Death of the West: Our Sexual Identity Crisis

By Selwyn Duke

Perhaps you’ve heard the tragic story of David Reimer.  Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1966, David was the victim of a botched circumcision that left his penis charred beyond surgical repair.  His parents Ron and Janet, no doubt beside themselves, were confused about the best way to proceed.  Then, one day, they saw a man named Dr. John Money on television.

Money was talking about his theory of “gender neutrality,” which states that “gender identity” is learned rather than innate.  The idea was that the sexes were the same except for the superficial physical differences; this implies that if a child were altered so as to superficially resemble the opposite sex and was raised as one of its members, he would be happy with that sexual identity.  Hearing this, the Reimers hoped they had found their salvation.

They took their boy to Money, who told them that their son’s penis could not be restored and that he stood a much better chance of living a happy life if “sex-reassignment surgery” (in reality, reassigning sex is about as possible as reassigning species) were performed and he was raised as a girl.  The Reimers agreed, and the surgery was performed when the boy, who would be named “Brenda,” was 22 months old.

In reality, the kindest way to describe Money’s theory is fanciful.  His idea of “gender neutrality” was still in vogue when I was a youth, and “vogue,” in the most frivolous sense, is the correct term.  It was always more style than science; it was something that I, even as a teen, knew was bunk.  Yet who would listen to people such as me?  We were old-fashioned, behind the times.  And it didn’t matter that Money was Alfred Kinsey redux and believed pedophilia was lovely if it was for “love.” It didn’t matter that David and his twin brother, Brian, said that Money sexually abused them during photo shoots.  He was a “doctor,” a Ph.D. on the cutting edge of a brave new world.

Only, David (“Brenda” at the time) wanted nothing to do with that world.  Although he was never told he was a boy, had been surgically altered, was dressed and raised as a girl and was regularly seeing Money for therapy, he resisted his “gender assignment” from the outset.  He acted like a boy, played with boys’ toys and objected to seeing Money from the age of seven.  It wasn’t going well — and it wouldn’t end well.

At the age of 14, in a rare commendable act of teen rebellion, David threatened suicide if he were forced to continue with Money’s prescriptions.  This prompted his parents to finally tell him the truth about his condition.  With his eyes opened, he then replaced his estrogen treatments with male hormone therapy, took the name “David,” started living as a boy, underwent reconstructive genital surgery and later married a woman who already had children.  Yet the damage had been done.  His tormented life which began in such a tragic way came to a tragic end: he did commit suicide, at the age of 38.

Dr. Money, too, is now dead.  Yet he died with his ideological boots on; not only did he fail to repent, he fraudulently portrayed David’s case — the one for which he was most famous — as a success for years after its failure was obvious.  This, and his refusal to ever own up to the failure, only increased the chances that other children would be thus scarred.

As a testimonial to how quickly fashions pass away, Money’s theory has joined him in the grave.  The stake through its heart came in the 1990s, with brain research and an improved understanding of intrauterine development proving conclusively that the sexes are different even within the womb and the skull.  These new findings expressing old wisdom were related as revelation, reflecting the idea that nothing is truly valid until vindicated by “science.”  So there was no collective mea culpa from the psychological establishment for clouding reality and misleading generations of naïve parents.  They just continued without missing a beat, as if it were a matter no more significant than recommending the wrong size shoes for the kids.  Worse still, they have now moved on to their next mistake.

We have heard about the curious case of Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African runner who has been competing as a woman.  Semenya has become the focus of suspicion (I’ll use masculine pronouns, as I’m convinced this individual is a boy who experienced abnormal intrauterine development) because of his masculine physique, deep voice, development of facial hair, male mannerisms and the fact that he has been winning races by wide margins.  As a result, a battery of medical exams to determine his true sex has been conducted, although the results have not been officially released.  Yet the real story here is not what investigation may tell us about Semenya.  It is what our reaction to Semenya tells us about ourselves.

This is reflected in comments found throughout the Internet.  For instance, consider “JimBob” posting under this Daily Mail piece, who said,   

“Why is everyone talking about genetics? What about Caster's own mind - if she believes within herself that she's female, then she is.”

Echoing this sentiment here, “Green Is Good” wrote,

“SHE identifies HERself as a female. Done.”

