Either he says shit without thinking or he thinks of the most outrageous things to say intentionally. I can't tell which it is. But whatever it is, why would anyone care what he thinks? He's off his rocker!

I'm not going to read it because I know it will upset me, but will bet $100 that McInnes is a self-hating closet crossdresser.

Anyone who has known someone transition realizes how much at peace they are in mind, body, and soul compared with before. Indeed they are far less likely to commit suicide once they have the correct gender that their mind has always told them they were.

Until this post I had no idea what Thought Catalog was. After this post I still don't know what it is and i'm going to keep it that way. And I wish Gavin McInnes a very long and very unhappy life.

My wife and I were having dinner for our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. A seemingly wealthy family was at the next table, and the man had obviously had plastic surgery done to remove wrinkles and bags. His face was pulled back into a perpetual look of surprise, and his eyes just looked weird, freakish. We couldn't stop looking at him throughout dinner.

I don't care what your motivations are, you're a fool to voluntarily subject yourself to plastic surgery. Surgery can not make a person young again, nor can it turn men into women and women into men. All it can offer are crude approximations riddled with side effects.

@5 I don't understand why you'd have such aggressively negative opinions on certain steps people take to make themselves feel better. Trans people are fully aware that cannot turn into biological men/women. However, the relatively simple steps they do take essentially without fail make them feel more at ease with their medical condition.

@6: seandr objects to anything that interferes with his boner. Trans people freak him out because they confuse his boner.

It's all like "Mmmmm laydee, Boner like! Wait! Maybe not Laydee? Not laydee trick Boner?! Bonersadz :( No! Boner MADZ!
You is ugly crude approximation riddled with side effects!!1!"
Grrrrrr

@6: The promise of a face lift is that it makes you look young. The promise of gender reassignment surgery is that it reassigns your gender. Neither lives up to its promise, and both entail serious risk of complications and side effects.

This is about truth in advertising - anyone considering either procedure should be made aware that there is a strong chance they won't be satisfied with the results. They may want to consider non-surgical options to deal with their "medical condition" instead.

#7 is why we need a "like" button here. Wonderful.

@Lissa: Believing that plastic surgery is a bad idea does not make me anti-trans.

@bradi @seandr Surgery or HRT is not a matter of turning "men into women, or women into men," as you so thoughtlessly put it. I'm sorry you are so bored by dinner with the wife that you must gawk at people you think look "weird", but GRS is not the same as plastic surgery. Trans women are women, trans men are men - no matter what they look like. The term "biological woman" does not apply here, either. There a many studies showing trans women are biologically the same as women. A 5 minute google search will give you all the knowledge you need. Chromosomes difference has been disproven. Intersex is a real thing too. The uterus thing has been disproven. And we all know not every woman can have children, right? I appreciate the understanding, but please do not further the false notion that trans people "feel" like another gender and it is up to you, the good, kind and mentally stable cis-people of the world to indulge us in our delusion. In most cases we are engaging your "delusion" by being polite and respectful toward a segment of society that see's nothing wrong with abusing other humans. I know who I am on the inside and out. Do you?

@11 Sorry for the rash message. It turns out that I'm personally rather well aware of the stuff you note . I was just trying to dumb it down a bit for @5!

5: What is your supposed "doctorate" in, again? Your posts make it difficult to pin it down. You're way too stupid to be in any of the hard sciences; even if you include medicine (though medical schools are known to let the occasional moron slip through now and then, and not all medical fields require the level of critical thinking that research-oriented fields do). And even the most basic lingo from the social sciences, when used, tends to confuse and anger you, so it can't be that.

Basket weaving, maybe?

Not that it takes any kind of PhD for someone to realize how idiotic it is to compare transitional surgery to a fucking facelift. In post 8, you're assuming that trans people (the ones who opt for surgery, at least) believe that surgery literally turns them into a cis-woman/man. They don't. This "approximation" is all they expect, and all they need. At the end of the day, it accomplishes their purposes, and that's all that matters when assessing its effectiveness. Whether they become a "real" man or woman (by your standards) only seems to matter to people like you, which for some weird reason doesn't seem to be a priority to a complete stranger trying to improve their life a bit.

You'd know this if you actually spoke to or read about some actual trans people rather than pulling your opinions straight out of your ass (a common habit of idiots who think they're geniuses).

But hey, what do actual trans people and mental health professionals know? Seandr wouldn't want to bang a transwoman like he would a ciswoman, and that's all the science we need! How dare they call it a legitimate medical condition (nice scare quotes there), and pursue effective treatments, when it freaks out some random dipshit in Seattle?

