In Massachusetts, east coast land of useless idiots, they’re passing a transgender right bill to make sure people can use the bathroom of whatever gender they personally identify with. Some people are protesting it (how could anyone find anything wrong with it?), and this passage jumped out at me:
Timothy Tracey, a lawyer with the conservative Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, told members of the Committee on the Judiciary that the bill infringes on the religious rights of those who believe that men and women are different.
It’s been a little while since my last biology class, but there is actually a scientific distinction of men and women too, right? Or am I the one who is confused?
You’re clearly behind the times, Frank. Men and women are in all ways not just equal, but the same.
…
I had a witty retort here, but I then I remembered to keep it PG-13. I’m sure you all can come up with something equally witty and innappropriate on your own, though.
Being I grown middle aged man I personally identify with the gender of college girls. perhaps I can get a job handing out the soap and hand towels.
What’s that thing the French say “Viva La Samey-sameness”?
So, you’re saying the bill infringes on your scientific rights? I like it! If you have the right to practice your religion, why not the right to practice your science…
I didn’t realize it was my religious belief in men and women being different that made me a kook. I thought it was my belief that unborn babies are human beings.
“…there is actually a scientific distinction of men and women too, right?”
That’s sexist! Off to the re-education gulag with you!
Unfortunate wording, to be sure. But here in AZ, there was a perfect test case and the owner of the bar wherein the Shim was “discriminated against” folded like hObama in front of a Saudi prince.
The shim was mocked by men when it went in to use its scientifically male plumbing whilst it was wearing a dress and chick rags. It then proceeded to feel offended and go to the Women’s restroom and stand up to piss, thus making LARGE numbers of women uncomfortable.
Hopefully whomever the Alliance Defense Fund is representing doesn’t fold and the lawyers speaking to the media stop making these verbal gaffes. Otherwise, I see a string of news stories in the future about Shim getting beat the hell down by either angry men sick of tolerating all this gayness, or rampaging chicks who are sickof being asked as the many to be creeped right the hell out by the few and end up clawing he shim to nothing but a sloppy pile of rent flesh and tacky neon dress fabric.
Should make me giggle, reading the articles, though.
They tried this at the local University, calling them “Family Bathrooms”. When did we as a society start deciding the whole needs to accomadate the retarded few. This is the place that gave us the Kennedys, John Kerry, and was so liberal it made Mitt Romnney Pro-Choice, I predict it’ll pass.
“It’s been a little while since my last biology class, but there is actually a scientific distinction of men and women too, right?”
Considering that your science is producing monkey-controlled robots these days, I don’t know if I’d trust anything them scienc-ey people are saying.
I’m pretty sure my head just exploded.
That’ll be great for the little girls in Massachusetts to have grown men hanging out in their restrooms, simply claiming they identify themselves as females. Sounds to me like they’ve got some real intelligent, responsible representatives in Massachusetts.
I know the difference between men and women. I have a patented and very thorough procedure for determining the difference, but it only works for with college girls or Kate Beckinsale in a cat suit.
Just when I thought the commie state of Assachusetts couldn’t get more retarded.
As a Hater-of-all-things-Massachusetts, they deserve this to become law. “From Hell’s heart I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!” “I blow my nose at you!” “I fart in your general direction!”>>>Teddy Kennedy,John Kerry,Bawny Fwank,Gerry Studds,Duvall Patrick,RedSux Fans,Bill Bellicheat,The Big Dig…..Nuking them is too merciful.
I think the transgendered, as well as the bisexual, should have to pick a side (one or the other, not both) like the rest of us do.
We have lot’s of women running around downtown Minneapolis that I can barely tell that they are women and lot’s of men who do lot’s and lot’s of nancing!
I was aiming true But had a slip On my pants More than a drip Cuz Chastity Bono Let one rip Skeered me so I lost my grip.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Hillary, Sotomayor, and Pelosi all have longer schlongs than I do.
Actually this is an excellent way to resolve a problem that has plagued Massachusetts for decades. The crux of the problem lies in the undisputed (albeit curious) scientifically proven fact (as has been presented on the always accurate Sci-Fi Channel on numerous occasions) that in the state of Massachusetts there really is NO physical difference between men and women.