Then, back to the Mail, “Livio” opined,

“This is a clear case of gender identity discrimination. What if she is a man who identifies himself as a woman?”

That’s interesting.  What if you’re a lunkhead who identifies himself as intelligent?

Yet it isn’t sufficient to just dismiss this with sarcasm, as this isn’t the rambling of only a few twisted minds. 

What these posters are expressing is the handiwork of today’s Dr. Moneys, “transgender” theory.  This is the idea that your “gender” can be whatever you want it to be — male, female, both male and female or neither, etc. — that it isn’t limited by biology.  If you have a problem with this, bravo, but then you should have a problem with the word “gender” itself.  Why?  Because its current usage (it used to apply only to words) was originated by people such as Money for the purposes of facilitating the relation of their theories.  Understand that while many people use “gender” as a synonym for “sex,” that is not its social sciences definition, which dictates that it refers to social rather than biological differences.  Yet people love to use this and other elements of the lexicon of the left.  It’s a fascinating phenomenon.  If you replace a simple, one-syllable word such as “poor” or “sex” with impressive sounding terms such as “underprivileged” or “gender” for ideological reasons, people, oblivious to the underlying agenda and wishing to sound sophisticated, will glom onto them.  You see, simpletons, who are relatively rare, prefer simple words.  And the only other group that does is rarer still: true intellectuals.  But I digress.         

So, returning to Semenya, many people express the shocking idea that his actual sex should have no bearing on whether he should be allowed to compete with women.  It’s that modern phenomenon — image is everything, reality is negotiable.

This notion has so taken hold that we’ve recently heard of two stories out of Britain wherein young boys, ages 12 and 9, showed up in school earlier this month as “girls,” sporting girls’ clothing and ponytails and bearing feminine names.  And the schools are kowtowing to them, telling other pupils that they’ll be punished if they don’t handle the “sex change” “sensitively.”  Yet sensitivity is not for the other children, who are upset and confused.  In just the way that David Reimer’s body was mutilated in deference to yesterday’s latest theory, their minds must be mutilated in deference to today’s. 

Now, even if someone subscribes to “transgender” theory, it is striking that he would allow a child who is too young to decide to have sex decide what sex he should be.  How did we get to this point?

These parents, like Ron and Janet Reimer before them, are listening to the respected social scientists of their day.  These “experts” tell them that there is something called “gender dysphoria,” which is the persistent feeling that one is a member of one sex trapped in the body of the other.  It’s enough to convince many parents, such as those of German Tim Petras, who received female hormone “treatments” at age 12 and now goes by the name of Kim.  Yet on what basis is this diagnosis really made?

Feelings.

It is truly reflective of this age, where relativism has obviated reason.  That is to say, if there are no absolutes, no Truth to use as a yardstick for judging among feelings, the feelings themselves become the ultimate arbiter.  Then, of course, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a Fig Newton if it feels like one.

But one of the problems with emotion is that it is by its very nature irrational.  And if anyone would defend an emotion-based diagnosis such as “gender dysphoria,” note that it’s brought to us by the same psycho-babblers who have given us something dubbed “body dysmorphia.”  This is this persistent feeling that a certain body part, such as an arm or leg (or multiple body parts), doesn’t belong on one’s body.  And if you think it isn’t taken seriously, know that doctors have amputated healthy limbs on this basis.

Be shocked — that is, unless you accept “gender dysphoria” as legitimate.  Then you’d better be introspective.  For what is the difference?  Why would you accept the emotion-based diagnosis of gender dysphoria but not the emotion-based one of body dysmorphia?  Why are the feelings of those who suffer from the latter invalid but the feelings of those who suffer from the former a credible arbiter?  Both groups have persistent feelings that their bodies aren’t as they should be.  Both groups cannot bear to live in their bodies as they are.  Both groups want to have their bodies altered.  And both groups have found “experts” willing to put them under the knife.  Sure, it strikes us as the most horrid malpractice when a doctor amputates healthy body parts, such as a pair of legs.  But, then, should we view it any less dimly simply because those healthy body parts are between the legs?

