. I never married and I never fathered a child I couldn't because of just how wrong being male felt to me. The Transition for me was about alleviating the discomfort I felt in my own skin and allowing me to live a life I didn't feel was a lie and was worth living for. I've gone through the entire psychological screening and passed the real life experience. I am an honors student and to be quite honest live a life many of you would find boring but I'm happy with. I am somewhat disturbed by those of you who would turn my being Transsexual and having done something about it into a life sentence for a crime that isn't legally recognized. I agree with the author that to be allowed to change documents should require completing Transition but how do you do that if the deck is stacked so far against you? Its beyond me why on one hand a person would say we are totally insane but then on the other say we shouldn't have access to proper medical care? I agree with the commenter that said most people who show up for therapy for Gender Identity Disorder have far worse mental issues then just GID. But not all Transsexuals have severe mental illness and many of us when given the chance can function quite well in society. Transsexuals had access to health insurance in the 1970's and there were a couple of different factors that led to it being dropped as covered. Part of it was a constant attack by radical lesbian feminist against Transsexuals using the excuse this very author used that Transsexuals are adopting all the negative female stereotypes. The other part was researchers like Paul McHugh. Dropping the insurance coverage helped to create the rise of Transgender by removing any chance to weed out the fetishistic Transvestites and those who suffer from other more serious mental illesses. Instead of fighting insurance coverage that would even allow Sex Reasignment surgery conservatives would be wiser to support it with the stipulation that better screening is done for other mental illnesses and that categories for the various types of people that show up for Gender Identity issues are created other than a one size fits all Transgender umbrella.

KyMouse| 5.19.12 @ 9:05AM

"As a person born Transsexual all my life I have felt misplaced in my body and have never truly identified as male. I never married and I never fathered a child I couldn't because of just how wrong being male felt to me. The Transition for me was about alleviating the discomfort I felt in my own skin and allowing me to live a life I didn't feel was a lie and was worth living for."

Felt...felt...felt...feel...

I'm sorry you felt so unhappy. However, "feelings" don't necessarily reflect truth. In byegone days, a psychiatrist would have offered you help to bring your feelings into line with your biological reality. People who have uncomfortable feelings often obtain help from clergy.

Lots of people "feel" that they are something or someone they are not. That's sad, but no one is required to agree with their "feelings."

Dugan| 5.19.12 @ 1:49PM

Therapy RARELY works - this has a definite physical aspect - it's not all psychological.

...and does it effect anyone besides Lisa?

Fictional Teen M.D.s Never Lie| 5.19.12 @ 4:01PM

Do you feel anyone besides Lisa should have to provide even one penny to pay for whatever costs - whether medical or pyschological or even considered charitable - are incurred in order for Lisa to feel what Lisa wants to feel according to Lisa's own feelings of want?

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:29AM

if I am taxed to pay for it....or my insurance rates go up....yes.

Lisa McDonald| 5.19.12 @ 5:41PM

You would have to go pretty far back in time to find a time when I wouldn't have gotten assistance from a well trained pyschologist. The first sex changes were done in the early 1900's. Unlike today they were real attempts at sexchanges and Lily Elbe died from complications of the surgery. Some of you may also choose to disregard the fact long before modern medicine Transsexuals were either performing surgery upon themselves (Castration and penectomy) or someone else would help them do it. It is your choice to interpret the fact that I used the word felt how ever you may but I can assure you if you ever had the chance to feel how myself or other Transsexuals have felt you'd be singing a much different tune unless you'd killed yourself because of it.

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:46AM

there's a 97% success rate (in terms of satisfaction) for SRS. that means that after surgery, we stop having issues with our bodies and get on with life as the women we were supposed to be. Find another cure with such success.
nothing else works. CBT? ECT? drugs, counselling. nothing. It is uncool to talk about souls, but i think some souls are male, some female, and if you get the wrong body, you simply have to fix it.