... Or is the "dr" at the end of your handle just short for "durrrrrr"? That makes more sense, actually. Let's go with that.

seandr, you have a right to your opinions, but you also get to live with the results of airing your opinion. How many trans people do you actually know? Did any of them tell you they are not happy with their surgical results? I'm cis, but I have many trans friends, and I have yet to hear any of them tell me they regret whatever surgeries they had gotten.

Bottom line. Everyone has the right to decide how they want their own body to be treated. If having breasts removed or added makes a person feel better about themself, they have every right to do that. It does not impact anyone else's life, so the rest of us need to just STFU about it. This is not about changing biology. It is about presenting your authentic self to the world.

@10: No, believing cosmetic surgery (e.g. A bad nose job) is a bad idea does not make you anti Trans.
This makes you anti-Trans:

I don't care what your motivations are, you're a fool to voluntarily subject yourself to plastic surgery. Surgery can not [ ]turn men into women and women into men. All it can offer are crude approximations riddled with side effects.

You share a visceral discomfort of Trans people with both TERFS and Seattleblues who has used your exact argument in previous discussions regarding trans phobia.

Just sayin'.

And it ain't for you to tell a Trans person what to do with their body because their GRS squicks you and your boner out.

@9: Why thank you! You are kind. :)

@SeattleKim: I think it's fascinating that in order to be considered pro-trans, one must be unquestioningly and adamantly pro-plastic surgery.

If I woke up this morning with my genitals magically transformed into the female configuration - i.e., I became a man with vagina - I would much rather remain a man with a fully functional vagina than a man who's vagina had been rearranged by a surgeon to make it look vaguely like a penis.

Others, of course, may prefer otherwise. However, if someone says their surgically rearranged genitals, or face lift, or breast implants make them happier, to me it's like someone saying that finding god has made them happier. On the one hand, great, they're happier! On the other hand, there is no god.

@Lissa: What is your obsession with my boner? I'd be happy to discuss my cock with you sometime if you'd like, but it's completely irrelevant to the present discussion.

@15

I have a visceral discomfort with mental illness, absolutely. The mind, and in my belief the soul, are what make us human. If that can malfunction, yeah, that bothers me.

And yes, a person who not only ignores the objective facts of their genitalia but wants others to help them do so is seriously mentally ill. No surgery can help this entire disconnect with reality. Maybe institutionalization and some combination of psychotherapy and medication can. But as they are they are incapable of healthy mental lives. As are people who describe the natural aversion to such people as "transphobia."

And in passing, why do you folks need to invent words to insult sane people with whose sanity you can't deal? Transphobia, homophobia et al- you realize no such conditions exist, yes? Oh right, forgot. You hate and fear reality, social economic or otherwise.

For my money, any doctor performing dangerous and unethical GRS procedures shouldn't merely lose any right to practice medicine- they should be jailed. Joseph Mengele is only a few moral steps beyond them, and not big steps.

Just so you all know, this is one of the co-founders of Vice. Everything they do (or at least did in the beginning, when they were based in Montreal) is ironic with a capital i. It's hipsterness to the tenth degree.

In other words: he's fucking with us, that's all.

Shorter- Want to play "let's pretend I'm a woman trapped in a male body! or vice versa?" Fine, lunatic. Want the medical community and society at large to play along. Nope.

@21 um, I don't think you can count the 'medical community' on your side in this instance.

@21

Nope. There's money to be made by mutilating people surgically! Can't leave that on the table and practice ethical medicine, now can we?

It's the same self serving mindset that prescribes normal active children with all sorts of drugs. It isn't in the kids interest- it's in that of somebodies bottom line.
Only, we can. Very few surgeons adore Mengele so much they want to emulate him. So a few vile half human 'surgeons' perform this surgery nationwide.

@17, Genital surgery is a very individual choice. Some do, some don't. But their decision is theirs alone. But I have not yet met anyone who took that decision lightly. However, it is far more than "plastic surgery". If you were trans, you would have every right to decide not to get surgery. But to denigrate everyone else who chooses differently is insulting.

We all have two distinct genders. We have the gender of our bodies, and we have the gender of our brains. For most of us (cis people) those genders are on the same side of the divide. Some of us are more gender non-conforming than others, but we feel that our bodies and brains match genders. For some people, (trans) the two genders don't match. For some others (inter-sex) the gender of their bodies is not clear. No matter what though, it is the gender of the brain that is all that matters. Who you are is who you are. And we all simply need to take that person's word for it. Period. How they choose to deal with their bodies is their own business.

@17: May I direct you to the comment @19 and suggest you spend some time examining its similarities to your own posts and what that may reveal to you?

I am also afraid that I must politely decline your invitation, as one does not wish to encourage the somewhat unhealthy primacy your genitalia holds in your world view, or the coterminous general gender orthodoxy.