Lamentably, today the answer is often yes, and this speaks volumes about our society.  That is, we’ve all heard that old stereotype of a lunatic, the guy in an asylum who thinks he is Napoleon.  Now the asylums have largely been emptied, and I think I know why: we’ve turned the outside world into an asylum.  What was once only acceptable to a small group within the scariest of walls — detachment from reality — has now been mainstreamed.  You can be a man who thinks he is a woman, yet no straitjacket is slapped on you.  It is slapped on the mouths of those who dare say self-image isn’t reality.

And that is the point: there is something called reality.  When feelings tell one he is, or should be, something he is not or shouldn’t be — a girl, a legless man or Napoleon — the sane conclusion is that you’re confronted with a psychological problem, not a physical one.  It may be intractable, and it is certainly easier to mutilate the body than cure the mind.  But you cannot mutilate reality, only obscure it.  If a man loses his genitalia in an accident, does he cease to be male?  Or, if “gender” is a continuum as today’s Moneys say, is he less male?  Did David Reimer cease to be a boy because he was mutilated and given estrogen against his will?  Of course, the “experts” would say the answer is no, since he never saw himself as a girl.  Again, though, feelings cannot be the arbiters of reality.  After all, I may have hypertrichosis like Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, undergo operations to create a snout, paws and a tail, howl under the moonlight and change my name to Spot.  Yet am I sane if I call myself a different species?

So what are we to conclude about “gender” science?  Decades ago its “experts” said society could turn your boy into a girl if it felt like it; now they say he can turn himself into a girl if he feels like it.  Is it just a coincidence that Dr. Money’s “gender neutrality” theory accorded with his day’s feminist claim that sex roles should be discarded because the sexes are essentially the same?  Is it just a coincidence that the current “transgender” theory accords with our day’s homosexual claim that sex roles should be discarded because everyone and his values are essentially different?  It is at all possible that these theories have less to do with sound science than the spirit of the age?     

We have gone from the proposition that “gender” can be whatever society says it is to the proposition that it can be whatever the individual says it is without ever stopping to wonder if the second idea is just a crank like the first.  But most won’t wonder because today we place more faith in doctors than doctrine, and today’s doctors say that eternal common sense and yesterday’s doctors’ nonsense are wrong.  Yet the most significant thing that distinguishes them from Dr. John Money is that they are still alive — and their theory is not yet dead.

                        © 2009 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved

Comments

[yoyo]

hang on you have just contradicted yourself, starting from the reasonable premise that intersex is a complex phenomenum you agree with modern thinking that in the case of situation where gender is ambiguous it is always appropriate to wait and see what is right for the child. from there you ignore the fact that the poor south african runner humiliated by the world and used b y her own sporting body is not to get the same concern. She has vestigal male gonads (internal) and external female genitalia. Like the vast majority of female runners her testoerone level is extremely high and she doesn't menstruate. Yet according to some convoluted reasoning of your own, perhaps shaped by god bothering you see her claim to be female as less than the boy with the damaged penis has to be male.

The business about changes in psych theory is a total red herring (being gay was a pathology until 20 years ago and a friend of mine had shock therapy to make him straight, needless to say it worked as well as Haggards aversion christian therapy).

Which homosexual sex roles are you talking about by the way, the camp swishy man who likes fashion, or the rugged muscle man, the lipstick dyke or the diesel dyke, the family gay or the closetted park sex gay. You are speaking through your fundament. Which hetrosexual roles are being usurped (as if they could be!)? those of the stepfordwives, those of the henpecked man, the swinging batchelor, the single man with a thing for his mum? Human sexuality is a fluid complex thing, like religion it should be practiced in private and kept away from kids(LOL).

Intersex and gender is a different complex issue. approx 3.6% of the population have a combination of factors that preclude easy charachterisation. it is nice to know you feel free to use these people to push your religious/fundamentalist view of the world rather than listening to what they might need. I hope one never needs your help or that of your church.

[Walt]

Yoyo,

Please watch the piece about the people who feel their limbs are un-natural. I would love to hear your relativistic view on that as well.

From the article- "And if you think it isn’t taken seriously, know that doctors have amputated healthy limbs on this basis.”

What is funny here is leftists put sooooo much credence into psychology and "mental disorders," it seems everyone has one if they want one. I have one but I am not sure the dysfunction is named yet. You see my pinky toe has a very small nail (maybe 1/8 inch) I fear wearing sandals. I suppose you could call it Lesser Podiatal Digit Eponychium Dysphoria.