So….it should be quite evident that the Evony girl below is definitely NOT from Massachusetts.
Because we’re pretty lame at scientific reading, the hubby and I ran actual experiments and have found there are indeed differences between men and women. We have repeated certain of the experiments, you know, just to be certain…
Move the UN to Massachusetts.
They deserve each other.
Liberal males are pssuys so there may be a problem with his theory.
I don’t have a problem with women wanting to use the men’s restroom, however. Except…wait. I retract. Or my penis does. Or both. The women who would want to use the men’s room look manlier than I do.
Here’s a preview of what the Transgender Bathroom Czar will look like in his (or is it her?) day to day job. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkKDW7XR-lQ
This attitude is something that seriously bothers me about fellow conservatives.
I have many friends who are intersexed – they have a congenital condition that means they are not entirely male, and not entirely female. In one case, the person is a true hermaphrodite. In another, the person has a hormonal condition, combined with a dichotomy between brain and body. In a third, the person has Harry Benjamin Syndrome, where the brain is female, and the body male.
All of them are treated as second class citizens because of something they cannot control. It is legal to fire them from jobs because they are transgender. It is legal to keep them from renting or buying a home. Protections we take for granted are denied an entire group of people because of a medical problem.
And yet conservatives, the heralds of “personal responsibility” and “freedom,” sit back and make fun of them, call them “shim” or “shemale.” Accuse them of being paedophiles or sexual offenders.
I’m not going to quote studies or give stats. I’ll leave that to Zoe Brain. She’s much better at it than I. But I will say that this sort of intolerance is what gives Republicans and conservatives a bad name, and makes me rethink my political associations.
[Great idea. You now be for higher taxes and less freedom. -Ed.]
Well Kat, the most intolerant people you meet are Liberals, so good luck. We are mostly having some fun but realize the insanity of having womens restrooms open to any man who only has to claim he wants to be a woman to get his freaking pervy jollies. Ummmm, not that theres anything wrong with that.
I’m tired of cooky religious nuts interfering with with an individuals rights to go watch members of the opposite sex take a dump.
Kat,
Apparently, you choose to run with a weird crowd.
If you just go in the bathroom that you appear to belong in, use a stall and sit down, I doubt there will be many problems. If you wear a dress in the men’s room or stand to pee in the women’s, the problems created are at least partially your own fault.
Just had to post again to say Amen, #30.
Kat,
I seriously am not making fun of anyone. But can I ask why it is called Harry Benjamin Syndrome? I mean, my Benjamin is Harry, but I don’t use womens’ bathrooms.
Kat,
Here is a nugget of wisdom from the blog you linked:
“Am I suggesting Michael Jackson was a homosexual autohebephile? I sure am.”
Huh? Autohebephile? Can we just call him a freak and be done with it? Why the bizarre psychobabble?
On a related note, there is actually a “HebePhilE.com” website. Complete with gay dating adds.
Fascinating. IMAO provides Edumacation!
Most bizarre of all, the advertisement below is for “The Economist.” I always thought that magazine was about . . . well . . . economics. Not about transgender stuff.
Guess we now know where Obama is getting his “economic” advisors from. Sheesh. . .
Of course this is in Massachusetts. This is a bill Barney Frank AND Ted Kennedy can get behind.
Ya’ll got it wrong. The Negro Party has made it legal for male homosexuals to ogle other men in military communal showers. This is discriminatory against heterosexual men. So now, hetero’s get to ogle women in female bathrooms. Its just fair.
Thank you so much for the Editor’s note! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know that just because I question something on the Right, I’m now automatically a Lefty, rather than simply a disgruntled conservative.
Yes, I do run with an odd crowd. They’re called humans. Some might be a bit weirder than others, but then, I’ve never claimed to be normal.
Zoe happens to be one of those humans. So her posts encompass more than just her biological oddities. She likes to post about pop culture every once in a while, and frequently has a different perspective on current events because of her background in science. So she uses big words. I understand them, do you?
