Widespread Trauma and GLBTI/SS&GD conflicts

On an activism mailing list i'm on there was a recent fraccas.

I'm not saying which one and I'm not saying over what.. or at least not the surface whats that are all we usually see.

That conflict gave me an insight. One that should be obvious really but it's the kind that should be obvious but aren't that are usually the most important don't you find?

I've been in my share of battles between ideological positions, internecine conflicts over who is legitimatly this, who is harming who with this label or that term, who is throwing who under the bus and why. For a long time i just couldn't grasp the WHY of a lot of peoples views. Why some HBS supporters have tried so hard to hurt crossdressers. Why some crossdressers have been so homophobic or transphobic towards transsexuals. why so many Cisgender Gays and Lesbians have been so often prepared to leave transgender people out of legislation.

I thought for a time that some articles i read on Internalised Oppression would sufficiently explain this all.. but I was wrong.

I've been dealing with the subject of trauma recently. Dealling with some of my own experiences and those of people close to me. Not the first time but perhaps more successfully lately.

Notions of triggerring, of the explosive emotional distress that can come from something sometimes only reminscent of a traumatic event that need not conatin an iota of the actual threat or actual harm but need only have some reminder sufficient have been something i have become more aware of. It makes total sense, after all a mere waft of a scent can set most of us quite nostalgic and consumed with memories. But we often aren't used to considering the world that way so much so it's not always something we are conciosly mindful of. And of course it can be difficult and sometimes impossible to predict if something may be triggerring to someone even if we know a great deal about the trauma they have experienced because any sense may trigger the memories, feellings and reflexive responses.

We can try and avoid things when we know it'll be triggering for others. We can be there for them when it happens. We can try and hold back our normal emotional responses to their outbursts because we know that it's coming from hurt. And when we face triggerring issues of our own we can try and cope with them, try to not allow them to limit or define our lives, try and learn to defy the reflexes, the fears, the pains, the paralysis, the shrieking terror.

Well i realised that when many people are wronging each other it's coming from a place of hurt. It may be about rejection, lack of fair recognition, ostracism, violence, being sacrificed...
And many people will react to such hurt with their own triggerred reflexes. Hyper-sensitivity from raw exposed nerves, over-reactions because of similarities to past traumas.

Those who are thrown under the bus because another is so terrified of being hurt again or a hurt not ending are themselves likely to also be traumatised. Often associating an entire class with the wrong done them.

Now the internalised oppression i mentioned before is undoubttedly one of the larger sources of trauma. But more than that recognising that many people are traumatised by the discrimination they have faced and will act and react the way a traumatised person will is i think crucial to understanding and in dealing with the bickering and anger and hostility between so much of our myriad interconnected and interdependant communities.

Judging others has become so commonplace in our society especially online that most of the time we don't question it. We happily ban many people for being disruptive, uncaring as to what kind of hurt may be the true origin behind the disruptive behaviour. Yes the net is full of trolls. And the harm they have done to the way we deal with hurting fellow humans is immeasurable.

How callous we have become on one hand that we easilly dissmiss each other as bad, as just plain wrong, as the enemy.. or is it really at heart that they are wounded and that we are wounded, they their anger is a response to past trauma and our coldness to them is our own response to our own trauma?

And isn't this substantially the way many actually want the world to work? That through pain and trauma we will develop reflexive responses? Isn't that how authoritarian thinking works? And what is the motivation of an internet troll? Have we been to quick to dissmiss them as sub-human rather than to wonder what kind of inner pain would cause one person to try and hurt the feellings of others? Or lead someone suppossedly following a faith they believe in as right and true and honourable and all-powerful to descend to trickery deception missrepresentation and outright lies in order to prevent the equal rights of another human being they feel somehow threaten them?

As some studies seem to have confirmed the long held notion of some that most fervent homohobes are themselves to some extent GLB doesn't that really all make sense?

Many in exasperation condemn those who squabble and fight amongst our communities and indeed those fights do often slow our efforts for equality down. But sometimes they have solid valid comp,laints that need to be considered and acknowledged. And each persons reactions from pain can trigger others leading to cascades and avalanches of suffering, lashing out and conflict.

We need to try and learn about each others traumas, as people and groups, so we can try and avoid being unjust by accident or triggering each other. And we need to be patient with over-reactions and triggered pain and reflexive defencive reactions and not exacerbate situations.

And we need to remember people won't always be able to predict what might trigger someone. And if someone goes off i a big way about something that seems unimportant well they may be responding to past pain or they may see something clearly that you've been unaware of. Both are possible even at the same time.

Overcoming bigotry. bias and internalised oppression are not easy. But they are neccessary. And helping each other to do so is neccessary.