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:31AM

fine...just don't make me or anyone else share in the cost.

flow in | 5.24.12 @ 9:18PM

i paid for mine.
however, cleft lips get fixed, all sorts of other birth defect get fixed. why not us? is it becuase you believe this is a choice? like we wake up one day and say "hey, today i want to be a woman". well maybe the TG nutters do, but for TS women this is a lifelong and unavoidable thing. its surgery or suicide.

Morris Albert| 5.29.12 @ 11:56AM

whoa whoa whoa

feelings

what about transraceuals? not 'born' a 'female' in a 'male' body, but 'born' a 'white' in a 'black' body?why do you not include them?

nothing more than feelings

trying to forget my...

Dugan| 5.19.12 @ 1:47PM

Thank you for telling it how it is, Lisa...

Lisa McDonald| 5.19.12 @ 5:43PM

and thank you Dugan for acknowledging that it does have a physical aspect as well.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.18.12 @ 11:06PM

Please allow me to relate a story of relevance to the topic, and allow any reader to assign whatever significance is deemed appropriate.

More than a quarter of a century ago, I was about to conduct one of my first interviews in a prison environment. I was in an adult men’s correctional facility, and was next scheduled to speak with an inmate named Keith. In walked a person with Diana Ross hair, and a sweat shirt torn down the front to reveal the “cleavage” of A cup breasts. He was the first, though certainly not the last, transvestite/ quasi-trans-sexual prostitute I encountered on the job.

About a decade later, I remarked to someone that it was the fate of most transvestite prostitutes to be murdered by a shocked “John”. A few years after that, I learned that Keith’s body had been found, stabbed to death, and left in the alley behind one of our local high crime motels.

Along with my colleagues, we were tasked to spend the next several hours (until around 3 a.m.) rounding up the other associated prostitutes and hangers on to help solve the homicide. It turned out to be a debt dispute, Keith was killed for owing less than $200 dollars to another low life.

I slept in the morning after. Upon arising the next day and leaving for work, my next door neighbor mentioned that while I was sleeping, there had been a bit of trouble. A couple of planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

As I drove to my facility, I called colleagues now at other facilities involved in arresting Keith with me in the past to inform them of his demise, but their interest was limited, as more pressing problems were dominating the news, and their attention. It was, after all, September 11, 2001, and Keith’s death was forgotten quicker than any homicide I can recall.

With that in mind, I consider this article, and the troubled souls on whom it dwells. I think of all we know (and don’t know) about the current POTUS, and the state of the economy he has helped to strangle and leave almost lifeless. Once again, I think it is time to move past this flamboyant but flippant topic quickly, and back to the important stuff.

POST American| 5.19.12 @ 1:35AM

---What comes of mommy dressing
like a whore ---and humiliating her
husband --for laughs ---on national
television ---for years!

-----------KEEP ON GOIN' KIDDIES!

---------------Keep the boys at Tavistock smiling!

-------------------JUST KEEP ON GOING!

--------------------------------GIT!

Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.19.12 @ 8:55AM

Loooooceeeey;

JOU'VE GOT SOME SPLAININ' TO DOOOO.

john dubose| 5.19.12 @ 6:09AM

Since only a tiny number of people even claim to be transgender, this story is voyueristic. As long as I am allowed to ignore such people and they do not expect public money to do their thing, who cares ? Trouble is.. there are lots of left wing type people who want me to pay for this nonssense.

RobertK| 5.19.12 @ 4:45PM

John, as you note, this is reasonably rare. I'll tell you what - we'll leave churches tax free, you stop worrying that a few cents of your taxes might go to paying for a medical condition your church doesn't like. Because one of these? One of these costs the taxpayers in this country far more.

(hint: It's the churches not paying tax)

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:50AM

true transsexualism is rare.
estimates are (from the DSM people) 1 in 20 or 30 thousand.
transgenderism (ie. undiagnosed gender issues that are not TS) are common. 1 in 300-500
please don't confuse TG and TS (as the writer of this article is doing.) only in the mad minds of the LGBT and GLAAD are they related.