A quote from her site: “It’s legal to persecute the transgendered in 37 states, but in 13 it isn’t. Yet in those 13 states, there have never been these mythical “bathroom issues”. Not once. Oh, perverts have used womens (sic) facilities as places to attack, rarely, but they’ve never tried to use the human rights legislation, either mentioning “sex” or “gender identity” as a defence. Not once in 33 years.”
All of you are assuming that it is a choice for trangendered men and women to be outcasts. That they want to be reviled, end up homeless (est. 40%) or murdered (est. 1 in 7). Stop and think for a moment what kind of hell they must be going through, to be trapped in the wrong body and want so badly to get out. Imagine if YOU were in that position, where your brain was telling you “I’m a guy” and your body looked female. Or, worse, that your body didn’t quite look one or the other, and your genes were a bit too messed up to be able to use that. Kleinfelter’s syndrome is where the chromosomes are XXY rather than XX or XY. Mosaicism is where some parts of the body are XX, others are XY. In both cases, there’s no clear answer. And this isn’t as rare as we’d like to think. Gender and Sex aren’t quite as cut-and-dry as we’re taught in high school biology.
I understand, this is a humour site, and most of you are cracking jokes because it’s funny. But it’s not funny to a lot of people. It’s a serious situation, and this sort of reaction does quite a bit of harm, because it encourages ignorance, rather than compassion and understanding for a weird and vilified medical condition. Would you make fun of someone with heart disease who needed a bypass? How about a woman who needed a hysterectomy because of a chronic condition? Why is being intersexed any different?
Sorry. This ended up a lot longer than I intended. It’s a topic I feel particularly passionate about.
Actually.. it can be pretty funny. OK, the constant risk of murder isn’t, especially when some of the victims are under 10 years old, but sometimes you have to laugh. Here’s what MassResistance said about some of these dangerous people, some of them all of 5 years old:
The really funny thing though is not the frothing-at-the-mouth brigade, it’s the legal situation.
The funniest things though are those Intersex conditions that cause a natural change. Hilarity ensues. Well, no, actually, about 2/3 have existing transsexuality cured by it, and the other third tend to kill themselves, but if you’re into practical jokes, imagine it happening to you?
Woman trapped in man’s body, and vice versa, is Bullshit. Pure and unadulterated Bullshit. Man up, girly boy. Get a bit more feminine, uber-butch chicks.
Anyone that thinks they are trapped in the body of the opposite gender can go ahead and go to the place the DSM IV used to put them until the mental health community stopped practicing medicine and started excusing every sexual sickness and perversion as beyond the control of the person: a Loony Bin. They even have nice jackets that force you to hug yourself. Should make the super girly men and uber-butch chicks feel better about themselves.
I could give a rat’s ass about what you feel inside. Restroom assignment is an issue of human plumbing. Full Stop. Those with external fixtures go to the Boy’s room, those with internal to the Girl’s. If you can’t handle the ridicule coming from the other restroom occupants because you were born with a human spigot, but like dresses, buck up and deal with it. Screw the Tyranny of the Few and Aberrant.
I don’t advocate physically harming the mentally ill, but if they press the issue, forcing their will on a large number of folks, then I’ll laugh my ass off at the news report of the dude in the dress with the black eyes and fat lip.
Doesn’t Transgender mean getting your weiner lopped off? If so I am against that! “nervously crosses legs”
Hey, what happened to the Evony girl?? OMG has she been kidnapped, please tell me she’s somewhere around here safe and sound!
I sort of think the note was insinuating that you’re a liar. At least that’s what I think. I think some might say you’re lying when you say several of your closest pals are amongst a group of folks that comprise less than .0001% of the population (1 in 130,000). I totally believe you, though. I’m guessing that if there are twelve people in the US who struggle with ideopathic syndromes, they’d probably all live near each other and seek you out for friendship. I mean, a large number of my close friends are talking dolphins, and these nutsy conservatives make fun of me for that all the time, too. No wonder the evil conservatives, (who aren’t us, ’cause we’re the good ones) are in trouble! Their unwillingness to make aggregate changes in order to please less than one percent of people makes them terrible baddies. And their ability to laugh at things just because they’re funny should be immediately stopped!!