That means trying to hold our own reflexes and pain in check, trying to heal our own pain, to not take the seemingly easy and seemingly quick options of quitting of banning of excluding and of anger but instead fighting the disease of passing along pain and instead try the slow but most powerful long-term path of passing along healling.

Fighting over who should be the Stereotype

Another comment elsewhere that works well on it's own. It's from this long discussion in Bilerico where once again the Nomenclature stuff derails another discussion between GLB and TG. The comment goes as follows:

Curious isn't it that when TG-advocates do acknowledge the human right of the seperatists to self-define as not Transgender it goes unremarked, uncelebrated and actually totally unrecognised by the seperatists?

Interesting that isn't it. The CDs here, Lena and myself, have actually acknowledged the seperatists self-defining as not transgender... and the response is silence.
But I've seen this phenomena before... amongst some crossdresser groups and organisations. Exactly the same phenomena.

Their beef is being included under the term 'Gay'. They state it leads everyone to assume drag queens are the norm, that all CDs dress to attract men, that the public image of CDs are excessive over-the-top exaggerated drag and that this causes problems for themselves and for their wives.

So they say "Crossdressers are not Gay" and when it's pointed out "Sure you may not be and many CDs are not but actually some are" they respond "Crossdressers are NOT Gay!" and a common response is "Look, we can't get totally accurate data on proportions but clearly a lot and maybe the majority of MtF CDs are women-atrracted but theres a whole lot of Bi and Male-attracted CDs on this very forum in this discussion too, and what about the FtMs who consider themselves Gay? So isn't it important we acknowledge them too?" their response is "CROSSDRESSERS ARE NOT GAY AND GAY PEOPLE ARE THE REASON WE ARE HATED AND NO-ONE ACCEPTS US. BEING THOUGHT OF AS GAY RUINS OUR LIVES..." Blah blah Blah.

See the problem there is a societal stereotype, not the existence of or acknowledgement of male-attracted MtF CDs. Acknowledging the existence of male-attracted CDs does not really harm female-atracted CDs, the existence of the stereotype is all that does that. The fact is that despite claims of being a small minority the 'gay' CDs and Drag Queens are often the ones with the courage and conviction to be out and also to not be stealth/passing so they are the ones most in the public eye, if more of the complaining CDs were out they would get more recognition in public perception.

Basicly there are other Ethical ways of attacking the stereotype rather than the utterly unethical act of attacking the people who more closely fit the stereotype and trying to invalidate them.
But what do organisations like Tri-Ess and many CD Support Groups do? They marginalise those that transition, ban discussion of hormones and SRS and marginalise Bis and Gays/Lesbians. Some chapters/groups are better than others of course but many are utterly shocking. The reason they give? That having such topics discussed, that allowing transitioning and GLB members to be prominant in any way would scare off spouses and have them turn on their CD husbands.

Surprised about the company seperatists? Your very much alike it seems in that your using the same arguments for what seems to be the exact same reasons. The same piece of algebra but with X being 'classic' rather than 'straight' Y being 'TS' rather than 'CD' and Z being 'TG' rather than 'Gay'.

Attacking one another trying to fight the symptom not the cause, attacking people to try and effect public perception of both, and it seems that it's really fighting over which group gets to BE the stereotype rather than attacking there being a stereotype which could be accomplished by showing, and educating about, the diversity.

See our acknowledging a diversity or difference from a stereotype harms the stereotype, it doesn't acknowledge their claim that they should be the stereotype, and I say this about both 'Straight' crossdresserd and 'classic' transexuals equally. So as its not very useful in the battle to BE the template of the stereotype it seems that acknowledgement of the diversity is not acknowledged. That would reduce the power of the 'see they hate us, they claim we are just like them and hurt us'.

It's not just about the desperate phobic desire to 'not be associated with' 'icky' folk... a homophobia from the 'straight' crossdressers and a non-binary-transphobia from the 'classic' transsexuals, though that seems a big part of it. So maybe it's really a desire to fight to claim to be what the stereotype should be? An all or nothing desire to replace one narrow stereotype in the publics eye with another narrow stereotype and to hell with everyone who strays too far from either stereotype who gets trampled in the way.

There is another way though. One thats issues-based not identity-based. That acknowledges not just ideological justification of needs but a basic right to choose irrespective. One where all the needs of all people can be considered as equally valid and can be fought for not just by those stake-holders effected by it but by anyone capable of reason.
Human Rights Principles.

Self-Identification, Health-Care, Hormone and Surgery-access, Access to Hormone-Blockers for teens, Protection from IS Infant surgery and brutal reparative treatments, protection from discrimination and violence, protection of gender expression, Equal access to all Services from employment to business to bathrooms to marriage to disability to insurance etc... theres overlap between the groups that need these in GLBTIQ, S&GD, Disability, Neuro-atypical and many many more and yet all these are actually covered by the same set of reasons in favour of them ALL.