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:33AM

these things ALWAYS assume a political dimension.

JMSTER | 5.19.12 @ 7:49AM

I see this as more of a spiritual/belief issue than an emotional/mental one; the logical outcome of a culture that has rejected the idea that there is such a thing as absolute, immutable truth, and is moving, inexorably, toward a form of cultural existentialism.

KyMouse| 5.19.12 @ 9:22AM

JMSTER, it has always seemed to me that the gay-is-good movement, including the "born this way" campaign, is at its core a challenge to the Bible and its authority. The claim that God is cool with same-sex activities and lifestyles, and that He in fact "made people that way," twist what the Bible clearly says, and deny the Bible's inspiration by the Holy Spirit ("It's just a book written by bigoted men").

Spiritual warfare is conducted on many fronts, and our enemy is always happy to support what is good (equal rights! respect!) as long as we turn away from what is best (God's Word and His plan for us).

john dubose| 5.19.12 @ 10:30AM

Only a tiny number of people are actual candidates for a serious atempt at a sex change. As long the rest of us do not have to pay for it who cares ?

No doubt a few crazed leftists think we should. But they will loose this one.

madi| 5.19.12 @ 11:03AM

Well, let's see John. You're right in that really only a handful of people a year do this. I think I would fit in this "Left" viewpoint, and I'm not really political.

Do I think you should care? I don't know. I think you have some opinion and I'm guessing your opinions will shape your ideas and decisions in the future. As a transgender person, I can't ask you to care, but I can ask you to at least be tolerant and respectful of my situation.

Lisa McDonald| 5.19.12 @ 12:34PM

So its okay for me to pay for your medical needs through insurance but its not okay for me to expect my medical needs taken care of?
How wonderful of you.

madi| 5.19.12 @ 11:20AM

As a transgender person, I'm going to chime in here with my perspective - if I may?

First of all, there are two very separate ways of thinking going on here. I will talk about the ideas that are relevant to me. So- I see a lot of people trying to debunk each others responses. There is disagreement, for sure.

Someone wrote that as long as they don't have to deal with it - "who cares?" Well let's look at that for a second. Most likely that person will not encounter a transperson. So if they choose not to care, that's fine. The problem is, what happens when they do encounter one. What decisions will that person make that can affect the other individual? At best they will ignore them, right? Yea, i've had a lot of that. And let me tell you folks, being transgender is very isolating. Anyone who transitions because they think they will gain some sort of "special status" is wrongly mistaken. Honestly most of us are just scraping by , with some grabbing bits and pieces of what society will give us.

This shouldn't be about being or not being transgender. If you're not, that's great - one less thing to worry about. Just keep in mind that as long as we're not hurting anyone, not trying to destroy your CORE VALUES, please just let us be.

Speaking of Core Values - they change for everyone. I know mine have changed a lot. Do yourself a favor and avoid static thinking, it's not good. Try walking with someone who's different from you, learn from them, engage with them. When we close ourselves off we are the losers.

Lisa McDonald| 5.19.12 @ 12:43PM

I'm Transsexual and I've never identified as Transgender or with LGBT politics. A lot of the complaints on here are because the LGBT is promoting an agenda. Just like those who re promoting the use of Transgender are promoting an agenda. Those who have been saying that it is about the destruction of family, religion, and capitolist society are right. Being born Transsexual isn't an agenda it just is. Choosing to advance a corrupt agenda that claims to include all Transsexuals is bogus and your attempting to segregate me into the LGBT something I resent very much and I'll fight you on in the public spere. If you don't believe that Transgender is based on the destruction of Western Values I recomend you go to Amazon and read the first five pages of the Transgender Phenomenon for free.Transgender doesn't have crap to do with Transsexualism so please stop pretending it does.

madi| 5.19.12 @ 12:49PM

How am I attempting to segregate you into the LGBT spectrum. I never even mentioned it.