Carolynp, You go Girl! I just did a neck swivel and a snap, just like I’ve see on those BET programs, after reading that one.
DesertElephant – some facts, OK? Facts are good. You should try them some time.
Since you go by what the American Psychiatric Association says, fair enough, here’s some symposia from their annual meeting:
S6. “In or Out?”: A Discussion About Gender Identity Diagnoses and the DSM (DSM Track DM03)
1. The DSM-V Revision Process: Principles and Progress William E. Narrow, M.D.
2. Beyond Conundrum: Strategies for Diagnostic Harm Reduction Kelley Winters, Ph.D.
3. Aligning Bodies With Minds: The Case for Medical and Surgical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria Rebecca Allison, M.D.
4. The Role of Medical and Psychological Discourse in Legal and Policy Advocacy for Transgender Persons in the U.S. Shannon P. Minter, J.D.
You see, we have the little problem that it’s classed as a mental illness, but obviously isn’t one. Yet if we take it out of the manual of mental illnesses, people will be denied treatment for it. So we need to move it from the mental illnesses area to the physical illnesses one, just as the discovery of the helicobacter organism caused stomach ulcers to be moved out similarly.
There’s also this symposium:
S10. The Neurobiological Evidence for Transgenderism
1. Brain Gender Identity Sidney W. Ecker, M.D.
2. Transsexuality as an Intersex Condition Milton Diamond, Ph.D.
3. Novel Approaches to Endocrine Treatment of Transgender Adolescents and Adults Norman Spack, M.D.
You know, the proof from fMRI scans, autopsies, and recently, even more simple tests based on those results to detect neurological Intersex. Male brain in female body or the reverse, stuff that may not please Lefties who say it’s all a social construct, but factual and repeatable.
Here’s what Prof. Ecker wrote to me:
I may be aberrant – heck, “freakish” is closer. But at least I’m not a piece of ambulatory offal, a miserable failure at being human, who gets their jollies by seeing others beaten up because they “look funny”. As some do.
#39 DesertElephant….. I’ll say you said it better than I could.
“Family Bathrooms” is about as far as I’m willing to give in on this issue. I have a ‘shy’ bladder and like using the Family rooms because no one else is in there unless I invite them.
CarolynP – the “official” US incidence of transsexuality is 1 in 30,000 for women, 1 in 100,000 for men. That’s based on some measurements in Sweden in the 1960’s.
Bit of a problem though : there’s records of over 2000 surgeries on US citizens per year. And all other countries show rates of about 1 in 3500 for women and 1 in 11,000 for men.
If you want to get the best estimate, read this analysis on the subject. The “official figures” that haven’t been updated for 40 years are out by a factor of at least 10. Heck, if they were true, no trans person would exist in the USA, as they’ve all been murdered, sometimes twice. A bit like the Lancet figures for deaths in Mosul.
The rate for natural sex-changes, ones that happen due to Intersex conditions such as 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency are higher than 1 in 130,000. A spectacular 1 in 90 men in the Dominican Republic were born looking like baby girls, but are guevedoches with 5ARD, and masculinise at puberty. A similar rate is found in the Sambia tribe in PNG, the Turnim-Man. There’s similar clusters in Italy and Turkey too. The rate in the US from spontaneous mutation of the two conditions combined is about 1 in 50,000, so there’s thousands of American males who have “Female” on their original birth certificate. Even though many have fathered children.
Male to Female natural changes are rare though, maybe 1% of all natural sex changes in humans. So rare we don’t have a good estimate, and with so few samples, that syndrome isn’t well understood.
All of this stuff is on the web. Try looking at “Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency” by Cohen-Ketternis, or “17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency: A rare endocrine cause of male-to-female sex reversal” by Bertelloni et al. Or “The sambia “turnim-man”: Sociocultural and clinical aspects of gender formation in male pseudohermaphrodites with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency in Papua New Guinea” by Herdt and Davidson. Google is your friend.