Human Rights Principles.

Seriously EVERYONE take a look at this http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/
Our rights are NOT mutually exclusive. We DO share these rights, these issues, just on occassion they work in different directions. The right to not be permanantly surgically altered as a child so when old enough to give consent the child can make a choice is the exact same right of a child to not be forced to undergo puberty they do not wish to endure and instead be given hormone blockers till they are old enough to legally give consent to their own choice. The same right solves both a Intersex issue and a transsexual one.

THAT is the way forward, not one ideology winning over another, not one stereotype defeating another, not one group of peoples rights being trampled on in favour of another. That will be a battle that would continue for all human existence. Instead basic universal human rights applied properly solves everyones issues. And Everyone can fight for Everyone Elses Equal Rights!

Missrepresentation of Science and transgender politics

I've blogged on this before but its worth returning to the subject again. One of the things that really annoys me is the increasing level of what appears to be lying in politics, mostly related to the Internecine Nomenclature Conflict (easy answer for that conflict i would have thought: we acknowledge the existence of Cisgender Transsexuals, Cisgender Cissexuals, Transgender Cissexuals and Transgender Transsexuals and move onto the human-rights-issues umbrella term of Sex and Gender Diversity which allows better cooperation with Intersex issues too)

You see despite basic scientific methodology people from several positions are making claims not supported yet by the data as if it were totally conclusive and using that as an attack on others.

What do we have? We have good leads from small studies of small sample sets that transsexuals have several brain differences from averages of their assigned birth sex that are closer to their self-identified sex-identity. Both in structure and in function. One gene so far has been found to be more common amongst TSs too. (Zoe's blog is a great source for this stuff)

But what about non-transsexual transgender? Well they haven't done the same studies on genderqueer, bi-gender, crossdressers etc yet. So as science goes it falls into the realm of 'maybe'. Actually 'maybe but we don't know yet'. That doesn't mean 'no' it doesn't mean 'yes' it means 'maybe'. It means that the simple testable hypothesis that the same or similar related phenomena exist in these others could be tested but hasnt yet and until its tested we dont know. Either way.

Thats plain ordinary scientific method, something I got taught in highschool and I would have thought everyone else would have got taught that too.

So what's the problem? Well some are claiming that the tests done thus far say things they do not. The tests needed to say that crossdressing is not biologically caused have not yet been done, yet some are claiming that because 'there's no evidence' that it is not so... but hang on, the neccessary tests havent been done! To test if the same cause causes both you have to do the same test on both! Not biological tests on one but only psychological tests on the other!

Others are claiming the studies done support only their version of the definition of transsexual or only binary-gender identity etc but the selection criteria for these studies didnt split the subjects up like that! To get those results all you have to do is seperate your test subjects into different catagories and compare the results of each catagory.. you likely need more test subjects though as you need a representative sample of specimens from each group, tricky when brain-dissection is one of the studies and expensive for FMRI scans. But doable.. but not yet done either!

Now some folk gave trouble with coping with ambiguity, with living with a maybe till the answer is found. Some even have trouble understanding that to say something is possible (and testably so but not yet tested) is not saying it is definately so, it is however saying that it is not yet definately known as not so.

Science works by refuting testable hypotheses not making stuff up, saying anything untested is true nor by saying that something cannot be so till its proved to be so.. thats all creation-science level nonsense. The stuff that was the laughing stock at the Dover evolution trial, in fact very much like Dembski's non-science.

Sure some people have been let down by the education system and are scientifically illiterate. Not their fault but if they want to use studies to validate their claims and invalidate others at least some basic undersanding of scientific methods a good idea and some self-education might be beneficial.

Other people though seem to play the same tune no matter how refuted, ignoring the facts of scientific method and continuing to make spurious claims. Mistakes happen, everyone gets things wrong sometimes, but to maintain such arguments constantly is falsehood, self deception at best and deliberate lying is definately possible.

It's a common enough tactic. The 'repeat the lie often enough' tactic of hate-groups religious and otherwise.

It's time these people were called out on them though. Gently at first, some will simply be mistaken. But certainly because allowing these myths to propagate unchallenged is often to allow manipulative divisive hate-speech to propagate unchallenged.

The deliberate anti-science, unscientific, unethical missrepresentation of science in order to denegrate others and propagate divisions and hate and various ideological positions is abominable.

Much more study needs to be done on transsexuals, on intersex, on crossdressers, genderqueer, bi-gender etc in verifiable sciences like neurology and genetics to rule that out first. Especially as psychology is a kind of speculation, like taxonomy before genetics, a simple attempt to explain complex systems with only a minute amount of data. It must cede to the physical sciences in all things at all times.