And this whole business of transexual vs transgender is crap. Just more seperatism when there needs to be cohesion.

Lisa McDonald| 5.19.12 @ 5:54PM

Its not for you to decide who my friends are or to accuse me of seperatism from something I never gave my consent to join. Transgender is not an identity it is an LGBT attached politically motivated umbrella term. So just what are you trying to hide about yourself by calling yourself an umbrella term? All LGBT groups are legal corporations and political entities. It is a violation of my rights by LGBT corporations to either claim me as a member or to represent me without my consent. I can guarantee to you that lawsuits over the use of the word Transgender are coming. Keep lobbying to get companies to adopt the use of the word Transgender and watch me sue them for violating my civil rights by forcing an LGBT political association on me in violation of my civil rights. Stick your seperatist crap where the sun don't shine.

madi| 5.20.12 @ 1:26AM

Oh, you mean the same place where your beliefs lie?

You are using obscure nonsense to make a silly point. Get a life.

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:54AM

i think you should take a long hard look at whatever TG sales line you've swallowed, madi.

TS is not TG. they are not even remotely related. I have never had any gender issues. i had a physical body issue. Getting it fixed was essential, and once done, meant i was a woman. not a transwoman. not half man half woman. not something special.
Most women born transsexual recognise and accept the gender binary. We are not stereotypes, we are simply women, who come in all shapes and sizes, but universally, come with vaginas, not penises.

Lisa McDonald| 5.20.12 @ 11:44AM

madi you can go to the Williams institute it is an LGBT think tank. There if you look around you'll find that they recognize that the majority of people with some degree of same sex attraction don't identify as LGB aligned. From my research into how many people claim a Transgender political alignment it is less than 1% of all those the LGBT claims is Transgender. Like it or not neither you or the LGBT represents me and like I said in past comments I'm more than willing to take on the LGBT in the public sphere and courts over this. The Transgender Umbrella is dead and its only a matter of time before use of the word transgender becomes obsolete accept by those who choose a political association with the LGBT. It is illegal in the United States to either force a political identity on people or to segregate them the LGBT is guilty of this and there is a price they are soon to pay for it.

Morris Albert| 5.20.12 @ 1:48PM

. . . . . . trying to project my . .

. . feelings of libs . . . .

. . feeeLINGS . .

. .whoa . .

. . Whoooa . .

. . WHOOOOOA . .

. . FEELI[gak]-

carnot| 5.20.12 @ 7:36AM

yahoo! everything is up for grabs!!!

the real agenda.

Cobalt| 5.19.12 @ 11:25AM

This transgender issue is just another tool of the progressives.

The Left wants to destroy the concept of marriage being only between one man and one woman.

Lenin, "Destroy the family and you destroy society."

"Critical Theory was essentially criticism of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.....asp?id=552

madi| 5.19.12 @ 11:32AM

Cobalt - if you wanna marry a woman , go right ahead. Do I get an invite?

But you shouldn't judge others who choose differently. Just sayin'

Love is Love is Love is Love

I love you ( not in the i wanna marry you kind of way but in the love should be free to anyone kind:)

Morris Albert| 5.19.12 @ 12:17PM

. . . whoa whoa whoa

feelings

nothing more than feelings . . .

madi| 5.19.12 @ 12:25PM

Morris,

I encourage you to feel more and think less.

Whoa whoa whoa| 5.19.12 @ 12:57PM

Won't pedophiles and necrophiles and beastialphiles and incestophiles and rapistophiles will be among those gendered who will really feel appreciation for your most thoughtful and encouraging words.