@23 I guess I was more referring to the academic medical community, but given that any group of people with professional authority on the subject are also (qua professionals) have a livelihood to watch out for. So congratulations, you've come up with a totally vacuous way to argue against any sort of professional authority you disagree with!

@24

So, if a person sincerely believes they have breast cancer and does not, should a doctor perform a mastectomy to make them feel better?

If I believe I have a third leg and want one removed so that I can buy pants and am wrong- remove a leg to humor my delusion?

If you think yourself a crocodile trapped in a human body, is your family helping by turning your family room into a swamp or would competent mental help be maybe a better approach?

Humoring mentally ill patients with medical procedures, treating the delusion as fact, is unethical and ought to be criminal.

@26

No. I am however aware that professional advice can be driven by personal biases, financial self interest, and conscious or not a host of other distorting elements.

So if my lawyer or doctor or CPA tell me something, it's compelling but not necessarily definitive for me.

It's called critical analysis.

@27 None of your analogies should persuade @24 because @24 has not conceded your assumption that transgender folk are mentally ill and delusional about their gender.

@28: "Critical analysis"
LOL! Not really your strong suit sweet pea.

@27 Your comments really bespeak your ignorance on this subject. The scenarios are distorted caricatures of the trans experience and don't do much to further your points. Trans people are acutely, accurately, and painfully aware of their body and do not suffer from a mis-appraisal of it (that would be an orthogonal condition). Also, the crocodile thing is off base as well. Trans feelings are attributable in large part in utero to hormonal issues. Basically, there is a physical etiology for trans feelings, not for 'feeling like a different species' would have a radically different cause

@28 Right, so you've come around to the point where you can use your personal judgment as a grain of salt wrt professionals. Again, congrats, we all do. But when you use that personal judgment in a realm where you're totally in over your head, then it's not doing you much good.

That doesn't answer my question Dan: Can I still use Responsitrannity from RuPaul's Album (available on iTunes) as a ring tone? Or is that now offensive since Ru can't even use the phrase "You've got SheMail!" on her show anymore.

@30: I know! It is like watching a child argue...completely absent of any kind of self-awareness, consistency, or basic respect of logic.

@33: Well it does make for entertaining reading at least. :)

So some blogger thinks he's qualified to determine what is/isn't mental illness? Stone him and move on.

@5 Cherry picking evidence is also for fools. You don't notice good plastic surgery results because they're good.

All body modifications have people who take things to extremes.

I can't help but think that it's rude to assume that I know what other people actually feel or that I can tell them what actions or procedurea are appropriate for them.

Just in case anyone reading this thread is inclined to take SeattleBlues's comments seriously...

@27:

So, if a person sincerely believes they have breast cancer and does not, should a doctor perform a mastectomy to make them feel better?

Having breast cancer is objectively verifiable, and is not a state of personal identity.

If I believe I have a third leg and want one removed so that I can buy pants and am wrong- remove a leg to humor my delusion?

The number of legs you have is objectively verifiable, and is not a state of personal identity.

If you think yourself a crocodile trapped in a human body, is your family helping by turning your family room into a swamp or would competent mental help be maybe a better approach?

Gender identity is influenced by hormone levels in utero. There is a point in human embryonic development at which a determination is made; either the embryo will develop with a male phenotype or a female phenotype. There is no such point at which a determination is made as to whether the embryo will develop as a human or as a crocodile. The upshot is that it is not only possible, but expected for gender identity and phenotype to misalign once in a while, and that no such expectation exists for any of the cross-species straw men that anti-trans people like to set up.

For people suffering from gender dysphoria, transition is the treatment that works. It is the only treatment that has been shown to work. Now who's denying reality?

@27 You, expounding on medical ethics! You, who has frequently demonstrated a complete lack of ethics and ignorance of medicine, have become quite the carnival sideshow! Stick to biting the heads off chickens, or whatever it exactly is you might be good at.

@17:

If I woke up this morning with my genitals magically transformed into the female configuration - i.e., I became a man with vagina - I would much rather remain a man with a fully functional vagina than a man who's vagina had been rearranged by a surgeon to make it look vaguely like a penis.

Many trans men make the same choice, because phalloplasty is not a very satisfactory surgery at this point. So they are exactly what you describe: men with vaginas. Vaginoplasty does not suffer from the same drawback; a trans woman's vagina is visually indistinguishable from a cis woman's, and performs all of the same functions, with the exception of bearing children.

Others, of course, may prefer otherwise. However, if someone says their surgically rearranged genitals, or face lift, or breast implants make them happier, to me it's like someone saying that finding god has made them happier. On the one hand, great, they're happier! On the other hand, there is no god.

Let me translate this:

Trans woman: "Hey seandr, I had surgery last month and I could not be happier! I finally feel like myself."

seandr: "Great, you're happier! On the other hand, you're not a woman."

That is why people are calling you anti-trans.