And last of all, from a Human Rights perspective even were there no biological causation for ANY of it, not even for any transsexual the hman rights claims would not diminish one iota. Because human rights are filled with choices at every level, choices of religion, expression, medical treatment as just some examples. Check out the Yogyakarta Principles on that. These attacks on others using missrepresentations of science involve at their heart a disregard for human rights of others in order to propagate their preferred (and usually self-serving) ideology.

It's time to call out missrepresentations of science used as tools of hate for what they are in transgender politics as much as GLB politics (including the anti's). Whether hatred of non-bianary folk or of binary folk, of gay-supporting Tgs or TG-supporting gays etc etc etc.

Crossdressing and Biological Causation, a lack of studies doesn't mean a lack of causation

In the coments at Zoe's I had an argument with radicalbitch and since I've referred to it a few times elsewhere I think it's worth discussing here. To see the full argument, the original discussion is here

But there's really a simple way to say it.

Some folk quite rightly disregard the past 'evidence' and 'theories' of psychiatry and psychology regarding homosexuality and transsexuality yet insist on still applying them to crossdressing/transvesticism and/or other parts of Transgender.

It's hypocracy, a clear double-standard.

For those arguing Transsexuals have a biological causation (which the science definately supports) they say rightly that the biological evidence is more valid than the psychiatric... unsurprising ad fairly safely valid.

But they often claim there is no evidence for a biological causation of crossdressing etc...
An archaeologist I know often says 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. But importantly in this case... no-one has looked yet! Absence of Studies is not Absence of Evidence

Pretty simple notion.

Possibility 1. Crossdressing is caused by a mild case of the same cause as transsexualism.

How do you test it? Do the same tests on crossdressers thats found evidence for biological causation in TSs and see if you find milder versions of the same as predicted.

Possibility 2. Crossdressing is unrelated to the cause of transsexualism.

How do you test it? Do the same thing as testing possibility 1.

Posibility 3. Crossdressing is also biologically caused but from a different causation to TS.

How do you test it? First rule out 1 and 2 by doing that test. If that doesn't work then look for other biological causes, functional MRI scans and other brain examinations that have found biological factors in homosexuality etc may provide clues as to what else to look for.

Possibility 4. Crossdressing is not biologically caused but is purely psychological.

How do you test it? Rule out 1 and 2 with that test, then rule out 3 by searching for and not finding any biological cause.

So as those tests aint been done yet all those folk who say its purely psychological are full of it.
It doesn't matter how many psychological studies have been done on it either, that has no bearing on whether or not there is a biological factor, component or causation.

And the 'it's understood as psychological already' argument is full of manure too. Science regularly re-asseses old ideas and tests new explanations. The discovery of the bacteriological cause of stomach ulcers is a good example.

I keep running into anecdotal evidence that crossdressing is inherited. Crossdressers finding a parents clothes and book stash after their deaths I've heard of plenty through to one of the FtM CD friends of mine discovering a coworker is a closeted MtF CD whose brother also turned out to be a CD. Those sorts of cases alone suggest its worth looking into if these are just coincidences or whether incidence of CDs are far more common than usually assumed and whether it is an inherited trait.

And some of the scientists predict that the rest of TG is biologivally cuased. From one of the comments in the above link:

riki said...
I am doing a PhD on the political and social implications of the brain sex theory of trans. My assessment is that there is certainly more evidence for that theory than for any other, but that it is far from "proven", and that many biological hypotheses have been falsified on the past (EG the HY antigen in the 70s and 80s). The psychological theories have very little evidence to support them.

I interviewed Dick Swaab, whose lab produced the BSTc research that is the strongest evidence for a neurological correlate for trans. It should be noted that one of the six MTF transsexual people in the original 1995 Zhou study had never transitioned, but insisted that they had a female gender identity. It sould also be noted that the 2002 Chung study found that the difference between males and females in the BSTc does not occur until after puberty, which poses some problems for a pre or early post natal hormonal causation theory.

Swaab thinks the BSTc is probably a part of a network in the brain involving the hypothalaumus and cortical areas.

"We only, by accident, hit on a little bit of it"

He also explicitly supported the idea that there is a biological causation for the whole range of gender identity variations:

"I think we talked about a scale like the Kinsey scale for sexual orientation – we should also have a gender identity scale. It is not either this or that; there is also something in between. The distribution will not be simple, but here will be people somewhere in the middle."

"So it is not the entire brain that is switching, it is some systems, and that may also be the explanation for the [gender identity] scale. Some systems do switch and others don’t and it depends on which systems have switched where you enter on the scale."

Other recent research (as reviewed by Zoe in earlier blogs) also supports the idea of certain sex differentiated brain areas being switched in ts or tg people while others are not.

So if that is the opinion of Swaab, perhaps the best qualified scientific researcher in the field, perhaps we can accept that tg is as likely to be biological as ts?

