Gender self identification, a mentally ill concept?

[TheMind]

Is classifying men and women into two binary categories based on the thousands of years old description of men and women conducive to a fully realized understanding of men and women's minds? I'd say no, and in fact the fact that these classifications are effectively arbitrary, I can dismiss them. Take for instance, any man can behave how a woman can behave, and still be considered a man, and vice versa, under typical social logic. That alone is enough to demolish the dichotomy, because what we define as the male and female gender are fungible. In lue of this discrepancy being self imposed, much to the chagrin of people who do not enjoy being constricted by these rules, I reject them.

It is also good to remember that gender and sex, aka social norms vs biology, are two different things, and having a penis does not dictate everything about your personality, one would hope.

[Sculptor1]

Mental illness is behaviour outside the norm that is harmful or problematic to the person who expresses that behaviour.
The ONLY way that gender fluidity is a problem is because of the sort of bigotry that they might suffer from those that want to control their lives and preserve the fallacy of a simple binary gender assignment.

Only a bigot who wants to control others, and to ridicule those who stand outside of their self imposed norm could ever consider this a mental illness. So such definitions are self justifying.

[Sy Borg]

I would rather that people simply be allowed to be themselves without social pressure, as long as the behaviour doesn't harm others.

Let's see who people really are without all the conformist pressure.

Why push others to not be true to themselves? What possible gain can there be other than seemingly a form of emotional masturbation gained from controlling others?

[Sculptor1]

I would rather that people simply be allowed to be themselves without social pressure, as long as the behaviour doesn't harm others.

Let's see who people really are without all the conformist pressure.

Why push others to not be true to themselves? What possible gain can there be other than seemingly a form of emotional masturbation gained from controlling others?

I have no idea where people get off trying to control other people. They should look to themselves first and try and control their own bigotry and live and let live.

[Sy Borg]

I would rather that people simply be allowed to be themselves without social pressure, as long as the behaviour doesn't harm others.

Let's see who people really are without all the conformist pressure.

Why push others to not be true to themselves? What possible gain can there be other than seemingly a form of emotional masturbation gained from controlling others?

I have no idea where people get off trying to control other people. They should look to themselves first and try and control their own bigotry and live and let live.

I think humans have evolved to be unhappy. They have been shown to be most powerful when in huge colonies that bring stress and torment. So many calculating, determined beings jostling and competing, trying to dominate and control others to make their own lives easier.

This constant hassling and herding, I think, plays a significant role in both humanity's successes and failures, which appear inseparable. Today's gay and gender obsessions are displaced versions of this "herding" impulse.

Once our concerns centred on survival. Now that survival for most is almost guaranteed, our concerns tend to pertain more to moral aesthetics. It's a bit like how bird display dance features evolved to be so impractical that they endangered courting males.

Now we have survival-based situations - climate change and overpopulation. Climate change, in particular, is being treated as just another rhetorical game of relatively small import to societies.

Projection also should be taken into account. I have consistently over many years that one particular group of people thinks about gay men a great deal - gay men. Straight men, on the other hand, tend to a great deal about women. (Take note, Israel Folau and friends - more people notice these things than you realise).

[Mark1955]

So a person can self identify to a gender other then the one in which they physically appear to others at birth.

A person can also look at an apple and call it an orange.
One possible reason for doing this may be to create a breakdown in one's communication with others as others see it differently.

But there is the issue of respecting the choice of language of the other. If in your view, it is best to call an orange as an apple, no one should blame you for it as it only makes you appear mentally challenged.

So accepting that people have the choice to self identify to any gender is in fact, respecting the rights of people to display signs of mental illness.

And yet, this apparent illness does not exist in the eyes of the person having it. It is only an illness that exist in the imaginary world view of people having a different outlook than those who believe that gender self identification is arbitrary.

This is why there is no cure for this; it is an imaginary illness. It is only a concept, there to help make sense of a world view that exists and yet deserves to be rejected. Since rejecting a concept of illness existing in a person in one's imagination makes no sense, anyone can live at peace with any person who believes gender self identification is a choice.

People who do not believe gender self identification is a choice must be careful not to project their concept of mental illness onto any real trans gender person. I think this how to care for one another in a healthy way and with politeness. Does this strikes to the heart of the matter here? Should we educate young people with such concepts, why not? Peace

We are going to need more boxes to check on those forms that ask about this:

o Male only
o Male trans to female
o Female only
o Female trans to male
o Don't know

You could try adding one for "don't care".