@3: I disagree with most of your posts, but you are spot-on with this one. Thank you for that.

I would like to thank Seattleblues for their contributions to this discussion. You are, as always, the dark abyss that makes it possible to fully appreciate the Light. Without pain, there is no understanding Joy. You are the embodiment of pain. You are the S on the compass that points out True North to the rest of us. We need you, SB. We need you like we need to shit so we can enjoy another good meal.

@24,

Barring the 1 percent of people who are intersex, we have two distinct sexes; there's no such thing as a "distinct" gender, for fuck's sake, not when gender varies according to culture.

I swear trans "allies" are more unhelpful to the trans cause than actual transphobes.

@6,

Trans people are fully aware that cannot turn into biological men/women.

Perhaps you should have a discussion with the loon @11:

There a many studies showing trans women are biologically the same as women

@19: You natter on about "the objective facts of their genitalia" but are perfectly happy to ignore the objective facts of their neurological morphology.
You FEEL like a man, right? You're used to being a man, having male morphology, growing a beard, all that good stuff? If you suddenly found your brain inside a female body, would you feel weird and uncomfortable? If so, what makes you think that physiologically male brains never develop inside physiologically female bodies?

@23: The APA agrees that the best treatment for gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder is usually gender reassignment. That's the American Psychiatric Association, you twit. (The American Psychological Association holds similar views.) If they were really driven by the money, they'd be recommending intensive therapy, not surgery and hormone replacement. Intensive therapy actually used to be the standard treatment for gender dysphoria/GID. Wanna know why it fell out of favor? Because it almost never worked and many many patients KILLED THEMSELVES BECAUSE IT DIDN'T WORK.
Medical and surgical doctors aren't the ones deciding how to treat the condition; they more or less just administer the treatment. Your ignorance of the medical fields is showing.

@27: It would be very nice if we could make people with gender dysphoria feel comfortable with their biological gender. I've heard such sentiments expressed by transgendered people! But sadly, we don't currently have the technology to do that. Therapy has almost no effect and often leads to the subject sinking into severe depression and becoming suicidal. We don't have the neurosurgical chops to go in and reshape someone's brain architecture to make them think in their head that they're the gender their bodies were born with. Currently the ONLY working therapy for severe cases is gender transition (surgical and/or hormonal).
Seattleblues, I get that it weirds you out. Do you believe that your desire not to be weirded out should trump another person's desire not to be saddled with suicidal depression?

as a middle-aged privileged straight white cis male, I have a lot of stupid opinions and prejudices around shit like jaywalkers, prius drivers, transsexuals, plastic surgeries, and bariatric procedures, but i'm not dumb enough to try and convince everyone that i'm right.

ultimately, i'm for freedom and TPOH; if you want to cut off 100 lbs. of fat without dieting, turn yourself into a wax mannequin, or transition into a transman or translady, and a doctor will do it, follow your bliss.

"It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -t. jefferson

*anally devastated SJWs who haven't read Gavin McInnis before and don't realize they're just taking the bait*

Just admit it, you're addicted to outrage and righteous indignation. It's ok, there are treatments available.

@48 treatment #1: get off the internet.

Come now, everyone. Obviously, Seattleblues knows better than the scientific and medical communities!

@44 They are presumably referring to studies that look at sex-differentiated brain morphology. They have found that trans women's brains are far more similar to cis women's than cis men's. Same thing for trans men and cis men.

@11, you say there are studies showing trans women are biologically the same as women, that the "chromosomes difference" has been disproven, and the "uterus thing" has been disproven. You need to provide links for this; I don't even know what you mean by "the uterus thing" and I'm baffled by the chromosome claim. Do you mean that trans women somehow have two x chromosomes? You can't expect people to research your claims when they're so clumsily expressed. It's also just courteous to provide links when you have evidence to support your argument.

y'all missed the main point of seandr's post--he thinks women who get breast implants are mutant freaks! He must have a hard time finding porn to his taste, with women with no breast implants and no work done on the face. That rules out about 90% of porn right there.

Seandr, you're very brave. I too have real problems , saying it's ok for people to cut into their bodies .

This is a topic , that it seems one is not really " allowed" to explore, from the outside. The attacks and defensiveness as shown above really preclude a point of view unless one is in complete agreement .

I couldn't be more "outside" this topic, as a straight white cisgendered middle-aged male. But I have opinions about it, and I think they're as valid as anyone else's. My opinion is: given that we're talking about things like identity alteration/erasure and surgical modification/amputation, there is NO WAY that 100% of the people who sign up for such things are mentally healthy. Just no way. But guess what? Neither I nor anyone else has some sort of crystal ball that will let us see inside any given FTM's or MTF's head. Unless you're really close to someone, like a good friend or family member, there's just no point in guessing whether they're "really" approaching their transition from a place of clarity and serenity and having carefully considered all options. We can't know. And in the absence of knowledge, all we can do is wish them the best. I do.