For what trans women really look like, and the kinds of professions they’re really in, see this list, or this one, or this one, or this one, or for the men, this one.
While we’re at it, some of the hundreds of papers on the subject. Because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and some of this is so far outside common experience, a certain degree of scepticism is appropriate.
Brain Gender Identity by Ecker, 2009 APA annual conference proceedings
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.
Solid evidence for the importance of postnatal social factors is lacking. In the human brain, structural diferences have been described that seem to be related to gender identity and sexual orientation.
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.
And so on and so on. I picked that selection as they’re on the web, and not behind pay-per-view firewalls. I can give dozens more, this isn’t controversial. Just not well-known. And the results are not just arrogant opinions, but ignorant ones like some expressed here. Arrogance is excusable when it’s informed. Ignorance is curable by education. But bigotry, that’s invincible ignorance married to implacable arrogance. Pride in stupidity, with more than a hint of cruelty, something more often found on the Left than the Right.
If you count all the minor syndromes, the minor glitches that it would take a lab test or ultrasound to detect, and which mostly have no effect other than reducing fertility, 1 in 60 people are technically Intersexed. Neither wholly male nor wholly female in terms of their body. That’s about 5 million people in the USA. There’s tens of thousands of people who, if given a gene test, would be considered the opposite sex if they lived in Kansas. Most don’t know, and you could be one of them, your marriage void, even if you’ve had children, simply because you have the “wrong chromosomes” in one part of your body.
Oh yes – although male to female natural changes (unlike most Intersex conditions) really are so rare as to be statistically insignificant, that’s little comfort if you’re one of them. It’s hilarious and definitely poetic justice though when it happens to a Right Wing politblogger with a track record of conservatism as Tim Blair describes. I think few would describe him as a radical Lefty.
None of this psychobabble changes the fact that Massachusetts is about to pass a law that will force young girls or women to have to go into a bathroom where there may be grown men “legally” hanging out.
Simply stating that they now identify themselves as a woman will make it against the law for a cop to ask them to leave.
Simply not acceptable, no matter who’s “feelings” are hurt.
Oh Frank, honey of course men and women are the same.
They:
look the same-same features, same equipment, same bone structure, same hormones, the same body hair. Right?
think the same. Both think bathroom humor is hilarious, both cry at weddings, both love Angie and Brad and make whale noises in the bathroom. Right?
Don’t let the right wing crazies get to you Frank…….men and women are exactly the same, except when they are different, but even then because they are different they are the same…………..Ok, sorry but I have to stop now, trying to think like a liberal makes me dizzy and nauseous.
It’s the exact same feeling I get every time I hear the term Senator Frankin.
The numbers I cited on naturally occurring ideopathic (look this word up, it’s really big and it’ll make you sound important when you argue) syndromes are from WHO, but feel free to use whatever feel good sources you like. “CarolynP – the “official” US incidence of transsexuality is 1 in 30,000 for women, 1 in 100,000 for men. That’s based on some measurements in Sweden in the 1960’s.” Sounds like your numbers are really solid there. You can’t knock research about the US that was done in Sweden in the 60’s. What exactly did they measure? I’ve never heard about their super secret US sexuality measurements (neither have the dolphins). No wonder they were able to stay “neutral” in so many wars. They were blowing their vast military resources into their uber-measurement program. Swedes are really tall. Can you be certain that they used proper callibration? I mean, I would think sexuality measuring equipment would be callibrated differently between Sweden and the US. Is this when they invented the whole “Swedish massage” thing?
You guys are delving way beyond the intentions of this post. Regardless of “mental” gender…if you have a sausage, you are classified a male, and should use the men’s room. If you have a taco, you are classified a female, and therefore should use the women’s room. Black and white, there it is. If you have both parts…use unisex I guess? Anywho take the mental bs out of it and just look at natural plumbing.
@SonOfBob:
Er… no it doesn’t. In fact, all it does is add the words “gender identity and expression” to existing legislation that covers discrimination based on race, or sexual orientation, or religion etc. That’s it. Not a word about “bathrooms” in it.
