Is Gender For Real?

To be unexpectedly honest, my own gender identity has seemed unclear for most of my life until about ten days ago. This is the first time I can remember that I have ever definitely felt that I was female, and just typing that sentence feels amazing. All my life I've been learning about gender and wondering why it is that I never could find that sense within myself, and now that I sense it, it seems quite different than I had expected.
` There are many reasons why this should not surprise anyone: Part of this is due to nature -- my more masculine brain development due to Asperger's -- but probably most of it is because of the way I was treated for most of my life. To start with, I was raised as a subhuman, as though my mind nor health were not valid considerations, yet acting "like a girl" and pretending that nothing's wrong was vital to existence.
` My dad told me that women are property, and that I would grow up to be a drug-addicted whore. Both my parents said that the tortuously agonizing symptoms of the potentially lethal chronic infection in my uterus were normal, that I was faking my fever and inability to move for days, that I'd have to endure this until middle age, and would be punished if I told a doctor. (When I did tell a doctor, at age 20, he refused to acknowledge my symptoms, and injured my genitals, which hurt so badly I couldn't sit right for years.)
` On top of that, the injuries I sustained in childhood which I was not permitted to see a doctor about gradually twisted my body and caused my lower back and glutes to atrophy. Some of the pain and disabilities this caused were interpreted as me "being bad", or "unladylike", and others were considered a part of "being female" because women are so weak that they're severely disabled, right?

I really, really didn't want to live as what I was told was 'female', and felt ashamed of being one: How could women be so stupid as to accept this as a desirable fate?
` Throughout my life, my sense of gender has been ground into oblivion due to brutal physical, sexual, medical, and emotional abuse and torture. I have been focusing on and pursuing my sense of humanity, but it was only recently that I discovered a sense of gender within me as well.
` This has happened as I've been recovering from a neurologically and physiologically rough time -- more on that in another post -- and I am more determined than ever to pursue writing, science, art, music, and everything that makes me more me-like. In so doing, I have written a sizeable chunk of text which is perfect for copying and pasting here.
` It is actually a comment I left for a YouTube video by user Black Pigeon Speaks, who condescendingly argues that the psychological and medical community in general is just plain wrong about the existence of gender, and that the real solution for transgender people is to give them antipsychotics.
` Never mind that locking up transgender individuals and giving them antipsychotics against their will used to be the norm, and still happens in some parts of the world, despite the fact that it doesn't work and is extremely psychologically damaging.

I don't normally watch such videos, and likely because of that I don't normally leave blog post-sized comments, but... I was compelled to make an exception. I've met/known a lot of transgender people in my life and have found that they are just normal people who want to be accepted as who they are.
` Since Black Pigeon gave the impression that people who oppose his views are ignorant of science and blinded by self-righteousness, I left a thoughtful and science-based comment that is certainly good enough to cut and paste here, with a small amount of editing, and some added stuff [in brackets], so here goes...

[The video opens comparing Bruce Jenner and how "the controlled media fawns over his feminine beauty..." with some very different people: First is Jewel Shuping, who apparently identifies as 'blind' and had a psychologist pour drain cleaner in her eyes, which slowly dissolved them.
` This is a case of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, something I also used to compare to transgender, but then I realized that there is an important difference: It is healthy to be a woman or a man. It is not so healthy to be missing eyes, limbs, ears, etc, but some people feel the need, perhaps because the person's brain is unable to connect their entire body to their sense of identity.
` Then we have Nano from Norway who identifies as a cat. This may be called species dysphoria. I don't know much about it, but I do understand that many people feel this way, and usually hide it. These people claim they can feel they have a physical form that doesn't match reality, so that it seems they are disconnected from their actual body.
` Personally, I experience mirror touch synesthesia, which means that you can feel what's going on with other people's bodies in your own body, and I am also able to feel that I am the shape of the animal I am looking at. When I see a dog wagging its tail, I can feel some simulation of the same tail projecting out of my own body at the same time. Watching a bird fly, I feel like I'm doing the same. So, I know it is possible to feel this sort of thing, without being psychotic, but there doesn't seem to be any biological explanation thus far.
` Stefonknee Wolscht, is someone who was charged with assault and threats, and his family left him. He claims he identifies as a six year old girl, and was fired from position in transgender work for having narcissism issues. I did some reading on on him/her and have found they have a lot of mental issues, and may not even be transgender after all. While I think that Bruce Jenner deserves adulation, this Stefonknee person does not impress me.
` And now for my comment:]

I will preface this by saying I know someone who was forced to go from male to female sex change AS AN INFANT. He also identifies as male despite being forced to live as a female and doctors telling him there is nothing wrong with his genitals until he looked at photos on the internet and confronted the doctors, who admitted to lying to him his whole life. There was actually a conspiracy to keep him ignorant.