Now even if it's not the case that it's biologically caused we won't know for sure till we test for it! so everyone who keeps on about it being certain that CDing is unrelated causilly to TS need to STFU cause we don't know that cause the studies aint been done yet! And to the scientificly literate you look like either ignorant or lying.

Besides, even if it were to turn out to be purely psychological, which I doubt, it's still ethical. And as such should no longer be considered any less valid as homosexuality or any other ethical form of self-expression.

Absence of studies is not absence of evidence.
So it's about time people stop throwing the non-transsexual transgender folk under the bus too.

Antiseptic stings

No I've not endured an injury or anything, just giving people an effective analogy.

Cause plenty of people are all for equality or for helping out the disadvantaged and discrminated against until it reaches a point or an area that they find personally uncomfortable.

But antiseptic stings when put on a cut.

A scab itches.

A healing wound aches.

When your body fights a disease you feel sick.

The pain the aches the discomfort etc is an inevitable part of the healing. It's how you know it's working! If your cut has gone numb you know there's a terrible problem but if it stings from the antiseptic then you know it's going to heal.

So then when people find some aspect of human rights makes them uncomfortable from same-sex marriage to transgenders in public toilets that discomfort is the awareness of something wrong, but it is not the equal-rights that is the something wrong but the previous acceptance of the injustice now being challenged that is the cause of the discomfort.

And that discomfort passes with time, like the sting of antiseptic, like the sore foot as it heals.

Do we ever think about how uncomfortable many white folk were when things were desegregated? Do we consider that just as gays and transgender people are falsely portrayed as predatory pedophiles so were innocent black people portrayed as cannibals and rapists and instinctive animals less than human. The discomfort those people felt when having to share their spaces with black people was real! But it was a shameful unjustice, based on lies. Still it was how people felt. And because of this no amount of how people feel now is an excuse to keep an inequality!

And men having to share their worklaces with women felt real discomfort, and when they had to share their education institutions it was real then too. And when Christians had to coexist with Jews and stop persecuting them again there was discomfort.

ALL equality results in discomfort because the undoing of injustice is discomforting, often even disstressing and painful. That should never be ignored or forgotten as it is far too easy in hindsight to dissmiss the concerns of people in the past as pointless while to consider valid the discomfort of people now.

So if you ever find yourself feeling uncomfortable about a rights issue do not use your feelings or comfort as judgement, it will betray you and lead you to injustice because justice and equality stings like iodine on an open cut!

Instead judge it solely by the philosophical principles of human rights. That is it's only valid measure!

If you want it to heal you have to expect it to sting a bit!

Sex and Gender Diversity Human Rights Project in Australia

I'm confused.

Very confused. Downright vexed and discombobulated even.

So the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) is concentrating it's sex and gender diversity issues project on Documentation.

It's an important issue but as far as I can tell there are far more important issues and I wonder why this one has been focused on. Still I have pondered and discussed the issue.

For starters there is the issue of genital surgery as a requirement for legal recognition of sex. That seems reasonable to many folk at first but is an utter catastrophe under examination.

For one thing it's discriminatory against FtM transexuals for whom surgery is still behind in results compared to MtF surgery, that then makes such a requirement an unacceptable discrimination.

Also it's discriminatory towards those who are denied surgery or who choose not to have surgery on the grounds of increased risk of complications caused by other health issues. That can include many things from diabetes, obesity and haemophillia or family history of near-death coma resulting in missdiagnosis of death such as runs in my own family. Discrimination based on health issues is a form of ablism and not acceptable.

Then there is the matter of reproductive rights! Making documentation amendment predicated on surgery means coercivly enforced sterilisation! There is a huge difference between a person choosing to undergo a procedure that will result in loss of reproduction and a state denying essential services to someone unless they are sterilised! Also I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that many types of sex and gender diversity including crossdressing is hereditary! That would make requiring sterlisation genocide! So then such a requirement could be a crime against humanity!

So far the best solution seems to be removal of sex markers from documentation! I considered this: "What is the functioning purpose of sex markers on documentation?"

As a tool to verify the identity of a specific person it functions only to rule out around half of the billions of humans on the planet the person might otherwise be, so without a long list of other visual descriptor traits for identification purposes it is utterly useless.

As a security marker it is also useless, the advent of female suicide bombings shows that using sex markers as screening tools might help female terrorists pass through security measures. Therefore as a security measure it is useless.

As a key to sex segregated spaces it is useless. This is because these documents are not used to access these spaces!

So then what is the actual function of these documentation markers?

Well if someones appearance does not match the expectations of an official interacting with that document then they will act accordingly... in other words the primary use of sex markers on documentation is to discriminate against sex and gender diverse people, to deny them essential services or make those services more difficult for them to obtain.