The full text is available online, so you can see for yourself. Why not go to that page and search for terms like “bathroom”, “restroom”, “toilet” etc.
If there really was a problem about “grown men in the little girls room”, you’d expect some groups to be adamantly against it. Women’s advocacy groups. Womens legal groups. Groups that try to minimise violence against children. Rape survivors networks.
It doesn’t sell you see. Mass Hysteria about perverts and “think of the children” makes great reading in the Leftist-dominated media, where it’s all show and no substance. Check your intellect at the door.
If the bill’s opponents were really concerned about children, they’d think about the attacks on Intersexed and Trans children – usually girls – who are compelled to go to the wrong bathrooms in some states by threat of legal sanction. Those attacks, unlike the hysterical claims of MassResistance about what might happen one day, actually do happen.
CarolynP – we’re talking past each other. Your figures for “idiopathic” conditions may be correct. “Idiopathic” meaning “we have no idea what the heck caused this”. Most Intersex conditions are well understood, yes, even the ones that cause a natural sex change. We know exactly why they happen. Some are inherited, and even dominant rather than recessive. Some are due to exposure in the womb to certain chemicals – DES for example causes about 1 in 5 foetusses with 46xy chromosomes to develop as transsexual women, often with other Intersex conditions too.
My own is one of the few that isn’t well understood. There’s about a dozen different ways something like this could happen in theory that we know of, but not all of these have ever been observed to actually occur. And about half of the cases of this syndrome don’t follow any of the predicted patterns.
You asked where I got my data from. Mostly dead-tree publications, but I also gave a URL which in turn links to the most comprehensive meta-study on the subject. A good paper is On the Calculation of the Prevalence of Transsexualism by Onslager and Conway, presented at the WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) 20th International Symposium, Chicago, Illinois, September 5-8, 2007.
@JustinH
There’s a bit of a problem with that.
You have to understand a bit about how transsexuality is treated first. Like everything from Heart Disease to Ingrown Toenails, there’s a medical “Standard of Care”, an official best practice, that medics have to follow or risk being busted for malpractice. The WPATH 6th edition is available in dead-tree form here, but it’s just a word-for-word copy of that produced by HBIGDA, which is available online so you can check it for yourself.
OK, so how is someone who’s transsexual treated?
First, they get referred to a mental health professional, to make sure they’re not obviously nutso. This mental health medic has to examine them over a minimum of three months – and often many years – to diagnose the situation. But at some time, maybe months, maybe decades, they’ll decide that the patient qualifies for the next step. So they write a formal letter of authorisation.
That letter is sent to an endocrinologist, who will then start hormonal treatment of the patient to change the body, monitoring the situation to ensure the various health risks that can arise, don’t. A minimal dose is prescribed first, which has no effect other than rendering the patient impotent, but which will reveal most of the problems before any permanent damage can occur. The dose is then ramped up over 6 months, and about that time, pubescent changes start to be visible. The changes will continue over the next 2-7 years.
At some stage after that, usually when the patient’s body has been changed enough so that it looks androgenous, there’s the start of the “real Life Experience”. Which has been accurately described as like having to juggle chainsaws while walking a tightrope.
The patient must live in the social role of the target gender 24/7, 365 days a year, for at least one year with no breaks at all. They must change all their documentation, get a new gender-appropriate name legally recognised, and must provide evidence that their friends, neighbours, families, and employer knows about their change.
Note the employer. Because not only must they do this, they must use the correct restrooms of their target gender as well as hold down a fulltime job or course of study.
If they can’t do this, then further treatment will be refused. Yes, this does mean that to qualify for necessary medical treatment, they must break the law in some states. The theory is that if they can’t do this, then either they lack the required motivation, or more usually, the society is so bigoted where they live that a gender transition is impracticable, and they should just kill themselves.
You can see the problem here. And of course many trans people are Intersexed, so may have neither taco nor sausage.
Anyway, after at least a year of this RLE, the Real Life Experience, and often far longer, sometimes decades, the original Mental Health medic finally decides that yes, surgery is appropriate, so writes another letter of permission to a surgeon.