WGMOW| 5.19.12 @ 12:44PM

Actually, those of us who won’t ever buy into the “Brave New World” lies of global warming, racism, domestic violence, transgender bullshit, etc. ad nauseum, should just sit back, relax and wait until the first transgender domestic violence and/or child custody lawsuits start hitting the courts. If mommy, who is now daddy, hits daddy, who is now mommy, and shehe hits himher back, who are the courts going to demonize? Which transgender “person” gets to file the restraining order? Which one are they going to lock up without a trial? Which one gets picked to lose all their assets?
And how about child custody and support battles? Who gets the kids, heshe or shehe? Who has to pay draconian child support? After all, the media, the activists, the courts have to pick someone to demonize? Who’s it gonna be?

What a comedy this will become. And the United States will continue to spiral into the abyss, while the Chinese lick their chops, and their islamic and Russian lapdogs fight over who gets the bone and offal.

Mistral| 5.19.12 @ 2:19PM

Europe is not very far behind the utter incomprehensible stupidity of the Americans.

Mistral| 5.19.12 @ 2:32PM

Most of us with political intelligence knew Hussein Obama was a complete sham during the presidential elections. Now he demonstrates what a very dangerous fraud he is - not an authentic American; a gangster fro Chicago; acoke sniffer and with a very shadey past that he is desperate to hide at almost all costs. He spends his time redefining the norms, values and mores upon which the USA was founded. The principles are immorality as the guiding benchmark. Watch how he influences the ballot box as he did in 2008 - ACORN, and so on. How can he do this? Because Americans are so politically naive and basically obsessed with their phoney materialistic dream. Now you whites are in a demographic minority while he allows illegals to become nationals with the vote. He knows just how to twist it to suit himself. You have had your day white Americans with your pentecostal non-conformist Christianity. The future belongs to Hispanics, blacks, drug & money-laundering gangs, illegals, homosexuals and eventually any other sexual identity the leftist environmentalist lunatics can invent over the next few years - transvestites, bestialites, masturbites and non-genderites.

Bill| 5.19.12 @ 2:43PM

America is losing to those Hispanic welfare bangers and their gangs of amigos. It's a TRAGEDY.

Quidpro| 5.19.12 @ 6:51PM

Sex discrimination claims rest on the fundamental theory of the immutability of sex. If sex is reduced to gender, and gemder is reduced to a mental state in the subject, then sex is no longer an immutable characteristic. Thank you, Ms. Gutman for outlining a new defense for sex discrimination lawsuits.

Zoe Brain | 5.20.12 @ 1:12AM

So what about Religious discrimination claims? Is Religion "fixed" too?

The claim of Transsexuals is not that they change sex. They always were the sex they claim they are, they just didn't always look like that.

As we know that some people's sex appearance changes long after birth, quite naturally, but their "gender identity" - more properly, "sex identity" does not, we know that this claim may possibly be correct.

It all comes down to how we define someone's sex.

Based on genitalia? That can change naturally.

Chromosomes? 1 in 300 men aren't XY.

Fertility? That would leave many people "sexless", and doesn't account for some Intersex people who *are* fertile after transition.

So what criterion do we use? What *is* invariant? The only thing we've found is the neurology of the base of the brain - the rest of the brain is somewhat plastic.

By that criterion, Trans people's claims are validated. Trans women were born with female brains.

Use anything else, and we get logical absurdities and inhuman, not just inhumane, outcomes.

UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT| 5.20.12 @ 9:23PM

As it is self-evidently known that the totality of humans comprise society as a whole that either mutually coexist or do not mutually coexist; that the totality of humans that comprise society as a whole in order to mutually coexist optimally mutually coexist through acknowledged rules and guidelines of conformity; that the totality of humans that comprise society as a whole optimally mutually coexist in conformance through acknowledged rules and guidelines for the achievement of the maximum benefit of the life and the liberty and the pursuit of the happiness of the totality of humans comprising society as a whole mutually coexisting optimally through acknowledged rules and guidelines of conformity; that the totally of humans that comprise society as a whole optimally mutually coexisting in conformity through rules and guidelines acknowledged for achieving lives and liberties and pursuits of happinesses maximally beneficial for each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole optimally in mutual coexistence of conformity through acknowledged rules and guidelines each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole self-evidently an individual identity; that the totally of humans that comprise society as a whole in mutual coexistence optimally in comformance through acknowledged rules and guidelines for achievement of the life and the liberty and the pursuit of the happiness maximally beneficial for each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole self-evidently an individual identity each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole differing from each and every other human comprising society as a whole each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole differently from each and every other human comprising society as a whole avoiding discriminating any of the each and every of the humans comprising society as a whole mutually coexisting optimally while conforming through rules and guidelines acknowledged for achieving maximum benefit of the life and the liberty and the pursuit of the happiness of each and every other human comprising society as a whole of individual identity each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole different from each and every other human comprising society as a whole an individual identity each and every of these humans comprising society as a whole for purposes of validated criteria establishing guidelines provided in order to optimally maximize the benefit of the lives and liberties and pursuits of the happinesses of each and every of the humans comprising society as a whole each and every human comprising society as a whole different from each and every of the humans comprising society as a whole differently from each and every of humans comprising society as a whole; the guidelines establishing validated criteria avoiding discrimination to be invariant characteristics based on invariant morality then invariant logic then invariant maturity such that should all variant wants and all variant wishes and all variant desires could in actual reality be granted these variant wants and variant wishes and variant desires while minimizing variant discrimination will be in the order of:

each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and invariantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly mature and variantly logical human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly logical and invariantly mature and variantly moral human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly logical and variantly moral and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly mature and variantly moral and variantly logical human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied variantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variant female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variant male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and invariantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly mature and variantly logical human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly logical and invariantly mature and variantly moral human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly logical and variantly moral and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly mature and variantly moral and variantly mature human;
each and every invariantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and invariantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied variantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and invariantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly mature and variantly logical human;
each and every variantly female-brained and invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained and invariantly male-bodied invariantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained and invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained and invariantly male-bodied invariantly logical and invariantly mature and variantly moral human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly logical and variantly moral and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly mature and variantly moral and variantly logical human;
each and every variantly female-brained in an invariantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in an invariantly male-bodied invariantly mature and invariantly logical and invariantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and invariantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and invariantly mature and variantly logical human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly logical and invariantly mature and variantly moral human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly logical and variantly moral and variantly mature human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied invariantly mature and variantly moral and variantly logical human;
each and every variantly female-brained in a variantly female-bodied and variantly male-brained in a variantly male-bodied variantly moral and variantly logical and variantly mature human;

and that furthermore the preceding list of invariantly and variantly female-brained in invariantly or variantly female-bodied and invariantly and variantly male-brained in invariantly or variantly male-brained invariantly or variantly moral and logical and mature humans comprising approximately 99.9999% of all humans and the 0.0001% remaining are variant perverted deviates the 99.9999% could give a rat's ass aren't granted special status for their unadulterated bullshit.

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:38AM

hia.
only in the mad world of LGBT and GLAAD is it more correct to call a woman born transsexual 'transgender'. Most of us reject the use of that label completely. We are NOT transgendered. our gender does not change. I was a woman born with the wrong body, and i got it fixed. I had a sex change operation, not 'gender reassignment surgery'. my gender was not, and is not an issue.
there is a lot of political action, spurred by crossdressers seeking outside support of their fetish, to co-opt and use the TS voice. our condition is based in physical reality. We can gain diagnosis and treatment, after which we are cured. There is nothing in common with us and the penis wielding crossdressing TG folk who calim to speak for us, and this bizarre, ungrounded and nonsensical deconstruciton of 'gender', along with the issuing of changed documentation to whichever sex offending male that wants access to female spaces is misguided. It is a result of the general populace being hoodwinked by GLAAD, the GLBT organisations and men in dresses everywhere. They've muddied the water so much that whenever they require law changes they can claim that TG stands for TS, yet they refuse to acknowledge the TS voice when we say "don't speak for us".
its just wrong

flow in | 5.20.12 @ 3:38AM

Fredx| 5.20.12 @ 8:50AM

I think the pronoun "it" will do nicely.