Thats what they do! Thats their actual purpose whether intended or not that is the day-to-day function!

But while considering these notions and discussing them at the Human Rights Comissions discussion forum I've been raising other issues. I'm not the only one to do so of course with a number of people objecting to the way the commission chose to do things.

As important as the documentation issues are, and they are very important, there are other issues as or more important!

Ending unethical surgical procedures on Intersex children
Ensuring access to both basic services and vital services (from general healthcare to SRS)
Removing the risk of genocide from potential targeted abortions
Patching holes in antidiscrimination and antivillification legislation
Improving protection from bullying and improving services for S&GD school children
Increasing public education and media representation
Addressing poverty and economic disadvantage

So, along with others I have been raising these issues. Alas some have thought it more important to object to having their issues related to other groups issues.

It seems a reasonable objection considering the current narrow focus of the project but for some key points.

Firstly each group shares at least some of their issues with another group.

The HBS Transexuals share issues of somatic sovereignty with the Intersex and with cissexuals! The same right of maximising later choices of a child once they are considered capable of doing so at once makes the unneccessary surgery on intersex children wrong, the denial of hormone blockers to Transexual children wrong and also circumcision of all children wrong!

The needs of those who don't fit binary views of Sex and Gender effects members of the Intersex community, Crossdressers, the Genderqueer and in some cases transitioning transexuals too.

The gaps in Antidiscrimination legislation effect various groups state by state and is one of the issues that effects me directly but sex and gender diversity is largely absent from antivillification legislation making it everyones issue.

Hate-crime protections, public education, suicide prevention, anti-bullying strategies and resources in schools etc are all issues that effect all involved groups.

So in fact dealing with each group seperately does not ensure that each groups needs are met. One reaction of one of the participants is here: http://joanneproctor-hbs.blogspot.com in the Open Letter To HREOC post (sorry for my poor comp skills for not linking directly to the post)

Lets consider some of the points raised...

Commissioner,
As anticipated the inevitable has occurred. Your discussion has been colonised by individuals with gender role transgressive behavioural issues: individuals with disorders in sexual formation have been completely sidelined and have given up trying to place their circumstances before you.

Actually AFAIK I'm the only one who is involved in the discussion 'fitting' the 'gender role transgressive behavioural issues' description, though the fit is a poor one at best. Individuals with disorders in sexual formation seem to have posted a significant number of times though and their issues and needs raised and discussed at length, that hardly seems sidelined except by the narrow documentation focus which also sidelines my personal issues, the lack of protection of me in my state under antidiscrimination legislation. So laying any blame on me for being involved is mistaken.

Nobody, male, female, or somewhere between, is born with knowledge of gender roles and cultural gender role expectations. Not clothing, hairstyles nor makeup! These are all acquired!
The way the brain functions in the context of its body is not learned. The confluences are biological. And you have chosen to place the performative wants of the learned behaviours in advance of the physical wellbeing of those people with biological disorders.

Well as to the first thats a matter of dispute in behavioural biology circles, certainly cultural gender role expectations exhibit wide variety and few would dispute they are learned, however that does not rule out the possibility that there are some aspects of gender-behaviour that are biologically determined. There is an assumption that there are no gender identity issues that lead to variations in gneder behaviour.

As this open letter goes on to complain about the fundamnetalist adam and eve view of sex might I suggest that the possibility of more variability of neurological sex development than is taken into account in the 'behaviour' argument. That just as there are variations in genital anatomy sex development issues then so too should we predict and expect likewise variation in neurological sex development issues! So that suggests that without concrete evidence either way the safe bet is that crossdressers, the genderqueer etc are but other forms or variations of the same form of neurological diversity as transexuals.

The anecdotal evidence I've heard of crossdressing running in families (often taking the form of crossdressing children finding evidence after a parents death amongst their belongings but also including people coming out only to discover that living parents, siblings or cousins are also crossdressers) certainly supports a biological causation.

Also important though is that human rights are not dependant on the causation! Religion is not biologically determined yet plenty of human rights apply to it, same for culture and expression making gender expression part of the purvue of the comission regardless of hypothetical causation!

It is important that no group that is oppressed or discriminated against on sex and gender diverse issues should be left out! That means that just as people with sex development disorders should not be left out nor should those whose gender expression is discriminated against!

The issues of targeted abortion is raised then as well as unneccessary genital surgery on children and those are important issues.

Then we get this:

Still, you have clearly absolved your conscience and given the floor to a variety of self professed cross-dressers, gender F+++kers, drag queens and transvestites of various persuasions. Choosing to turn away from the genital mutilating, the shoe-horning, the force-fitting, the redefining, and denying that takes place as western cultures attempt to make all human beings fit their fundamentalist Adam and Eve model of biological sex.