@53 & 54: He isn't being brave. He has a visceral response to any kind of surgery. That kind of fear and horror of mutilation is a trope in horror movies for a reason. It isn't wrong to be squicked out personally at the idea, but a line is crossed when we project our own discomfort on to Trans people who chose gender reassignment surgery. As Cis people we have no understanding of being aliens in our own skin. We can imagine, we can sympathize, but we cannot tell them that our experience and discomfort trumps their lives, any more than as straight people we can tell gay people to just stop being gay because it may make us uncomfortable.
If you want to explore this topic from the outside, talk to Trans people, not other Cis people. Go to the source.

In addition, seandr has a history on Slog of viewing the world through the prism of His Boner- Its Likes & Dislikes(tm). He is a highly sexual, highly hetero normative dude, and he has some very sexist biases. This coupled with his revulsion of surgery in general does not make him a good authority on the topic of GRS. In fact it makes him the opposite.

He and Seattleblues hold the same position on this topic, but SB is more incendiary in how he expresses it. They don't really in their heart of hearts, believe that Trans is a real thing. They are gender binary people, and Trans upsets that apple cart. Maybe you feel that way too.

In the end it is not for us to tell Trans people how they should live their lives or what steps they should take to become their authentic selves, and it is certainly not for is to, as seandr did, call them crude approximations riddled with side effects, or mentally ill, and declare they should be institutionalized as has Seattleblues.
Talk to Trans people about this issue. Not these guys.

I was thinking the same thing, @46.

Lissa, I have had some run in discussions with seandr- wouldn't bother with that pig SB. Not the same at all, those two.
And he was brave in as much as he faced the abuse, which he knew must surely come, if he spoke his point of view, and it did.
The article that set off this post was disgusting and offensive.
I support every bodies right to express their sexuality and identify their gender as they choose, as long as no one is hurt. And there's the rub, trans people hurt themselves and they want others not to notice.
It's obviously an area that is full of emotion, fear and hurt.
But it really doesn't help the trans world, if every time outsiders try to bring any disagreement to their line of how it is, to the dialogue- they get shouted down. Called transphobic. End of story.
It's similar to the Israeli / Palistinian Situation. I respect Israel's right to exist- of course. But I deeply, totally disagree with it's systematic genocide of Palistinian people. Yes, Hamas are idiots. They should do what every battered wife does, shut the fuck up , then use International support to find a solution. But men and their wars.. And if one dares to notice what a bully Israel is, one is called anti- Semitic.

I don't think your analogy is accurate, although I agree that the Middle East is a cluster fuck and both sides have their points and both sides are to blame.
But I digress, and don't want to go down that rabbit hole, since that's not the topic at hand.
If you want to understand why some Trans people choose GRS, then you should ask them. You think they are hurting themselves. They don't. They feel that it is what they need to do to become their authentic selves. As Cis people we don't get to tell them what their experience is, any more than we get to tell gay people what their experience is.

Have you heard of Laverne Cox? She's a Trans woman who has gained a lot of visibility. You should check out her website.

http://www.lavernecox.com

In addition sometimes not getting bottom surgery can come back and bite you as poor Buck Angel has found out. His ex wife is trying to say that since he never had the surgery he never was a man and they were never legally married. She's trying to get out of alimony that way, which is despicable.

People can do to their bodies as they wish. Hell, they can extinguish the life out of it, if they choose.
And yes, thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
My point is, even though I completely support people's rights to follow their felt needs to identify with the opposite gender to the one they were born to, I won't collude with the position that they are not hurting themselves, when they cut their bodies up to try and approximate the opposite sex body.

How do you feel about hormone therapy? Most Trans people do that even if they don't do the surgery. Although it is not without risk either. Buck Angel, again as an example, became very ill when his uterus atrophied and became infected from having been on Testosterone for so many years. In the case of FtM it's usually a good idea to have an hysterectomy to avoid that sort of thing. I don't know if that falls under your definition of "cutting their bodies up to try to approximate the opposite sex body" though.

62: Your belief that they are hurting themselves is based on... what, exactly?

Cutting ones penis off , you don't classify that as hurting oneself?
What sexual pleasure do trans people feel thru their genitals, if surgery is done? I'm assuming( and yes, I am ignorant), nerve endings etc are caput, so I assume genital sexual feelings are close to zero.
I do agree with seandr, re surgery. Unnecessary surgery , interfering with the workings of the body.
Lissa, don't know much about hormone therapy. Sounds dicey though.