` It is normal for boys who lose their penises at an early age, are born without them, or declared having too small a penis according to an arbitrary ruler, and given sex reassignment, to also identify as male. Same with baby girls operated on to look male. So, gender is an inherent feeling, otherwise the sex-changed boys would believe they were girls, and vice-versa, right?

` This is a well-established biological and psychological fact from many decades of research, and I even learned a lot about it in college psych. [For example, the famous quasi-experimental case of Bruce/Brenda, who had an identical twin who did not lose his penis.]

I would also like to mention I have extensive experience interacting with and even living with transgender people, and have learned a lot in the process.

Claim in this video: Trans folk are generally concerned with wanting to remove and/or change their genitals.

Sort of, but not quite: Transgender people are most concerned with outward gender presentation. About 20% of them have no desire for genital surgery.

[Black Pigeon then calls people who support transgender rights 'vacuous' and tells them that while they are "basking in your own self-righteous congratulatory progressive indignation, hear me out, which I understand will be hard." Actually, this is quite easy for me:]

Claim: It is an illness, not an identity, according to Paul McHugh. [Gender is not his area of expertise at all, nor the subject of his peer-reviewed papers, but he uses his former affiliation with Johns-Hopkins as a platform to spout his conservative agenda.] He is considered a crank who opposes the judgment of every major medical association. Some reasons will become apparent as this comment turns into a blog post:

The supposed 80% figure of transgender kids not being transgender isn't actually true:

` The 80% figure is looking at all "gender nonconforming" kids (including tomboys, gay boys, etc.) and finding that 80% of THOSE kids are not transgender.

` Zucker and Bradley, the authors of a 1995 study showing this wrote that it was rare for children brought to gender clinics to actually CLAIM to be transgender:

` Instead, you may get a girl who sometimes wishes she was a boy. That is not the same as claiming to actually be a boy.

` Over 90% of the kids declared themselves to be their natal sex. The ones who actually said they were the opposite gender usually do turn out transgender later in life.

[You are definitely right to criticize doctors for giving sex change surgeries to 12 and 15 year-olds, especially since it may not be the right move.] Doctors don't do medical interventions with prepubescent children, and in my opinion, truly trans kids shouldn't be allowed to have surgery -- especially 'bottom' surgery -- until age 18.

` Many such people don't have any medical procedures at all, even if they started to transition before puberty.

I have never heard of parents pushing their kids to be transgender, or kids thinking it would be a fun experiment for themselves. I have heard of kids killing themselves because their parents did not accept them as transgender.

` Many people who knew they were transgender since an early age have spent years of agonizing therapy to convince them that they aren't. It works about as well as gay conversion therapy -- not at all. It is only damaging.

As for the Swedish long-term follow-up study, it only mentions the depression and suicidality of people AFTER transitioning. [They concluded that although sex reassignment alleviated gender dysphoria, the patients may need better additional care (link to Dhejne 2011).] It does not compare their mental health from BEFORE. And mental health from before is generally a lot worse, as we shall see.

` As hundreds of studies show, transgender people do have more mental health issues, a lot of it is due to being treated badly by people who believe the kinds of things in this video, or worse, that they are of the devil, etc. The exact same thing is true of homosexuals.

` By the way, this study also showed that only 2.2% of the 767 people regretted transitioning.

[Claim: That there are "Pharmacotherapy studies that are 20 years old," showing the success of an antipsychotic drug to treat transgender people. Not true at all:]

The Pimozide case study: ONE man with mental issues, who was determined as delusional, possibly schizophrenic, stops wanting to be a woman when taking a high enough dose of this antipsychotic.

` The fact is that in decades past, (and even now in some places), transgender people were locked up and forced to take antipsychotics. It does not work. It is as futile and damaging as chemical castration for homosexuality.

` As for transgender people who actually need to take antipsychotics, and do, it does not affect their gender identity.

` As for that one Pimozide guy, he was not transgender and had "no insight into what a sex change would entail in practice." according to authors Puri and Singh. [They concluded that "pharmacotherapy with pimozide should be considered in cases of doubtful gender dysphoria." The key word is 'doubtful'. (Puri 1996.)]

This case study, and some similar anecdotes mentioned in the literature, are meant to show how important it is to recognize delusions in gender clinics. [Note: They are actually quite rare.]

` You say this study is a secret, but actually it is highly relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria. it is cited in many papers, including Byne 2012, 'Report of the APA Task Force on treatment of gender identity disorder'.