[Sculptor1]

We are going to need more boxes to check on those forms that ask about this:

o Male only
o Male trans to female
o Female only
o Female trans to male
o Don't know

You could try adding one for "don't care".

The only true way to equality and no discrimination is to answer mind your business.

[h_k_s]

We are going to need more boxes to check on those forms that ask about this:

o Male only
o Male trans to female
o Female only
o Female trans to male
o Don't know

You could try adding one for "don't care".

There are different kinds of catheters for different kinds of people.

So if you are going into the hospital for a medical procedure it helps to get this right the first time. So you must care.

[Sy Borg]

When it comes to medical forms Male, Female and Other would tell most of the story, and other details would establish the rest.

After all, it's not just identification. There are many different kinds of intersex conditions who would surely prefer Other to Don't Know. They are not trans, so they could not accurately tick those boxes.

The rainbow has many colours, which is damned inconvenient at times, but nature has always been damned inconvenient at times. I declare SNAFU :)

[Sculptor1]

When it comes to medical forms Male, Female and Other would tell most of the story, and other details would establish the rest.

After all, it's not just identification. There are many different kinds of intersex conditions who would surely prefer Other to Don't Know. They are not trans, so they could not accurately tick those boxes.

The rainbow has many colours, which is damned inconvenient at times, but nature has always been damned inconvenient at times. I declare SNAFU

IN fact for the bast majority of medical needs, no gender is relevant, since we are all pretty much the same.

[Sy Borg]

In an ideal world, yes, but health systems are so stretched that surgeons can even remove wrong organs, never mind misdiagnoses: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ents-bowel

So I figure that medicos could probably do with all the easy info they can get.

But I'm with you in this issue. It's tyrannical to tell people who feel gender-variant how they should feel. Are there any limits to the intrusions people make into others' lives?

Maybe social conservatives should lobby for watchers to be stationed in every bedroom to make sure nothing untoward is happening? Or a chip installed in everyone's heads that zaps them with 10,000v should they think a gay or bisexual thought.

Everyone knows the feeling of being cornered and controlled, of being a round peg forced awkwardly into a square hole. Why needlessly impose such a thing on people we've never met?

It's one more hullabaloo to keep little people divided while the Kochs, Murdochs and the like plot their ruin for fun and profit.

[Consul]

But I'm with you in this issue. It's tyrannical to tell people who feel gender-variant how they should feel. Are there any limits to the intrusions people make into others' lives?

To deny that transwomen/transmen are women/men is not to tell them "how they should feel" or how they should live their lives, because it's merely to tell them that they are not women/men.

[Consul]

Is classifying men and women into two binary categories based on the thousands of years old description of men and women conducive to a fully realized understanding of men and women's minds? I'd say no, and in fact the fact that these classifications are effectively arbitrary, I can dismiss them.

No, there's nothing arbitrary about the classification of animals, including human ones, into male and female, because it's a statistical biological fact that sex is naturally bimodal. It's not absolutely binary, because there is the very rare phenomenon of intersexuality; but nearly all individuals are either clearly male or clearly female. The few existing exceptions don't turn the bimodal distribution of sex in nature into an "arbitrary classification"! Statistically, sex is anything but a "spectrum"!

[Sy Borg]

But I'm with you in this issue. It's tyrannical to tell people who feel gender-variant how they should feel. Are there any limits to the intrusions people make into others' lives?

To deny that transwomen/transmen are women/men is not to tell them "how they should feel" or how they should live their lives, because it's merely to tell them that they are not women/men.

To point it out in a forum is one thing. However, I very much doubt you would say that directly to a transperson.

Thing is, to tell most at the forum that they masturbate would be telling the truth - but so what? It is obvious, pointless and tactless. People already know that they wank, just as a transperson already knows they are trans.

It's like telling a Syrian refugee who has escaped to Germany to live that he or she is not a true German. Sure, it's technically true, but why say such things to people who are no doubt doing their best in impossible circumstances that we can probably barely even contemplate, except for the express purpose of causing harm?

[Sculptor1]

To deny that transwomen/transmen are women/men is not to tell them "how they should feel" or how they should live their lives, because it's merely to tell them that they are not women/men.

Wrong.

What is a man or a woman is a social category not a natural one. Only humans have the ability to erroneously apply binary thinking.
Nature is a lot more ambiguous about gender attribution.