Anyhow why does the left mind accept so many psychosomatic disorders as fact yet call sex confusion normal?

1

[Bad Hair Days]

Why do you think David did know exactly what his sex was? His body as he could see it was all female.
He did know because this is imprinted in the brain. Same goes with transsexuals. You know, I have an old Porsche everyone thinks is an Ferrari. Am I insane because I know what it is and not what everyone seems to think it is? Brand Identity Disordered?

[Dale]

You know we all have to play the hand we are dealt, and trying to make ourselves into something we were physically not born to be does not seem like the best way to play that hand. Let me just ask one question, what do you all really think, down deep inside, about parents who would dress their 9 and 12 year old little boys up like girls and send them to school? Come on, you don’t really believe that you can reassign sex like that do you? Or to put it another way, what do you think normal parents would do? Just asking...

[yoyo]

Walt have you NEVER heard of intersex? it is not a mental condition or a pyschological condition although it does have impacts on both areas, it is a range of conditions from xxy, to xxyy to hormal effects in the womb that supress penis and teste development etc etc.

Secondly the PSYCHOLOGICAL condition where people want to remove healthy limbs is tragic, it is part of that spectrum of body dismorphias including anorexia. We have not yet developed very effective treatments even for the common anorexia, it has a death rate of above 10%. I can understand doctors choosing to remove limbs rather than let the person chainsaw it off or freeze it off (as i have read in an english case). However it is done extremely rarely and after massive attempts to persuade the person not to go ahead with it. One day we may have better treatments for all these conditions but in the meantime i'm glad I'm not a self satisfied rightwinger who thinks they should all buck up or join a freakshow. Afterall your god made them the way they are presumably.

[yoyo]

That was hormonal of course not hormal sorry.

[Bad Hair Days]

> You know we all have to play the hand we are dealt, and trying to make ourselves into something we were physically not born to be does not seem like the best way to play that hand.

So no more treatmend for cleft palate, or fixing of limb defects where possible.

> Come on, you don’t really believe that you can reassign sex like that do you?

Noone can change sex. Its inborn and in the brain. If the rest of the body looks otherwisem its a medical necessity to adjust that. Its making sex congruent.

> what do you all really think, down deep inside, about parents who would dress their 9 and 12 year old little boys up like girls and send them to school?

It actually happens quite a lot to transsexual boys. And its a shame. But I think you just formulated your question badly and it should go like this:

> what do you all really think, down deep inside, about parents who help their girl though all the pressures and allows them timely help and sent them to school as who they are?

They are heros in a world where mindsets like yours exist. Sending a child through a wrong puberty (which will ultimatly follows ignoring the childrens health issues) is mayham. One nearly every living transsexual person had to survive (while many didn't)

[yoyo]

Bad hair days, unfortunately you are arguing in good faith but the main people here have christian blinkers on, that coupled with the idea that transexuals are somehow cheating means they do not want to really acknowlege the pain that people with these issues face when they are told to buck up and shut up (coupled with the "you make baby jeebus cry"). I worked with a man who struggled all his life to be a traditional male, including marrying and having 2 children, it was only in his forties that he was finally able to make the transition to "femalehood". it was never a corrupt mad sex drive, he truly suffered his whole life because he felt wrong. No one would give up their job, their place in society and often their family, spend a stack of money, go through painful

[yoyo]

opperation, on a whim.

[Bad Hair Days]

I don't see how christian faith is a backround to torture people. Especially people with transsexual or intersexual conditions. The book christians use to consult has some mentioning of transsexual and intersexual people. And none of it invalidates them.

Shurely the exact wording is not used and you need a little backround to see it. Before the time modern medical help was available, the only way to help transsexual women was by castration to stop further masculization (its still done that way in India for example). By that time, no such help for transsexual men was available.

The first mention is here:
Deuteronomy 23
Those Excluded from the Congregation
1 “He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.

(like other women by the way)

While the treatment was not so common Isaiah cleared the path for those foreigners immigrating:

Isaiah 56
Salvation for the Gentiles
1 Thus says the LORD:

“ Keep justice, and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come,
And My righteousness to be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who lays hold on it;
Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
3 Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the LORD
Speak, saying,

“ The LORD has utterly separated me from His people”;
Nor let the eunuch say,

“ Here I am, a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the LORD:

“ To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
5 Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them[a] an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.