@66: The usual way that male-to-female sex reassignment surgery works is they basically turn the penis inside out and make it into the neovagina. The erectile tissue is pretty much gone but the skin with all its nerve endings is incorporated into the new architecture.
FtMs have it a bit tougher. Surgery isn't as advanced in that regard.

Venomlash, thanks.

@66:

Cutting ones penis off , you don't classify that as hurting oneself?

Cutting one's breast off, you don't classify that as hurting onself? Oh, wait, that's just how we treat breast cancer.

Cutting one's skin open and drilling metal into the bone? Oh, wait, that's just how we treat broken bones.

Sawing through one's sternum and pouring ice into the chest cavity to stop the heart, you don't classify that as hurting oneself? Oh, wait, that's just how we do open-heart surgery.

So, no, I don't classify a well-established surgical procedure, performed by experts, to repurpose penile and scrotal tissue into a fairly functional vagina, so that the patient may finally be relieved of the sickening bodily dysphoria they have been dealing with for decades, as "hurting oneself".

What sexual pleasure do trans people feel thru their genitals, if surgery is done? I'm assuming( and yes, I am ignorant), nerve endings etc are caput, so I assume genital sexual feelings are close to zero.

Yes, you are assuming, and you are wrong. Trans women are typically fully sensate and even orgasmic after GRS. The nerve bundle that was once in the glans is moved to the clitoris, which is of course where it winds up in cis women. As venomlash says, the options for trans men are unfortunately more limited, but many do opt for double-mastectomies.

Unnecessary surgery , interfering with the workings of the body.
Lissa, don't know much about hormone therapy. Sounds dicey though.

Hormone therapy is actually quite safe and not "dicey" at all when done under the supervision of a medical professional. The drugs are chemically identical to the stuff that your body produces already. HRT for a trans woman is no different than HRT for any woman with a hormone imbalance, including post-menopausal women.

Your opinions seem to be based on the assumption that all of these treatments are unnecessary and done by amateurs. These assumptions are not true. Your own squeamishness and lack of understanding on how these treatments work does not make them unsafe or problematic. The reactions that you characterize as "shouting down" are simply telling you that you don't have any idea what you're talking about, and so it's best if you are disabused of the notion that your ignorance is just as good as the knowledge of actual trans people and their caregivers.

Of course; I have no idea what I'm talking about, Seilo. I'm assuming a lot. You're right.. And those necessary surgeries, that you mentioned- help( maybe) save the persons lives. I'm sure a lot of women who have their breasts removed because of cancer, are pretty devastated about it. Of course medical Drs are performing
These operations, on trans people . I'm not an idiot..
And yes, people who identify with the opposite gender to the one they were born with- no I have no idea how that feels. But the bottom line is, these operation don't really achieve what is wanted. And as I understand hormone replacement therapy, for post menopausal women, there is a link to cancer.
Like I said, I don't feel there is room to really speak honestly.. Abuse, fear, whatever comes back when anyone who has
Compassion for trans people and concern- as I have, wants to contribute from the outside, or explore ideas. .it's best I return to just shutting the fuck up, eh?

Although Seilo seems to be mostly right about the problems with the analogy between gender reassignment and random bodily mutations, the arguments Seilo is making are based on a potentially fallacious argument, which takes the result as proof of a cause, without proving the absence of other possible causes.
Seilo presents the theory that transsexual and intersexual gender identities (ones that are at odds with genitalia or bodily gender) result from an abnormal hormonal environment in utero. That seems like a reasonable theory, but do you mean always? Invariably? Mostly? In general? Are there any other possible psychological or cultural factors that might cause, for instance, a girl to wish to be a boy, or a woman to wish to become a man, or vice versa?
Given that we can't test the uterine environment by the time somebody presents with dysphoric symptoms--which could be as early as 3 but sometimes as late as 18--the problem is, how do we know that any one individual's gender identity is a result of a biological/hormonal cause, and not the result of a psychological cause, a cause that might seem less legitimate or more appropriately regarded as a disorder in need of treatment, rather than a medical condition that calls for gender reassignment?
Let's say an 18 year old (with the legal power to make their own medical decisions) comes to you and claims that they feel that there is a discrepancy between their body and their mental gender. Is that sufficient proof that there must have been a hormonal abnormality? Should you always help them to get surgery? Remember, 18 year olds are people who do extreme things in utter confidence that they know what they want and will never change. What if the family and friends of this person say they never heard the person express any wish to change gender prior to a romantic relationship with a transsexual person who encouraged this person to change gender? (This is an actual case--my niece-turned-nephew--who did have the surgery).
Or, let's say, a 4-year old claims to be or want to be the opposite gender. Should you allow them to change their name and go through school as transexual, or should you regard this the same way you regard their claims of having magical powers or their theories regarding monsters? This case is me.