[The video's narrator makes a big deal out of having never heard of it, but it is one of the important things doctors learn when they work with transgendered people.]

[Next up, Black Pigeon is worried that kids watching Jazz Jenning's TV show will follow her into "the very real and very permanent body solution to a temporary and treatable mental illness." This is kind of like saying that gays are trying to recruit our children. You can't make someone transgender any more than you can make them gay.]

It is interesting that you worry about kids being forced into genital surgeries (plural, as sex changes require multiple genital surgeries), yet you [almost] seem to think that transgender people competing in the Olympics should be forced to do this in order to compete.

You are worried about transgender people serving openly in the military? People used to argue that gays shouldn't be allowed because of their high suicide rates, etc. And gays kill themselves more because they are hated more. Same with transgender people, they are not inherently more likely to have mental health issues, it is the way they are treated. [There's even a Wikipedia page on LGBT youth suicide with many references.]

[Another claim, that Sex Change Regret.com "might help you understand why suicide rates among these people are so astronomical." Oh, FFS. Sex change regret is somewhere under 4%, and it doesn't have much to do with suicide rates, which are much higher. According to Virupaksha 2016,

"The suicide attempt rate among transgender persons ranges from 32% to 50% across the countries. Gender-based victimization, discrimination, bullying, violence, being rejected by the family, friends, and community; harassment by intimate partner, family members, police and public; discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system are the major risk factors that influence the suicidal behavior among transgender persons."]

You cite a statement by the American College of Pediatricians, which is a politically-motivated fringe minority group of about 100 people or so.

` The ACP formed because they believe "the basic mother-father family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development." They even released a statement claiming that Gardasil may possibly cause 'ovarian dysfunction.'

` Their statement on Gender Dysphoria says there is no gender, only biological sex. Tell that to the boys without penises, like my friend. When he was two, he complained to his mom that she put him in a dress, the wrong clothes for a boy. He has never NOT identified as a boy. Being raised as a girl did not fool him, nor other children in that kind of situation.

` Interestingly, the statement also cites the American Psychological Association's Gender Dysphoria Fact Sheet which contradicts what they are trying to say, but they cite it anyway, hoping no one will notice.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, a major organization, has found (2016, Pediatrics) that prepubescent transgender children who are allowed to change their name, pronouns, hairstyle and clothing had normal levels of depression and only slightly higher anxiety compared to their peers. Transgender children not allowed to do this have significantly more problems.

There are literally hundreds of studies involving tens of thousands of transgender people, properly diagnosed, showing the best treatment is transitioning. The entire body of scientific literature, collectively, shows it improves quality of life, and reduces psychological issues, depression, anxiety, stress, and those really high suicidal tendencies.

` This is recognized by most major medical organizations as the most effective treatment for gender dysphoria. It is not always the right decision (especially when the person turns out not to be transgender after all), but even for those unfortunate few, they usually recognize it works for others.

Denying that people can be transgender is like denying that people can be gay. Or animals: there are so many species of animals displaying homosexual tendencies, you can't give them medical treatment to make them stop, either.

` There are hardwired parts of our brains which tell us important facts about what we should be like and who we should have sex with. Sometimes these circuits seem to be for the opposite sex. Denying that this happens, saying it is all a delusion, is extremely dehumanizing. It is a permanent part of the brain, and there is not a single case of drugs or anything else being able to change it.

` Denying this is denying reality, not helping anyone. Trying to convince a transgender person that they are psychotic is about the most damaging thing you can do. It's called gaslighting.

One more thing: intersex people. They are physically both male and female, and because of this, are usually forced to have sex reassignment surgeries as infants or young children, destroying their sex organs. This was the case of my friend, whose testicles and entire penis were removed and discarded.
` His empty scrotum was made into something that he believed was a clitoris and labia, although later on he realized they were extremely malformed. He was declared a success story of someone who believed themselves female. Meanwhile he came to learn about transgender people and thought he was one of them, until he found the truth.

If intersex people are both physically male and female, how are they SUPPOSED to identify? Some identify as male, some female, some both or not either.

` I suggest watching such documentaries as Intersexion on YouTube for more people talking about how their genitals were mutilated as kids because other people would not accept them as the way they were born. Or, they were not sex-reassigned and they are glad no one forced them.

It is normal to be female, it is normal to be male. And with intersex people, they are physically both. Are the male parts abnormal, or the female parts? Being a combination of these two normal variants is not usually in itself unhealthy, so they can be perfectly healthy the way they are.