The name seems to be forgoten, but a little research points to: "toom toom"

The existence of people without a clear sex raised questions of marriage like its sometimes heard nowadays, so Jesus said something on the topic.

Matthew 19:12

12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage[a]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

Footnotes:

1. Matthew 19:12 Or have made themselves eunuchs

A bit later there is a story of an eunuch in Acts 8

Christ Is Preached to an Ethiopian

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
And who will declare His generation?
For His life is taken from the earth.”[b]

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”[c]
38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

About cheating: The joke is on the person asuming the cheating, when they think there is a man when they have a women with a medical history in front of them or otherwise arround. My old Porsche was never really a Ferrari, even if its shiny red and has an unusual placement of the engine for a Porsche.
While this ever evolving mistake about my car is the source of a lot of fun and laughter, the assumption of a wrong sex leads to abuse and even deaths, and with a lot of victim blaming when some people asume that not revealing a medical history is some kind of rape because the other person was tricked into same sex (that was sometimes heard in the discussion about the killing of Angie Zapata.

[Walt]

Yoyo,

I am full aware of the xxy and the xxyy mutations. Quite simply in typical left fashion you take the most extremely rare condition or circumstance and wish to apply it to the entire scenario...like the old abortion defense, "what about cases of rape an incest or safety of the mother." Which accounts for a very small percent of the total child murders BTW. In this case you use the xxy and the xxyy disorder to excuse all gender confusion. Most gays do not have this disorder; they have simply been encouraged to be gay by their parents, friends, and school teachers or as a desperate attempt for attention. Of course there are many excuses gays have given for their condition but most of them just say they were born that way, when in fact they were born physically intact as a specific gender; so the disorder is not physical it is mental. Behavior outside of natural behavior is called a disorder or perversion. From your side of the isle you would encourage one with sexual confusion disorder to embrace their condition and run with it. Why not do the same with schizophrenia, ADHD, Bipolar disorder, and other conditions that are considered a disorder but are naturally occurring? (Allegedly) How can one be a disorder and the other not?

As for you she/he athlete with female gonads (or whatever). Why not open another sex class in the Olympics for morphadites? We can call it something more PC if you please but it must be a natural occurring condition to compete.
1

[Bad Hair Days]

> In this case you use the xxy and the xxyy disorder to excuse all gender confusion. Most gays do not have this disorder

There are estimates that that Klinefelters, which means XXY, is about 1:500. And thats just one of the many posibilities of chromosomal disorders.

Yet neither intersexuality (which includes a lot more conditions, like Miss Smeneyas) nor Transsexuality has anything to do with homosexuality.
How comes you draw this conclusion?

By the way. Why am you so fixated on sexuality that you even conflate sex with it? And when it comes to gaybashing from the christians up to the point of denial that this is inborn (pretty much similar causes in terms of hormonal development envirement). Because gays are explicitly damned in the bible? Well yes. But not anymore than sex outside of a marriage and working on sabbath. All of whom should be given a death sentence according to the bible.

The fixation on certain groups on gays says more about the people doing so than their victims.

[Shaun]

In the midst of your ramblings(2nd paragraph) there is a element of truth in what your saying. However, your also isolating a very small group of christians with your statement. Dont get me wrong, nearly every christian I know is against homosexuality...but most are not for "gay bashing" in any sense. Yes fornication and homosexuality are both sins but the reason homosexuality draws such contempt is the destestable culture that always arises around it.

[Dale]

Hay, Bad Hair Days, the “fixation on certain groups on gays” is because they are contently having it shoved their face. And one more thing, having enough common sense not to let your 9 and 12 year old boys go to school dressed up like girls has nothing to do with fixing a cleft palate. The Gay movement does not want us to simply let them be who they are; they want our stamp of approval. They want us to say that the abnormal is normal. I don’t hate gays, in fact if I had my way I wouldn’t think about them at all.

[Bad Hair Days]

The gay movement and the treatment of transsexual children are two entirely different subjects.
You will not let a boy dressed up as a girl into school, but a girl with a penis (which most likely no one will see, by the way). The medical intervention comes later when puberty sets in and hormones must be blocked. With at least sixteen the cleft palate... sorry misgrown sex organs are corrected.
If you say theres nothing common in that, than you badly misguided. And don't tell me that was because of the bible because that says otherwise.