I have to say, as a ciswoman who repeatedly told my parents as a toddler that I was a boy, dressed boyishly, and wished to be a boy throughout adolescence, I am glad my parents regarded my disphoria as a phase--a phase I got over around 18. I wish they had done more to help me feel proud about being female, to feel that being female was not a misfortune. But I'm glad they didn't allow me to mutilate my body with hormones or surgery, the body which I am now so happy to be.

70: How are you being abused here? By being disagreed with? By people (rightly) pointing out how your ideas and analogies are flawed? By my posing a question to you that you had no acceptable answer to? Because people tend to respond with a stern tone when you make disparaging remarks about trans people and some of their treatment options?

You imply that others are shutting down the debate when you paint yourself as a victim. Ironically enough, your disingenuous complaint that we've turned slog into an unwelcome space for insulting opinions seems like an attempt to shut down the debate from your end. Better not point out the flaws in LavaGirl's arguments, or else we're silencing the open exchange of ideas! Nonsense.

Your "brave contributions" mostly consist of reducing transitional surgery to a simple act of "cutting one's penis off," as if trans people self-perform their surgeries by hunkering down in a dark basement and hacking off body parts with a butcher knife and no anesthetic. Golly, that really DOES sound like an act of self-harm! However, there’s no way that you hold a legitimately innocent, wide-eyed belief that this is how it’s done. You were purposefully making a gross, reductionist mischaracterization meant to make a legit medical procedure sound seedy and sick. And you wonder how people might interpret that as transphobic (which you defend by citing your own innocent ignorance, to which I reply that ignorance is the reason behind a lot of bigotries and phobias. Doesn’t change anything).

This is medical surgery. It’s prescribed by doctors, performed by surgeons, and (you seem to keep missing this last bit) effective in treating the condition it’s been prescribed for. Treating a problem is the opposite of hurting oneself, IMO, even if it involves a procedure the sounds yucky.

As @69 rightly points out, ANY surgical procedure can be warped with reductionist logic and made to sound like something from a horror movie. You draw a distinction by pointing out that his examples are mostly life-saving surgeries. Okay, then- how do you feel about knee surgery? Dental surgery? Eye surgery? Typically, none of those are the difference between life and death, yet I bet you’ve never characterized them as someone brutalizing their own body. You’re capable of thinking rationally about those surgeries. It’s only transitional surgery where you suddenly cease to regard it rationally and instead reduce it to some form of bloody self-torture.

There’s a word to describe a bias so powerful that it reduces one’s capacity for rational thought regarding one particular group of people, but apparently if I use it, I’m “abusing you” and stifling the debate. I think you need to undergo a lot of self-reflection before you can continue to claim that your views on trans people are wholly compassionate and uninfluenced by a mere "ick factor" that you're having trouble getting over.

And the sad thing is, those of us whose hearts are with the trans community, do shut up because of the abusive responses. And it's only the fascist pigs, like the one whose article started this thread,who open their mouths . And this does a great disservice to the trans community, because intelligent and caring dialogue is missing, and it becomes a closed shop. Cause, one either agrees with the surgery etc, etiology etc, or one is a traitor, non supporter.

@73: How exactly is your position supportive of the Trans community though? All you've done is object to all the treatments available to them to help in their transition. What alternatives do you have to offer? How is leaving them trapped in bodies that are alien to their true selves in any way an example of "caring" people whose "hearts are with the Trans community"?
Which is not to say that elma @71 does not make some very important points. Transition is no light undertaking, and as I understand it those entering that process are required to go through a great deal of psychological vetting, and that is as it should be.

@74: The difficulty of vetting potential transitioners really is the best argument for more research into the phenomenon, and at the same time a substantial obstacle to such research. How do you tell who's transgender? We have trouble making that call because there's not much biochemical research on transsexuals (there's a decent amount of sociological/psychological research) to give us some sort of metric. But of course, if you're going to run tests on transsexuals to see how their neurochemistry works, you'll need to be able to decide who is or isn't transsexual in order to get your sample population. It's a paradox.

@70:

I'm sure a lot of women who have their breasts removed because of cancer, are pretty devastated about it.

I'm sure they are, since they are not trans men. The trans men I know who have had their breasts removed don't seem very devastated about it at all; in fact, they rather enjoy the fact that they can now take their shirts off at the beach like all the other guys.

But the bottom line is, these operation don't really achieve what is wanted.

If you define "what is wanted" as "magically become identical to a cis person of your identified gender", then of course it can't live up to that. But what trans people want are bodies that are as close as possible to their identified gender, and the currently available treatments have a very high satisfaction rate. So, again, I'm afraid you are projecting your own misgivings onto trans people and mistaking it for compassion.