Calvin| 5.20.12 @ 11:24AM

This has provided a little peek into what is coming next from the left. Every mental illness will be called healthy. Every perversion will be normalized including pedophilia which already many liberal judges have tried to do from the bench. The Democratic Party has always been the party of bad behavior. For some reason it can't help itself.

D Kellems| 5.20.12 @ 12:58PM

That's because the Democrats can't give anyone a reason to vote for them except as the party where anything goes and the goodies keep on coming as long as you vote for them. They are enablers through and through. They fancy themselves modern day Robin Hoods, but they really have more in common with a much older profession. PJ O'Rourke had it right when he said God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. Every election is like a child choosing between the strict parent that's tough and firm who teaches responsibility and expects the child to do their best. Versus the indulgent parent who will allow anything and buy anything to stay on the good side of their child. One parent will raise a responsible adult and the other will raise a F*** Up.

Lisa McDonald| 5.20.12 @ 12:04PM

For those of you who who are quick to paint all transsexuals as being "Transgender," "Lgbt," or aligned with the "Democrats" think again. We are all individuals and we all have different social and political views. When you use the word "Transgender" to describe all of us you are helping the "LGBT," "The Transgender Leadership" and the "Democratic Party." Don't judge all of us as a whole judge us on our individual merits and while you might never understand what causes us to be this way you might find out that you like some of us if you give us a chance. I don't look at Conservatives as a group and think everyone is the same and I know and have known many conservatives I like and think the feeling is mutual. So please stop using the word Transgender and call the LGBT out on its use of it or its false claim to represent all of us. If you want to see the LGBT lose strength help make an environment that allows other less radical groups form to represent the various groups the LGBT has seized control of. By doing this you will help to break the monopoly the LGBT has built for itself and that Democrats support.

Jive Bomber| 5.20.12 @ 2:27PM

As for a he insisting on being called a she after some crafty doctoring: I can swap the emblems, doors, engine, and interior of a Chevy Camaro for those of a Ford Mustang, but it's still a Camaro. Oh, I can call it a "Mustang", but it's not.

I do have with a very screwed up car though.

Cobalt| 5.20.12 @ 4:04PM

After surgery, perhaps he/she could be called a Yugo.

Alison Primrose| 5.21.12 @ 7:38PM

The argument about whether trans people are what they claim to be is futile and pointless.

The argument about the correct use of labels, transsexual and transgender, and the drama which some indulge in in order to say they belong to a particular group is also way overdone. The point is, you define yourself. Only you can do this. That is the only thing that matters. Not how others define you. How others define you says something about them, but it does NOT say anything or reflect in ANY WAY upon you.

Let me explain further.

We all have the right to be who we want to be. Don't we?

I prefer to be addressed as female, but if you don't want to do that, that's ok, too.

Perhaps maintaining society's rigid constructs means more to you than being respectful of the wishes of others. I have a different value system. It says that it's important to respect the self-definitions of others for reasons of social harmony and love, rather than follow social convention, which is based upon a fear of change. It also says that you are free to hold your view, too. Does your value system say that about me, I wonder? If it does, why are you on this website trying to challenge other people's self-definitions?

Does this mean it's disrespectful to define someone as something other than they want to be defined in any circumstances at all?

Why yes, of course it is. If you know they prefer that particular definition that is. Otherwise, you are just a dogmatist, trying to force your particular version of the truth on them. Unfortunately, while it has value, all this quoting of scientific research just demonstrates that the analytical approach does not sort out that little matter of whether it's objectively true or not. It is futile to try to use science to sort out an argument that is really about our values.