[Dale]

Bad Hair Days, this will be my last reply. Your writing seems really confused. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

1. You will not let a boy dressed up as a girl into school, but a girl with a penis (which most likely no one will see, by the way).

2. The medical intervention comes later when puberty sets in and hormones must be blocked.

3. With at least sixteen the cleft palate... sorry misgrown sex organs are corrected.

The first one is not even a sentence, and the next two are pure gibberish. Please understand, I know that sooner or later everyone mangles a sentence, however, I think this is a case of mangled thinking.

Well I can’t blame you, I asked for it.

PS. That last sentence in your post did't improve things.

[yoyo]

Most gays do not have this disorder; they have simply been encouraged to be gay by their parents, friends, and school teachers or as a desperate attempt for attention. Of course there are many excuses gays have given for their condition but most of them just say they were born that way, when in fact they were born physically intact as a specific gender; so the disorder is not physical it is mental. Behavior outside of natural behavior is called a disorder or perversion.

leaving aside the conflation of homosexuality with transexuality (and earlier with intersex and gender dysmorphia). I am always amazed that there are educated people in the world that hold such wrong headed ideas. Most gay people are not gay because they were encouraged to be gay. Evidence please? Most gay people really struggle with being gay when they become aware of it (usually) during puberty, due to social disapproval. gay people are physically intact (unless they are disabled for some other reason) so that is a bizarre statement. Same sex attraction is natural. It occurs in all cultures and in many species other than humans. "Peversion" should be held for behaviour that hurts self or others, unless you are using it in a distinctly religious way. BTW most Christians I know do not despise homosexuality and or homosexuals.

As for citing rare conditions, I think we had a very early statement about extreme body dismorphia where people reject healthy limbs and comparing that with transexualism.

PS I hate to get into the abortion debate with Evangelicals because it cant ever go anywhere productive. However a)if you are going to use an emotive term like babykilling please define baby. how many cells are we talking about? and b)what are your plans for women who are unwilling to stay pregnant for your point of view? The reason i ask is interest in where on the continuum you sit.

[yoyo]

The first para above was obviously by Walt. (I'm not sure how to do italics in this format)

[Bad Hair Days]

I think the confusion is based on two problems.
First, English is not my mothertounge. I'm sorry if that results in gibberish-

The second is the problem of the definition of a boy. I think we have different definitions of this.

You think a boy is a boy because of visible traits, if shown naked.
I say that the sex of the brain, which is unchangeable, is the one most importent place to determine sex.

Yet the problem with my definition is, you cannot see outright, who is a girl or a boy. This definition is seen as so important that intersexual children are surgically altered to resemble a certain sex - which is not in the interesst of the child and one thing grassroots intersex activism is fighting.

So to repeat your original question:

> what do you all really think, down deep inside, about parents who would dress their 9 and 12 year old little boys up like girls and send them to school?

It would be hell for boys. But transsexual girls are not boys, despite the existence of a penis.
Yet it is exactly what happens to transsexual boys.

I think one further part because you am opposed to it and chalk it up to common sense is that you expect such a child to be mobbed and bullied. Sadly thats very likely. The only thing: It happens either way. There are instinctivs differences in communications, so it happens quite fast that the other boys sense there is something different. (e.g. see http://takingsteps.blogspot.com/2009/03/fair.html )

When puberty starts, the real horror sets in: http://www.lauras-playground.com/horror_films.htm

This is the time to medically help transsexual children. It is important to let the early stages of puberty work. When the sex hormon sets in, some children learn to be comfortable with their body. The puberty can be blocked and delayed until sixteen - to give parents and doctors additional security that the children won't change their mind. Which studies show never happens. Only then the altering (and not mutilating) of the sexual organs happens.

What happens if this help is not given:

The transsexual child goes through the nightmare of a false puberty. Espacially transsexual women are now marked forever, the body changed so much it is impossible to undo that complete.

Many Transsexuals try to cope. They act in Role, try to make them men, e.g. by joining the army, some marry early, try to make themselfs women by giving birth and so on.