@71:

...the problem is, how do we know that any one individual's gender identity is a result of a biological/hormonal cause, and not the result of a psychological cause, a cause that might seem less legitimate or more appropriately regarded as a disorder in need of treatment, rather than a medical condition that calls for gender reassignment?

Yes, hormonal causes are the prevailing theory, but it is of course not proven. Thank you for keeping me honest. However, the cause is largely immaterial when deciding the course of action for a trans patient because, whether biological or psychological (which are more closely intertwined than some might guess), gender identity is real, and transition is the treatment that has been shown to work. Counseling is required before HRT or surgery may be administered, to ensure that it is not a phase, but the vast majority of trans people are much happier after transition.

You raise good points about being sure before taking irreversable steps. I do note with dismay, though, that you also use the term "mutilate" to refer to GRS. The use of this term is a by-product of the institutional transphobia that we all grow up steeped in, whether we realize it or not. The whole point of many posts in this thread (e.g. @72) is that such surgery is not mutilation, any more than any other surgery is.

@75: Right now, the standard of care is psychological vetting rather than biochemical. Generally, the standard is gradually transitioning the person into living more and more of their life as their gender identity (often including hormonal treatments), and after a period of time of 100% living in that identity (with stable and/or improving mental health), the approval for surgery is given.

Or at least that's how it is in Toronto. I have friends at both of the two biggest gender reassignment programs in the city, which likely makes them the 2 biggest gender reassignment programs in Canada. I know someone who's accompanied friends to Bosnia for phalloplasty (they're apparently the world experts), and that isn't their requirement. At least not if you're coming from overseas with a chequebook.

@76: For @71, GRS would have been mutilation, since she's actually cis. Which leads to another issue: the struggle to understand gender identity would be simpler if we lived in less of a gender essentialist society. I strongly believe that without fixed gender roles, it would be easier to clarify faster whether people are cis but non gender conforming or trans.

@73 But you didn't shut up, you've been quite vocal about your desire to save trans people from themselves- you're not helping anyone, you're preaching a version of "love the sinner, hate the sin".

I don't know why you feel that you're entitled to a discussion about my and other trans people's genitals and medical decisions. Are you trans? Are you a medical provider who treats trans people? No? Then, your admittedly ignorant opinions do not matter.

Please do not mistake this for me calling you a bigot, I don't know you. But the opinions you've stated here are pointless and uneducated. How you feel about about people transitioning is completely irrelevant to anything that occurs in the real world. I'm not "shutting down the discussion" by discarding your opinion, your opinion seems to be that I and other trans people are mentally unsound, that we are unfit to make decisions regarding our own bodies, and that maybe we don't deserve the right to bodily autonomy.

Why on earth would I, or any trans person with a hint of dignity, be willing to engage in a discussion of whether or not I am unfit to exercise the right to self-determination?

You are free to say whatever you want, but what you have to say on the matter of trans issues is wrong, offensive to trans people, and does not warrant consideration by trans people or their allies.

@78. No I'm not trans. And. I'm not American. And you're right I have no right to question anyone about what they do with their bodies.. If all of us could only comment on what we personally experience, then we wouldn't be able to talk about much.
What worries me, is in the process to be accepted- which of course trans people should be- a lot of what I see as delusions, have been allowed to grow. To me, this creates a climate, for the culture to just accept that yes, being trans is somehow what one is born as. No therapy etc, no understanding of child rearing practices one was subjected to- messages from mum and dad, etc can in any way alter this. The culture is there that says, to deal with this situation- one takes hormones or cuts into the body. Tries to turn the body from one sex into the other.
Doesn't matter how good the surgeon, that really isn't going to happen.

Trans people are born trans. We are one of the types of humans that there are. We have existed in all human societies whether forced to hide or not. We existed prior to modern hormonal and surgical interventions and we will continue to exist whether these practices continue into the future.

No therapy can change this.

Child rearing methods do not make people transgender.

There is no culture that says trans people must take hormones or have surgery in order to live as themselves, hormones and surgery are available but optional.

Trans people who seek surgery are aware of what outcomes to expect.

Trans people and trans allies are not a dominant group in society that has the power to force anyone to say or think anything. You are not being oppressed. You and other commenters in this thread are not making a compassionate and brave statement that speaks out against a dominant culture of trans acceptance. There is no such culture, you can state your feelings on the subject almost anywhere secure in the knowledge that many people will agree with you and no one will assault you.

@tacodoomsday

Thanks for joining in and giving this discussion a little perspective.

Yes, nobody should tell you nor other trans that what you're doing with (and not "to") your birth body is right or wrong.

And it's the same for everybody, as long as they are adults. Not liking someone's vanity/necesary surgery results is not a reason to legislate vanity/necesary surgery into unavailability to people who might want to undergo it, it's a reason to have surgeons get better at their job and fully inform surgery seekers of their previous successes and failures.