But wait… two letters are required. The whole casefile must be reviewed now by a post-doctoral specialist in the area, a multiple PhD, who may decide that additional requirements must be met. And then put his whole professional reputation on the line by signing the second letter. This gives the patients permission to spend between $20,000 and $120,000, not covered by either medicare or 98% of health insurance policies, on surgery. It’s unlike any other surgery in that respect.
The surgeon then verifies these letters are genuine, interviews the patient, and only if the surgeon is convinced too, will he be willing to operate.
The whole process takes a minimum of 15 months, 12 of which the patient has to use the restroom of the target gender despite not having had surgery. Usually it takes a minimum of 3 years, often 7, sometimes 20.
There will always be pointy headed academics willing to talk for hours support one deviant behavior or another. This is actually a self protection mechanism…. or maybe just penis envy.
Zoe Brain,
Er…yes it does.
You may want to check with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition that’s promoting this bill.
“Question: Why is this policy needed?
• Many people are denied equal treatment on college campuses in regards to education, housing, and bathrooms on the
basis of gender identity or expression.”
Hey wait, I think I just saw the word “BATHROOM” in there.
As you say, you may want to go online and search for yourself:
http://www.masstpc.org/pubs/collegetalkingpoints.pdf
Zoe Brain,
Hey, guess what? Gov. Deval Patrick, a strong supporter of the bill weighed in on the bathroom issue.
So, when asked about it, he shot it right down and said that this bill wouldn’t allow men to go into women’s bathrooms, right?
Nope, sorry. His response was: “Somehow we manage at home with bathrooms that don’t have ’men’ and ’women’ on them. And we can probably figure that out on public spaces, too,” Patrick said.
So Deval’s response is that women won’t even have a bathroom anymore, that there will be people of both sexes using every bathroom. Wow, that’s great. The children of Massachusetts are really safe from predators now.
I care not a whit what argument you want to use. Penis means men’s room, vagina means women’s room. I don’t care how you feel inside, or what some apologists and revisionists say is going on in your addled brain. You don’t like that you can’t use the women’s room because you have both a penis and a pretty dress and feel like a delicate little flower, tough.
It’s all plumbing. Period. Full Stop. You can try and obfuscate it and confuse it and add ever damned layer of nuance you want, but if you have an outtie, to the Men’s room you go. An innie means you get to use the little girl’s room.
Maybe some common sense will invade your tiny little mind, so overfilled with BS psychology and the rationalization that you really, deeply and truly are another gender, but that doesn’t change the facts of plumbing.
If you can’t see that very clear and simple fact, then we may as well be teaching a gold fish to tap dance in laying out the facts, because your gender bent mind is never going to absorb them.
I’m just amazed that you had the brain power to turn on a computer, let alone get on to the Internet.
Zoe Brain, once again you are going into the whole “I don’t like having a penis, I think I want to be a woman” thing again. I was referring to natural plumbing…what you were born with. If you were born with a penis, use the men’s room. If you were born with a vagina, use the women’s room. If you were born with both, figure it out. If you were born with neither, how the hell do you pee? If you elect to have surgery, and go into the ‘Real Life Experience’ phase, you have done so by your own choice and it is up to you to deal with the consequences. It is not everyone else’s job to pander to you being confused about what gender you want to be, or if you just don’t want to be the gender you were born as. Hence my belief that personal responsibility is gone…everyone else is supposed to go out of their way for a few. This mentality is not only self destructive, it is destructive to every institution and person that you try to push it on.
And the whole part about needing to break the law sometimes to receive medical treatment, well that is a path that they must travel at their own peril. If the society is bigoted, which I don’t believe most are, then tough crap. They chose that path. If I choose to drink my ass off, which is my freedom to do if I so choose, and I choose to go in public or hop in a car, then I do so at my own peril. I know you are going to respond with “blah blah blah liberal sissy pander to every social deviant talking point about how this isn’t the same as choosing to be transgendered, just hear me out for a minute.