Life can go on quite a while but a breakdown ultimatly follows. The body discrepancy never goes away (how should it, its not related to genderroles).

The earlier you give help to a transsexual person, the better their life gets. But even those who have a hard time being recognized in their sex and often seem to look a bit more like men in dresses can life a better and more productive life after treatment. The success of treatment is about 98-99.5%. Comorbidities like deep depression vanishes (which makes it cheaper to tread transsexuality than to deny treatment when it comes to healthcare).

Get the notion out of your head that a transsexual girl is a misguided boy, and that their are social interventions that can make them more comfortable with what you expect her to be.

Shes not the one who is misguided, but the people arround her, who insists she is a boy.

[Dale]

Bad Hair Days, if English is not your mother tongue then I would say you’re doing a lot better than I would in someone else’s language. I might make a suggestion though; use Microsoft Word with spelling and grammar checking. I use it all the time, and like I said this is my native language. Also, one of the side effects is that while you are using it, you are learning and not simply making the same mistakes over and over again.

I still think your thinking is mangled but I now understand you writing problems.
Sincerely, Dale…

[Philip France]

Wow!

All of this dialog without a single soul acknowledging the brilliance and articulate genius of Selwyn’s original article. Selwyn, on behalf of my fellow posters, you wrote one hell of an article and I commend you for your unmatched command of the English language and your enviable ability to articulate your thoughts. I am in utter awe of you and your linguistic skills.

I have read the various comments and I surmise the following:

Walt’s comments are the most cogently expressed.

Yoyo made a persuasive argument, albeit based on her feelings and not on fact.

Bad Hair Day seems to me to be the teacher/educator that I would consider violence to keep my children away from.

And now, my opinion of the article:

I have inserted the tragic case of David Reimer previously in a post at SelwynDuke.com to supplement a previous point. Perhaps that is where Selwyn received his inspiration for writing it, but I doubt it. Selwyn is a brilliant thinker and I am certain that he did not need a push from the likes of me.

To advocate for the “legitimacy” or “normalization” of homosexual behavior is downright wrong. This is still classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-4, as well it should be. Despite what is being promulgated in academic circles, this is learned behavior (thank you, Yoyo). The thought of transexuality is an affront to human logic. It is a violation of the true Hippocratic oath (as ordained by Hippocrates, and not some modern variant thereof).. Doctors who consent to such mutilation should face a criminal tribunal.

Many of you will dismiss my thoughts as that of one who is committed to Biblical and moralistic understandings of right and wrong. Of good and evil. Mea culpa. But consider this: Yoyo was correct in her assertion that Christians and God-believers do not “hate” individuals that have sought to be “victimized” by such beliefs, rather we wish to liberate you from this bondage.

Furthermore, please consider this: It took millennia of microevolution for you to be you. Your uniqueness, your talents, your genes, your value to society. If one were to accept the homosexual/transsexual dogma, all of this ends with your passing. You cannot argue that this is the greatest tragedy of this delusion.

[Bad Hair Days]

> Yoyo was correct in her assertion that Christians and God-believers do not “hate” individuals that have sought to be “victimized” by such beliefs, rather we wish to liberate you from this bondage.

Bondage? The last thing transsexual people like to do is to rub their difference in everybodys face? It works the other way arround if this medical condition is known. If you do not hate transsexual people - why do you want to see them rather dead then treated? Suicide rate under untreated transsexual is as high as 50%. Why want you to force them to lie to you about their condition?

How can anyone point out Moneys mistake with David Reimer which showed that no amount of social and psychological interaction can change ones pereption of one self (which is inborn in the Hypatalamus) and than create an argument out of it that people, espacially children, have to be treated exactly that way?

Thats no sound reasoning.

Nor is yours

>To advocate for the “legitimacy” or “normalization” of homosexual behavior is downright wrong. This is still classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-4, as well it should be. Despite what is being promulgated in academic circles, this is learned behavior (thank you, Yoyo).

Homosexual behavior is not classified as wrong in the DSM IV. Transsexuality is in it to have a Diagnosis for the medical help (yet not in the way you consider right). Both Homosexuality and Brainsex are well proven.

> Bad Hair Day seems to me to be the teacher/educator that I would consider violence to keep my children away from.

On me or the children?