Objective truth is a Singularity. Not an opinion. Not a piece of analysis. Not a socially constructed mental rigidity. Every human being constructs their own subjective truth...out of their organs of perception...everyone has their own relationship to the All and their own construction, or beliefs, about what that "all" really is. Thus, everybody's subjective truth is all part of one great objective universal truth.

You see, I have my own self-definitions which are not the same as your definitions of me. But my definitions of you match your own self-definitions in the sense that I respectfully recognise the gender you claim to be. I'm just being polite here in matching your self-definitions, by the way. I'm certainly not doing it because I agree with your self-definitions. I may, or may not, actually agree with your self-definitions in a personal sense. In fact, I do not have to have any opinions at all about your self-definitions. Whether I do or not, I will respect them, because that represents my value system. What do your self-definitions have to do with me? I see no harm, and plenty of good, in acknowledging them.

After all, as I explained above, as an individual who is part of this great Singularity, I have the ability, the prerogative and the right to define you in any way I like, as do you me. The essential difference between us is that your value system places your own constructs of people above their own constructs of themselves in a hierarchy of value which is not based upon respect for the fact that they, as individuals, have the right to formulate their own self-definitions.

But ultimately it does not matter how you define me. We are in the age of the individual. What I say goes. It does not matter whether you hold an opposing view or not. All arguments will dissolve in the identity-shattering realisation that One is All and All is One. And the realisation that because we are all of the same substance, that it is natural to love and respect each other...and each other's self definitions.

Morris Albert| 5.21.12 @ 8:37PM

whoa whoa whoa

feelings

nothing more than feelings

Alison Primrose| 5.28.12 @ 10:31AM

A feeble, mis-directed attempt at mockery makes good cover for a lot of things, like the fact that you have no valid arguments; that you are likely prejudiced since early childhood; that you believed what others told you, and never learned to think for yourself, but imbibed the attitudes you saw around you; that you are secretly ashamed of this fact; that you hide your shame with abuse covered with a veneer of insolence; that you are almost certainly psychologically and emotionally stunted.

Morris Albert| 5.28.12 @ 1:40PM

feelings

nothing more than feelings

trying to justify

my feelings of

misdirection, mockery, prejudism, belief, attitude, shame, abuse, and insolence

feelings

whoa whoa whoa

nothing more than feelings

from nothing more than an idiot

Hugo Fitch| 5.21.12 @ 10:13PM

Didn't Lawrence Summers get in hot water for some remarks about boy brains and girl brains?

peoplewatcher| 5.21.12 @ 10:40PM

I'm looking at her picture. Damn that bitch is ugly!

Whoa Whoa Whoa| 5.21.12 @ 10:56PM

Not as ugly as her mom. These two are posters for the perils of cosmetic surgery.

POST American| 5.22.12 @ 5:36AM

AS we put to one side those
latest reports of gold foil cooked
babies being marketed in Thailand
---apparently an old, old, Chinese
and Southeast asian custom
intended to bring 'good luck'.

"Understand, with the Chinese,
'good luck' and getting rich stands in
place of any kind of serious religion."
-Informed Radio

---Keep goin' kiddies!

-----------Keep diggin' in to that Stanford Research.
Tavistock, Ford/Rockefeller
EUGENICS 'friendly' ---POP--- cull-chore.

-----MMMMMMMMMMMM!

FWB| 5.22.12 @ 3:05PM

Good or bad, no city, county, or municipality can have any "protected" lists. Categorizing individuals is prohibited in the United States. It is known as the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In order to provide equal protection of the law to all persons in its jurisdiction, local government entities may not categorize persons for ANY purpose, positive or negative.

JD| 5.30.12 @ 12:22PM

It makes sense that Democrats empathize with people who think they are one gender when they are actually another. After all, Democrats think they are smart when they are actually stupid.

And in both cases, they demand that the rest of us treat them like what they think they are instead of what they actually are.

The American Spectator

Feature

America in Transition

About the Author

Letter to the Editor View all comments (312) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

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