APoX #6 -- Gender disphoria and you

Illithid Tentacles · Post by **Illithid Tentacles** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 3:56 am

Depends on what you mean by "a medical condition."

/Let the pedantry begin.

Doogitus · Post by **Doogitus** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:22 am

I went with mental since medical condition makes it sound like it is necessarily a problem. But I am in the cold, harsh, strict materialist camp, so I mean this in the sense that it has more to do with your brain than your gonads or whatnot, rather than that you're making it up or deluded.

Xero · Post by **Xero** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:16 pm

Illithid Tentacles wrote:Depends on what you mean by "a medical condition."

/Let the pedantry begin.

brain is wired for the wrong body

women's brains are different than males

Kittyboymuffin · Post by **Kittyboymuffin** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:24 pm

I've always liked the quote that it isn't a mental condition that makes a man think he's a woman, it's a physical condition that makes everyone else think she's a man. (And vice versa, of course.)

Aeridus · Post by **Aeridus** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:18 pm

There's several levels of it really... some people just want to be a different gender for kicks, some people have been traumatized by some incident at a young age, and some people got their brain created for the opposite gender in the womb. It happens.

In related news, college sex ed was fun. ^_^

Indigo Violent · Post by **Indigo Violent** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:29 pm

I went with medical thing, questions of brains and bodies not lining up seem distinctly medical to me.

Vedius Pollio · Post by **Vedius Pollio** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:21 pm

doogitus wrote:I went with mental since medical condition makes it sound like it is necessarily a problem. But I am in the cold, harsh, strict materialist camp, so I mean this in the sense that it has more to do with your brain than your gonads or whatnot, rather than that you're making it up or deluded.

I am also a strict materialist. EVERYTHING is chemical, including gender.

ManaUser · Post by **ManaUser** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:37 pm

The difference between the first to is really very subjective. I went with medical, but it was a tossup.

Overblue · Post by **Overblue** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:50 pm

I have gender issues of being a boy in a girl's body. I love to play with my girl parts (I've stuck a small flashlight in my vagina a bunch of times), but don't like (actually really, really hate) anyone else touching them. I do however love to dress as female. I don't know whether gender disphoria should be considered a mental condition or a medical one though, probaly both. Oh and Kittyboy I like that quote too. I know I am not a girl I just like their clothes.

Xero · Post by **Xero** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:10 pm

Vedius Pollio wrote:
doogitus wrote:I went with mental since medical condition makes it sound like it is necessarily a problem. But I am in the cold, harsh, strict materialist camp, so I mean this in the sense that it has more to do with your brain than your gonads or whatnot, rather than that you're making it up or deluded.
I am also a strict materialist. EVERYTHING is chemical, including gender.

and the chemicals induce a change in how the brain develops
and how the neurons grow and develop during adult life as well
so the chemicals can physically change the brain

but I do agree, it is mostly chemical

Vedius Pollio · Post by **Vedius Pollio** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:06 pm

Xero wrote:
Vedius Pollio wrote:
doogitus wrote:I went with mental since medical condition makes it sound like it is necessarily a problem. But I am in the cold, harsh, strict materialist camp, so I mean this in the sense that it has more to do with your brain than your gonads or whatnot, rather than that you're making it up or deluded.
I am also a strict materialist. EVERYTHING is chemical, including gender.
and the chemicals induce a change in how the brain develops
and how the neurons grow and develop during adult life as well
so the chemicals can physically change the brain

but I do agree, it is mostly chemical

Nothing is "mostly chemical". Society is chemical because society is made up of people with chemical brains.

Actuall, I feel a poll coming on.

Kittyboymuffin · Post by **Kittyboymuffin** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:36 pm

*sings* The neuron bone's connected to the ... brain bone ... the brain bone's connected to the ... thought bone ... the thought bone's connected to the ... what bone ... the what bone's connected to the ... red thing ... the red thing's connected to my ... wristwatch ...

... okay, bedtime for me, I thought that was way more funny than it probably actually is.

Boring 7 · Post by **Boring 7** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:46 pm

HI everybody!

Nithos · Post by **Nithos** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:18 am

I've got one good friend and one aquantience that were both born female but live as men today. It's been interesting talking with them, as I'm a bit relativist about sex and gender. I don't think they're as big a deal as they're usually conceived as being. Physically, what sort of reproductive organs you have is important in the act of conception, but out side of that, the differences there are aren't important. There are observable differences between "male" and "female" labeled brains, but my understanding is "male" and "female" are more used as synonyms for "testosterone flooded" and "estrogen flooded" brains. Pump someone full of different hormones, and their brain will conform to a different standard.

So, that's kind of my problem with the idea. I don't hold solidly to the idea that anyone's a "male" or a "female," just that they have certain organs that produce significant quantities of various hormones (which change in the course of a life, but by the age where they start coming closer together, most people are well defined as people and play their roles regardless of chemistry, though I've met a number of fiesty old ladies who'd make fine aggressive young men in a different body). And then there's the powerful socialization factor. We've got strong ideas about what's masculine and feminine and they're carved in to our thinking from a young age, and they reinforce what those chemicals put in our nature, so the two become conflated. So in my mind I've got a friend with a feminine body who prefers the male role but wants to partner with other males who find other males attractive, and his current partner is physically male but wants to be a woman with a male partner, and I have met another person who lives in the male role in society, who's body began as female but is somewhere between now due to testosterone, and he's married to a straight woman. Or, the put it far more simply, I know two guys, one's gay, the other's straight and married. The difference between those two sentences is where I become very sympathetic to the view that those labels are very important. It says a lot about a person that's important, regardless of the organs underneath, and even if those labels are socially created. So I suppose this is a really long winded way to say I'm of two minds about it, but am supportive of anyone that feels their expected place based on reproductive organs isn't the right one for them.

Oh, and I didn't vote. I don't know that it's medical or psychological, or what, but I don't think it's attention whoring.

Major Maxillary · Post by **Major Maxillary** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:14 pm

Gender disphoria is

sexy.

Xero · Post by **Xero** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:38 pm

Major Maxillary wrote:
Gender disphoria is
sexy.

/me gives major a one up