Once again, if I choose to drink my ass off, that is my choice. It is destructive in ways, but I chose it knowing this. To bring the mentality into account, like you did, I can blame it on alcoholism runs in my family…because it’s a disease right? Nothing I can do about it according to your POV. So, since I am no longer responsible for my behavior that has ramifications, do we now have to change the laws pertaining to public intoxication and DUI to pander to my own ‘affliction’?
“Oh, but you chose to get drunk!” No I didn’t. Alcoholism runs in my family. Mentally I am an alcoholic, so now I want to amend laws so that I am not ‘oppressed’ by a society that is bigoted against people with my ‘disease’.
If you disagree with me, you are an alcoholist.
Very few people are born gender neutral or duo-gendered or intersexed (as it were). You are either male or female from birth. It is a physical fact. What you do with your “feelings” are the choices you make. Make no mistake they are your choices. Just as the drug user, the alcoholic and the abuser make choices so does the transgendered.
I personally will never patronize a store that I have to equip myself with pepper spray just to use the loo. All this will do is encourage stores to take out restrooms. Thanks a lot goys and birls or whatever you’re calling yourselves now.
Justin H
And if you were born with 5ARD or 17BHDD, so had a vagina at birth, but a penis later? Or didn’t you read that post? Probably not, you just ignored it. I don’t think you’re stupid enough not to be able to understand it.
Lots of people here are acting like Lefties: making absolute statements without giving evidence, ignoring facts, ignoring science, just because they “feel” they know what should be true. Proud of their ignorance.
It’s one thing to be sceptical about a “scientific consensus” and debate that using facts and figures. The whole politicised BS about Global Warming – er – sorry – “Climate Change” this week – shows that politics can pollute scientific inquiry. But the people who are debunking the rubbish are doing so not on the basis that it’s Liberal Crap, but on the basis that the facts don’t support those conclusions. You can’t just ignore reality by labelling criticism as “white neo-colonialist oppression”, nor “marxist liberal claptrap”. Some here would be right at home at DU. Young Earth Creationists are you? Or Geocentricists, or even Platygeans?
We have some people insisting that it’s obvious which bathroom you use – the one that matched your genitalia at birth, that’s just it, end of story. They don’t say why. We have others who say that it only matters what genitalia you have now, and that’s just it, end of story. They don’t say why. At least get your story straight people!
I did read your post. And while it would be great to fix the world and make everything perfect for less than 1% of our population, it just isn’t logical. If something like that passes, it opens up the door to deviants. Plain and simple. Just like every other liberal agenda. It looks great on paper, but in practical application it is not the smartest move. I’m sure you can think of a few examples, but just for sample’s sake, here’s one: Welfare. Great on paper right? Horrible in application. More people take advantage of the program than people who use it properly, the way it was intended. So you do something to pander to a very small percentage of people, and it opens the door for exploitation for everyone else.
And if you are born with a vagina, then you develop a penis later in life, it is quite obvious that you are a moon person. Therefore; you should return to the moon. Then we now have proof that moon people do exist, and therefore we must nuke the moon.
Don’t pick on the people of Massachusetts, please. Think of the place like Vichy France during WWII when most of the people worked willingly for (or slept with) the Nazis, while another portion joined “the Resistance” and blew up factories and train tracks at night. When thee war was over – it wasn’t very nice for those traitors to the nation.
This is kinda why liberal arts majors ie the pyschobabble fields included routinely produce junk science.
How in the lowest pit of the most deranged pit in Hades
CAN YOU HAVE A STUDY FOR THE USA WHEN IT WAS DONE ON MEASUREMENTS IN SWEDEN?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Newsflash go review your scientific method and the errror of causality ie as John Lott I do believe put it ” . . . lots of people die in hospitals therefore hospitals casue death”
Just reading those first two statements wow *Drinks a shot but damn can’t it’s still during the day during a week day*
Oh and basing fairly common social / moral / political issues on statistically insignificant genetic mutations isn’t smart:
OMG! there is a genetic mutation that causes me to grow hair all over my body I need a special law
OMG! By the Ruinous Powers taint I have a third eye and a tentacle for an arm now and the Black Templars are after me!