Huh? WTFH? Huh? Something must have seriously gone wrong with my communication skills these last months. Why? Because I'm the crossdresser there whose been given the floor and yet... and yet...

I've been advocating for the rights of the Intersex children! I've been speaking out about ending the uneccessary surgery and stating it as being more important than the documentation issues and even my own issues!

So I really can't understand this.

Why am I being blamed for, as the vocal self professed crossdresser involved (and I wonder who all the others are!), taking these issues off the floor when I've been one of the main ones raising those very issues? It's truly vexing and confusing that someone who, going by the issues we both clearly feel are vital, should be a strong ally working with me is instead accusing crossdressers (i.e. me) of the opposite of what I'm doing!

And why is the Australian Human Rights Comission still concentrating on documentation when clearly calling for a cessation of such permanant surgery that robs the child of their right to determine for themselves later in life is clearly a vital issue that many on the forum including myself think should be the first priority?

It's really important that all the human rights needs of all sex and gender diverse poeple are addressed fully. All people involved have a responsibility to that.
And this crossdresser, whose male aspect is rather genderqueer anyway, is intent on just that!

Sure I ramble, Brain Fog, gender identity and other issues

Yep, I ramble.
Its a part of the way I think, the curse of creativity that there is always more than one subject being considered in my mind at one time.
And the 'brain fog' of chronic fatigue syndrome means that on a moderate day these thoughts can run together somewhat along whatever line they may be linked and on a bad day... on a bad day my brain can crosswire and my mouth says one word while my brain thinks another.

Brain fog. It sounds like it should be announced melodramaticly in a deep echoing booming voice accomapanied by a theramin. Some days thats exactly what it feels like too.

It's hard to describe what it feels like. It is a sort of fog in an abstract sense, it interferes with my vision and hearing for example. The light gets into my eyes, the sound into the ears but the data doesn't go through to the brain right. Sounds end up not being recognised or seeming dull and distant. An object right in front of the face doesn't attract attention. It is an impediment to awareness.

It's a little like being groggy, half awake, in that state where dream and reality combine and reality is sort of blurred and indistinct.

And this week, this week it's bad!
Brain fog impedes reasoning and concentration too. It's not like just being walled in by fog, it's in the car with you. It's in the brain not just between the brain and it's senses. It reduces the IQ by, according to stuff I read almost a decade ago, up to 40 points. I can attest it does get bad. I remember the day I couldn't recall what the number 6 meant.

Oh sure I knew it was a number, but the links and connections, the associations you build between numbers, the awareness of the significance of the number six was a big blurry blank in my mind.

Thats not fun. Its not just unpleasant. Its sheer unadaulterated HORROR! To have something so basic, so familiar be suddenly wrapped in void can trigger utter panic. Especially when so much of my life has been wrapped up with my intellect.

So a couple of days ago when I couldn't remember the name of my nice next-door neighbour I realised that this week my brain fog was really, really bad again. I almost butst into tears right then and there but I didn't want to cry in front of the people I was talking to.

I certainly have done a fair bit of crying lately which would be good as I would consider that I was unbottling a lot of the emotions I had to supress over the years but its often been random. Only about 60% can I attrivbute to a reaction to something or other and the rest just hits me seemingly at random.

And like everything else in my life my self-acceptance is affected by the variation of my symptoms. Finding a balance between expressing my feminine aspects and getting basic housework done is not easy. Fail at either and misery is the result and when my brain fog is bad i can find myself procrastinating, thats always a bad sign.

Procrastination often means I'm starting to repress or avoid something important again. A stupid and hurtful reflex. It had it's purpose though. If I'd expressed my gender variance as much in the past as I do now I'd be dead for sure. I suffered enough ostracism, bullying and attacks of physical violence as it was through my school years. But now its just a bunch of old infected wounds that need to be cleaned to heal, bad habits, bad reflexes I need to undo.

I'm still not sure why my gender variance was something I repressed when I have always been so anti-conformist. Not that it was ever utterly repressed after all I wad teased aplenty for being feminine anyway but I kept telling myself I was just an effeminate boy and compartmentslised my crossdressing, kept it to enough of a minimum to ignore as an important part of who I am.

I remember getting upset over conflicted gender issues back when I was three or four. I know it was no later than that because it was before my parents seperated. I don't know the order of events though. I was kicked out of ballet for being a boy. I'd done nothing wrong, I loved ballet. I went there on doctors orders to strengthen my severely poor arch muscles in my feet. But some parents were upset that there was a boy in the class with girls, even a perfectly behaved boy that young. I was told I couldn't have a couple of toys because they were girls toys. I don't remember the situations well but I remember one toy well, a treehouse playset. I recall another time at the show, they were selling these 'antenae' things attached to hairbands and I wanted one but also got distressed because they were 'girls' and i thought i wasn't supposed to have them. The memories are fragmentary. But somewhere even back then I had this deep conflict of feeling like a girl and liking girl things sometimes and feeling that it was wrong.