` This dehumanizing idea that their existence needs to be denied and covered up is just more gaslighting.

These people (1-2% of births) are not sick and they don't need surgery just because their very existence makes some people uncomfortable. (Interestingly, Paul McHugh seems to disagree, although I am not able to get enough information about his opinion on this.)

If gay people and intersex people can be perfectly healthy just like anyone else, why not transgender?

[Black Pigeon says; "And if you still think that people are transphobic for not being comfortable with these procedures, or are so firm in your progressive credentials to even attempt to reconsider your ideology, then it might not be that you are a champion of human rights, but a blind automaton lacking empathy and a heart, and choosing ideology over reality."
` He admonishes us to "Recognize it as the self-harm... as society does with anorexics or with people that cut themselves. In fact, gelding a man to help him with his mental illness is like giving people with suicidal tendencies, but are seeking help, a gun, a pen, and a piece of paper to write their goodbyes."
` I can't say I have ever been comfortable with sex change operations, especially because of my own history with surgery. I don't like it when people send me photos of ANY surgery right after getting it done, partly because of the mirror touch synesthesia. I even cautioned one transgender person, who I was not at the time sure whether they were transgender or not, to make sure it's what they really want. But, I would not tell a real transgender person what to do because it is none of my business.
` I don't affiliate myself with political parties or ideology because I prefer the compass of science and also my own experience in life, when applicable, to tell me what is real. Transgender people are for real, and saying that they are sick and giving them antipsychotics used to be the norm. That has only resulted in cruelty, not success, as decades of research as shown. Suggesting that our culture go back to this way of regarding trans people completely ignores this fact.]

In conclusion, the facts in this video are lacking, but the graphics and editing are nice.

By the way, I am not some bleeding-heart liberal, but I do also very well understand gaslighting from being gaslighted my entire life, almost to death many times.

[I almost added this: I was even gaslighted to believe that I was not really physically disabled with chronic health problems and pain for about 20 years of my life, when I learned that my feelings of pain and extreme weakness 3 years into physical therapy, were actually real.
` I have already made some videos about such gaslighting, especially about an incident where I was actually tortured and thrown in a mental institution because the abusive, misogynistic doctor in the ER happened to already know me and secretly think I was crazy. I had no real sympathy from my Mom and 'boyfriend', who blamed me and prevented me from getting help, and next I want to make videos of how I have escaped the psychological traps.]

Now, I bet I left you wondering, what did it feel like when I discovered my own gender identity? I can tell you that the emotions and associations that the word 'female' conjures up are very different from my gender perception. When I focus on it, I see a small, round, yellow object with blue and orange highlights, I see and feel blue strings holding me together, and I can almost taste something like tangy candy.
` I don't know why it seems this way to me, perhaps it has something to do with synesthesia? I also imagine that if my gender identity were male, I would probably see a small, red object with green and purple highlights, which would have a slightly different 'taste'. Neither is 'better' than the other, just different.
` But since I do have a female body, I feel a sense of congruence, that it is one of the parts of my mind which holds me together and tells me that everything is fine. I imagine it has always been there, but since my perception of the word 'female' has long been programmed into my mind to remind me of a snarling face yelling "SH**!!", I didn't make any association. Much like the chronic pain and musculoskeletal issues I lived with for decades but did not understand how to interpret until 2015.

This feeling of 'femaleness' reminds me of female animals in general, not just humans. What that has to do with colors, or string, or candy, I don't know. How can I even tell what it is? It just seems obvious, now that I recognize it. It seems to be a solid part of my identity, always has been, and it is not going to go away.
` I feel that I am free, that no one owns me. That I can be who I am and what I want to be. It is a most validating experience, unity and certainty at last. Before this, I imagined that if I magically woke up tomorrow as a man, then it would be a fine new adventure for me, but awkward for everyone else. Now that I feel the link between my identity and my biological sex, I would prefer to get to know myself better and enjoy this sense of connection for at least a few years before any fantastical meddling took place.
` And then? A serious inner look into this situation reveals that I would probably want to be perceived as a woman. Sure, it would be fun to be seen as something different, but not all the time. Knowing me, I doubt I would want surgery, and would probably enjoy playing with my male anatomy, even if I also had to get used to protecting it.
` However, I prefer the body I've spent so many years rehabilitating, thank you very much! Besides, if I want to feel that I have a man's body, all I have to do is look at one. It's really not that difficult for me.

To conclude: The most important thing in life I have learned about gender and sex is that they have absolutely no bearing on your worth as a human being. They do add value to your life, but remember, no matter how big a deal people make out of them, they don't make you any more or less valuable than anyone else.