Through my life it's been like that. Somyetimes it wasn't a problem, sometimes it was. Some days I was happy being a boy, weird sensitive boy that i was, and other days I'd cry myself to sleep hoping that this time, please this time, when I woke up I'd be a girl. I'd come up with excuses to watch shows like She-Ra and Jem as well as He-Man and Transformers and convince myself of them till I could believe them for a while.

Why? I don't know. I just locked up those feelings and pretended they weren't there. Something I wouldn't have been able to do if they were constant, or of constant strength perhaps.

Like the day I found all my muscles and joints weren't hurting was the day I realised they had been hurting non-stop for years. Those days I thought they were hurting I realised they'd only been hurting more. It took the absence to reveal what the concious mind had adapted to. So have even on my most 'male' days I been still rather female? How can that be tested? Experience is so subjective anyway.

So here I am. Too tired to shave away the light fuzz of beard growth since the day before yesterday, fingernails painted black and decorated with little white and green skulls, clothing of mixed sexes (mostly only mixed cause some of the guy stuff I have is warmer) and some lipstick on just to let enough girl out to stop crying or wanting to scream and just keep screaming. Just pouring out my feelings, letting them through the chink in my logical and rational mind. The stream of underground water that eats away the limestone that forms the hollow that is the cave of rationality.

Cause frankly my brain is just too blurry to try and write poetry. And my hands shaking from the CFS too much to paint or draw today.

And then there is the anger.
I have plenty of that.
You don't go through life as an outsider without picking up some. You can wear it as armour of course but like steel in the sun it can scald as well as save. I've known my share of bigotry. I've suffered for not liking 'male' things like sport and cars, for looking feminine (and/or 'gay' for those numbskulls who don't notice their are masculine gay people too) I've suffered for being intellectual, for being a goth, for appearing to look like a particular ethnicity, for my actual ethnic heritage, for having a different skin colour to my brother even though we at other times have been mistaken for twins so it was assumed we had different fathers. Oh I know what bigotry feels like, what it tastes and smells like.

With all its petty excuses and false justifications.

You know what I'd like? I'd like to meet a non-bigoted HBS supporter! One who can handle the notion of 'transgender' identity being as valid as HBS, of crossdressers and non-hbs definition yet self-identified transexuals still having the same human rights as them. All the ones I talk to claim that it's just about their own self-identity and a medical definition but they fight against the possibility that crossfressers and drag queens et al have the same rights, the same validity. Thats where their bigotry shows. Even if there was proof that non-HBS transgender people are all of purely psychological causation which isn't as conclusively proven as they often claim the human rights of those people are undiminished! Their right to self-expression, to self-definition, to decide what treatment they do or do not undergo and how their body may or may not be modified is no greater or lesser than any other humans! Being Homosexual were it biological or psychological is nonetheless a human right. Gay people are equal to straight people. There are those who claim that religiosity or conservative or liberal outlooks are biological in origin too. It matters not one iota to the validity of those people.

When I meet an HBS supporter who can handle that, who can support transgender peoples rights and needs and recognise their validity as much as they want HBS to be recognised and who can handle the possibility of people holding different views on the medical and scientific arguments of each... that day I'll be happy because so far all the ones who I meet on the net are a pack of bigots hiding behind their self-created medical definition as an excuse for their anti-trans views. Any genuinele decent and reasonable HBS suporters risk being stigmatised by association with these bigots.

I have plenty of other things to be angry about of course.
CFS is one of those 'invisible' disabilities. People assume your not disabled till they know otherwise. Not a lot is known about CFS in the general community, little is raised for research and the CFS resources are crap because of the past stigma of 'yuppie flu' reporting, assumptions by biased researchers that the illness was spychological in origin and all the sufferers are all too disabled to run support services. CFS is socially isolating, deeply disstressing and just plain unfair! Even the reports of people dying from it hasn't raised it's public profile much.

I've been managing a moderate social life but it's taken a tremendous effort to do so.

And then there's all the pain and anger left from my last relationship.

I'm generally an optimistic and positive person, not that this post shows that.
But sometimes it's good to express the pain and fear and anger and suffering. It's a part of being human after all.

Is there any value to a reader? I can't know. Nor if anyone will even read this. But I feel a bit better for having said it.

So I guess i should wrap up this rambling mess of a blog post, find something uplifting and affirming to remind me of the joy of being transgendered and then crawl into bed with an issue of Fortean Times and a hotwater bottle and the hope that my head will be clear enough tomorrow to follow and enjoy the science, psychology and philosophy shows on the radio.